Status update: I didn't expect to be in town today, but had to come back to grab a document stored on this laptop. While here, I started going down through the non-urgent e-mail and stumbled across a bit of "bacon" that seems meaty enough to need sharing...
Gentle Readers, Tom Woods is not paying me to share this curriculum outline. I'm sharing it because I think it will interest people who like to read history. These courses were designed specifically to focus on important parts of European and American history that have been deliberately excluded, as being too "controversial," from U.S. public school courses.
You can use this curriculum in either of two ways. You can use it as an outline for self-education via libraries and Amazon, which will take a lot longer, include more primary texts and details Woods leaves out, and very likely cost about as much as taking Woods' course, only spread out over several years. Or you can buy it, which is obviously what Woods hopes people will do, directly from him at www.libertyclassroom.com .
Several of this web site's correspondents might use these outlines to write our own books or teach our own courses, after twenty or fifty years of post-secondary self-education. But why reinvent the wheel? It's all in one place, summarized by a competent writer.
"
Here's my 90-lesson Government course, which crams 25 years of learning on my part into one semester.
You think this might give a student -- or you yourself -- a leg up in understanding the world?
1. Introduction
2. Natural Rights Theories: High Middle Ages to Late Scholastics
3. Natural Rights Theories: John Locke and Self-Ownership
4. Natural Rights Theories: Argumentation Ethics
5. Week 1 Review
6. Locke and Spooner on Consent
7. The Tale of the Slave
8. Human Rights and Property Rights
9. Negative Rights and Positive Rights
10. Week 2 Review
11. Critics of Liberalism: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the General Will
12. Critics of Liberalism: John Rawls and Egalitarianism
13. Critics of Liberalism: Thomas Nagel and Ronald Dworkin
14. Critics of Liberalism: G.A. Cohen
15. Week 3 Review
16. Public Goods
17. The Standard of Living
18. Poverty
19. Monopoly
20. Week 4 Review
21. Science
22. Inequality
23. Aid to Developing Countries
24. Discrimination
25. Week 5 Review
26. The Socialist Calculation Problem
27. Working Conditions
28. Child Labor
29. Labor and Unions
30. Week 6 Review
31. Health Care
32. Antitrust
33. Farm Programs
34. War and the Economy
35. Week 7 Review
36. Business Cycles
37. Industrial Policy
38. Government, the Market, and the Environment
39. Prohibition
40. Week 8 Review
41. Taxation
42. Government Spending
43. The Welfare State: Theoretical Issues
44. The Welfare State: Practical Issues
45. Week 9 Review
46. Price Controls
47. Government and Money, Part I
48. Government and Money, Part II
49. Midterm Review
50. Week 10 Review
51. The Theory of the Modern State
52. American Federalism and the Compact Theory
53. Can Political Bodies Be Too Large?
54. Decentralization
55. Week 11 Review
56. Constitutionalism: Purpose
57. The American Case: Self-Government and the Tenth Amendment
58. The American Case: Progressives and the “Living, Breathing Document”
59. The American States and the Federal Government
60. Week 12 Review
61. Monarchy
62. Social Democracy
63. Fascism I
64. Fascism II
65. Week 13 Review
66. Marx I
67. Marx II
68. Communism I
69. Communism II
70. Week 14 Review
71. Miscellaneous Intervention: Postwar Africa
72. Public Choice I
73. Public Choice II
74. Miscellaneous Examples of Government Activity and Incentives
75. Week 15 Review
76. The Industrial Revolution
77. The New Deal I
78. The New Deal II
79. The Housing Bust of 2008
80. Week 16 Review
81. Are Voters Informed?
82. Is Political Representation Meaningful?
83. The Myth of the Rule of Law
84. The Incentives of Democracy
85. Week 17 Review
86. The Sweeping Critique: Robert LeFevre
87. The Sweeping Critique: Murray N. Rothbard
88. Case Study: The Old West
89. Economic Freedom of the World
90. Week 18 Review
Here's Western Civilization to 1492:
1. Introduction and Overview
2. Hebrew History I
3. Hebrew History II
4. Hebrew History III
5. Week 1 Review
6. Hebrew Religion and the Hebrew Contribution
7. Minoan Crete
8. Mycenaean Greece
9. Homer, The Iliad
10. Week 2 Review
11. Homer and Hesiod
12. Classical Greece: Overview
13. Pre-Socratics, I
14. Pre-Socratics, II
15. Week 3 Review
16. Socrates
17. Plato: Introduction and Overview
18. Plato’s Worldview
19. Plato and The Republic
20. Week 4 Review
21. Aristotle: The Philosopher
22. Aristotle’s Ethics
23. Aristotle’s Politics
24. Classical Greece: The Polis, Sparta
25. Week 5 Review
26. Classical Greece: The Polis, Athens
27. The Persian Wars
28. The Peloponnesian War
29. Herodotus and Thucydides
30. Week 6 Review
31. Greek Drama, I
32. Greek Drama, II
33. Classical Greece: Art
34. Greek Religion
35. Week 7 Review
36. Greece and Western Liberty
37. Alexander the Great
38. The Hellenistic World
39. Hellenistic Philosophy
40. Week 8 Review
41. Rome: Beginnings and Foundations
42. Struggle of the Orders
43. Expansion of Rome
44. Toward the Empire, I
45. Week 9 Review
46. Toward the Empire, II
47. Toward the Empire, III
48. The Augustan Settlement
49. Latin Literature: The Golden Age
50. Week 10 Review
51. The Silver Age of Latin Literature
52. Rome After Augustus
53. Second-Century Rome
54. Roman Art
55. Week 11 Review
56. Christianity: The Background
57. The Birth of Christianity, Part I
58. The Birth of Christianity, Part II
59. Early Christian Sources I: The New Testament
60. Week 12 Review
61. The Spread of Christianity
62. From the Underground Church to the Edict of Milan
63. Early Christian Texts II: Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, Apostolic Fathers, Apologists
64. The Development of Christianity I
65. Week 13 Review
66. The Development of Christianity II
67. Monasticism, Part I
68. Monasticism, Part II
69. The Church and Classical Culture I
70. Week 14 Review
71. The Church and Classical Culture II
72. Rome: Third-Century Crisis
73. Diocletian and Constantine
74. Rome and the Barbarians, Part I
75. Week 15 Review
76. Rome and the Barbarians, Part II
77. Rome: Significance
78. St. Augustine I
79. St. Augustine II
80. Week 16 Review
81. The Church and the Barbarians
82. Merovingians and Carolingians
83. The Papal-Frankish Alliance
84. Charlemagne
85. Week 17 Review
86. The Carolingian Renaissance
87. Christianity in England and Ireland
88. Christianity in Germany
89. Midterm Review
90. Week 18 Review
91. Islam
92. Byzantium I
93. Byzantium II
94. After Charlemagne
95. Week 19 Review
96. Ninth- and Tenth-Century Invasions
97. Feudalism and Manorialism
98. Medieval Art
99. England: William the Conqueror
100. Week 20 Review
101. The Gregorian Reform, Part I
102. The Gregorian Reform, Part II
103. The Church-State Struggle and Western Liberty
104. Christendom
105. Week 21 Review
106. The Great Schism
107. France: Capetians to Louis IX
108. The Medieval Church: Sacraments and Liturgy
109. The Medieval Church: Popular Piety
110. Week 22 Review
111. Crusades: Background
112. The First Crusade
113. Later Crusades
114. The End of the Crusades
115. Week 23 Review
116. The Albigensian Crusade
117. The Mendicant Orders
118. England: Magna Carta
119. France: Philip the Fair
120. Week 24 Review
121. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century
122. The Rise of Universities
123. Scholastic Philosophy
124. Thomas Aquinas: Biography and Overview
125. Week 25 Review
126. Thomas Aquinas and the Quinque Viae
127. Thomas Aquinas and the Divine Attributes
128. Just War Theory
129. Later Scholasticism
130. Week 26 Review
131. The Cathedrals
132. The Rise of Towns
133. Economy in the High Middle Ages
134. The Medieval Contribution to Western Prosperity
135. Week 27 Review
136. The Holy Roman Empire I
137. The Holy Roman Empire II
138. Medieval Literature
139. Dante and the Divine Comedy
140. Week 28 Review
141. Philip IV vs. Boniface VIII
142. Marsilius of Padua and the Attack on Papal Power
143. The Avignon Papacy
144. Fourteenth-Century Crisis
145. Week 29 Review
146. England in the Fourteenth Century
147. France in the Fourteenth Century
148. The Hundred Years’ War
149. The Great Western Schism
150. Week 30 Review
151. The Fall of Byzantium
152. The Renaissance: Ideas
153. Petrarch and the Renaissance
154. Renaissance Humanism I
155. Week 31 Review
156. Renaissance Humanism II
157. Machiavelli
158. Renaissance Art I
159. Renaissance Art II
160. Week 32 Review
161. Renaissance Art III
162. Renaissance Art IV
163. The Northern Renaissance
164. The Renaissance Popes
165. Week 33 Review
166. Renaissance Italy: The Key Political Units, Part I
167. Renaissance Italy: The Key Political Units, Part II
168. Fifteenth-Century France
169. Fifteenth-Century England
170. Week 34 Review
171. The Holy Roman Empire to the Fifteenth Century
172. The Church on the Eve of Reform
173. Centralization in Spain
174. The Age of Discovery, Part I
175. Week 35 Review
176. The Age of Discovery, Part II
177. The Age of Discovery, Part III
178. Concluding Remarks
179. Preview of Western Civilization II
180. Week 36 Review
Here's Western Civilization from 1493:
