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Reprint on Heimatkunde
Previous item about the role of geography in letting students imagine their future, reminded me that I had spent some time on this topic in 2012. This introduced the concept of Heimatkunde or Home Geography. = = = = = I was doing my 1901 thing, trying to locate a specific account of Puget Sound…
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Inland waterways
Random thought triggered by another of those Natl Assn of Mfrs films. This one was showing how Houston became a major port after building the 60-mile Houston Ship Channel. A wide variety of industries, not just oil, built factories along the channel. I knew about Houston’s role as center of the oil industry, but I’d…
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Bach Light
This article in Compact takes a fact I’ve known for a long time and connects it up in a way I’d never thought about. Fact: Classical music has HATED its audience and done everything possible to reject and evict its audience for 100 years. Connection: Now all institutions, from media to politics to corporations making…
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Interactive
Interactive gimmicks in publications have been around for a long time. The technology for die-cutting and inserting gimmicks is very old, but expensive in time and planning. This Natl Assn of Mfrs film showed various ways that corporations communicated with their employees, ranging from the usual bulletin boards and suggestion boxes to closed circuit radio…
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Overthrew himself?
In previous item I noted the weird self-contradiction of the “insurrection” charge, which accuses Trump of trying to overthrow himself. Reminded me of something in those short Ripley pieces. They mentioned a president of Mexico who ran a rebellion against himself and forced himself into exile. Wikipedia gives a far more complicated picture, which is…
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Reader directs my attention
After several weeks of essentially zero readers, I’m finally seeing a couple of non-bot readers in the WordPress statcounters. One reader is catching some items that I’ve forgotten about. In this item I was highlighting a 1938 radio editorial by Raymond Gram Swing who debunked the then-current Trotsky and Niemoller trials. = = = =…
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Strong and pure
Tara Henley, former CBC journalist, struck me as ambiguous, mostly buying the standard line, not truly independent. Until now. In this piece on the fate of Canada she comes out strong and pure, clearly distinguishing the pro-worker Marxist tradition from the pro-plutocrat Maoists. = = = = = START QUOTE: For obvious reasons, these conditions…
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Reprint from 2014
Linked in previous, worth a reprint. = = = = = START REPRINT: Three beautiful examples of completely ignoring history in today’s news. = = = = = (1) Joe Manchin, one of the few halfway sane Congresscritters, proposes banning Bitcoin. The techies are snortling and chortling in their usual way. WTF???? There’s no possible…
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Not your campaign 2
Fortune mag says the anti-DEI movement has gone mainstream. In all of these cases, ideologues are mischaracterizing the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Their strategy is working: critiquing DEI has become more mainstream. Increasingly, even people who likely support some of the most common and visible examples of these efforts (parental leave, fair…
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Long overdue
College athletics is on the verge of turning honest with union protection. This is WAY overdue. I remember a class project in a college debate class in 1967, where we researched the money aspect of college athletics. The situation was already crystal clear. College athletes were bringing in BIG money for the university and the…
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Protons
Bloomberg’s reporters had fun with the elderly Supreme Demons, who evidently don’t spend much time on social media. The court was dealing with a case where an asshole wanted to block Trump from blocking the asshole’s tweets, because Trump is Trump and everyone knows that everything Trump does is evil because it’s Trump, even though…
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No it wasn’t “your campaign”.
Repoofs are crowing because “our campaign” got the Harvard president to resign. No it didn’t. She resigned because Larry Fink and Bill Ackman told her to resign. Same as all the other recent resignations. What’s different? THIS TIME the Repooflicans happened to be on the same side as power. The side that wants more war…
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Bigger pile of crap
I’ve bought a new Win11 computer because I got tired of fighting the daily creeping obsolesence. Trying to transfer most of my worthwhile data to the new one. First tried Zinstall, which had worked nicely for a couple of previous transfers. It won’t work this time. Okay, various websites recommend using MS OneDrive to both…
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Pile of crap
Crap: The Catholic Church created the first universities. They were beacons of light, preservers and defenders of timeless truth. It is difficult for us to even imagine. = = = = = No. From the start universities have been defenders of orthodox doctrine. That was part of their intended purpose, and it’s still part of…
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Carver Day
Today is Carver’s birthday. Rehashing what I wrote in 2015. (Edited to reflect my improved understanding of “Soviet subversion”. When I wrote this I was still believing the standard FBI myths about the Soviet system.) = = = = = START EDITED REPRINT: By most calculations, George Carver was born in January 1864 near Joplin.…
Polistra's Mill
Be your own beacon.
Polistra's Mill 