Turkey opens up to WordPress blogs?

Last time we seriously checked in with Jim Gibbon it was for the haiku contest on research papers.

Comes this missive from Gibbon now, which suggests that the Adnan Oktar ban on WordPress blogs in Turkey was lifted as of May 3.  True?  Mr. Gibbon is in Turkey, I gather, which would put him in a position to know.

Was this a predictor of Oktar’s sentencing on May 9?

Hey, Turkey!  Welcome back!

Charles Darwin has a blog!

No kidding.  See it here.  High-end hosts, at Nature.com.

I gather they have wi-fi in the cafe at the museum from which he posts.

Charles Darwin sits congenially in the café of the British Museum.  Does he blog with wi-fi?

In his first post, he complains about the abuse he suffers from Ben Stein’s mockumentary.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula.

Not 1207468165327

The hottest post on WordPress is a non-post at Fallout 3 a Post-Nuclear Blog.  Go figure.

It’s only a number:  1207468165327. 

If you click to the post, you get a note apologizing, but telling you you’re looking for something that isn’t there.

Is P. Z. Myers right, that popularity on a blog generates more popularity?  Or is that number significant to someone, somewhere — to many someones?

A magic code to generate traffic, perhaps?  Ah, the Mysteries of the Intertubes, as Sen. Ted Stevens would say.

 

Headlines to remember

Headlines make the news sing:  In addition to 100,000 serious-minded, seeking education gawkers dropping by, several other blogs linked to the post on the ancient animation.   Far and away the best headline on any of those links:  “So who’s whistlin’ now, Steamboat Willie?”

(What? Who is Steamboat Willie?  Here, it’s history; you can look it up.)

Return to normalcy

For at least one hour this past week, the Bathtub got more than 11,000 hits. Who could have foreseen that a post about an ancient piece of pseudo-animation would catch the fancy of so many? I gather that the word “animation” played a key role in the enormous popularity of the post.

In two days the Bathtub got more than 100,000 hits; that’s big blog territory, about where WordPress phones and suggests it’s time to move to a paid format. The first day was chiefly driven by Reddit; the second day by Digg. At this point traffic is coming from about five different flagging services.

I wish other, more serious posts would merit such attention. In the real world, People magazine sells a lot more than Time, and a lot more than Natural History, and those magazines throw away an equivalent of the entire press run of The Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association just because of a crease in one page. Content quality bears no correlation to total circulation. But that’s my judgment; who can say that my judgment is better than the crowd’s? Santayana’s Ghost is a more amicable companion, but Galton’s Ghost haunts us, too.

So, some observations:

1. Archaeologists and anthropologists need to flack their finds better. The animated .gif was created in 2004 as best I can determine. I picked up the story from a tiny note in a monthly archaeology newsletter Kris Hirst’s blog at from Ask.com, which picked the story up from a note on a piece of controversy about the bowl (regarding whether it was the Assyrian Tree of Life depicted or not). The bowl was found, depending on the source, in the 1970s or 1980s (surely someone knows which date would be correct).

In other words, this “news” has been kicking around for a quarter to a third of a century. What other magnificent archaeological finds would people find fascinating, if they only knew about them?

This is a constant problem. News gatekeepers — editors — generally do a good job, but the volume of news means many things people would find intriguing, get overlooked. Some day I’ll write up my experiences as a press secretary, telling how editors would repeatedly reject tips as “not news,” then run the items months later when the item came in through a different source, or a different route. (”She came in through the bathroom window,” the Beatles sang, and every press secretary understands why; the door and the grand staircase were occupied.)

The problem is compounded by the internet and computers. Most people who looked at the post did not start out the day wondering what had happened recently in archaeological digs in Iran. News reader filters for our “interests” may shut out things we really would be interested to see. I called it “animation,” and 100,000 people crowded to see. There’s nothing like an old fashioned newspaper to pique our interest in odd items we were not looking for at all, on pages where we read other stuff we were looking for.