1. Introduction
2. Review of Western Civilization to 1492
3. The Church on the Eve of the Reformation
4. The German Reformation, Part I
5. Week 1 Review
6. The German Reformation, Part II
7. The German Reformation, Part III
8. Other Protestant Figures
9. John Calvin
10. Week 2 Review
11. The English Reformation, Part I
12. The English Reformation, Part II
13. The Catholic Reformation, Part I
14. The Catholic Reformation, Part II
15. Week 3 Review
16. Sixteenth-Century Portraits: Charles V
17. Sixteenth-Century Portraits: Philip II
18. The French Wars of Religion
19. Sixteenth-Century Portraits: Elizabeth I
20. Week 4 Review
21. The “Eutopians”
22. The Thirty Years’ War
23. The English Civil War
24. The Levellers
25. Week 5 Review
26. Oliver Cromwell
27. The Glorious Revolution
28. John Locke, Part I
29. John Locke, Part II
30. Week 6 Review
31. France Before Louis XIV
32. Difficulties and Revolt in Spain
33. Constitutionalism
34. Absolutism
35. Week 7 Review
36. Mercantilism
37. Louis XIV, Part I
38. Louis XIV, Part II
39. The War of the Spanish Succession
40. Week 8 Review
41. The Hohenzollerns
42. The Habsburgs
43. Russia: Peter the Great
44. A Survey of Art
45. Week 9 Review
46. The Scientific Revolution, Part I
47. The Scientific Revolution, Part II
48. The Scientific Revolution, Part III
49. The Enlightenment, Part I
50. Week 10 Review
51. The Enlightenment, Part II
52. Adam Smith
53. Europe in the 18th Century, Part I
54. Europe in the 18th Century, Part II
55. Week 11 Review
56. Enlightened Absolutism
57. The American Revolution, Part I
58. The American Revolution, Part II
59. The American Revolution, Part III
60. Week 12 Review
61. The French Revolution, Part I
62. The French Revolution, Part II
63. The Reign of Terror
64. Napoleon, Part I
65. Week 13 Review
66. Napoleon, Part II
67. The American and French Revolutions Compared
68. Edmund Burke and the French Revolution
69. Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Women
70. Week 14 Review
71. The Industrial Revolution, Part I
72. The Industrial Revolution, Part II
73. Slavery and Its Abolition, Part I
74. Slavery and Its Abolition, Part II
75. Week 15 Review
76. What Was the Source of Western Prosperity?
77. The Congress of Vienna
78. The Conservative Reaction, 1815-1830
79. The Growth of State Education
80. Week 16 Review
81. Education Without the State: The Case of England
82. Liberalism, Part I
83. Liberalism, Part II
84. Liberalism, Part III
85. Week 17 Review
86. Liberalism, Part IV
87. Socialism
88. Neoclassicism
89. Romanticism
90. Week 18 Review
91. Midterm Review
92. The Revolutions of 1830
93. The Revolutions of 1848
94. Marxism, Part I
95. Week 19 Review
96. Marxism, Part II
97. Marxism, Part III
98. Marxism, Part IV
99. Naturalism
100. Week 20 Review
101. The Crimean War
102. The Unification of Italy
103. The Unification of Germany
104. The Second Industrial Revolution
105. Week 21 Review
106. Southeastern Europe: New States Emerge
107. France and England in the Late 19th Century
108. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia
109. Imperialism
110. Week 22 Review
111. Did The West Grow Rich Through Imperialism?
112. Modernism, Part I
113. Modernism, Part II
114. The Coming of World War I
115. Week 23 Review
116. World War I, Part I
117. World War I, Part II
118. World War I, Part III
119. The Paris Peace Conference
120. Week 24 Review
121. The Russian Revolution and Its Aftermath, Part I
122. The Russian Revolution and Its Aftermath, Part II
123. The Russian Revolution and Its Aftermath, Part III
124. The Russian Revolution and Its Aftermath, Part IV
125. Week 25 Review
126. The Broken World of the Interwar Period
127. Communists, Fascists, and Others
128. Nazis!
129. The 1930s and the Coming of the War in Europe
130. Week 26 Review
131. The Beginning of World War II
132. Axis Invasions in Southern and Western Europe
133. The United States as a Neutral
134. Global War: Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor
135. Week 27 Review
136. Total War Mobilization: Propaganda, Production, Transportation
137. Military Matters
138. The Final Solution and Other Mass Murders
139. Bombing and Mass Destruction
140. Week 28 Review
141. 1944: The Beginning of the End: Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and More
142. Coordinating the Allied Effort: Allied Planning
143. January 1945: Barbarism on All Sides
144. The End of the War
145. Week 29 Review
146. The Axis in Ruins
147. The Nuremburg Trials
148. Origins of the Cold War
149. Two Power Blocks and Orwell’s 1984
150. Week 30 Review
151. The Economic Miracle
152. Decolonization
153. European Union and Cold War
154. The Cold War from the ’50s to the ’70s
155. Week 31 Review
156. Art and Architecture in the Twentieth Century
157. The World of the Sixties
158. The Middle East and Western Civilization to the Seventies
159. The Soviet Union from Brezhnev to Gorbachev
160. Week 32 Review
161. The Collapse of the Soviet Empire
162. Migration, Economics, Nationalism, Ethnic Cleansing
163. The West and the Rise of Asia
164. Lessons: Liberty, Technology, Society, and the State
165. Week 33 Review
Think that might fill in some gaps in your knowledge?
You can get these courses a la carte at TomWoodsHomeschool.com, or as part of the Ron Paul Curriculum at RonPaulHomeschool.com.
But until Black Friday weekend is over, you can get them as a free bonus
with the Master membership to Liberty Classroom. I've knocked serious
dough off that baby. After that, it shoots up to $497 again.
(And by the way, the very best discount is available today, on Black Friday itself.)
"
Friday, November 29, 2019
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Peter Stocker Embarrasses Friends of the Earth
These days I hear a lot more hillbillies say "Joe-wurge" than "Jarge," but one of my grandmothers was a Tennessee hillbilly, and she said "Jarge." Therefore today's topical song is in Hillbilly Mode...dum-de dum-de dum-de dum-de...
Come and listen to my story'bout a man named George,
Curious indeed how he's still fit to roam at large,
Ninety years old and more if he's a day,
And never lived here, yet he wants to run the U.S.A.!
Soros that is! Crazy like a...Silver fox!
Well, the first time I saw him made me wish I hadn't looked,
Funded a foundation whose grant fouled up a friend's book.
Then he paid poor people to be pests as "Occupiers."
Since that year he's funded lots of miscellaneous liars,
Mudslingers that is! 'N' spin artists! 'N' Latter-Day Socialists!
Well, his idea of retirement is to work for all he's worth;
Now he's fighting Trump and using our "Friends of the Earth."
It's a treat to see that this old fellow's still got game!
But it might be a treason charge to sign below his name!
Bad idea that is! If he touched it! Leave it alone!
If Peter Stocker, F.O.E., sent you that "interview,"
Just hit that "Trash" button,'cos here's all a click will do:
Try to steer away from glyphosate and just blame Trump
For following Obama's errors...send that to the "dump"!
Beg much, Pete? Stay out of! My e-mail!
Actually I wasn't surprised that the "digital interview" from Friends of the Earth ended with a plea for money. I was surprised, though, by its blatant awfulness. A person reading the "digital interview" is being set up to think that tolerance for glyphosate and other deadly poisons in the food supply, oil leaks, and a sold-out E.P.A., are new things for which the Trump Administration is to blame. The Trump Administration does deserve some blame, because all Presidents of the United States should pledge to uphold the legendary desk sign of Harry S Truman: "The Buck Stops Here." (That's a reference to then-current U.S. slang; it meant that if other government offices don't solve a problem, the President has to try.) However, the E.P.A. was reasonably accused of being a sluggish sold-out pit of swampiness in 1973, the leaking pipeline was planned during the Obama Administration, and glyphosate levels in the food supply became increasingly massive and toxic every year since 2009.
Here's my reply to the "digital interview" that went out under the name of Peter Stocker at Friends of the Earth:
"
Nice try to raise money. However I'm quite sure you have more than I do, so you should send me some money. I'm interested in fixing the issues, not attacking a person or party. Glyphosate Awareness has NO politics. We welcome Bernie Sanders; we'd welcome George Wallace or Lyndon LaRouche if they were alive, too. We nag at Trump; we would have nagged at Obama if we'd absorbed more information sooner; we will nag at the next administration if we have to coexist with glyphosate that long.
And, although I think his tolerance for glyphosate would come closer to being a valid reason to impeach Trump than the current foofarah, I think efforts to impeach Trump are a waste of taxpayers' money that will probably cost the opposition more than it costs Trump.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Soros has already been identified as funding this campaign so, although patriotic and public-spirited Americans wish this interesting old man the best, we don't want to be tarnished by association with his efforts to buy influence on U.S. politics. That could subject Trump's opposition to the same kind of charges of "treason" that are being raised against Trump. I voted against Trump before and will probably do it again but let's keep clear heads, even about Trump.
PK
"
Come and listen to my story'bout a man named George,
Curious indeed how he's still fit to roam at large,
Ninety years old and more if he's a day,
And never lived here, yet he wants to run the U.S.A.!
Soros that is! Crazy like a...Silver fox!
Well, the first time I saw him made me wish I hadn't looked,
Funded a foundation whose grant fouled up a friend's book.
Then he paid poor people to be pests as "Occupiers."
Since that year he's funded lots of miscellaneous liars,
Mudslingers that is! 'N' spin artists! 'N' Latter-Day Socialists!
Well, his idea of retirement is to work for all he's worth;
Now he's fighting Trump and using our "Friends of the Earth."
It's a treat to see that this old fellow's still got game!
But it might be a treason charge to sign below his name!
Bad idea that is! If he touched it! Leave it alone!
If Peter Stocker, F.O.E., sent you that "interview,"
Just hit that "Trash" button,'cos here's all a click will do:
Try to steer away from glyphosate and just blame Trump
For following Obama's errors...send that to the "dump"!
Beg much, Pete? Stay out of! My e-mail!
Actually I wasn't surprised that the "digital interview" from Friends of the Earth ended with a plea for money. I was surprised, though, by its blatant awfulness. A person reading the "digital interview" is being set up to think that tolerance for glyphosate and other deadly poisons in the food supply, oil leaks, and a sold-out E.P.A., are new things for which the Trump Administration is to blame. The Trump Administration does deserve some blame, because all Presidents of the United States should pledge to uphold the legendary desk sign of Harry S Truman: "The Buck Stops Here." (That's a reference to then-current U.S. slang; it meant that if other government offices don't solve a problem, the President has to try.) However, the E.P.A. was reasonably accused of being a sluggish sold-out pit of swampiness in 1973, the leaking pipeline was planned during the Obama Administration, and glyphosate levels in the food supply became increasingly massive and toxic every year since 2009.
