Reading about someone's family tree is nearly as bad as being forced to watch the video of someone's grandchild's birthday party, but I'm writing to show how genealogy can connect people to the big events of history. In Mock Trial we have a magic phrase to avoid any hearsay objections: "Not for the truth of the matter asserted, Your Honor." Today's blog is not offered for the truth of my family tree, but as an example of what you can dig up with a little research and an account at Ancestry.com and the New England Historic Genealogical Society
As I noted yesterday, I'm listening to an audiotape called "The Great Influenza." I wouldn't recommend it because it is poorly edited and tends to get lost in dozens of names of doctors in the public health service. It is interesting, however, for the background it provides on medical practice in the Progressive Era right before the war. To sum up, conditions were horrible with most medical schools not much more than diploma mills. Something called the Flexner Report studied these schools, and its revelations shocked the country. I was already familiar with this report because my great-great granduncle Herbert Hands had attended one of those schools and became a doctor (along with his wife).
Yeah, who really knows or cares about great-great grand uncles, but the interesting thing here is Dr. Hands died at the end of September, 1918 and my dad was born in January, 1919 and got stuck with the name Herbert. My mom was born in December, 1918 or "right after the Sox won the World Series" as she liked to say. She lived to be only 82 so you know what that means. As you may remember, the great flu epidemic struck Massachusetts beginning in late August and peaked in September-November. Although the cause of death for Dr. Hands was listed as heart disease, one wonders whether flu played a role. As a doctor he must have been overwhelmed with patients who needed night and day care, and he might have contracted flu himself. I'll try to track down the obituary, but it is unlikely to tell me what I want to know since government censorship (to keep up morale for the war effort) forced papers to downplay the epidemic's devastation. At least that's what the audiobook says, I remember researching the epidemic years ago and finding the Enterprise pretty frank about the large tent hospital that was put up at the Brockton Fair Grounds.
The Great Influenza was unusual among flu virus for it struck down people in the prime of life rather than the elderly and the very young. The audiobook notes that a particularly hard hit subset of "prime of life" folks were pregnant women. Many pregnant women died and more miscarried as the result of the disease so with both grandmothers pregnant at the time, I'm lucky to be here. No stories were passed down in the family (no stories of the epidemic at all) so this was apparently not as close a call for my genes as the time a pioneer got tomahawked to death very, very shortly after impregnating his wife. The pioneer's wife not the tomahawker's.
Dr. Herbert had a son George, don't make me pull out the chart and figure out what kind of cousin he was, who continued the family's non-military career path. In his case he may have missed the draft as the sole surviving son of the family. George apparently lived until 1970, but I never knew him nor whether he had any children or grandchildren. His name doesn't pop up in the 1930 census or Social Security death records so I need to review that 1970 death date. Who knows what relatives may be lurking out there.
Herbert and Frederick were both immigrants and they left a brother Sydney behind in England. Sydney's descendents looked like the last chance for heroic Hands war service in WWI, but checking out my grandfather Carville Hands' draft record, the name of Coleman Hands popped up. My grandfather's first name (and my middle one) came from his grandmother's maiden name. Coleman was that lady's married name. Somehow I had overlooked a census record from 1910 that showed my grandfather had a brother. A brother, who I was surprised to learn, was a veteran of World War I. This is a discovery only hours old; found as I was preparing this blog. So far I know that Coleman was born on March 5, 1887, three years before my grandfather. He moved away to Chicago, had a family, and outlived my grandfather by 24 years before dying in Ravenden Springs, Arkansas in 1977. In 1930 Coleman had three children, Fred, born 1913; Lillian, born 1916; and Edith, born in 1921. All gone I suppose, but it might be fun to see where that branch of the family has gotten to.
American mobility makes it easy to lose relatives. Even on the McKean side of the family which arrived in 1718 and stayed in New Hampshire and Massachusetts until World War II, we lost track of a sister of my grandfather. It's a measure of our computer society that that branch of the family was reunited online in the last two years. In some cases computers can act as a time machine and bring us back into our past while bringing us closer in the present.
Welcome
A curiosity shop is a place of odds and ends in a wide range of categories. One never knows what one will find on any visit, and that is the goal of this blog. Here you'll find postings on doings around Easton, the world's environment, history, recipes, fly fishing, books, music, and movies with many other things thrown in as well. Hope you enjoy it and keep coming back.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
The Great Influenza
My grandparents generation came of age during the Great War. In the true martial spirit of the family neither of my grandfathers served in the war. My Great Uncle Ralph served in the Navy and my Great Uncle Fred was one of the first marine pilots.