2. We all need to marry the cyber world to the real world. I still know precious little about the artifact in question. Where can I find information on it? I don’t have access to archaeology journals. Without knowing exactly where to look on the internet, we are all at a loss as to where to turn. What museum is this piece in, if any? (If it’s not in a museum, Iran or its owners could auction it off at a pretty good price right now, I’ll bet.) Who were the Italians who found it? Where can we find the papers describing it? What about the 11-minute film mentioned in the press releases — where is that film, how can we see it? Those people who hold this information appear not to be plumbed into the tubes of the internets, or the spigots are turned off. There is an information vacuum here, and good, real information is difficult to find to fill it.

3. Most of us know precious little about the world; the internet is often limited in the help it can offer to cure our ignorance. Several commenters seemed to have some knowledge about Iran’s archaeological heritage. Most of us had never heard of the Burnt City, most of us still couldn’t find it on a map, and most of us don’t know where to go to get the next chunk of fascinating information. The internet is a great institution, but in these matters, it’s still hit or miss for people who really want to know. We’re missing the boat on using computers and the internet as education tools.

Readers: What else have we learned from this experience?

Carnivals! Beach browsing for spring break

Spring break, lots of work to do (no beaches for me). Have I neglected noting the carnivals? There are a lot of good posts gathered in some of them.

Liberals

Tangled Up in Blue Guy hosts the 60th Carnival of the Liberals. Pay particular attention to Digital Cuttlefish’s little spur-of-the-moment poem on Sally Kern, an Oklahoma state representative who was caught red-eared, on tape, in a bigoted rant. Poetry doesn’t get the respect it deserves; this guy shows real wit in his rhyming.

Prehistory, archaeology

Four Stone Hearth #36 cooks along and warms our brains over at Afarensis. I think every history teacher and every geography teacher should visit this carnival from time to time, to find some of the best new stuff for the early chapters of every history course, the prehistoric human section that is never as good in the class textbook as it is in the journals or in these blogs. Who among us hasn’t had someone ask for the “final, definitive reason” the Neandertals went extinct? Instead of just answering “we don’t know,” you can refer a student to the “mad Neandertal” hypothesis, and ask them to report back on it from A Very Remote Period Indeed). Science, and history, are not settled on these issues — how better to let students see that than to experience some of the discussion? Psychology teachers probably should note this post from Not Exactly Rocket Science, on PET scans of human and chimpanzee brains while the subject is communicating. That’s just two posts in the carnival.

Education

Learn Me Good hosts the 162nd Carnival of Education, the March Mathness Edition. Take a look at Dave on Ed’s post about how school administrators are quick to jump on calling for change to match whatever is the latest fad in education, but slow to provide teachers with the training required to make the changes work. What fad is he talking about? Well, all of them — but you remember the talk a couple of weeks ago about the Finns getting education right? Mom is Teaching has some comments about the Finns beating Americans.

Psychology and neuroscience

I’m watching psychology more closely these days, especially with older son Kenny now working on a neuroscience degree, so I’ve been paying more attention to Encephalon, the carnival on psychology and neurosciences – Encephalon 40 finds a home at Mind Hacks. Hitting almost all my buttons, there is a pointer to a post discussing what is the real history of psychology at Advances in the History of Psychology — what counts as history? Great discussion. Encephalon 41 is due on March 17, at Pure Pedantry.

History

History Carnival 62 has been up for a couple of weeks at Spinning Clio. I just got there a couple of days ago — and you need to go see it, too. The History Guru has a series of podcasts on western civilization, the Western Intellectual History Lecture Series. Can you use this in your classes? Figure out how to use it in your classes. If you’re not making iPod recommendations for your students, you’re missing the boat and so are they. Go check it out at least. Such activities threaten to drag teaching into the last decade of the 20th century. There’s hope we can drag teaching into the 21st century sometime before 2090. The President of France proposes that each 10 year-old child in France memorize the history of one child deported from France during the Holocaust. Good idea or not? See the discussion here (yes, it’s in French; this is the internet, put on your grande fille culottes or pantalons adulte and deal with it). [Why is it that high school history texts never explain the origin of the name of the political movement in Paris, the sans-culottes? How could any kid fail to remember a movement known as "no-pants?" Do the book authors not know that kids would be interested?]

The History Carnival is particularly rich for high school teachers, I think; see these posts:

Over at Progressive Historian, contributor “midtowng” believes that the S&L Crisis is repeating today and compares it to the S&L crisis of the 1980’s .

Jon Swift exclaims Castro Resigns! Sanctions Work!