Here's my reply to the "digital interview" that went out under the name of Peter Stocker at Friends of the Earth:
"
Nice try to raise money. However I'm quite sure you have more than I do, so you should send me some money. I'm interested in fixing the issues, not attacking a person or party. Glyphosate Awareness has NO politics. We welcome Bernie Sanders; we'd welcome George Wallace or Lyndon LaRouche if they were alive, too. We nag at Trump; we would have nagged at Obama if we'd absorbed more information sooner; we will nag at the next administration if we have to coexist with glyphosate that long.
And, although I think his tolerance for glyphosate would come closer to being a valid reason to impeach Trump than the current foofarah, I think efforts to impeach Trump are a waste of taxpayers' money that will probably cost the opposition more than it costs Trump.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Soros has already been identified as funding this campaign so, although patriotic and public-spirited Americans wish this interesting old man the best, we don't want to be tarnished by association with his efforts to buy influence on U.S. politics. That could subject Trump's opposition to the same kind of charges of "treason" that are being raised against Trump. I voted against Trump before and will probably do it again but let's keep clear heads, even about Trump.
PK
"
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Belated Tortie Tuesday Post: Kitty Mischief
PK (human): It's not Tuesday any more.
Swimmer (kitten): We're not Torties, either.
Silver (kitten): Only our grandmother is.
Samantha: A Tortie or "tortoise-shell-color" cat is mostly black with orange and usually a few white spots.
Serena: We Calico cats, who are basically white with some black or gray and orange spots, have traditionally been included in Tortie Tuesday, although we are of course more attractive cats.
Samantha: You think?
Serena: I know. I know everything because I'm the Queen Cat, even if that makes you a sort of honorary queen-mother cat. It also makes Silver and Swimmer princess cats and, no, I've not forgotten that our human--disgracefully--allowed some stranger to take my other two kittens away. Some kittens, like my other litter, just don't come into this world to stay, but Stache and Felix were my family and no human has any right to interfere with us.
PK: Actually, I've never thought I'd miss Silver and Swimmer either.
Samantha: Though you will admit they're very nice, very clever, very well-behaved kittens.
PK: The whole litter have always been incredibly well-behaved. I can hardly believe, myself, what a good job Serena and you did bringing them up. Who ever imagined kittens who, when they were sick, would rest in a box until it was time for their medicine, then quietly come out of the box and line up beside the desk to wait for their doses? Who ever imagined kittens who would wait outside the door, after dinner, to be brought indoors for the night? They really are fantastic kittens. It's probably because they're so well-mannered, never wanting to take attention away from their mother and grandmother, that I've not really bonded with them. They are tame cats, but not really pets--not quite.
Serena: You're my human, not theirs. It's that simple.
PK: Right. So although they're very nice kittens, and the good behavior of the whole litter has always amazed me, they've not shown much individual personality to me. They stick close to you and Samantha and do as they're told, in a group.
Samantha: Purr! Purr!
Serena: We've all enjoyed the milder weather this weekend. Last weekend was very cold.
PK: Down in the single digits one night. Samantha behaved very well, sharing her Samantha Box with the rest of you...
Samantha: Because it was so cold, that's all! I would never tolerate so much crowding in my cage if the weather hadn't been cold enough to freeze a person's whiskers...and before our winter fur had quite grown in, yet.
Serena: I hope everyone realizes how cooperative I was. As a young kitten I spent a lot of time alone with you, my dear Kibble Carrier, and you used to try to play with me after your pathetic lumbering fashion. I've not given up trying to teach you to play. It's not my fault you don't have any fur, or anything that can fairly be called claws either. I am gentle with you, you must admit. It's just that your skin is so fragile. But I've never really fought or quarrelled with you about anything. I only ever play with you.
PK: Roughly, but you've never been violent. Most humans might not notice that there's a difference.
Serena: Most humans seem to be more clumsy, lazy, and ignorant than you, which makes them a pathetic species indeed.
PK: What was that clanging sound?
Samantha: It wasn't a squirrel on the roof, so who cares? Never mind it. I hope everyone realizes how, despite the silly things some people say about "tortitude," I'm much friendlier to humans than my daughter the Calico cat. I'm the one who cuddles and lets you pick me up. I even let a visitor stroke me now and then. I don't slap at people to try to start a game. You didn't think I'd ever be a good pet, when we met, but look at me now!
PK: Did I hear a door open?
Samantha: Why are you so nervous today? Twitchy! Stay here and enjoy the thin autumn sunshine with me!
Serena: No, play with me!
PK: Where'd the kittens get to?
Samantha: No, don't go inside yet...
Silver: We were only searching for food! We didn't do any harm!
Swimmer: We opened the door, and pushed the lid off the metal can that's supposed to have kibble in it. That's all. That's not bad, is it? You do it every day.
Silver: Well...that, and we did type on the computer. The smaller one. It was so warm and inviting.
Swimmer: Yes, until you made it overheat and shut itself down.
PK: Its fan is going. When you pushed it down flat on the desk, off the stack of papers it was propped against, it overheated. Oh well...it's served Grandma Bonnie Peters and me well for most of ten years.
Silver: What did we say? We know the specks on the screen say something to humans. What did my specks say?
PK: Since you kept your paw on the ` key, they look like the way Charles M. Schulz, perhaps America's greatest cartoonist, used to spell "Peep peep peep peep." When I get a new laptop I'll throw in an Amazon link to one of his cartoon books with Woodstock the bird in it.
Swimmer: Well, that wasn't it. We never say "Peep." We are not birds. What do you think we were saying?
PK: Considering that we ran out of kibble and you had rice for breakfast, could it have been "Will someone Out There please send us some more of the pricey name-brand kibble?"
Samantha: If it was that, they weren't thinking very well! What about fish? I looove mackerel!
Serena: Rice is all right if it has plenty of chicken in it.
Samantha: Tuna will do.
Swimmer: Well, yes, of course. But, considering that you believe we ought to have dry kibble for at least half of our meals, will someone Out There send us some more of the good kind?
PK: You don't deserve treats for sneaking into the office like that. You've behaved badly.
Silver: Is that what it takes to make you notice that we have personalities? A little kitty mischief?
Swimmer (kitten): We're not Torties, either.
Silver (kitten): Only our grandmother is.
Samantha: A Tortie or "tortoise-shell-color" cat is mostly black with orange and usually a few white spots.
Serena: We Calico cats, who are basically white with some black or gray and orange spots, have traditionally been included in Tortie Tuesday, although we are of course more attractive cats.
Samantha: You think?
Serena: I know. I know everything because I'm the Queen Cat, even if that makes you a sort of honorary queen-mother cat. It also makes Silver and Swimmer princess cats and, no, I've not forgotten that our human--disgracefully--allowed some stranger to take my other two kittens away. Some kittens, like my other litter, just don't come into this world to stay, but Stache and Felix were my family and no human has any right to interfere with us.
PK: Actually, I've never thought I'd miss Silver and Swimmer either.
Samantha: Though you will admit they're very nice, very clever, very well-behaved kittens.
PK: The whole litter have always been incredibly well-behaved. I can hardly believe, myself, what a good job Serena and you did bringing them up. Who ever imagined kittens who, when they were sick, would rest in a box until it was time for their medicine, then quietly come out of the box and line up beside the desk to wait for their doses? Who ever imagined kittens who would wait outside the door, after dinner, to be brought indoors for the night? They really are fantastic kittens. It's probably because they're so well-mannered, never wanting to take attention away from their mother and grandmother, that I've not really bonded with them. They are tame cats, but not really pets--not quite.
Serena: You're my human, not theirs. It's that simple.
PK: Right. So although they're very nice kittens, and the good behavior of the whole litter has always amazed me, they've not shown much individual personality to me. They stick close to you and Samantha and do as they're told, in a group.
Samantha: Purr! Purr!
Serena: We've all enjoyed the milder weather this weekend. Last weekend was very cold.
PK: Down in the single digits one night. Samantha behaved very well, sharing her Samantha Box with the rest of you...
Samantha: Because it was so cold, that's all! I would never tolerate so much crowding in my cage if the weather hadn't been cold enough to freeze a person's whiskers...and before our winter fur had quite grown in, yet.
Serena: I hope everyone realizes how cooperative I was. As a young kitten I spent a lot of time alone with you, my dear Kibble Carrier, and you used to try to play with me after your pathetic lumbering fashion. I've not given up trying to teach you to play. It's not my fault you don't have any fur, or anything that can fairly be called claws either. I am gentle with you, you must admit. It's just that your skin is so fragile. But I've never really fought or quarrelled with you about anything. I only ever play with you.
PK: Roughly, but you've never been violent. Most humans might not notice that there's a difference.
Serena: Most humans seem to be more clumsy, lazy, and ignorant than you, which makes them a pathetic species indeed.
PK: What was that clanging sound?
Samantha: It wasn't a squirrel on the roof, so who cares? Never mind it. I hope everyone realizes how, despite the silly things some people say about "tortitude," I'm much friendlier to humans than my daughter the Calico cat. I'm the one who cuddles and lets you pick me up. I even let a visitor stroke me now and then. I don't slap at people to try to start a game. You didn't think I'd ever be a good pet, when we met, but look at me now!
PK: Did I hear a door open?
Samantha: Why are you so nervous today? Twitchy! Stay here and enjoy the thin autumn sunshine with me!
Serena: No, play with me!
PK: Where'd the kittens get to?
Samantha: No, don't go inside yet...
Silver: We were only searching for food! We didn't do any harm!
Swimmer: We opened the door, and pushed the lid off the metal can that's supposed to have kibble in it. That's all. That's not bad, is it? You do it every day.
Silver: Well...that, and we did type on the computer. The smaller one. It was so warm and inviting.
Swimmer: Yes, until you made it overheat and shut itself down.
PK: Its fan is going. When you pushed it down flat on the desk, off the stack of papers it was propped against, it overheated. Oh well...it's served Grandma Bonnie Peters and me well for most of ten years.
Silver: What did we say? We know the specks on the screen say something to humans. What did my specks say?
PK: Since you kept your paw on the ` key, they look like the way Charles M. Schulz, perhaps America's greatest cartoonist, used to spell "Peep peep peep peep." When I get a new laptop I'll throw in an Amazon link to one of his cartoon books with Woodstock the bird in it.
