Vivid imagination at the Anti-Defamation League

Students of history will notice inaccuracies in this video right away.

They are dreams, an imagining of the great “if only.”

Santayana’s Ghost looks on, hoping we’ll get the message, remember history, and act accordingly.

“Imagine a World Without Hate,” from the ADL.

Join ADL in our Centennial Year as we Imagine a World Without Hate™, one where the hate crimes against Martin Luther King, Anne Frank, Matthew Shepard and others did not take place. Support us in the fight against bigotry and extremism by sharing this inspirational video and taking the pledge to create a world without hate at http://www.adl.org/imagine.

Imagine a World Without Hate™. We Do. Join Us.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pat Carrithers and Upworthy.  Pat writes in to remind us of the great John Greenleaf Whittier poem, “Maud Muller”:

“For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”

More:

• ADL Launches Major Centennial Year Public Awareness Campaign (publicisworldwide.wordpress.com)
• Me at the Anti-Defamation League’s Brodsky Conference (clrforum.org)
• ADL applauds choice of new pope (sott.net)
• The Anti-Defamation League Would Like You To Stop Comparing Gun Control To Hitler (mediaite.com)
• For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.” (philosiblog.com)
• Powerful Anti-Defamation League Video: ‘Imagine’ a World Without Hate (mediabistro.com)

American poet John Greenleaf Whittier’s study at his home in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Scanned from The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier: illustrated with steel portraits and photogravures by John Greenleaf Whittier, edited by Elizabeth Hussey Whittier. Published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892. Item notes: v. 7 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Encore haunting by Santayana’s Ghost: FDR warns about Republican hypocrisy and sarcasm, from 1936

A haunting by Santayana‘s Ghost, on Social Security, unemployment insurance, job training, job creation and budget deficits:

Our friend SBH pointed us to the text of the speech.  FDR addressed the New York State Democratic Convention, in Syracuse, on September 29, 1936  (Can you imagine — does any state have such thing still –  state party conventions so late in the year, today?).  He found it at UC-Santa Barbara‘s American Presidency Project website.  Here’s the text of the excerpt above, plus a little:

In New York and in Washington, Government which has rendered more than lip service to our Constitutional Democracy has done a work for the protection and preservation of our institutions that could not have been accomplished by repression and force.

Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them — we will do more of them, we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity—twelve long years of it.

Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.

Read more at the American Presidency Project: Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address at the Democratic State Convention, Syracuse, N.Y. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15142&st=Roosevelt&st1#ixzz1T2VHx1tx

More:

• Are You Better Off: Obama vs. FDR (esquire.com)
• FDR Accepts The Nomination – 1932 Democratic Convention – Past Daily Reference Room (pastdaily.com)
• Celebrate Social Security “birthday,” August 14, 2012 at FDR Library (timpanogos.wordpress.com)

Social Security Poster: old man (Photo from the Social Security Board, via Wikipedia)

This is mostly an encore post.

Mermelstein: The man who forced us to remember

I first posted a version of this back in August 2006.  Since that time not much showed up on the internet to commemorate the story of Mel Mermelstein, nor to burn his deeds into the history books.  Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub had many fewer readers each day, then too.  This is a story that should not be forgotten about a story that must not be forgotten.

Mel Mermelstein, photo from Auschwitz Study Foundation

In early August 1985, Melvin Mermelstein struck a powerful blow against bogus history and historical hoaxes. Mel won a decision in a California court, in a contract case.

A group of Holocaust deniers had offered a $50,000 reward for anyone who could prove that the Holocaust actually happened. Mermelstein had watched his family marched to the gas chambers, and could testify. He offered his evidence. The Holocaust deniers, of course, had no intention of paying up. They dismissed any evidence offered as inadequate, and continued to claim no one could prove that the Holocaust actually occurred.

Mermelstein, however, was a businessman and he knew the law. He knew that the offer of the reward was a sweepstakes, a form of contract. He knew it was a contract enforceable in court.  He sued to collect the offered reward.  The reward was an offer, and Mel Mermelstein accepted the offer and, he said, he performed his part of the bargain. The issue in court would be, was Mermelstein’s evidence sufficient?