“It has now been forty years since May ‘68, and yet we still haven’t gotten over it.” Greg Afinogenov looks at why.

Economics

Is the American Economics Blog Carnival the economics carnival I’ve been searching for? Struck in Traffic hosts the March 1 edition. Hmmmm. Not sure.

Okay, enough of the Midways. Where is the Fletcher’s State Fair Corny Dog Shack? (Controversy there, too!)

600,000 visits

Passed it an hour ago. This is what P. Z. Myers gets every day, but it’s new for the Bathtub.

Now, I wonder what has to happen to get some of these visitors to turn the page to some of the more substantive posts?

Tagged by Myers to do history! Meet James Madison

One of those memes. I’ve got a couple of them hanging fire still, I really do badly at this stuff.

So I have to start chipping away at them. Latest first.

P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula tagged me. As he describes it, it’s a meme of history; here’s what I’m to do:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. List 7 random/weird things about your favorite historical figure.
3. Tag seven more people at the end of your blog and link to theirs.
4. Let the person know they have been tagged by leaving a note on their blog.

Okay, #1 is out of the way.

Now the trouble. A favorite “historical” figure? Maybe for Myers, a biologist, that’s easy. But I teach history. I like teaching the quirky stuff. The universe of possibilities is so enormous! Whom to choose? How to choose? Which seven little snippets?

Here are some of the possibilities — you may as well share in my misery.

I could designate Douglas Stringfellow. You’ve never heard of him, most likely. He was known most famously as a congressman from Utah’s 1st District in the 1950s. Stringfellow rose to prominence on the strength of his stories of behind-enemy-lines work, kidnapping physicist Otto Hahn, losing the other 29 members of his squad, escaping to France and losing the use of his legs from a land mine there. He was elected to Congress, joined the anti-Communist faction, and was zooming on the way to re-election when one of his old Army buddies got off the train in Salt Lake City, read the story, and blew the whistle. Stringfellow spent the war in the U.S. He wasn’t a spy, not a hero. His wounds were not from combat. Stringfellow resigned his candidacy at the insistence of the Mormon Church and Utah Republicans (perhaps the last time an organized religion and the Republicans acted nobly, together). It’s a story that should be made into a movie. There’s a good account published by the Taft Institute of Public Policy at the University of Utah, but it’s difficult to get (funding f0r the Taft Institute ran out, I hear, and it was replaced by the Huntsman Seminars on Politics — but that may be erroneous information, too).

Or I could talk about Richard Feynman, an inspiration to me, and to our two sons, both of whom fully enjoyed his books, and one of whom seems destined to follow Feynman into physics (the other works to understand neuroscience, still inspired by Feynman to do science). Everybody knows the story of Feynman, though.

Millard Fillmore is already covered pretty well here; adding more would be gilding the lily, or covering tracks, or something. I could write about one of my modern heroes of history, Mike Mansfield, one of the best bosses I ever had – but trying to find seven items that could be explained quickly might be difficult. I could write chapters about one of my other bosses, too, Orrin Hatch. Or I could write about Jefferson.

I’ll try to go right down the middle on this one: James Madison it is.

Seven items about James Madison, our fourth president, and “the Father of the Constitution”:

