Study Reveals Tea Party Priorities
In September 2009, I published "The Joker," highlighting concerns that at least some members of the Tea Party were tapping into a long history of racist iconography--one that can easily be explained...
View Article"Malefactors of Great Wealth"
Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, they spent several weeks exploring Cape Cod. On this day in 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt visited Provincetown, Massachusetts to set the cornerstone of the...
View ArticleMichelle Bachmann, Research Assistant
An article in The Nation today informs me that Republican Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann was a research assistant for John Eidsmoe's work leading to publication of Christianity and the...
View ArticleGeorge Washington, Moses Seixas, "To bigotry no sanction"
[B]ehold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People--a Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance--but generously affording to All liberty of conscience, and...
View ArticleFactory Wages and Stock Value
What would Henry Ford do?Robert Reich poses this question in "Stock Tip: Be Worried. Workers are Consumers."Meanwhile, students in the Freshman seminar at UC Berkeley with Professor J. Bradford DeLong...
View ArticleBen Franklin On Wine
Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy. Attributed to Benjamin Franklin There are plenty of references to beer in Benjamin Franklin's writings and other papers. His wife, Deborah,...
View ArticleConservation Ethos
My Pacific Northwest history class watched Clearcut: The Story of Philomath, Oregon (2005) last night. This film never fails to generate enthusiastic and contentious discussion. The film is ostensibly...
View ArticlePublishers Need to Get Historians Involved
Zachary M. Schrag opines at History News Network: But I am still left with the sense that the Five Ponds textbooks too casually mix history and myth. As I understand the publisher’s response to my...
View ArticleWhy Vietnam? (1965)
Poking around in a sale bin at my neighborhood grocery store, I found a four DVD set of documentaries: Vietnam: America's Conflict (Mill Creek Entertainment, 2009). I suspect that some or all of these...
View ArticleHemingway and the Black Renaissance
Ohio State University Press is bringing out an important new book this spring. From the publisher's website: Hemingway and the Black Renaissance, edited by Gary Edward Holcomb and Charles Scruggs,...
View ArticleObama's Socialism Assessed
Richard Eskow offers a sensible assessment of the alleged socialism of President Obama at AlterNet. Eskow's analysis highlights the failure to comprehend history and economic terminology that is on...
View Article"Mistakes have been made"
President Nixon's Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler, may have been the politician most notable for deploying what has become a clichéd understatement in politics: "mistakes were made." Following the...
View ArticleThe Clean Water Act Turns 40
I highly recommend this Paul Greenberg editorial.The Clean Water Act Turns 40: Is the Law Still Protecting Our Waters? | | AlterNet
View ArticleSunday Morning Whiskey Run
For the first time since before Prohibition, it is legal in Washington state to purchase a bottle of liquor on Sunday. Not only have the blue laws passed into history, the state liquor stores were...
View ArticleChelan County Museum: Cashmere, Washington
A roadside billboard alerted me to the phenomenal archaeology collection at the Chelan County Museum in Cashmere, Washington.* The fishing and hunting implements dating back thousands of years in...
View ArticleSpring Runoff in August?
There is plenty of public discussion concerning global climate change, and yet some historical data does not seem readily accessible. Recently rereading the classic primary text, Adventures of the...
View ArticleHoward Zinn
Today is Howard Zinn's birthday. Were he still alive, he would be 90. Here is a tribute from Democracy Now!
View ArticleVandalizing History
On a walk Friday, I visited Plante's Ferry Park in Spokane Valley, Washington. The park is located where the first "settler"* of present-day Spokane County established his home. Antoine Plante lived in...
View ArticleYoung's Cauldron Redux
In January 2011, I posted "Young's Cauldron." These brief two paragraphs were written in a few minutes during lunch a couple of months earlier, and then a few errors were corrected in the coming weeks....
View ArticlePowerPoint in the College History Classroom
As a student, I railed against textbooks and lectures. I wanted primary sources, strong monographs, discussion and debate. In addition to learning the names and principal achievements of the European...
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