Mermelstein’s lawyer had a brilliant idea. He petitioned the court to take “judicial notice” of the fact of the Holocaust. Judicial note means that a fact is so well established that it doesn’t need to be evidenced when it is introduced in court — such as, 2+2=4, the freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, 0 degrees Celsius, etc.

The court ruled that the evidence presented overwhelmingly established that the Holocaust had occurred — the court made judicial note of the Holocaust. That ruling meant that, by operation of law, Mermelstein won the case. The only thing for the judge to do beyond that was award the money, and expenses and damages.

You can read the case and other materials at the Nizkor Holocaust remembrance site.

Appalachian State University takes the Holocaust seriously — there is a program of study on the issue, reported by the Mountain Times (the school is in Boone, North Carolina — not sure where the newspaper is).

Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations

Mountain Times, August 17, 2006

As co-directors of Appalachian State University’s Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Peace Studies, Rennie Brantz and Zohara Boyd are always eager to expand and improve the center’s methods of education. Seldom, though, does this involve airfare.

Brantz and Boyd recently visited Israel to participate in the Fifth International Conference for Education: Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations. The four-day conference was held in late June at Yad Vashem, an institute and museum in Jerusalem that specializes in the Nazi Holocaust. [link added]

“Yad Vashem is an incredible institute,” Brantz said. “It was founded in the ’50s to remember and commemorate those who perished in the Holocaust, and has been the premier international research institute dealing with the Holocaust.”

As Santayana advises, we remember the past in order to prevent its recurring. Clearly, this is a past we need to work harder at remembering.

Despite having been ordered to acknowledge the Holocaust, pay up on their sweepstakes offer, and apologize to Mr. Mermelstein, Holocaust deniers continue to publish claims that Mr. Mermelstein’s account is not accurate, or that it is contradictory or in some other way fails to measure up to the most strict tests of historical accuracy.  So it is important that you remember the story of Mel Mermelstein, and that you spread it far and wide.

More:

• Thomas T. Johnson, the judge who ruled that Holocaust history is a fact, died in late 2011
• Leonard Nimoy played Mermelstein in a television move, “Never Forget”
  
• Dutch Holocaust hero to be honoured in Amsterdam (thejc.com)
• Why Raoul Wallenberg’s centennial matters (timesofisrael.com)
• The man who saved 900 Jewish boys INSIDE a death camp (timesofisrael.com)

Haunted by Santayana’s Ghost: FDR warns about Republican hypocrisy and sarcasm, from 1936

A haunting by Santayana’s Ghost:

Was this a convention speech?  I wonder when and where it was.  Can anyone help?

_____________

Ha!  In comments, SBH points us to the text of the speech.  FDR addressed the New York State Democratic Convention, in Syracuse, on September 29, 1936 (Can you imagine — does any state have such thing still –  state party conventions so late in the year, today?).  He found it at UC-Santa Barbara’s American Presidency Project website.  Here’s the text of the excerpt above, plus a little:

In New York and in Washington, Government which has rendered more than lip service to our Constitutional Democracy has done a work for the protection and preservation of our institutions that could not have been accomplished by repression and force.

Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”

But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity—twelve long years of it.

Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.

Read more at the American Presidency Project: Franklin D. Roosevelt: Address at the Democratic State Convention, Syracuse, N.Y. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15142&st=Roosevelt&st1#ixzz1T2VHx1tx

Quote of the moment, and Rick Santorum: Langston Hughes, “Let America be America again”

Rick Santorum: Running with . . .

. . . political philosopher, and Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes?

News item: Rick Santorum is running for president. No, seriously — he is. In order to run, a candidate needs a catchy slogan.

Santorum’s campaign announced he is planning to use “Let America be America, again” as his slogan.

It’s a phrase borrowed from Langston Hughes.  One wonders if Rick Santorum reads any poetry, let alone someone from the Harlem Renaissance.

Did Santorum really intend to borrow from Hughes?  Does he think Hughes would approve?

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

Full text of the poem here, at the American Academy of Poets.

No, it appears Santorum did not wish to affiliate with Langston Hughes. One more reason to vote against Santorum, as if anyone needed more.  Santorum even admits not being much of a poetry fan.