I'm listening to an audiobook on the great influenza epidemic of 1918 and I always believed that Uncle Ralph was one of those struck with the disease at its first outbreak at Commonwealth Pier Receiving Station since family legend noted "his entire military service was spent in the hospital." The audiobook peaked my interest in the family so I turned to Ancestry.com which has the draft cards from World War I on line. It is not one of their finest scanning jobs. The small type of the cards is usually illegible while the handwritten information is not much better. Thus, it's unclear why Grandpa Hands born in 1890 and Grandpa McKean born in 1894 were not called up. Both apparently were in the boot industry so maybe "war work" was the reason. Grandpa McKean served as an auxiliary policeman in Braintree during the war which is why Sacco and Vanzetti waited until the postwar era to pull off their famous heist (assuming they did it).
I believe I may have mentioned Uncle Fred in an earlier blog. I'll have to check that because he deserves an essay of his own. Family legend had him in France at the Armistice pulling off a dangerous stunt. The stunt presumably happened earlier; he was grounded for disciplinary reasons when he was struck with the flu and ended the war in a hospital in England. The only member of the family with a documented tie to the greatest epidemic in human history.
That leaves Uncle Ralph who is buried near my Grandfather McKean in Braintree. I didn't know Uncle Ralph very well. He was a school teacher who married my grandfather's sister. She, by the time I knew her smelled like cats and had the annoying habit of always topping someone's stories. "Wow, it was 15 below zero this morning." "Well, here in Waltham, it was 17 below!" Their only child moved away, and when Ralph and Ella died my side of the family got the job of decorating their graves on Memorial Day. Ralph's draft card was the clearest of the three and gave me a real surprise. He had indeed served in the Navy. It looks like that his service may have started in 1917, but he was discharged in July, 1918 not for influenza which wouldn't strike for another month, but for heart disease. Ralph was 21 and whatever the heart disease was (rheumatic fever perhaps?), he managed to live another 52 years.
My grandfather on the McKean side of the family had another brother-in-law, Uncle Harold who along with Uncle Fred was a favorite of that generation He was a clerk at the oil depot in Quincy so he too may have been involved in war work. My grandfather Hands died when I was five so I never knew the uncles in that generation on that side of the family. Time to find out about those mystery men.
I'm listening to an audiobook on the great influenza epidemic of 1918 and I always believed that Uncle Ralph was one of those struck with the disease at its first outbreak at Commonwealth Pier Receiving Station since family legend noted "his entire military service was spent in the hospital." The audiobook peaked my interest in the family so I turned to Ancestry.com which has the draft cards from World War I on line. It is not one of their finest scanning jobs. The small type of the cards is usually illegible while the handwritten information is not much better. Thus, it's unclear why Grandpa Hands born in 1890 and Grandpa McKean born in 1894 were not called up. Both apparently were in the boot industry so maybe "war work" was the reason. Grandpa McKean served as an auxiliary policeman in Braintree during the war which is why Sacco and Vanzetti waited until the postwar era to pull off their famous heist (assuming they did it).
I believe I may have mentioned Uncle Fred in an earlier blog. I'll have to check that because he deserves an essay of his own. Family legend had him in France at the Armistice pulling off a dangerous stunt. The stunt presumably happened earlier; he was grounded for disciplinary reasons when he was struck with the flu and ended the war in a hospital in England. The only member of the family with a documented tie to the greatest epidemic in human history.
That leaves Uncle Ralph who is buried near my Grandfather McKean in Braintree. I didn't know Uncle Ralph very well. He was a school teacher who married my grandfather's sister. She, by the time I knew her smelled like cats and had the annoying habit of always topping someone's stories. "Wow, it was 15 below zero this morning." "Well, here in Waltham, it was 17 below!" Their only child moved away, and when Ralph and Ella died my side of the family got the job of decorating their graves on Memorial Day. Ralph's draft card was the clearest of the three and gave me a real surprise. He had indeed served in the Navy. It looks like that his service may have started in 1917, but he was discharged in July, 1918 not for influenza which wouldn't strike for another month, but for heart disease. Ralph was 21 and whatever the heart disease was (rheumatic fever perhaps?), he managed to live another 52 years.