Swimmer: Well, that wasn't it. We never say "Peep." We are not birds. What do you think we were saying?
PK: Considering that we ran out of kibble and you had rice for breakfast, could it have been "Will someone Out There please send us some more of the pricey name-brand kibble?"
Samantha: If it was that, they weren't thinking very well! What about fish? I looove mackerel!
Serena: Rice is all right if it has plenty of chicken in it.
Samantha: Tuna will do.
Swimmer: Well, yes, of course. But, considering that you believe we ought to have dry kibble for at least half of our meals, will someone Out There send us some more of the good kind?
PK: You don't deserve treats for sneaking into the office like that. You've behaved badly.
Silver: Is that what it takes to make you notice that we have personalities? A little kitty mischief?
Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Tortie Tuesday: Snow!
Tortie Samantha, who is mostly black with orange and white spots, and Calico Serena, who is mostly white with orange and black spots, have seen snow before. The spring kittens Silver (whose name is properly Silver Heels, for her most distinctive feature) and Swimmer (who hasn't done any more swimming lately, but demonstrated the ability around the time she started eating solid food) have not seen snow before. So what was their reaction to it?
"Where's breakfast?" they nonverbally said. "You're late."
I woke up on time, turned on the light and the computer, and waited for daylight to arrive. Veterans Day had been a nice, mild, sunny day, nice for those who wanted to get in one last day at the lake; trees that change fast had already shed their leaves, while trees that change slowly were still mostly green. Around bedtime I'd heard rain pattering on the roof. The sky was still cloudy. Daylight was late. When it was obvious that sunrise had occurred behind heavy cloud cover, I looked out to double check that the rain had stopped.
"SNOW?!"
The ground was still warm, but the air was not. A cold wind had blown this snow our way. The temperature outside the north-facing door was 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Snow on the ground was melting. Snow on the leaves of trees was sticking tight. The hillsides showed a weird color mix I've not seen before here, with the red-brown carpet of leaves and patches of bright green grass showing through where snow had melted on the ground, some bare gray trees, some bright autumn-leaf-color trees, some bronzy-green trees that were just starting to turn brown, and some trees whose leaves were still bright, light, summery green frosted with snow.
It's not an Ice Age. It's not Global Warming. It's not even unprecedented; one year when I was in the city--was it 1987?--we had a couple of inches of snow in October, before we'd had even one frosty night. It's just unusual weather. I'm now looking out toward the slopes of Clinch Mountain. I've seen them all my life and I've never seen them look quite like this.
I was more interested in the weather than the cats were. To them it's not news that the weather's turned cold instead of hot. There are still boxes and sacks of fabric--blankets, rugs, quilts and quilt material--on the porch, and the cats still have a snug little space where they've pulled layers of thick fabric down over a crack between bins, where they can curl up and snooze till their collective bodywarmth gets too warm to suit them. The ingenuity with which they've insulated their den might look as if human hands and brains had had to be involved. They weren't. Serena and Traveller did it, last winter, all by themselves. They probably discovered, rather than planning, the benefits of constructing three-stage vestibules where they slither through non-parallel openings that create layers of warm and semi-warm air around their warm space. The kittens were born in this den and went back to it when the weather turned cold. With their thick winter fur growing in they're as snug in the den as an Eskimo family in an igloo. All they need now is fuel to keep their bodies putting out all that delicious heat, and they're ready for whatever the winter weather may do.
So--"Where's breakfast? Are we out of that extra-juicy kibble? Too bad. Why don't you go and look for some more of that kind, or cook some more chicken and rice, or better yet some fish?" is what they said.
I had bought fish maybe three or four times in the last thirteen years, because, like most people who live near the coast, I had become a bit spoiled about fish. In the point of Virginia fish comes in tins and has a strong odor. In Maryland fish is shoved into bags and packed on ice, at the dock if not right on the boat, so the odor develops only as the fish begins to cook, and if you add lemon juice and tarragon a person can't walk into the house the next day and tell that you cooked fish. I like fish but I didn't want a fishy-smelling home. I ate fish when Oogesti took Mother and me to the China Star, where we always bought a take-out box of baked salmon for the cats and picked bits off before giving it to them. And once I opened a tin of tuna that did not have a heavy odor, so I bought another tin of tuna, but it did, so after that all the fish I bought was marked "For Cats" and was opened outdoors.
But Oogesti is no longer with us, and my Significant Other said, "Everybody around here always wants to cook chicken! What I'd like to find is a person that knows how to cook fish!" and in the face of such relentless pressure I thought about the possibility that lemons and tarragon might work on tinned tuna and mackerel the same way they work on fresh sizzling-hot haddock, whitefish, or salmon fillets.
Well, almost.
Anyway I've been buying more mackerel lately, for the omega-3 oil content. The mackerel fish has fins and scales, and little sharp bones, while living, but when it's cooked most of the scales come off, leaving a bare slick black or white inner skin, and the bones melt down like salmon bones. When you open a tin you can still find the bones and crumble them with a fork. If you cook them with rice they disappear as entirely as a calcium supplement pill.
The resulting meal still smells like cat food, but lemon and tarragon do keep the odor from lingering in the house.
Samantha, who thinks the smell of fish can only ever be an improvement on anything, does a remarkable job of keeping the empty tins from making the recycling smell fishy. She can jump six feet straight up in the air, easily. If a taller person were trying to carry an open tin that used to contain fish past her, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see her jump eight feet.
"Samantha, this is ridiculous," I say sternly, holding the tin out of her path and putting it where she couldn't get at it. "You know you'll get to lick the tin. You don't need to act stupid about it."
"But I do!" Samantha nonverbally says. "How else am I going to show you the difference between good ordinary everyday food and delicious food? Fish is delish-is! I have to tell you how much I love fish!"
The kittens act calmer about food because acting as if she were completely beside herself with appetite is Samantha's job. Social cats tend to specialize. Samantha does a more credible mad-cat act than anyone else, so the others leave her to it.
At least fish is one thing that, if it's not seasoned with poison-sprayed sauce or packed in poisoned water, is unlikely to contain glyphosate.
"Where's breakfast?" they nonverbally said. "You're late."
I woke up on time, turned on the light and the computer, and waited for daylight to arrive. Veterans Day had been a nice, mild, sunny day, nice for those who wanted to get in one last day at the lake; trees that change fast had already shed their leaves, while trees that change slowly were still mostly green. Around bedtime I'd heard rain pattering on the roof. The sky was still cloudy. Daylight was late. When it was obvious that sunrise had occurred behind heavy cloud cover, I looked out to double check that the rain had stopped.
"SNOW?!"
The ground was still warm, but the air was not. A cold wind had blown this snow our way. The temperature outside the north-facing door was 27 degrees Fahrenheit. Snow on the ground was melting. Snow on the leaves of trees was sticking tight. The hillsides showed a weird color mix I've not seen before here, with the red-brown carpet of leaves and patches of bright green grass showing through where snow had melted on the ground, some bare gray trees, some bright autumn-leaf-color trees, some bronzy-green trees that were just starting to turn brown, and some trees whose leaves were still bright, light, summery green frosted with snow.
It's not an Ice Age. It's not Global Warming. It's not even unprecedented; one year when I was in the city--was it 1987?--we had a couple of inches of snow in October, before we'd had even one frosty night. It's just unusual weather. I'm now looking out toward the slopes of Clinch Mountain. I've seen them all my life and I've never seen them look quite like this.
I was more interested in the weather than the cats were. To them it's not news that the weather's turned cold instead of hot. There are still boxes and sacks of fabric--blankets, rugs, quilts and quilt material--on the porch, and the cats still have a snug little space where they've pulled layers of thick fabric down over a crack between bins, where they can curl up and snooze till their collective bodywarmth gets too warm to suit them. The ingenuity with which they've insulated their den might look as if human hands and brains had had to be involved. They weren't. Serena and Traveller did it, last winter, all by themselves. They probably discovered, rather than planning, the benefits of constructing three-stage vestibules where they slither through non-parallel openings that create layers of warm and semi-warm air around their warm space. The kittens were born in this den and went back to it when the weather turned cold. With their thick winter fur growing in they're as snug in the den as an Eskimo family in an igloo. All they need now is fuel to keep their bodies putting out all that delicious heat, and they're ready for whatever the winter weather may do.
So--"Where's breakfast? Are we out of that extra-juicy kibble? Too bad. Why don't you go and look for some more of that kind, or cook some more chicken and rice, or better yet some fish?" is what they said.
I had bought fish maybe three or four times in the last thirteen years, because, like most people who live near the coast, I had become a bit spoiled about fish. In the point of Virginia fish comes in tins and has a strong odor. In Maryland fish is shoved into bags and packed on ice, at the dock if not right on the boat, so the odor develops only as the fish begins to cook, and if you add lemon juice and tarragon a person can't walk into the house the next day and tell that you cooked fish. I like fish but I didn't want a fishy-smelling home. I ate fish when Oogesti took Mother and me to the China Star, where we always bought a take-out box of baked salmon for the cats and picked bits off before giving it to them. And once I opened a tin of tuna that did not have a heavy odor, so I bought another tin of tuna, but it did, so after that all the fish I bought was marked "For Cats" and was opened outdoors.
But Oogesti is no longer with us, and my Significant Other said, "Everybody around here always wants to cook chicken! What I'd like to find is a person that knows how to cook fish!" and in the face of such relentless pressure I thought about the possibility that lemons and tarragon might work on tinned tuna and mackerel the same way they work on fresh sizzling-hot haddock, whitefish, or salmon fillets.
Well, almost.
Anyway I've been buying more mackerel lately, for the omega-3 oil content. The mackerel fish has fins and scales, and little sharp bones, while living, but when it's cooked most of the scales come off, leaving a bare slick black or white inner skin, and the bones melt down like salmon bones. When you open a tin you can still find the bones and crumble them with a fork. If you cook them with rice they disappear as entirely as a calcium supplement pill.
The resulting meal still smells like cat food, but lemon and tarragon do keep the odor from lingering in the house.