How about this for a Santorum slogan:  “All santorum, no guts or brains.”

Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Republican policy: Forward to the Gilded Age

Cover of "The Gilded Age," a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner published in 1873. Image courtesy of the Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira College.

You know why it was called the Gilded Age, right?

Santayana’s Ghost keeps telling me the Republicans don’t know why.  Republicans as a rule do not read Mark Twain, so it’s a cinch they’ve never read Mark Twain plus Charles Dudley Warner.

Mark Twain, who wrote the novel, The Gilded Age, with Charles Dudley Warner. Twain wrote of the Republican Manifesto earlier: "What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In what way? -- dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must." Image from Mark Twain House, Hartford, Connecticut, via PBS

Still, don’t you recall with some fondness the Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford years, when Republicans at least pretended not to be grand misanthropes?  Do you remember that?  Nixon tried to make nicey-nice with conservationists and environmentalists, expanding the National Parks and creating the Environmental Protection Agency (fitting, since the environmental movement had been born among and from wealthy  and smart Republicans); even after killing the air traffic controllers union, Ronald Reagan enjoyed easy camradary with Teamsters, and to some degree, even with the heads of the AFL-CIO.    Reagan encouraged and signed a jobs training bill, and signed our first home health care law, making it possible for people to go home to die, where they ironically lived much longer than in hospitals, but at much reduced cost to Medicare.

Forget those days.  Forget that human compassion.  Today’s conservatives don’t have time for the wimpiness of Ronald Reagan.

Did you see the full list of proposed agency cuts the Republicans tried to pin on the 2011 appropriations bill, H.R. 1?

Here’s the entire list, from OMB Watch:  OMB_Watch-HR1_Policy_Riders (April 7, 2011).  I’m sure OMB Watch  has a bias, but the descriptions of the cuts are so balanced and neutral that they may hide some of the more unscrupulous, Scroogey actions.

In consumer protection, for example, Republicans inexplicably oppose the creation of watchdogs to prevent another housing bubble — are Republicans protecting criminals here?

Prohibits the Federal Reserve from transferring more than $80 million to the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, Sec. 1517
Prohibits funds for a government sponsored “consumer products complaints database,” Sec. 4046.

No one to prevent new crimes, and no collecting of information to warn consumers of dangerous products.  Wonderful.

Prohibits funds to take any action to effect or implement the disestablishment, closure or realignment of the US Joint Forces Command.  Sec. 4020

No, no, don’t want the Pentagon to save money — heaven knows, wasting money at the Pentagon is flag-waving patriotism — so let’s ban the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, from making changes that save money.  It’s in the Bible that this must be done, I’m sure.

Prohibits funds for implementing a provision specific to the State of Texas in the “Education Job Fund.”  Sec. 4051

After claiming he wouldn’t accept “bailouts” from the federal government, Texas Gov. Rick Perry accepted money from Congress to prevent the loss of teaching jobs — but then threw the money into a different pot, so teachers were not protected.  U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, amended the last appropriation bill to say that Texas can’t take money from the teachers — but the Republicans want to allow Perry to take the money, and keep it from the teachers, again.  It’s the old playground game where the big kids play keep away from a little kid.  It’s vicious, of course, and should be criminal — but the older kids have a lot of fun.

Prohibits funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program or the State Energy Program.  Sec. 1434

Let the poor people freeze in the dark — they all vote Democratic, anyway.  But wait!  Tea Partiers, fresh from the Mad Hatter’s, say that global warming will take care of the poor people!   No need for weatherization.

Prohibits funding for various environmental projects in California.  Sec. 1475
Prohibits funding for a climate change czar in the White House.  Sec. 1535
Prohibits funding for EPA efforts to regulate greenhouse gases.  Sec. 1746

Oh, well, maybe there isn’t any global warming.  Yeah, this is contrary to what the Republicans said about warming keeping the poor from needing weatherization — but they’re just poor people, the Republicans say.  Let ‘em get a job!  (Where?  Not the problem of Republicans; Republicans identified that the poor need to get a job, and that should be the limit of federal action . . .).