My grandfather on the McKean side of the family had another brother-in-law, Uncle Harold who along with Uncle Fred was a favorite of that generation He was a clerk at the oil depot in Quincy so he too may have been involved in war work. My grandfather Hands died when I was five so I never knew the uncles in that generation on that side of the family. Time to find out about those mystery men.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Happy Belated Birthday, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 making this year his bicentennial which many people are celebrating with new biographies, symposiums, and visits to the Charles Dickens theme park. I decided to honor perhaps the second greatest writer in English by actually reading some of his books this year rather than turning to the Cliff Notes as I did in high school. As a double English/History major in college I don't remember even reading the Cliff Notes, did I skip classes with Dickens altogether? Now truth be told I did read A Tale of Two Cities when I was supposed to and have spent the rest of my life looking for "far, far better things to do today, then I have ever done before." The other truth, of course, is it would probably take me 200 years to read anyone's novels these days. So off to the audiobooks.
As noted in a much earlier blog I returned to A Tale of Two Cities which was the only Dickens audio choice at the Ames Library. As I said then, the book was excellent beyond my boyish regard for the cynical yet heroic Sidney Carton. This novel was published in 1859. Dickens was to complete only two more novels after this masterpiece that sets a personal story inside the huge tale of the French Revolution. While the central story may be melodramatic, the sweeping scope of the work and its passionate concern for injustice make it a true classic.
The next book that Dickens wrote was Great Expectations. Whoever was on the circulation desk the day I asked, recommended this as "the" Dickens book to do. I only remembered being bored to tears with it in the Cliff Notes version, but decided to get it through interlibrary loan. Now you, like I, may be one of those folks who argue over the best film version of "A Christmas Carol"-it's the Alistair Sim 1951 version (colorized I might add), but I have to tell you the audiobook version you have to have has Michael Page as the narrator. He creates a unique vocal characterization for everyone who has any dialogue in the book and makes the book come completely alive.
Mr. Dickens gets high praise for his realistic descriptions of lower and middle class life, his comic sense, and his mastery of prose style. He gets hammered for his melodrama, implausible plots and his sometimes saccharine sentimentality. All of this is true in GE. Magwitch is the father of Estella who is adopted by Mrs. Havisham, while Estella's real mother is Jaggers housekeeper. Oh and don't forget that Magwitch's nemesis was unbeknownst to anyone the lover who jilted Miss Havisham. Implausible and melodramatic? You bet. I appreciated the sentiment in GE and didn't find it cloying as the oh so much cooler version of me must have done 50 years ago. The big long sentences with marvelous construction are there too, and they are extraordinary when read aloud. Don't forget in Dickens' time his books were just as often read aloud to groups as read silently to one.
Everything else aside, however, it's the characters who make GE so enjoyable. Even the most minor characters are clearly drawn and memorable. For example, there's Mr. Wopsie who gives up a job in the Church to become a very bad actor on the London stage. Really no more than comic relief and a plot device, Dickens still manages to create a wonderful character that pokes fun at the amateur theatricals he himself was so fond of. Then there are the great indelible characters like Pip, Miss Havisham, and Estella. And Joe and Biddy, and Magwitch, and Jaggers, and Wemmick and his Aged P.
The final greatness of the novel is Dickens' use of Pip as both a character and the narrator. I think every child no matter how poor starts off with great expectations for their life which are then diminished by the world. Having Pip as the narrator looking honestly back at what truly became "great" in his life pulls us all into that same kind of reflection. Perhaps that's why this book is great at 65 and not so good at 15.
Listen to Dickens and don't feel ashamed you're not reading him. After all, his two tours to America were all about reading out loud to his audience!
As noted in a much earlier blog I returned to A Tale of Two Cities which was the only Dickens audio choice at the Ames Library. As I said then, the book was excellent beyond my boyish regard for the cynical yet heroic Sidney Carton. This novel was published in 1859. Dickens was to complete only two more novels after this masterpiece that sets a personal story inside the huge tale of the French Revolution. While the central story may be melodramatic, the sweeping scope of the work and its passionate concern for injustice make it a true classic.
The next book that Dickens wrote was Great Expectations. Whoever was on the circulation desk the day I asked, recommended this as "the" Dickens book to do. I only remembered being bored to tears with it in the Cliff Notes version, but decided to get it through interlibrary loan. Now you, like I, may be one of those folks who argue over the best film version of "A Christmas Carol"-it's the Alistair Sim 1951 version (colorized I might add), but I have to tell you the audiobook version you have to have has Michael Page as the narrator. He creates a unique vocal characterization for everyone who has any dialogue in the book and makes the book come completely alive.
Mr. Dickens gets high praise for his realistic descriptions of lower and middle class life, his comic sense, and his mastery of prose style. He gets hammered for his melodrama, implausible plots and his sometimes saccharine sentimentality. All of this is true in GE. Magwitch is the father of Estella who is adopted by Mrs. Havisham, while Estella's real mother is Jaggers housekeeper. Oh and don't forget that Magwitch's nemesis was unbeknownst to anyone the lover who jilted Miss Havisham. Implausible and melodramatic? You bet. I appreciated the sentiment in GE and didn't find it cloying as the oh so much cooler version of me must have done 50 years ago. The big long sentences with marvelous construction are there too, and they are extraordinary when read aloud. Don't forget in Dickens' time his books were just as often read aloud to groups as read silently to one.