1. See that scar on his nose? It’s from frostbite. When Gov. Patrick Henry blocked Madison’s appointment to the U.S. Senate, in order to fulfill his commitment to create a bill of rights, Madison had to run for election to the U.S. House of Representatives. Henry thought he could block that, too, by picking James Monroe to run against Madison, and getting lots of support for Monroe. In the last debate, a good buggy ride away from their homes, the two men decided to share the fare. Monroe said Madison won the debate handily; Madison wasn’t sure. On the buggy ride back to their homes, at night on a very cold winter, the two got involved in a long discussion about the new government, the new nation, and their hopes and dreams about the future. Discussion was so engrossing that Madison failed to notice his nose was freezing. Fast friends ever after, Madison won the election; Madison introduced Monroe to Jefferson. Patrick Henry’s plan to frustrate the Constitution and the new government was thwarted. And Madison bore the scar the rest of his life.
2. Good government as religion — Long before the concept of an American secular religion, Madison attended the College of New Jersey (later to become Princeton), aiming for a career in the clergy. College President John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister, urged Madison to take not just any calling, but the highest calling. Madison went into politics and government. Religionists try to paint Madison as a secularist; early on, his drive for religious freedom was fueled by his faith. It’s an example more church people should follow.
3. Egalitarian trends — On his trip to New York for the inauguration and opening of the 1st Congress, Madison stopped off at Mt. Vernon. (See notes about ghosting below — it was an eventful trip.) One of the topics of conversation was what form of address to use for the chief executive. Two camps were forming, one favoring “Your Highness,” the other favoring “Your Excellency.” Asked for his opinion, Madison suggested “Mr. President.” Some tried to make a more formal, more stuffy title official later in the year, but we still call our chief executive today by the unroyal sobriquet Madison suggested, “Mr. President.”
4. Romance with George and Martha as cupids – Madison’s bachelorhood was a challenge to George and Martha Washington. Once the government got underway in Philadelphia, and after Aaron Burr introduced Madison to the woman, George and Martha worked to match up Madison with a vivacious widow, successfully. James Madison and Dolley Payne Todd were married in 1794.
5. Great Madison’s Ghost! – Madison played ghost writer for George Washington, and others. On his way to the first inauguration, at his courtesy stop at Mt. Vernon, Madison was asked to draft a speech suitable for a president at inauguration. He happily complied. With some irony, whether it was known or not, once Washington delivered the address, Congress designated Madison to write Congress’s reply. Madison’s writing shows up under many other names, including that of “Publius,” in the Federalist Papers. Madison also contributed major parts of the farewell essay Washington planned to use in 1792; Madison and Washington were not on such good terms when Washington actually bid farewell in 1796. Alexander Hamilton got the last crack at ghosting the piece, and added some barbs aimed at Thomas Jefferson. Madison’s own ghosting had come back to haunt him, and John Adams won the election of 1796. (Madison got revenge, if you can call it that, in 1800, when Jefferson won the rematch, but not until the House of Representatives had to break a tie between Jefferson and his vice presidential slate-mate, Aaron Burr; it was Hamilton who finally had to eat some crow and urge the Federalists in the House to go for Jefferson over Hamilton’s more bitter enemy, Burr.)
6. Offending the great man — Madison was off getting married when Washington and Hamilton headed the army and put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Madison suggested to Washington that alternative resolutions would have been possible. Washington took offense. It is unclear whether they ever spoke to each other after that, but that event breached the once-warm and cordial relationship that had produced the Constitution and got the new government off to a fine start, not to mention got Madison into a good marriage.  It’s fascinating Washington would show such pique, and fascinating that Madison stood for it.
7. America’s greatest collaborator? Madison got to the Virginia Assembly late in the Virginia Bill of Rights process, but collaborated with George Mason to add a clause on religious freedom, helping to secure George Mason’s reputation. He collaborated with Thomas Jefferson, pushing Jefferson’s legislative ideas while Jefferson was in France, getting immortality for Jefferson with the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. He collaborated with Washington to resolve the Chesapeake dispute between Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania; he collaborated with Washington and Alexander Hamilton to get the Continental Congress to call the Philadelphia convention. He collaborated with Ben Franklin to convince Washington to attend the convention, and to get Washington elected president of the convention. When John Jay was physically beaten badly at a demonstration for ratification, Madison stepped in to collaborate with Hamilton on what we now call the Federalist Papers. He collaborated with Washington on the formation of the new government; collaborated with Jefferson on a bill of rights and foreign affairs. In an era when one did not run for office one’s self, Madison got Jefferson on the ballots in 1796 and 1800, essentially managing the campaigns that put Jefferson into office. He was with Jefferson on the butt-kicking they got from John Marshall on the Marbury v. Madison decision. At the end of their lives, and especially after Jefferson’s death, Madison followed through on the establishment of the University of Virginia, Jefferson’s prize project. In each case, Madison’s collaboration improved the project, and in several cases, the projects would have failed but for Madison’s work. Madison may take the title of the most successful legislator ever in U.S. history (competing perhaps with LBJ), but he definitely takes the crown as the best collaborator for the public good. Had Madison not been the collaborator on these things, would they have happened? In all of these projects, the people with whom he collaborated achieved their highest aims. Who wouldn’t want to collaborate with Madison?