This morning on CBS, New York Sen. Charles Schumer said he would not list cuts until he sees a final copy of the bill.  Probably wise — but it’s also almost a cinch that almost all of the cuts will be mean-spirited, worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge before his conversion, and damaging to the U.S. people and the U.S. economy.

What in the hell is going on in Washington?

Tip of the old scrub brush to Jean Detjen, protecting the nation from being over-run by Canadians up there in the north, in Wisconsin.

Ironic anniversary: Marshall Plan, April 3, 1948

Texas Republicans rammed through their radical budget cut program on April 3, 2011 — ironically on the anniversary of another legislative decision made in the depths of deficit spending.

Caption from Library of Congress: "Surrounded by members of Congress and his cabinet, on April 3, 1948, President Harry S Truman (1884-1972) signed the Foreign Assistance Act, the legislation establishing the Marshall Plan. His official statement said, "Few presidents have had the opportunity to sign legislation of such importance. . . . This measure is America's answer to the challenge facing the free world today." The Marshall Plan was a bipartisan effort--proposed by a Democratic president and enacted into law by a Republican Congress in a hotly contested presidential election year. The plan's supporters shown in the photograph are (l-r) Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R--Mich.), Treasury Secretary John Snyder, Representative Charles Eaton (R--N.J.), Senator Tom Connally (D--Tex.), Secretary of the Interior Julius A. Krug, Representative Joseph Martin (R--Mass.), Representative Sol Bloom (D--N.Y.),and Attorney General Tom Clark." Copyprint from The Marshall Plan at the Mid-Mark. Averell Harriman Papers, Manuscript Division

April 3 is the traditional anniversary of the Marshall Plan.  From the U.S. Census Bureau:

SUNDAY, APRIL 3: MARSHALL PLAN

Profile America — Sunday, April 3rd.  One of the major programs that helped to shape history after World War II was signed into law on this date in 1948.  The European Recovery Program — far better known as the Marshall Plan, was suggested a year earlier by Secretary of State George Marshall. It had become clear that the economies of the nations battered by the war were not recovering on their own, and millions of people were not only jobless, but were also going hungry.  The Marshall Plan lasted for four years, distributing some 130 billion in today’s dollars, and helped many nations on the road to recovery.  Recently, the U.S. has given nearly $34 billion a year in economic aid and some $15.5 billion in military aid to countries around the world.  Profile America is in its 14th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sources:  Chase’s Calendar of Events 2011, p. 204

Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011, t. 1298

Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on a monthly CD or on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for “Multimedia Gallery” by the “Newsroom” button).

SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/02/3523990/us-census-bureau-daily-feature.html#ixzz1IY7ec6mu

On that date in 1948, the U.S. faced the greatest deficits the nation had ever seen, leftover from World War II. Faced with the choice of deeper deficits or no Marshall Plan, Members of Congress chose to borrow the money to rebuild nations hammered by the war,  including our enemies, Germany, Italy and Japan.

What would have happened had the U.S. said “we can’t afford a Marshall Plan?”  Santayana’s Ghost shakes his head.  The U.S. would not have had the aid of growing, free-market economics in France, Germany, Italy, England and Japan, during the Cold War.  Advantages would have been conceded to the Soviet Union and communism, worldwide.

Notice the photograph includes Republicans and Democrats.

What are Texas and U.S. legislators thinking these days?

Resources:

• Library of Congress Information Bulletin for the 50th Anniversary of the Marshall Plan, featuring cartoons and photographs; Online exhibit (more explanation, better graphics)
  

Boston Tea Party: An anti-corporation protest?

Thom Hartmann said so.  In Hartmann’s reading, the 1773 Boston Tea Party was as much a protest against corporate oligarchy as a protest against government — quite the opposite of the way most Neo Tea Partiers see things.   Is he right?  Historians, what say you?

Hartmann relies on his copy of George R. T. Hewes’ book, A retrospect of the Boston tea-party, with a memoir of George R. T. Hewes, a survivor of the little band of patriots who drowned the tea in Boston harbour in 1773 (1834). Are you familiar with the book?