Everything else aside, however, it's the characters who make GE so enjoyable. Even the most minor characters are clearly drawn and memorable. For example, there's Mr. Wopsie who gives up a job in the Church to become a very bad actor on the London stage. Really no more than comic relief and a plot device, Dickens still manages to create a wonderful character that pokes fun at the amateur theatricals he himself was so fond of. Then there are the great indelible characters like Pip, Miss Havisham, and Estella. And Joe and Biddy, and Magwitch, and Jaggers, and Wemmick and his Aged P.
The final greatness of the novel is Dickens' use of Pip as both a character and the narrator. I think every child no matter how poor starts off with great expectations for their life which are then diminished by the world. Having Pip as the narrator looking honestly back at what truly became "great" in his life pulls us all into that same kind of reflection. Perhaps that's why this book is great at 65 and not so good at 15.
Listen to Dickens and don't feel ashamed you're not reading him. After all, his two tours to America were all about reading out loud to his audience!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Opening the Mailbag
I've posted a new comment from an anonymous reader who refers to the blog on the map in National Geographic that took the commonest words on dating sites to size up state characters. Anonymous requested the words for Oregon which are garage, homeopathic, peerless, checkered, upwards, sure, impish, poise, and the most common: Duck. The last presumably referring to the state university's nickname.
Uma Hiremath from the Ames Free Library commented on the recent blog on the IPad where I referred to the ITunes University App. Uma points out the library website has a widget that connects to free online courses from a number of sources including MIT and the Open University. The library website has grown into a humongous source of information so I had a little trouble finding the widget. You go to the Library's website and look on menu bar for the Resources pull down and click on Useful Webs which opens with a picture of an owl next to the college courses. I took a quick look at a couple of courses and they look very good. MIT has made notes and syllabi for courses available for a few years; a smaller percentage of courses have more resources. A history of photography course, for example, includes assignments and antique photos as well as the coursenotes. This widget is about to become even more useful since MIT has announced its intention to start putting full courses online beginning around March 1. Check out the library website today and start learning something new.
Another great feature of the library website is interlibrary loan. You can search a catalog that includes all the libraries in the regional system and have a book, audiobook, CD or DVD sent to Easton. This enabled me to track down a fantastically well done audiobook version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, the topic of tomorrow's blog.
Uma Hiremath from the Ames Free Library commented on the recent blog on the IPad where I referred to the ITunes University App. Uma points out the library website has a widget that connects to free online courses from a number of sources including MIT and the Open University. The library website has grown into a humongous source of information so I had a little trouble finding the widget. You go to the Library's website and look on menu bar for the Resources pull down and click on Useful Webs which opens with a picture of an owl next to the college courses. I took a quick look at a couple of courses and they look very good. MIT has made notes and syllabi for courses available for a few years; a smaller percentage of courses have more resources. A history of photography course, for example, includes assignments and antique photos as well as the coursenotes. This widget is about to become even more useful since MIT has announced its intention to start putting full courses online beginning around March 1. Check out the library website today and start learning something new.
Another great feature of the library website is interlibrary loan. You can search a catalog that includes all the libraries in the regional system and have a book, audiobook, CD or DVD sent to Easton. This enabled me to track down a fantastically well done audiobook version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, the topic of tomorrow's blog.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Life Photo Archive
The shack in the photo is the saloon of Judge Roy Bean with a sign indicating his famous "Law West of the Pecos" slogan. Those of you old enough to remember 1956 might recall Edgar Buchanan playing the Judge in a comic western series. The real Roy Bean (1825-1903) was a true Texas rogue and a creative judge. Since there were no jails in his jurisdiction he settled all but two cases with fines which were usually the amount of money in the accused's pockets. He refused to send the fines to the state government and pocketed them himself. As a justice of the peace, he performed marriages for $5 and ended the traditional ceremony with "and may God have mercy on your souls." Even though only higher courts were authorized to do so, Bean also offered divorces for $10. According to local tradition much of the fine money found its way to the poor and the support of the schools. Bean was a tremendous self-promoter. He once caused a minor panic on Wall Street when he heard that Jay Gould, a railroading rival of the Frederick Lothrop Ames, was passing nearby. He flagged the train down with flag used to indicate a bridge was out. He then entertained Gould and his daughter in his saloon for two hours-while New York believed the magnate had been killed in a train wreck. In 1896 he sponsored a world heavyweight championship fight on an island in the Rio Grande because boxing was banned in both Mexico and Texas. World Champion Bob Fitzsimmons won by a knockout in only 1 minute and 35 seconds. In the draconian legal system of early Texas Bean was very lenient. In a long career he only sentenced two men to death. Horse thieves, normally hanged in Texas, were let go if they paid a fine and returned the horse. Bean had a tremendous crush on 19th century superstar Lily Langtry. He named his saloon the Jersey Lily and the town where it sat Langtry in hopes that the diva would visit him. She did so but it was several years after the judge's death. Bean had not died with his boots on instead passing away peacefully in bed after an extensive round of drinking.