Let’s get some good stuff in here in the tagging. Let’s tag some diverse blogs and bloggers who write a fair amount. I tag Pam at Grassroots Science, Bug Girl, Miguel at Around the Corner, Ron at Route 66 News, Curious Expeditions, Dorigo at Quantum Diaries Survivor, and Barry Weber at The First Morning.

Whew!  There’s good reading at those places even if they don’t do anything new.

Thanks, P.Z., for the kick in the rear to think about Madison, and to think about seven (out of dozens) of good blogs to refer people to.

More carnivalia, stoned version

Oh, remember to check out the latest 4 Stone Hearth.  This carnival of archaeology was posted at Our Cultural World last week, its 34th outing.

John Hawks has a post featured about Neandertal’s roaming habits, all determined from a tooth.  Interesting archaeology, interesting anthropology, and just how can they tell all that from one tooth? Hawks’ blog has articles I’ll use in U.S. history, world history, psychology, and maybe economics.  One of the best things about 4 Stone Hearth is the way it points to outstanding sources.

Got a tagger in your classroom?  He (rarely a she) may be interested in ancient taggers — if we may call them that.

If you live on the Pacific coast, or in the Caribbean, should you worry about your local volcano?  A Very Remote Period Indeed pointed to a paper that suggests the hominids found at Dmanisi were a family killed by a volcanic eruption — perhaps your local volcano can help you become immortal, after a fashion?

Also featured is an article about language development at a blog I only recently discovered, Not Exactly Rocket Science.  It’s another blog worth watching.

Meanwhile, back at the school: Carnival!

I always loved school carnivals. The elementary school versions always featured silly games and activities to appeal to kids of third grade mentality — right up my alley! Then I joined the PTA board at our kids’ elementary, and saw the numbers. The annual carnival took in several tens of thousands of dollars. A lot of that money bought new library books, some bought new science programs, all of it went for better education.

I really like a well-run carnival now.  Here are a few well-run carnival events.

Carnival of the Liberals #58 flew to England, at Liberal England. Double the posts, ten from England, ten from the Americas.  Geography and history teachers might be particularly interested in a post at Pickled Politics on whether Australia’s government will follow up with real action following their official apology to the continent’s aboriginals, for past mistreatment.

Will I ever catch up with the Carnival of Education? Teachers ought to browse this weekly — I haven’t looked at it weekly in the past month. Let’s go back to #155: Bluebird’s Classroom has a post about a teachable moment, involving her unit on weather, and the tornado warning that popped up during class. Pay particular attention to her use of the LCD projector and live television link. Odds are that your classroom can’t support such teaching, as mine cannot right now.

The rest of Carnival of Education #155 plays out at Median Sib. But I’m much farther behind. #156 resides at Creating Lifelong Learners. #157 can be found at Colossus of Rhodey. #158 moves in at Instructify. That one features this post (from Creating Lifelong Learners) about using your iPod in class to high purpose. I’ll wager there is not a school of education in the U.S. that teaches iPod use as a tool of classroom control and educational excellence. This is why we need to read these on-line collections. (”Hot 4 Teacher” graphic borrowed from Instructify.)

Carnival, carnival

57th Carnival of the Liberals awaits your viewing at Worldwide Webers.  It features some serious thinking about sex education, among other thought provokers.

156th Carnival of Education pitches the midway at Creating Lifelong Learners. One of the sideshows, Noirlecroi, caught my eye with a post on how to set up a classroom to teach social studies.  Who knew?

12 year-old blogger educates . . .

How young is too young to blog about education?

Our reader, Dr. Pamela Bumsted wrote about a 12 year-old kid in Southern California who blogs to reach underprivileged kids, at The Edublogs Magazine.

Michael Guggenheim is twelve years old, a full-time 6th grade student in southern California. He’s recently won the Volunteer Service Award from Secretary Spelling of the U.S. Department of Education and another award from the Inland Empire Branch of the International Dyslexia/Dysgraphia Association. He’s been interviewed by Good Morning America, the LA Times, and CNN. And he’s a blogger.

Michael Guggenheim uses his blog for education - as a teacher to document his nonprofit organization and his extracurricular activities teaching even younger students how to use a computer.