George Robert Twelves Hewes in 1835 at age 93, a veteran of the 1773 Boston Tea Party. Painting by Joseph G. Cole. CUNY image

More, and resources:

• George R. T. Hewes’ Retrospective in various formats for free download at archive.com
• J. L. Bell, of course, wrote about Hewes at his grand history blog, Boston 1775. (Here’s a sample post.)  History teachers, if you don’t have Boston 1775 bookmarked, you’re not doing your internet job

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Who said that?

When I wrote about George Santayana’s observation that, “Only the dead have seen the end of war,” I didn’t realize it was a quote with controversy over the attribution.

He said it: Spanish-American philosopher and writer George Santayana, early in his career (Photo: Wikipedia)

Ridley Scott‘s outstanding 2001 movie, “Blackhawk Down,” opened with the quote, but attributing it to Plato, according to Plato expert Bernard Suzanne in Paris.  One philosopher is as good as another, you might say, so it’s understandable that a good line from a modern philosopher like Santayana might be attributed to one of the most famous philosophers of all time (“they all look alike,” I hear someone saying).  Or, the cynics might say, perhaps Santayana lifted it from Plato — after all, who but another philosopher would actually read the stuff?  Who would know?

Suzanne’s sleuthing is impressive if only because it shows the murkiness of the issue.  According to Suzanne:

• The quote is popular among American soldiers (ask one — report back in comments).
• Michael Takiff found it attributed to Plato by a U.S. soldier in Vietnam, writing home, in a book published in 2003.
• No one has found it in any of Plato’s dialogues — at least, no one Suzanne can find.
• Gen. Douglas MacArthur used the quote in a farewell address to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in 1962, attributing it to Plato.  That would be a likely source of its popularity among U.S. soldiers.
• The Imperial War Museum, in London, has the quote engraved on its walls, attributed to Plato.  The museum opened in 1936.  Santayana’s version was published in 1922.

Who put it on the wall of the Imperial War Museum, and why did they misattribute it, just a dozen years after Santayana wrote it?

More:

• A discharged U.S. soldier, Chuck Luther of Killeen, Texas,  has the quote tattooed on his arm, as from Plato — AP photo
• Graffiti after Banksy, in Los Angeles, California
• Get it on a coffee mug — misattributed to Plato

Quote from George Santayana misattributed to Plato, on a coffee mug from Zazzle

The future: Promise, or threat?

Rather sweeping changes coming in Advanced Placement courses — World History, German and French for the coming year, Spanish and Latin for 2012-13, and probably Biology.  Changes for U.S. History (APUSH) got delayed however.

At AP’s website where teachers can look at the proposed changes, three quotes alternate on the first page, including one from our resident ghost, George Santayana:

We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past.

Promise?  Threat?  Meant to cheer, or strike fear and doubt?

Or is it  just a good line from Santayana in an ambiguous situation?

(You’ll find the quote here:  The Philosophy of George Santayana, Northwestern University Press, 1940, p. 560)

Santayana’s Ghost

George Santayana

George Santayana was a Spanish-born (Madrid, December 16, 1863), American-educated philosopher who practiced education at Harvard University (died September 26, 1952, in Rome).  In an almost-off-hand comment in a book, he wrote the statement which is this blog’s unofficial motto:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

(The Life of Reason, vol. 1: Reason in Common Sense)

Who or what is Santayana’s Ghost?  It’s the shade of Santayana, watching us, watching those condemned to repeat history as they repeat the bad parts over and over.  The shade smiles when a student learns a valuable lesson from history, and laughs with delight when those lessons find application to prevent further tragedies that could so easily be prevented, if policy makers only made the effort to avoid the errors of the past.

Why does the ghost haunt us?  Because he knows, as Santayana also wrote, “only the dead have seen the end of war.” (Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, number 25 (1922))

“WTF?” Palin completely misunderstands what “Sputnik Moment” means

“WTF?” Palin completely misunderstands what “S…, posted with vodpod

Some bloggers have sworn off comments on Sarah Palin. Good on them.

This fruit is too low-hanging.

Palin doesn’t appear to have a clue about what the phrase “Sputnik moment” refers to — and mistakes it with the much later financial difficulties of the Soviet Union.  You’d think, since she was so close to the U.S.S.R. in Alaska, she’d know something about Sputnik.