Friday, February 10, 2012
The Nook, the IPod and the IPad
The immortal Rick Blaine said he came to Casablanca for "the waters." Reminded that Casablanca is in a desert, he replied "He was misinformed." I was recently "misinformed into buying an IPad. Apple released a program to generate interactive IBooks that could be read on the IPad. I wrongly assumed you could also write IBooks on the IPad. Now I'm addicted to this darn little rectangle.
I had resisted adding an IPad to my collection of electronic junk. After all I had a Nook Color, the Barnes and Noble competitor to Amazon's Kindle. When B&N and Amazon launched lower end tablets (the computing category the IPad falls into), B&N upgraded the Nook Colors operating system to do some tablet like things such as playing Netflix videos. I must say that all the reviews I have read show that the Nook is a superior product to the Kindle, but the marketing of Amazon is much stronger so once again an inferior product may win out in the wonderful world of capitalism. Both run versions of the Android operating system the leading competitor to Apple's proprietary operating system.
Now my friends expect me to sell my Nook and go exclusively IPad. All the apps I love on the Nook are available on the Apple, but I don't think I'll be switching anytime soon. The Nook is perfect for bedtime use. Turns out that when I fall asleep I don't toss and turn-the Nook balances perfectly on my tummy and so far has been there when I wake up. The best part of the Nook are its newsreader apps, Pulse and Taptu (both available on the IPad also). Pulse lets you choose 60 news sources which it arranges in pages like a newspaper. Taptu gives you up to a hundred sources-I have 10 to keep up on dinosaur news alone-that can be color coded by section. Throw in an excellent weather app and you have your own version of the late news. Watching a Netflix video in bed is also easy on the smaller screen of the Nook.
At twice the cost the IPad can do everything the Nook can do and more. So much more that it jumps into another category of uses. It has two cameras, video and still. It has a built in "tape" recorder that can record people well even outdoors. It's touch screen opens up a world of drawing and painting apps that makes creating a nature journal easy. And the IBook and ITunes University will open up a whole new world of learning. Let me explain. The Nook Color plays several Audubon Nature Guides that beat the paper versions of these books and the IPad actually plays several more, but the IBook of Life on Earth (by Edmund O. Wilson includes video clips of animals and animations of things like the DNA molecule. Right now I'm taking a free ecology course at the Open University (I think you can access this on computer) that includes its own video clips and selections from David Attenborough's Life of Mammals. The interactivity is incredible and makes it easy for even this old dog to learn new tricks. This week's lessons dealt with adaptations for life in trees; last weeks explored food webs in an English Oak Forest and a reserve in Mozamibique.
Sadly my oldest friend seems to be losing out in this wonderful new world of connectivity. My little IPod with its 10,000 songs and stories has been sitting unused lately. Need to find a way to work this back into my life!
I had resisted adding an IPad to my collection of electronic junk. After all I had a Nook Color, the Barnes and Noble competitor to Amazon's Kindle. When B&N and Amazon launched lower end tablets (the computing category the IPad falls into), B&N upgraded the Nook Colors operating system to do some tablet like things such as playing Netflix videos. I must say that all the reviews I have read show that the Nook is a superior product to the Kindle, but the marketing of Amazon is much stronger so once again an inferior product may win out in the wonderful world of capitalism. Both run versions of the Android operating system the leading competitor to Apple's proprietary operating system.
Now my friends expect me to sell my Nook and go exclusively IPad. All the apps I love on the Nook are available on the Apple, but I don't think I'll be switching anytime soon. The Nook is perfect for bedtime use. Turns out that when I fall asleep I don't toss and turn-the Nook balances perfectly on my tummy and so far has been there when I wake up. The best part of the Nook are its newsreader apps, Pulse and Taptu (both available on the IPad also). Pulse lets you choose 60 news sources which it arranges in pages like a newspaper. Taptu gives you up to a hundred sources-I have 10 to keep up on dinosaur news alone-that can be color coded by section. Throw in an excellent weather app and you have your own version of the late news. Watching a Netflix video in bed is also easy on the smaller screen of the Nook.