Samantha, who thinks the smell of fish can only ever be an improvement on anything, does a remarkable job of keeping the empty tins from making the recycling smell fishy. She can jump six feet straight up in the air, easily. If a taller person were trying to carry an open tin that used to contain fish past her, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see her jump eight feet.
"Samantha, this is ridiculous," I say sternly, holding the tin out of her path and putting it where she couldn't get at it. "You know you'll get to lick the tin. You don't need to act stupid about it."
"But I do!" Samantha nonverbally says. "How else am I going to show you the difference between good ordinary everyday food and delicious food? Fish is delish-is! I have to tell you how much I love fish!"
The kittens act calmer about food because acting as if she were completely beside herself with appetite is Samantha's job. Social cats tend to specialize. Samantha does a more credible mad-cat act than anyone else, so the others leave her to it.
At least fish is one thing that, if it's not seasoned with poison-sprayed sauce or packed in poisoned water, is unlikely to contain glyphosate.
Friday, November 8, 2019
Tim Kaine Says Bipartisan and Unfortunately He's Right
This e-mail from U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) reminded me of a piece of junkmail the Republican Party stuffed into my mailbox recently. First, please, read the Senator's message, and then I'll elaborate on the "unfortunately"...
"
Sincerely" [signature graphic: Tim Kaine]
Right. He's not talking about funding for accredited colleges and universities, generally, which most taxpayers would probably say is already sufficient. He's talking about special funding for these five universities that happen to be historically Black or majority-Black. And I am in favor of these schools keeping their special history and traditions. I'm even in favor of their keeping their majority-Black atmosphere, so when some 18-year-old slacker who's never had to learn how to study in high school goes to university and is nonplussed by having to prepare for classes, this kid can't say "They're making it hard for me because I'm Black." Learning how to study is hard for teen slackers of any ethnic flavor but, when the teachers are Black too, teen slackers who happen to be Black are more likely just to learn how to study, already, without the "because I'm Black" sprezz. There is no color difference among brains. There are differences among high schools that put some ethnic-minority and low-income students at a substantial disadvantage; historically, Virginia high schools have tended to be among those that put students from all backgrounds at an advantage relative to students from neighboring states, but even Virginia high school graduates still have to adjust from having everything spoon-fed to them in the classroom to being expected to learn some things from their own reading before they walk into the classroom.
When I used to attend Seventh-Day Adventist churches they used to have special fundraising drives in aid of Oakwood College, which is also historically Black, though not in Virginia. I used to give money to those drives. I used to see people from every nation on Earth giving money to those drives. So, if the Senator's bill to collect special money for our Historically Black Uni's were not bipartisan and did not bag a few million tax dollars, I'm pretty confident that fundraising tours by these schools' bands, drama groups, sports teams, etc., would raise money for these schools too.
Either way, the schools are going to get money, and preserve their traditions; and there's nothing unfortunate about that. I think it's a fine thing.
What's not so fine is just how bipartisan the movement to take this money out of federal tax funds has become. The Republican Party's reason for existing is to question the Democratic Party's historic tendency to imagine that the only solution to any problem is to throw federal tax money at it. R's are supposed to hold out for schools to raise more of their own funding through alumni donations and student activity. But the printed piece of R junkmail was urging me to vote for a local R because he's "helped secure more federal funding for schools in our district..."
Er um, which district's that, again? Junkmail originated in Richmond!
R's are supposed to remind D's that even though education is a good thing and we want it to be available to every child who is willing to take it, making schools raise their own funds is good for the schools, forcing them to do a decent job of teaching students to do something for which somebody is willing to pay as a result of observing what the students have learned.
I was lucky; Virginia's White-washing of biracial families out here in the Point was philosophically disgusting, but it did give us access to a choice of colleges that was not always available to Black people. So, my parents wanted me to go to a church college, and since I skipped through high school at the age of sixteen I had little choice about that. My church college received limited federal funding. (Many thought it ought to have received even less.) As a result, tuition was much higher than it was at the state universities that offered equally good or better academic education. My parents thought single-sex dorms with curfews, and the right to pray out loud and quote the Bible in the classroom, were worth the extra fees. Not that we could afford it, but what people were telling 16-year-olds with what were called "equivalency diplomas," back then, was "If people waited till they could afford it nobody'd ever go to college. Go now, then get a job that'll pay enough that you can afford it."
So I went. My parents managed to pay back the loan before the interest got out of hand; I managed to pay them back in floor-mopping, errand-running, and letter-writing after Dad went blind. And I was lucky again--as most students are: I had a marketable talent. I wasn't a star-quality singer, but I was good enough to sing for my supper. I travelled with the school choir and drama group and sang in fundraisers in aid of the school. I travelled with the student ministers and sang in churches in aid of their and my tuition. Eventually I had a few fans, raised a little money, and released an album of my own.
It is hard to imagine an historically Black university that wasn't known for its student musical performances. Hampton, especially. Offhand, the only thing I remember having read about Hampton was how their choral performances used to impress the whole East Coast. Granted, universities don't raise money by music alone, but...why have I not read about a Hampton choir performance more recently?
Then from the church college I went to its affiliated university, where I continued to sing. I was also put to work in the school wood shop, which supplied a big mail-order company with furniture at that time. The wood shop had been advised to hire a few girls, so I was the one they put in the finishing section. University social life revolved around clubs and, although some of the clubs seemed to be social groups that didn't do much beyond hanging out together, those clubs were dismissed as being for sad apples. Anyone with anything to offer was invited to join one of the clubs that did something for the school so, while under consideration for the Scholars, which was the top group and which I never got into, I travelled with a lesser group who organized Christian sing-alongs and devotions in hospitals, nursing homes, the jail, the soup kitchen, and other places where people didn't get to church services. The club had a tiny fund of our own for needy members, and raised some funds for the church and the university.
Later I went to Berea College, which was a bigger school, more demanding. Berea didn't put me back on the road as a singer; they had teenagers for that. Berea used older students to write research papers, help with experiments, do lectures...I actually compiled a supplementary textbook. In addition to the obligatory hours of more menial student labor, mopping floors, showing people how to use computers, and guarding the science museum on weekends. (One of Berea's traditions was that even the faculty and administration had to do that sort of thing for a couple of days every term. You moved on to more prestigious tasks, but you never moved beyond menial labor.)
I think it's not that adults shouldn't hand out money to schools, but hello, what are the schools doing besides racking up the price of tuition every year and whining for more federal tax funding? I think more schools should be more like the church schools and Berea. If not 100% self-funding they should be positively competing to get closer to that goal. Hello, young people, college is not just where you go to sneak out and do things your parents told you not to do; it ought to be where you start giving something back to the larger society that have thrust elementary and high school education upon you. College is where you may not be ready to write your bestselling book or do your groundbreaking research, yet, but you can sort mail, or baby-sit, or sing.
I'm proud of my local man's successes but I have to wonder to what extent he and his Republican sponsors have gone off track. From D's, begging for more federal funding may be all that's expected. From R's, I would have hoped for boasts about making schools and students more self-funding.
There are those who don't like what Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee University, wrote about "service learning." They accuse him of having suggested that the purpose of educating Black youth was to make them higher-class domestic help for White people. I don't remember where in his book he said that; I remember more about the idea of students self-funding by doing student-labor-type work for anyone who might be able to hire them. Well, it's been a few years since I read his book, anyway...twenty-some years. But why should this web site promote a Tuskegee writer ahead of a Berea writer? When the Amazon links return to this site, which they will, the link here will be to a book by Carter G. Woodson, who argued that the first step for any disadvantaged group of people--students, ethnic groups, whomever--was to recognize how much they already had to offer, how much they could do for themselves and for one another.
And I want to be clear about this. The e-mail was about majority-Black schools. Majority-White schools need money too. White students need money too. And they deserve help, too. And they, too, need to be thinking about ways to rely less on federal tax funding and more on self-funding...both the schools, as schools, and the students, as students.
"
Dear friend,
Federal
funding for minority-serving institutions expired on September 30th,
2019. This lapse in funding harms HBCUs across the country, including
Virginia Union University, Hampton University, Virginia State
University, Norfolk State University, and Virginia University of
Lynchburg. These schools rely on this funding to operate and improve
student services and academic programs from counseling to tutoring,
mentoring, and STEM and career training programs. Without it, the
continued success of America's HBCUs is in jeopardy.
Fortunately,
we have a bipartisan bill on the table - the FUTURE Act - that would
renew this expired funding. The House passed this bill unanimously 52
days ago and it has the support of the White House, yet the Senate has
failed to take it up. It's time for Republican leadership to hold a vote
on this legislation so we can pass it immediately.
Minority-serving
institutions, most of which do not have significant endowments and face
unique fiscal challenges, count on these federal dollars. If we don't
pass this bill, critical programs at these schools are at risk of being
cut and individual students will suffer.
We have a solution: Let's get this right and pass the bipartisan FUTURE Act.
Right. He's not talking about funding for accredited colleges and universities, generally, which most taxpayers would probably say is already sufficient. He's talking about special funding for these five universities that happen to be historically Black or majority-Black. And I am in favor of these schools keeping their special history and traditions. I'm even in favor of their keeping their majority-Black atmosphere, so when some 18-year-old slacker who's never had to learn how to study in high school goes to university and is nonplussed by having to prepare for classes, this kid can't say "They're making it hard for me because I'm Black." Learning how to study is hard for teen slackers of any ethnic flavor but, when the teachers are Black too, teen slackers who happen to be Black are more likely just to learn how to study, already, without the "because I'm Black" sprezz. There is no color difference among brains. There are differences among high schools that put some ethnic-minority and low-income students at a substantial disadvantage; historically, Virginia high schools have tended to be among those that put students from all backgrounds at an advantage relative to students from neighboring states, but even Virginia high school graduates still have to adjust from having everything spoon-fed to them in the classroom to being expected to learn some things from their own reading before they walk into the classroom.
When I used to attend Seventh-Day Adventist churches they used to have special fundraising drives in aid of Oakwood College, which is also historically Black, though not in Virginia. I used to give money to those drives. I used to see people from every nation on Earth giving money to those drives. So, if the Senator's bill to collect special money for our Historically Black Uni's were not bipartisan and did not bag a few million tax dollars, I'm pretty confident that fundraising tours by these schools' bands, drama groups, sports teams, etc., would raise money for these schools too.