And what’s with the “WTF” on television?  Has she no composure, no decency?

Here, Sarah; a primer:

Sputnik was the first artificial satellite launched from Earth, in October 1957.  (Palin wasn’t born for another seven years . . . arguments about teaching history, anyone?)

Please note that the launch of the satellite scared the bejeebers out of Americans.  Most people thought — without knowing anything about how heavy a nuclear device might be, nor how hard it might be to target one — that if the Russians could orbit a satellite the size of a beach ball, they could certainly launch missiles with nuclear warheads to rain down on America.  Maybe, some thought, Russians had already orbited such nukes, which could just fall from space without warning.

That was the spooky, red scary part.  Then there was the kick-American-science-in-the-pants part.  A lot of policy makers asked how the Russians could surpass the U.S. in the race for space (wholly apart from the imported German rocket scientists used by both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.).  Looking around, they found science and technology education in America sadly lacking.  Congress passed a law that called science education necessary for our defense, and appropriated money to help boost science education — the National Defense Education Act.

The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.

(See the Wikipedia entry on NDEA, too.)

The National Science Foundation (NSF) history points to the genuine advances in science the Soviets had made, and the need for the U.S. to quickly catch up:

Sputnik once again elevated the word “competition” in the language of government officials and the American public. Sputnik threatened the American national interest even more than the Soviet Union’s breaking of America’s atomic monopoly in 1949; indeed it rocked the very defense of the United States because Russia’s ability to place a satellite into orbit meant that it could build rockets powerful enough to propel hydrogen bomb warheads atop intercontinental ballistic missiles.  Perhaps more importantly, however, Sputnik forced a national self-appraisal that questioned American education, scientific, technical and industrial strength, and even the moral fiber of the nation. What had gone wrong, questioned the pundits as well as the man in the street. They saw the nation’s tradition of being “Number One” facing its toughest competition, particularly in the areas of science and technology and in science education.

With its ties to the nation’s research universities, the Foundation of course became a key player in the unfolding events during this trying time. An indication is shown by the large increase in Foundation monies for programs already in place and for new programs. In fiscal year 1958, the year before Sputnik, the Foundation’s appropriation had leveled at $40 million. In fiscal 1959, it more than tripled at $134 million, and by 1968 the Foundation budget stood at nearly $500 million. Highlights of this phase of the agency’s history cannot be told in a vacuum, however, but must be placed within the broad context of American political happenings.

The Congress reacted to Sputnik with important pieces of legislation and an internal reorganization of its own committees. Taken together, the action announced that America would meet the Soviet competition.  The National Aeronautics and Space Act, more than any other post-Sputnik law, had great impact on increasing federal funding of scientific research and development. Signed by the president in July 1958, the law created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and gave it responsibility for the technological advancement of the space program. NASA became a major contracting agency and boosted tremendously the extra mural research support of the federal government. NASA not only symbolized America’s response to the Soviet challenge, but also dramatized the federal role in support of science and technology.

Among other things, the National Science Foundation looked at science textbooks used in elementary and secondary schools, and found them badly outdated.  NSF and other organizations spurred the development of new, up-to-date books, and tougher academic curricula in all sciences.

So, when President Obama refers to a “Sputnik moment,” he isn’t referring to a foolish expenditure of money for space junk that bankrupts the nation.  He’s referring to that time in 1957 when America woke up to the fact that education is important to defense, and to preparing for the future, and did a lot about improving education.  Between the G.I. Bill’s education benefits and the NDEA, the U.S. became the world’s leader in science and technology for the latter half of the 20th century.

But we’ve coasted on that 1958 law for too long.  Now we are being lapped by others — India, China, France, Japan, and others — and it’s time to spur progress in education again, to spur progress and great leaps in science.

One gets the impression Palin does not think much of science, nor education, nor especially science education.  She could use some lessons in history, too.  Sputnik didn’t bankrupt the Soviet Union.  Ignoring Sputnik might have bankrupted the U.S.