At twice the cost the IPad can do everything the Nook can do and more. So much more that it jumps into another category of uses. It has two cameras, video and still. It has a built in "tape" recorder that can record people well even outdoors. It's touch screen opens up a world of drawing and painting apps that makes creating a nature journal easy. And the IBook and ITunes University will open up a whole new world of learning. Let me explain. The Nook Color plays several Audubon Nature Guides that beat the paper versions of these books and the IPad actually plays several more, but the IBook of Life on Earth (by Edmund O. Wilson includes video clips of animals and animations of things like the DNA molecule. Right now I'm taking a free ecology course at the Open University (I think you can access this on computer) that includes its own video clips and selections from David Attenborough's Life of Mammals. The interactivity is incredible and makes it easy for even this old dog to learn new tricks. This week's lessons dealt with adaptations for life in trees; last weeks explored food webs in an English Oak Forest and a reserve in Mozamibique.
Sadly my oldest friend seems to be losing out in this wonderful new world of connectivity. My little IPod with its 10,000 songs and stories has been sitting unused lately. Need to find a way to work this back into my life!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Pirates and Congressmen
You probably heard that Wikipedia shut down for a day recently to protest a new more restrictive copyright law. Piracy of intellectual property from countries like China is a multi-billion dollar problem, but the Internet is modern version of the Great Library of Alexandria-the source of information that spins the growth of all human knowledge. Thus, a balance needs to be struck between ownership of ideas and their ease of use.
Teachers have a saying "The best teacher is the best thief" because there is generally no copyright they won't violate in the quest for good lessons in the face of scarce resources. God bless xerox machines and the Internet. The wonderful world of lawyers has recognized this tendency to intellectual kleptomania with something called the Fair Use Doctrine for educators, but teachers as a whole still manage to be the Robin Hoods of copyright law.
At any rate, I joined the millions protesting the restrictive laws that were in front of Congress and wrote an e-mail to Representative Stephen Lynch. I immediately got a response along the lines of "thanks for writing, I love to hear from my constituents." Pretty much what I expected-my e-mail was lodged as a protest and was duly recorded. However, yesterday a thoughtful second e-mail arrived which weighed the pros and cons of the proposed house bill, stated that Rep. Lynch was opposed to the current bill, and directed my attention to the committee where the bill was sent after the protest. I feel great that the Rep shares my view-something needs to be done, but we need to protect Internet freedom too, but I would still feel great if he disagreed with me. I was impressed with the skillful use of the Internet by Congressman Lynch's staff. That thing that Al Gore and I invented just might have the potential to change the world after all, and the House of Representatives may be the place it will start. A two year election cycle means that protests by real people brought together by Twitter or Facebook have a real chance of balancing big money lobbyists.
Tomorrow, the Nook, the IPod, and the IPad.
Teachers have a saying "The best teacher is the best thief" because there is generally no copyright they won't violate in the quest for good lessons in the face of scarce resources. God bless xerox machines and the Internet. The wonderful world of lawyers has recognized this tendency to intellectual kleptomania with something called the Fair Use Doctrine for educators, but teachers as a whole still manage to be the Robin Hoods of copyright law.
At any rate, I joined the millions protesting the restrictive laws that were in front of Congress and wrote an e-mail to Representative Stephen Lynch. I immediately got a response along the lines of "thanks for writing, I love to hear from my constituents." Pretty much what I expected-my e-mail was lodged as a protest and was duly recorded. However, yesterday a thoughtful second e-mail arrived which weighed the pros and cons of the proposed house bill, stated that Rep. Lynch was opposed to the current bill, and directed my attention to the committee where the bill was sent after the protest. I feel great that the Rep shares my view-something needs to be done, but we need to protect Internet freedom too, but I would still feel great if he disagreed with me. I was impressed with the skillful use of the Internet by Congressman Lynch's staff. That thing that Al Gore and I invented just might have the potential to change the world after all, and the House of Representatives may be the place it will start. A two year election cycle means that protests by real people brought together by Twitter or Facebook have a real chance of balancing big money lobbyists.