Either way, the schools are going to get money, and preserve their traditions; and there's nothing unfortunate about that. I think it's a fine thing.
What's not so fine is just how bipartisan the movement to take this money out of federal tax funds has become. The Republican Party's reason for existing is to question the Democratic Party's historic tendency to imagine that the only solution to any problem is to throw federal tax money at it. R's are supposed to hold out for schools to raise more of their own funding through alumni donations and student activity. But the printed piece of R junkmail was urging me to vote for a local R because he's "helped secure more federal funding for schools in our district..."
Er um, which district's that, again? Junkmail originated in Richmond!
R's are supposed to remind D's that even though education is a good thing and we want it to be available to every child who is willing to take it, making schools raise their own funds is good for the schools, forcing them to do a decent job of teaching students to do something for which somebody is willing to pay as a result of observing what the students have learned.
I was lucky; Virginia's White-washing of biracial families out here in the Point was philosophically disgusting, but it did give us access to a choice of colleges that was not always available to Black people. So, my parents wanted me to go to a church college, and since I skipped through high school at the age of sixteen I had little choice about that. My church college received limited federal funding. (Many thought it ought to have received even less.) As a result, tuition was much higher than it was at the state universities that offered equally good or better academic education. My parents thought single-sex dorms with curfews, and the right to pray out loud and quote the Bible in the classroom, were worth the extra fees. Not that we could afford it, but what people were telling 16-year-olds with what were called "equivalency diplomas," back then, was "If people waited till they could afford it nobody'd ever go to college. Go now, then get a job that'll pay enough that you can afford it."
So I went. My parents managed to pay back the loan before the interest got out of hand; I managed to pay them back in floor-mopping, errand-running, and letter-writing after Dad went blind. And I was lucky again--as most students are: I had a marketable talent. I wasn't a star-quality singer, but I was good enough to sing for my supper. I travelled with the school choir and drama group and sang in fundraisers in aid of the school. I travelled with the student ministers and sang in churches in aid of their and my tuition. Eventually I had a few fans, raised a little money, and released an album of my own.
It is hard to imagine an historically Black university that wasn't known for its student musical performances. Hampton, especially. Offhand, the only thing I remember having read about Hampton was how their choral performances used to impress the whole East Coast. Granted, universities don't raise money by music alone, but...why have I not read about a Hampton choir performance more recently?
Then from the church college I went to its affiliated university, where I continued to sing. I was also put to work in the school wood shop, which supplied a big mail-order company with furniture at that time. The wood shop had been advised to hire a few girls, so I was the one they put in the finishing section. University social life revolved around clubs and, although some of the clubs seemed to be social groups that didn't do much beyond hanging out together, those clubs were dismissed as being for sad apples. Anyone with anything to offer was invited to join one of the clubs that did something for the school so, while under consideration for the Scholars, which was the top group and which I never got into, I travelled with a lesser group who organized Christian sing-alongs and devotions in hospitals, nursing homes, the jail, the soup kitchen, and other places where people didn't get to church services. The club had a tiny fund of our own for needy members, and raised some funds for the church and the university.
Later I went to Berea College, which was a bigger school, more demanding. Berea didn't put me back on the road as a singer; they had teenagers for that. Berea used older students to write research papers, help with experiments, do lectures...I actually compiled a supplementary textbook. In addition to the obligatory hours of more menial student labor, mopping floors, showing people how to use computers, and guarding the science museum on weekends. (One of Berea's traditions was that even the faculty and administration had to do that sort of thing for a couple of days every term. You moved on to more prestigious tasks, but you never moved beyond menial labor.)
I think it's not that adults shouldn't hand out money to schools, but hello, what are the schools doing besides racking up the price of tuition every year and whining for more federal tax funding? I think more schools should be more like the church schools and Berea. If not 100% self-funding they should be positively competing to get closer to that goal. Hello, young people, college is not just where you go to sneak out and do things your parents told you not to do; it ought to be where you start giving something back to the larger society that have thrust elementary and high school education upon you. College is where you may not be ready to write your bestselling book or do your groundbreaking research, yet, but you can sort mail, or baby-sit, or sing.
I'm proud of my local man's successes but I have to wonder to what extent he and his Republican sponsors have gone off track. From D's, begging for more federal funding may be all that's expected. From R's, I would have hoped for boasts about making schools and students more self-funding.
There are those who don't like what Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee University, wrote about "service learning." They accuse him of having suggested that the purpose of educating Black youth was to make them higher-class domestic help for White people. I don't remember where in his book he said that; I remember more about the idea of students self-funding by doing student-labor-type work for anyone who might be able to hire them. Well, it's been a few years since I read his book, anyway...twenty-some years. But why should this web site promote a Tuskegee writer ahead of a Berea writer? When the Amazon links return to this site, which they will, the link here will be to a book by Carter G. Woodson, who argued that the first step for any disadvantaged group of people--students, ethnic groups, whomever--was to recognize how much they already had to offer, how much they could do for themselves and for one another.
And I want to be clear about this. The e-mail was about majority-Black schools. Majority-White schools need money too. White students need money too. And they deserve help, too. And they, too, need to be thinking about ways to rely less on federal tax funding and more on self-funding...both the schools, as schools, and the students, as students.
Bad Poetry: The Native Wisdom of the Dative
Does
everyone see me making a silly face at the mere possibility of pretentiousness in this post? Yes, it’s about a
kernel of wisdom I relate to two unrelated linguistic observations.
1. “Giving”is a verb that ought to call our attention to the activity the verb describes, not to a noun; the image of giving inspired many languages’ special noun forms, which are called dative, from Latin dat, meaning “gives.”
2. And yes, I think the idea that any ethnic group has a special inside corner on wisdom is pretty silly. So is the idea that all or most native speakers of any language go around constantly being mindful of the way their language seems to encode a bit of wisdom...However, in some languages, most conspicuously including Native American languages and also including Latin, giving happens. The object of giving is the gift. The act of giving is asymmetrical, but mutual. Latin has not only the special dative case but also the phrase do ut des, which means "I give in order that thou givest."
1. “Giving”is a verb that ought to call our attention to the activity the verb describes, not to a noun; the image of giving inspired many languages’ special noun forms, which are called dative, from Latin dat, meaning “gives.”
2. And yes, I think the idea that any ethnic group has a special inside corner on wisdom is pretty silly. So is the idea that all or most native speakers of any language go around constantly being mindful of the way their language seems to encode a bit of wisdom...However, in some languages, most conspicuously including Native American languages and also including Latin, giving happens. The object of giving is the gift. The act of giving is asymmetrical, but mutual. Latin has not only the special dative case but also the phrase do ut des, which means "I give in order that thou givest."
I think
pretentiousness is silly. The post wanted to be a free-verse “poem,” and
actually I think free-verse “poems” are inherently a bit pretentious too. “I
don’t HAVE to go to the trouble of
fitting my thoughts into a form, verse or prose! They’re a POem just because I SAID so!”
Free verse is thus alien to the spirit of Bad Poetry, which may be good, may be
bad, the poet is too close to it to judge, but in any case it’s not
pretentious. These thoughts form short sentences that parallel each other but
don’t fit a consistent structure of meter, rhyme, assonance, consonance, or
alliteration. They are free verse, as distinct from a prose rant, because they
do have (loose) patterns of sound and rhythm, and of imagery.
Trigger warning: This poem draws one of its dominant images from a Bible story...I'm still using the laptop that no longer has enough memory to run Chrome. Firefox won't do Amazon photo links. If it would, the book linked to this poem would be the Bible.
To a child
learning English, she said,
a mother
says, “Look! Ball!”
To a child
learning Navajo,
a mother
says, “Look! Bouncing!”
Most nouns
are really verb forms;
most things
are known for what they often do
and if you
find them doing something different
you might
call them by completely different names.
I think of
this when I think of words like “giving”
and “giver”
and... “Give-ee?” “Taker?” “Recipient?” Bad bad bad.
The only
way around those misfit words
is “Look!
Giving!”
like “Look!
Dancing!”
or “Look!
Handshaking!”
The noun
for the objective form of “giving”
is “gift,”
the object.
There’s a
special word for the structure of sentences with “giving.”
If one
person is the subject, the one doing the giving,
and another
person is named, that person
is off on
the side in a separate case: the dative,
the special
word for the one with the gift in the hands,
because the
object is the object;
the person
is the subject of another question:
does person
complete the act of giving, or not?
The
complete act of giving is reciprocal.
The person
named in the dative phrase is the other giver
or the
taker who breaks the act of giving.
Perhaps
when we meditate on the grammar of giving words,
the way the
act of giving creates the special case
that was
identified specifically with giving
hundreds of
years before the time of Christ,
we see
what’s wrong with the idea of structures for “giving.”
Giving is
alive, and lively, like dancing
and
reciprocal, and ongoing, like handshaking
or making
babies, but we don’t talk about that online.
“Who is
giving?”
“Two are
giving.”
The earth
gives food to us
and we give
compost to the earth.
The female gives
pleasure to the male
and the
male gives motherhood to the female.
The mother
gives milk to the infant
and the
infant gives comfort to the mother.
All giving
in nature is a cycle
until we
come to the Fall of Man:
Cain sank into envy,
as his
brother revelled in giving,
that circle
from which Cain had fallen out.
When we
want to do all the giving,
not to be
part of a cycle,
our faces
grow ugly as Cain’s did
and we live
out Original Sin.
There is
forgiveness
for giving
amiss:
When a
mother human, through illness,
neither
gives milk nor receives comfort
in the
natural cycle with her infant,
mother cows
show no reluctance
to make
their own place in that dance,
though the
women grow fat and depressive,
the babies
imperfectly nourished,
and
humankind’s relationship to cowkind
dithers
between worship and abuse.
But even
Love Itself can hardly endure
the spirit
of Original Sin that brays,
“I will give what I choose to give, to whom I choose,
without
respect to a cycle, but as I please!”
We think,
in the fever-dreams of Original Hubris,
“Give to
the poor?
We’ll build
ourselves great structures that manage the
poor
out of
whatever we don’t want for ourselves:
fruit left
from our surfeit, the seeds and the compost,
to our Lord
in the poor, rather than to the earth.”
“Give to
our elders?