S.P.L.A.T. Inc. (Showing People Learning And Technology) was set up by Guggenheim to help him tutor youngsters at homeless shelters, low income housing projects, and community centers. Whatever funds he raises goes to the distribution of used computers, monitors, printers, and donated software. He himself teaches basic computer skills and also shows the younger children how to use computer learning games.

Got a classroom blog yet? This kid is ahead of a lot of teachers in blogging.

Carnivals!

Bloggers are out there looking for the good posts, the real meat of Bloggovia, to serve it up to you in a tight bundle. Here’s where you find such purveyors:

• At Green Gabbro, you’ll find Accretionary Wedge #5, a carnival of geology. Tip of the scrub brush to Pharyngula for pointing it out.
• Carnival of Space #38, over at Sorting Out Science
• Carnival of Education #155 at Median Sib; it includes such little gems as this: “Daniel Lafleche presents A fascinating clip from the film Malaria Parasites posted at Film and Video Marketplace Blog, saying, ‘Why is it that 30 years ago malaria in Africa was no more serious than the flu? This 5-minute educational video provides an overview on what has happened. Can be a useful resource for related lessons.’” (It’s one more problem that DDT can’t solve, and whose solution is put off by the junk science purveyors who claim DDT is the answer to malaria, or any other problem — I may have to pull this one out for further comment.)
• You haven’t checked out the 60th Carnival of History yet? It’s at Victorian Peeper. I didn’t know: “The Library Thing Blog announces that Thomas Jefferson’s library has been added to Library Thing, an online service that enables users to catalog their books. Now Jefferson’s author cloud, tag cloud, author gallery, and stats page are available for all to see. You can also find out how many books your personal library has in common with our third president’s.”
• Alternative Economic Review #4 is due up this week; you should review Alternative Economic Review #3 at Gavonomics to see how the economists did forecasting the last month’s activities, perhaps?

More but not enough freedom of speech in Turkey

Turkey changed its laws that completely forbade criticism of the government. Recent changes promoting freedom of conscience and speech do not change the fact that this blog, and a million others on WordPress, are still blocked in Turkey.

Remember the old Radio Free Europe? We need a Blog Free Turkey; a Blog Free China; a Blog Free Duncanville Independent School District.

Carnival!

Too early for Mardi Gras!

Not in the worlds of education, and history, and archaeology, and . . .

Catch up with these Carnivals of Education:

• 154th Carnival of Education at Eduwonkette — This is a lengthy carnival these days; there is a lot going on in education on almost all fronts. Econ teachers will want to note especially the post from Money Blue Book slamming MTV’s “My Sweet Sixteen.” Texas teachers can do something with that for the state’s new requirement on teaching financial literacy.
• The Bathtub also recommends a soak in the 153rd Carnival of Education at the Columbus Education Association, for many of the same reasons. We’ve been educating (we hope), and preparing for a new semester, and hadn’t gotten to the 153rd Carnival yet.
• Also see the Carnival of Homeschooling #105, at Why Homeschool.

Short and maybe better for it, Carnival of the Liberals:

• Blue Gal hosts the 56th ambling of the liberal dons; Blue Gal can be occasionally blue, but this post is probably safe for work; the graphic shows no flesh.

Expand your reading and thinking:

• Tangled Up in Blue Guy hosts the current Carnival of the Godless. I don’t usually note this carnival, partly because evangelizing atheism is not my goal; but that’s not the goal of the carnival, either. TUIB Guy is an occasional reader and commenter here; his hosting job takes an interesting view of carnival hosting. Carnival of the Godless frequently features informative and useful posts. In this one, especially if you are involved in science education, or you know a Ron Paul supporter, you should read this post, from the Atheist Ethicist.

Great material for the classroom:

• Four Stone Hearth constantly provides material that I wish I had used the last time I taught that particular topic. Four Stone Hearth #32 at Testimony of the Spade features several posts on neolithic children. This material probably would resonate well with elementary and middle school student. This is a roadmap to how you can make the section on Native Americans and early migration to America come alive for younger students.
• Four Stone Hearth #31 at Walking the Berkshires
• Festival of the Trees #19, at Hoarded Ordinaries; see especially this post from American Presidents Blog on Presidential Trees.