Tomorrow, the Nook, the IPod, and the IPad.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Three Things to Read
Arts and Letters Daily has coughed up three articles of interest to the historian today. One is a nice retrospective on the lovable Scourge of God, Attila the Hun from the Smithsonian's "Past Imperfect" blog. Although author John Man is cited as one of the sources for the blog, his more balanced audio book, Attila: The Barbarian Who Challenged Rome is available at the Ames Free Library. That Scourge of God moniker has done much to keep the Attila trademark alive, but for really creepy mass murders its hard to beat the Nazis. Here I direct you to "Nazi Family Values" by David Jacobs from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The article features pictures from the family albums of Heinrich Himmler and Julius Streicher and explores the use of art in propaganda. A chilling article that reminded me of my favorite independent study student David Togut who spent a year looking at how the Nazi used stagecraft to maximize the effect of the Nuremberg rallies.
On a somewhat happier note is a review of several books on Edward Burne-Jones the Victorian artist. Burne-Jones stained glass windows share space in Trinity Church with those of John LaFarge It's nice to see a realist painter getting some ink since the mainstream of art historians (the dermatologists of the history profession) have given them little notice while they have pimped for the Impressionist, Expressionist, Abstract Expressionist, and whatever you'd call a loathsome "artist" like Jeff Koontz. Now don't put me down as a reactionary, I really enjoy Monet, especially the series paintings, and many, many modern artists like the late Helen Frankenthaler, but despite some saccharine exceptions I think that realism in painting deserves more recognition. Check out the Art Renewal Center if you agree. Start with my favorite artist John Singer Sargent. Financed by a millionaire art collector, this website features hundreds of artists who have some claim on painting what they saw. Sadly downloads of large scale and hi-res paintings used to be free, but now requires a membership. Probably worth it-I've downloaded hundreds of pictures to create a collage museum for my computer backgrounds.
Expect traffic jams on Center Street today as people move out of Chestnut Knoll to live in the soon to be rent controlled trailer park in South Easton. At least that's one of the arguments I thought I heard at Town Meeting last night.
On a somewhat happier note is a review of several books on Edward Burne-Jones the Victorian artist. Burne-Jones stained glass windows share space in Trinity Church with those of John LaFarge It's nice to see a realist painter getting some ink since the mainstream of art historians (the dermatologists of the history profession) have given them little notice while they have pimped for the Impressionist, Expressionist, Abstract Expressionist, and whatever you'd call a loathsome "artist" like Jeff Koontz. Now don't put me down as a reactionary, I really enjoy Monet, especially the series paintings, and many, many modern artists like the late Helen Frankenthaler, but despite some saccharine exceptions I think that realism in painting deserves more recognition. Check out the Art Renewal Center if you agree. Start with my favorite artist John Singer Sargent. Financed by a millionaire art collector, this website features hundreds of artists who have some claim on painting what they saw. Sadly downloads of large scale and hi-res paintings used to be free, but now requires a membership. Probably worth it-I've downloaded hundreds of pictures to create a collage museum for my computer backgrounds.
Expect traffic jams on Center Street today as people move out of Chestnut Knoll to live in the soon to be rent controlled trailer park in South Easton. At least that's one of the arguments I thought I heard at Town Meeting last night.
Monday, February 6, 2012
The Magic Tracking Stick
Ever want to follow a trail in the woods? OK, probably not, but since I'm about to teach 7-9 year olds about life in the woods I need to find those trails. Without snow, tracking is difficult, but the magic tracking stick helps. This is a 3 foot long piece of 3/4" dowel with three small scrungis looped over it. You can place the stick next to a track's toe and slide the first scrungi down the dowel to the back of the track. This gives you the size of the track. Place the first scrungi on the inside edge of the track. Slide the second scrungi over to the inside edge of the track on the right, and you have the width of the animal. Now put the end of the dowel next to the toe of one track and slide the third scrungi back to the tip of the last track behind on the same side. This gives you the length of the stride.
A muddy spot on a trail will usually give you two or three tracks so setting up the stick is possible. The magic comes when you lose the trail. Put the last scrungi in the middle of the last track and lay the stick down in the direction the animal was going. The top of the stick should land at the base of where the next track should be. There us might see a faint impression or some gravel out of place or something that would allow you to follow the trail. If the animal picks up speed or turns left or right, this might not work, but it might give you enough to pick up the trail even then.
While bird watching is all about seeing the bird. Unless you want to spend hours in a blind or tree stand watching mammals is all about invisible animals and visible signs. Recently I've "seen" long tailed weasels, squirrels, foxes, deer, rabbits, and probably coyotes. I've even found a spot where a squirrel ate an acorn and a predator ate a squirrel. Nature is full of signs if you look hard enough.