We’ll build
more structures to tell them what
they need.
We’ll call
them what we feel like calling them,
and when.
We’ll give what we don’t want for ourselves.
We’re not
their heirs; we’re separate new creations.”
“Give to
the ones we love, after our sick fashion?
We’ll give
them all that the merchants tell us to buy
but not the
mindfulness, not the discernment
to live
with them in a constant dance of love.
As a result
our love will wear out soon
and men grow old, neither with the wives
of their
youth, nor their children—nor in the same towns.”
We are not
struck down at once; there is forgiveness.
We are
dragged away, in greed’s chains, out of the dance.
Our
structures vomit food-products no one can eat
and
“housing” where no one can choose to live
to rot, not
even compost, on the ground
while rich
and poor learn to despise each other
and the
earth and the farmers make each other ill
and parents
and children, who cannot not give to
each other,
give hate,
spiritual murder, even real murder.
We need, oh
how we need, to work our way back
to mothers
giving milk and infants comfort.
“Governments
to do giving? Who says that,
who let him
out, and who is taking him back?”
Governments
can store material reserves, against emergencies.
When the
flood or plague or drought comes, then the people
can claim
their share of what they’ve stored for themselves.
Giving we
can, we must, do for ourselves.
Money
collected by tax-gatherers
is stolen
or demanded, but not given.
Goods
handed out through “programs” and through “systems”
may be
distributed, but are not given.
Giving is a
private, intimate dance
where two or three,
but rarely more, take part.
To think of
giving without the cycle’s madness.
Without a
cycle, who’d know what to give?
A Welfare
State leaves all outcasts, like Cain,
wandering
in a wilderness of envy
with never
a clue to what it is we’ve lost;
only the
sense of loss, great loss, forever.
Where
people are givers, they take care of their own.
To the less
privileged they give wages
and the less
privileged give, in return, labor.
Welfare
programs are for the sons of Cain.
The
children of Abel dance.
Status Update: Scary Wooden Horse?
As often happens, I'm bemused by a comment a shopper made on something I've displayed for sale...
The object is a wooden horse. I don't know when or where it was made--possibly by hand. It's unpainted, naturally a chocolatey shade of brown, a hard smooth glossy wood that didn't splinter even when broken. The horse was meant to be a wild male, rearing and threatening to bite. You could see him as looking for a fight, or as warning intruders away from his family. At some point in the horse's career all of his legs snapped off. His teeth are still bared, his face still snarling. He was like that in the 1970s when my brother found him in a charity bazaar in Florida and added him to our horse collection.
Later, after noticing that we hadn't actually played with our model horses for a few years, my brother built a good-sized display shelf for the collection. Our best-looking, least play-damaged specimens, and also our loved-all-to-pieces ones, barely fitted onto that shelf. A few surplus animals were left over for our sister and young cousins to play with. Going by the lack of further damage to the wooden horse I'm guessing nobody ever played with him much.
He is an unfriendly-looking, to my eyes ugly, model animal, but he could be cast as the guardian of a herd if a child plays with horses. So I took him to market to see if any horse-struck child wanted him.
So far they haven't.
I'm not surprised. Kids don't seem to collect model animals the way they used to. Adults buy stuffed model animals as pillow substitutes, but model horses in the toy stores have morphed into dreadful cartoonish things my brother and I wouldn't have added to our herd.
People have said, "With the broken legs?"
Well, hello...children's dolls and toy animal often lose legs. What children do, as I recall vividly, is pretend they still have their legs. You're already pretending this wooden or plastic or glass or stuffed-fabric object can run, jump, pose, have adventures, so pretending its legs aren't broken isn't much more of a stretch for your imagination.
What older artists and artisans do, if they prefer, is incorporate broken toys into scenes where the broken ends are either covered or part of the composition. A horse with broken legs and a stressed-out face might be swimming, for example.
But someone said, "With the broken legs, it's sort of scary!" and that blew my mind.
It reminded me of the summer, a few years ago, when the wolves at the Bays Mountain Park became ill. These wolves weren't pets, but they were accustomed to humans and looked as friendly as big dogs to child visitors. Then one day it became obvious that one of them was sick, and a visiting child started to whimper with pity--and the child's grandmother went home and wrote an angry letter to the newspaper saying, not that the sick animal needed privacy or euthanasia (it needed both), but that the park rangers shouldn't allow the sight of a sick animal to "upset" children.
I've wondered, whenever I've remembered that letter, whether by now this grandmother's grandchildren have locked the door and scuttled away from the house where the grandmother was lying at the foot of the stairs. "Ewww, Grandma's not looking good! Ooohhh, scary!"
In years long gone by, Virginia employed a man to remove roadkill from beside roads before it stank, bred flies, and spread diseases. Now people have to do that for themselves. Often they don't. On a road inside the city limits a big female possum was hit by a car and killed. The original accident was a clean blow to the head, but as other vehicles have encountered the deceased possum it's become obvious that she was female and well along in pregnancy. (Possums move and think slowly; it's possible that this one was killed while trying to make up her mind whether she had time to cross the road before giving birth.) I suppose some people think the sight of a slowly drying-out possum placenta full of near-birth fetal possums is "scary" or "unlucky" too. I think it's sad, pitiful...not "scary."
Other living things' injuries and illnesses shouldn't be "scary." I am intimidated by contagious illnesses, but at least I recognize that as a weakness.
One thing that used to give me trouble, when I was actively using my CGNA and CMT certifications, was the idea of patients with AIDS. The official policy is that health care professionals should see them. In real life I'm pretty sure I did see some patients who were HIV-positive, because the incidence of the disease was very high in Washington. In real life, if a person had told me "I am HIV-positive"...it's not that I imagine the virus is airborne, or makes people rabid, or is even necessarily the consequence of bad behavior (although that is the most common means of infection). It's that all healthy people are walking cultures of virus, bacteria, and fungi that don't make us sick but may kill people with AIDS. As a CGNA you have to expect that most of your patients aren't going to be able to give you references, but dash it, I hate losing patients before they're ninety years old. I would not have wanted to do even auric massage--the kind where you never actually touch the patient, but just hold your hand close enough to feel each other's body heat, which is soothing and distracting when patients are very ill--for someone who I knew had AIDS.
So if I'm intimidated by AIDS, why shouldn't other people be intimidated by a toy's broken legs or an animal's blood or a relative's cardiac disease? Right. If they are, they are, and they have to begin where they are. But if what you feel about other living things' weakness or suffering or injury is "Ooohhh, me me me me ME, I'm SCARED," instead of "How can I help them?", I do think that's a weakness, and an unattractive one too.
The object is a wooden horse. I don't know when or where it was made--possibly by hand. It's unpainted, naturally a chocolatey shade of brown, a hard smooth glossy wood that didn't splinter even when broken. The horse was meant to be a wild male, rearing and threatening to bite. You could see him as looking for a fight, or as warning intruders away from his family. At some point in the horse's career all of his legs snapped off. His teeth are still bared, his face still snarling. He was like that in the 1970s when my brother found him in a charity bazaar in Florida and added him to our horse collection.
Later, after noticing that we hadn't actually played with our model horses for a few years, my brother built a good-sized display shelf for the collection. Our best-looking, least play-damaged specimens, and also our loved-all-to-pieces ones, barely fitted onto that shelf. A few surplus animals were left over for our sister and young cousins to play with. Going by the lack of further damage to the wooden horse I'm guessing nobody ever played with him much.
He is an unfriendly-looking, to my eyes ugly, model animal, but he could be cast as the guardian of a herd if a child plays with horses. So I took him to market to see if any horse-struck child wanted him.
So far they haven't.
I'm not surprised. Kids don't seem to collect model animals the way they used to. Adults buy stuffed model animals as pillow substitutes, but model horses in the toy stores have morphed into dreadful cartoonish things my brother and I wouldn't have added to our herd.
People have said, "With the broken legs?"
Well, hello...children's dolls and toy animal often lose legs. What children do, as I recall vividly, is pretend they still have their legs. You're already pretending this wooden or plastic or glass or stuffed-fabric object can run, jump, pose, have adventures, so pretending its legs aren't broken isn't much more of a stretch for your imagination.
What older artists and artisans do, if they prefer, is incorporate broken toys into scenes where the broken ends are either covered or part of the composition. A horse with broken legs and a stressed-out face might be swimming, for example.
But someone said, "With the broken legs, it's sort of scary!" and that blew my mind.
It reminded me of the summer, a few years ago, when the wolves at the Bays Mountain Park became ill. These wolves weren't pets, but they were accustomed to humans and looked as friendly as big dogs to child visitors. Then one day it became obvious that one of them was sick, and a visiting child started to whimper with pity--and the child's grandmother went home and wrote an angry letter to the newspaper saying, not that the sick animal needed privacy or euthanasia (it needed both), but that the park rangers shouldn't allow the sight of a sick animal to "upset" children.
I've wondered, whenever I've remembered that letter, whether by now this grandmother's grandchildren have locked the door and scuttled away from the house where the grandmother was lying at the foot of the stairs. "Ewww, Grandma's not looking good! Ooohhh, scary!"
In years long gone by, Virginia employed a man to remove roadkill from beside roads before it stank, bred flies, and spread diseases. Now people have to do that for themselves. Often they don't. On a road inside the city limits a big female possum was hit by a car and killed. The original accident was a clean blow to the head, but as other vehicles have encountered the deceased possum it's become obvious that she was female and well along in pregnancy. (Possums move and think slowly; it's possible that this one was killed while trying to make up her mind whether she had time to cross the road before giving birth.) I suppose some people think the sight of a slowly drying-out possum placenta full of near-birth fetal possums is "scary" or "unlucky" too. I think it's sad, pitiful...not "scary."
Other living things' injuries and illnesses shouldn't be "scary." I am intimidated by contagious illnesses, but at least I recognize that as a weakness.