Santayana’s Ghost is shaking his head in sad disbelief.  And he has a question for Sarah Palin:  Santayana’s Ghost wants to know from Ms. Palin, can the U.S. compete with the Russians?

Tip of the old scrub brush to P. Z. Myers and Pharyngula, and another shake to DailyKos.

More, resources:

• Here’s a history of the National Science Foundation (NSF) — notice the chapter on Sputnik, “From Sputnik through the Golden Age, 1957-1968″ — there may be a reason that the Golden Age ended with the election of Richard Nixon and a Republican administration opposed to Lyndon Johnson’s education and science boosterism
  

Secession? Matthews sounds off, appropriately

All that talk about secession, and nullification, and states’ rights? Matthews calls it for what it is.

Maybe we should say he calls it out for what it is.

Secession? Matthews sounds off, appropriately, posted with vodpod

It’s time to stop the talk of tearing our nation apart. If you’ve been talking this smack, stop it.

Santayana’s Ghost keeps a wary eye on all such discussion.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Mike Heath sitting in for Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

Truth in a fair fight: Eli Rabett explains Gates Foundation’s good work against malaria

Good works are oft’ interred with the bones of the good workers, according to that Brutus Mark Antony guy — and at Watts Up With That, many work to bury any good workers, too.

So, a specially-scrubbed carrot is due Eli Rabett, who details the good works of the Gates Foundation against malaria, just to counteract the clamor of the howling at WUWT.

. . . since this started with an attack on Bill Gates, it is important to understand at least some of the interesting things that the Gates Foundation is doing to help fight malaria.

Among these, Affordable Medicines for Malaria (AMFM), is one of the cleverest, and may even work. The idea is that AMFM will buy ACT (artemisinin combination therapy – something else the Wattoids didn’t know about) drugs directly from the manufacturers in huge amounts at deep discount, and pass the drugs on to the distributors, public health agencies, private wholesale pharmacies, and NGOs at so far below cost that even counterfeit drugs cost more. The private wholesalers can take their profit.

One may hope someone will find the magic bullet to fight malaria.  There’s the Ghost of Santayana pacing the chalkboard again, however:  Our experience shows that magic is not real, no magic bullet has ever existed against malaria, and DDT is not now the magic bullet it never was in the first place.  “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Ghost of Santayana mutters.

A special place in hell is reserved for those who remember the past, but tell false tales about it instead.

Religious nut new on the scene, “explains origins of life”

“Darwinism” is doomed, Perry Marshall says. The entire theory will crumble in 2013 (like the Berlin Wall — may as well start with an offensive comparison to totalitarianism since everyone knows it will get there eventually), if you just suffer through his lessons, send him some money, suspend all logic and reason, send him some money, forget everything you learned in science, and send him a ltittle money.

Plus, he’s figured out how to reconcile Christianity and science. (Call the Templeton Prize committee.)  (No, call James Randi and the FBI fraud squad instead.)  You can take his course at Coffeehouse Theology (no Mormons need apply, but hey, they teach evolution at their colleges, so they can’t be real saints, can they?).

According to Perry Marshall, "Perry Marshall's books on Google AdWords are the most popular in the world." No hyperbole, no ego here.

Did I mention he’s an engineer?

Yes, Spunky, that’s your Hemingway solid-gold S–t Detector™ clanging in your holster, if you’re using the handy, lithium-battery-powered version.  If the rest of the story didn’t set your device off, the lack of an immediate plea for money should have.

Mr. Marshall asks you to turn off your Hemingway, and your mind, relax and float downstream (apologies to the Beatles).  You being a Wise Human, should just reset the device, and go back to ignoring Perry Marshall.

Do you remember when people had to do a lot of dope to get these kinds of hallucinations?  People like Marshall do damage to Carlos Casteneda and famous hoakum.

The only mystery to me is, why is Marshall bursting out on the scene now, with on-line ads that run even next to P. Z. Myers’ blog Pharyngula?  (That’s where I found him; the elves of the internest may give you different ads.)  Marshall appears to be a follower, if not disciple, of Hugh Ross.  Perhaps he’s really prospecting for leads for his business.

Ignorance abounds in the world.  The cure is knowledge and study, not more ignorance and bovine excrement.