A muddy spot on a trail will usually give you two or three tracks so setting up the stick is possible. The magic comes when you lose the trail. Put the last scrungi in the middle of the last track and lay the stick down in the direction the animal was going. The top of the stick should land at the base of where the next track should be. There us might see a faint impression or some gravel out of place or something that would allow you to follow the trail. If the animal picks up speed or turns left or right, this might not work, but it might give you enough to pick up the trail even then.
While bird watching is all about seeing the bird. Unless you want to spend hours in a blind or tree stand watching mammals is all about invisible animals and visible signs. Recently I've "seen" long tailed weasels, squirrels, foxes, deer, rabbits, and probably coyotes. I've even found a spot where a squirrel ate an acorn and a predator ate a squirrel. Nature is full of signs if you look hard enough.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Doggy DNA
This month's National Geographic Society magazine has a wonderful article on dog DNA. Included in the published article, but apparently not in the online version is a chart of 85 breeds and the composition of their DNA. This is a nice clean version of a 2005 chart published in Science back in 2005. The Science version is available by Google search, but isn't very clear. It's too much fun to ignore so here's some highlights.
The scientists broke doggy DNA into four categories: wolf-like, hunters, herders, and mastifflike. The dog that is almost all wolf DNA is the Shiba inu. That's the smallest of Japan's six native breed of dog and it looks like a small, slightly less robust Husky. As you might expect the Husky and the Alaskan Malamute are very wolf-like. These dogs have more wolf DNA than the Husky:
Of the 85 breeds studied the most common of the four groups of DNA was the hunter group. The Basset Hound has the most hunter DNA, but dogs as diverse as the Old English Sheepdog and the Chihuahua have lots of the hunter DNA. Interestingly, the champion herder breed, the Border Collie has almost no herding "blood"-it's almost 80% hunter. The Schnauzer both standard and miniature have a high percentage of hunter blood as well with the miniature almost 80% hunter. This group contains scent hounds, pointers, retrievers, and terriers so there are a lot of skills lumped together without much sorting. If you saw the chart you'd see that all these groups are mixed together-right next to the nosy Bassett are the Pointer, King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, West Highland White Terrier, and Giant Schnauzer.
Mastifflike breeds include the Mastiff, Bullmastiff, Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Bernese Mountain Dog, Newfoundland, the German Shepherd, and the Rottweiler. The popular Labrador Retriever is an almost even mix of mastiff and hunter with tiny bits of wolf and herder. As noted in this spot before the Pomeranian was designed to be an all purpose farm dog. They have almost equal amounts of mastiff and hunter DNA, a good chunk of herder blood, and more wolf blood than all the breeds in the first sentence of this paragraph. That was probably what Maggie was trying to explain the last time she tried to attack a Rottweiler.
The scientists broke doggy DNA into four categories: wolf-like, hunters, herders, and mastifflike. The dog that is almost all wolf DNA is the Shiba inu. That's the smallest of Japan's six native breed of dog and it looks like a small, slightly less robust Husky. As you might expect the Husky and the Alaskan Malamute are very wolf-like. These dogs have more wolf DNA than the Husky:
Benny the Basenji and Sushi the Shar-pei
The Belgian Sheepdog has the largest amount of herder DNA, but the Saint Bernard, Greyhound, and Collie have a lot as well. The Samoyed which looks like a Husky or Malamute is a blend of wolf and herder DNA. You might not expect it, but this dog is almost 75% herder:
No indication on exactly what a Pekinese could herd, maybe dust bunnies.
Of the 85 breeds studied the most common of the four groups of DNA was the hunter group. The Basset Hound has the most hunter DNA, but dogs as diverse as the Old English Sheepdog and the Chihuahua have lots of the hunter DNA. Interestingly, the champion herder breed, the Border Collie has almost no herding "blood"-it's almost 80% hunter. The Schnauzer both standard and miniature have a high percentage of hunter blood as well with the miniature almost 80% hunter. This group contains scent hounds, pointers, retrievers, and terriers so there are a lot of skills lumped together without much sorting. If you saw the chart you'd see that all these groups are mixed together-right next to the nosy Bassett are the Pointer, King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, West Highland White Terrier, and Giant Schnauzer.
Mastifflike breeds include the Mastiff, Bullmastiff, Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, Bernese Mountain Dog, Newfoundland, the German Shepherd, and the Rottweiler. The popular Labrador Retriever is an almost even mix of mastiff and hunter with tiny bits of wolf and herder. As noted in this spot before the Pomeranian was designed to be an all purpose farm dog. They have almost equal amounts of mastiff and hunter DNA, a good chunk of herder blood, and more wolf blood than all the breeds in the first sentence of this paragraph. That was probably what Maggie was trying to explain the last time she tried to attack a Rottweiler.
Maggie perched for action.
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