One thing that used to give me trouble, when I was actively using my CGNA and CMT certifications, was the idea of patients with AIDS. The official policy is that health care professionals should see them. In real life I'm pretty sure I did see some patients who were HIV-positive, because the incidence of the disease was very high in Washington. In real life, if a person had told me "I am HIV-positive"...it's not that I imagine the virus is airborne, or makes people rabid, or is even necessarily the consequence of bad behavior (although that is the most common means of infection). It's that all healthy people are walking cultures of virus, bacteria, and fungi that don't make us sick but may kill people with AIDS. As a CGNA you have to expect that most of your patients aren't going to be able to give you references, but dash it, I hate losing patients before they're ninety years old. I would not have wanted to do even auric massage--the kind where you never actually touch the patient, but just hold your hand close enough to feel each other's body heat, which is soothing and distracting when patients are very ill--for someone who I knew had AIDS.
So if I'm intimidated by AIDS, why shouldn't other people be intimidated by a toy's broken legs or an animal's blood or a relative's cardiac disease? Right. If they are, they are, and they have to begin where they are. But if what you feel about other living things' weakness or suffering or injury is "Ooohhh, me me me me ME, I'm SCARED," instead of "How can I help them?", I do think that's a weakness, and an unattractive one too.
Morgan Griffith on Veterans Day
From U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith, R-VA-9, tastefully not mentioning the way many veterans prefer to celebrate this Monday...
"
Friday, November 8, 2019 –
November 11: 1919 and 2019
Monday, November 11, 2019, is Veterans Day.
One hundred and one years ago, on November 11, 1918, the guns of World War I fell silent.
One hundred years ago, November 11, 1919, was a day for remembering.
President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation commemorating November 11 as Armistice Day. He wrote: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory.”
Across the country, parades and public meetings were convened, and business was suspended for two minutes at 11am, the time the armistice had gone into effect the previous year.
In Richmond, churches held services of thanksgiving in the morning. That afternoon, Corporal Joseph Allen, a Virginia soldier who had earned the Distinguished Service Medal and the French Croix de Guerre, presented a memorial flag to Governor Westmoreland Davis in the hall of the House of Delegates. A representative of the French ambassador also presented his country’s flag to Governor Davis as a symbol of the alliance between our nations. A parade of war workers was postponed, however, due to rain.
In Roanoke, a crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 came out despite the rain to celebrate the armistice, according to the World News. Veterans of the World War marched by, as did representatives of the Red Cross, YMCA, Salvation Army, and Boy Scouts. Automobiles carried veterans of the Civil War.
Following the parade, a program featuring an address by Colonel Robert E. Lee, Jr., a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates and grandson of the Confederate general, songs, flag presentations, and 30 seconds of silence took place.
The World News also reported that the day passed quietly in Bristol, with banks closed all day and other businesses shuttered between 11am and noon. A service was held at the YMCA, and students were dismissed from school after a morning memorial.
Martinsville’s Armistice Day experience was similar, and some people reportedly traveled to Roanoke and Richmond to celebrate the day.
At Big Stone Gap High School, students gathered in the chapel at 11am to commemorate the armistice. The Big Stone Gap Post reported on the service, “The program which the State YMCA issued was carried out very successfully. Rev. C. W. Dean gave a splendid talk.”
The Clinch Valley News noted the occasion, “a day and an event we could not forget if we would, and would not if we could.” It also reported the word out of Pounding Mill: “Today passed by quietly, many praising God for the peace anniversary.”
Although we know November 11 now as Veterans Day, we should approach it in the same spirit as that first Armistice Day 100 years ago – as a day for gratitude to all who served our country in uniform.
The last American veteran of World War I died in 2011, and the ranks of World War II veterans are thinning rapidly. It was my honor to be with some of them this year in Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day and to pay tribute to them at the site of their great deeds.
But one does not have to go to Europe to honor our veterans, from those remaining who served in World War II to the men and women who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many communities have their services to mark the day, often gathered around a town’s monument to veterans. I have been able to participate in numerous such tributes throughout the Ninth District during my time in office. Attending one of them is a simple but meaningful way to show our gratitude for those who served.
On that first Armistice Day in 1919, Americans set aside time to honor our country’s warriors, whether enthusiastically taking in a parade as in Roanoke, attending a service as in Bristol, or praising God quietly as in Pounding Mill. On Veterans Day 2019, let us do the same.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405, my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671, or my Washington office at 202-225-3861. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. Also, on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"
"
Friday, November 8, 2019 –
November 11: 1919 and 2019
Monday, November 11, 2019, is Veterans Day.
One hundred and one years ago, on November 11, 1918, the guns of World War I fell silent.
One hundred years ago, November 11, 1919, was a day for remembering.
President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation commemorating November 11 as Armistice Day. He wrote: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory.”
Across the country, parades and public meetings were convened, and business was suspended for two minutes at 11am, the time the armistice had gone into effect the previous year.
In Richmond, churches held services of thanksgiving in the morning. That afternoon, Corporal Joseph Allen, a Virginia soldier who had earned the Distinguished Service Medal and the French Croix de Guerre, presented a memorial flag to Governor Westmoreland Davis in the hall of the House of Delegates. A representative of the French ambassador also presented his country’s flag to Governor Davis as a symbol of the alliance between our nations. A parade of war workers was postponed, however, due to rain.
In Roanoke, a crowd of 20,000 to 30,000 came out despite the rain to celebrate the armistice, according to the World News. Veterans of the World War marched by, as did representatives of the Red Cross, YMCA, Salvation Army, and Boy Scouts. Automobiles carried veterans of the Civil War.
Following the parade, a program featuring an address by Colonel Robert E. Lee, Jr., a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates and grandson of the Confederate general, songs, flag presentations, and 30 seconds of silence took place.
The World News also reported that the day passed quietly in Bristol, with banks closed all day and other businesses shuttered between 11am and noon. A service was held at the YMCA, and students were dismissed from school after a morning memorial.
Martinsville’s Armistice Day experience was similar, and some people reportedly traveled to Roanoke and Richmond to celebrate the day.
At Big Stone Gap High School, students gathered in the chapel at 11am to commemorate the armistice. The Big Stone Gap Post reported on the service, “The program which the State YMCA issued was carried out very successfully. Rev. C. W. Dean gave a splendid talk.”
The Clinch Valley News noted the occasion, “a day and an event we could not forget if we would, and would not if we could.” It also reported the word out of Pounding Mill: “Today passed by quietly, many praising God for the peace anniversary.”
Although we know November 11 now as Veterans Day, we should approach it in the same spirit as that first Armistice Day 100 years ago – as a day for gratitude to all who served our country in uniform.
The last American veteran of World War I died in 2011, and the ranks of World War II veterans are thinning rapidly. It was my honor to be with some of them this year in Normandy for the 75th anniversary of D-Day and to pay tribute to them at the site of their great deeds.
But one does not have to go to Europe to honor our veterans, from those remaining who served in World War II to the men and women who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many communities have their services to mark the day, often gathered around a town’s monument to veterans. I have been able to participate in numerous such tributes throughout the Ninth District during my time in office. Attending one of them is a simple but meaningful way to show our gratitude for those who served.
On that first Armistice Day in 1919, Americans set aside time to honor our country’s warriors, whether enthusiastically taking in a parade as in Roanoke, attending a service as in Bristol, or praising God quietly as in Pounding Mill. On Veterans Day 2019, let us do the same.
If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405, my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671, or my Washington office at 202-225-3861. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov. Also, on my website is the latest material from my office, including information on votes recently taken on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Tortie Tuesday: Autumn Weather at Last
Serena is not the sort of cat who sits around "dictating" Tortie Tuesday posts.
There aren't a lot of snapshots of Serena because she thinks there ought to be more entertaining things to do with cell phones than snap digital photos with them. Like playing soccer with them, probably with points for guessing how many kicks it takes to lose the battery cover in the hedge.
PK (nonverbally, by sitting on the steps to admire the cats): Serena, have you any thoughts to share with your fans all over the English-speaking world, and scattered through the non-English-speaking world, today?
Serena (nonverbally, by bounding down across the road): Thoughts? What's that? It's a wonderful day. That thing on the shady wall may say that Sunday and Monday were even colder than Friday and Saturday, but as any active healthy living thing knows, they were much more enjoyable. Our metabolisms kicked into gear and the chilly temperatures, cold enough to freeze water at night, didn't feel nearly so bad any more. Watch the kittens, will you, while I go after some fresh water that didn't freeze.
Silver: All the dead leaves are fun to chase!
Swimmer: Chase me!
Samantha: As Queen Serena's mother and secretary, on behalf of all of us cats, I thank the friends who sent us that name-brand Purina kibble instead of the usual store-brand analogue. It was much fresher and oilier. The humans said we were acting crazy and stupid about it, but how else are we to show that this was excellent kibble and we want more of it in the future?
Serena: Well I'm back. I think the humans are feeling a little better for this cooler weather, too.
PK: Not so much the weather, I think, as the fact that less poison is being sprayed on the land. The reactions we've been having, which have flared up each time we've been exposed to glyphosate vapors or residues in food, are starting to subside.
There aren't a lot of snapshots of Serena because she thinks there ought to be more entertaining things to do with cell phones than snap digital photos with them. Like playing soccer with them, probably with points for guessing how many kicks it takes to lose the battery cover in the hedge.
PK (nonverbally, by sitting on the steps to admire the cats): Serena, have you any thoughts to share with your fans all over the English-speaking world, and scattered through the non-English-speaking world, today?
Serena (nonverbally, by bounding down across the road): Thoughts? What's that? It's a wonderful day. That thing on the shady wall may say that Sunday and Monday were even colder than Friday and Saturday, but as any active healthy living thing knows, they were much more enjoyable. Our metabolisms kicked into gear and the chilly temperatures, cold enough to freeze water at night, didn't feel nearly so bad any more. Watch the kittens, will you, while I go after some fresh water that didn't freeze.
Silver: All the dead leaves are fun to chase!
Swimmer: Chase me!
Samantha: As Queen Serena's mother and secretary, on behalf of all of us cats, I thank the friends who sent us that name-brand Purina kibble instead of the usual store-brand analogue. It was much fresher and oilier. The humans said we were acting crazy and stupid about it, but how else are we to show that this was excellent kibble and we want more of it in the future?
Serena: Well I'm back. I think the humans are feeling a little better for this cooler weather, too.
PK: Not so much the weather, I think, as the fact that less poison is being sprayed on the land. The reactions we've been having, which have flared up each time we've been exposed to glyphosate vapors or residues in food, are starting to subside.
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