Who taught me that history is an ongoing process, and that ideas and “facts” are a matter of perception. The authors of this dedicated-to-the-book site put together a really cool prototype of this concept, in their twelve volume chronicle of the changing history of the Iraq War, as captured in edits to the Wikipedia definition.
As long as we’re kicking around history, Shorpy has some cool pictures today of 1930s urbanity – Chicago, Savannah. Here’s one that makes me miss trains.
On an overcast September morning, there was a blast. Windows were blown out and walls collapsed. The work of a group of terrorists would be exposed. Thousands of mourners would gather to hear national leaders speak. Songs would be written. National laws soon after changed.
Some years after, members of the same religion as the terrorists would try to build a community center downtown, only a couple of streets away from the horrible act.
But no one revolted. No one protested. It wasn’t considered “bad taste” or “an affront to the victims” In fact the community center would be supported by the Governor. And by the 1990’s, this center would be heralded for its value to students. (article)
The blast was the September 1963 16th Street church bombing in Birmingham Alabama. And it was carried out by an extremist organization, the United Klans of America (history here and here). They screamed for the take down of American Jews. They terrorized their neighbors into silence and spoke in the name of Christianity.
In fact no one associated these terrorists with Christianity. No one assumed they were a bulwark of Christian values. They were a hate group. And the country gathered to mourn its people’s losses and fight for its people rights. Martin Luther King inspired us to dream.
Today, my dental hygienist said she thought it was an affront to the honor of the 9-11 victims that “they” would build a mosque near the WTC. She didn’t mean any harm, and in fact she said she wanted to learn more by reading Three Cups of Tea. But the winds of intolerance seem to be blowing (article). I don’t blame her. I blame the lack of Martin Luther Kings.
Today is the 100th day since our first posting on the moogaz. I thought maybe we were around that benchmark and needed a blog post title and then sure enough, I went to Excel and popped in a formula and well, today is exactly 100 days. Weird.
With most of our authors either having a baby or getting married, content’s been a little dry this past week (get on that Jim). Alas though, we received our first cross-blog promotional bit from a site called Team Scrappy. I can’t possibly do justice to these spedo wearing idiots, so you’ll just have to go there and read their post “Why you Shouldn’t Fart in a Wetsuit”.
There are some really dumb infographics out there on the first 100 days (see this and this if you want really crappy infographics). I decided instead to choose a meaningless image to adorn our 100 days celebratory post.
Think our current fight to reduce fossil fuels is a late twentieth century creation? From Shorpy, here’s a post on the Fuel Administration circa 1919.
According to a comment on the post and Wikipedia, the Fuel Administration was a government response to a major shortage of coal in the weaning years of WWI. The organization had broad powers to regulate prices and distribution of coal. Garfield was appointed by Wilson to head the agency. Beyond regulating demand, its most famous legacy is Daylight Savings Time.
I wonder given the current Tea Party context how popular a similar organization would be for conserving oil? Even Progressives might find the concept difficult. It speaks to how conservative the nation has shifted.
Jonathan “the new guy” in development threw out this site, a blog of really high quality historical images from around the US. Seems to be lots of exploring in this site.
End of the Line: 1921 talks about how when the streetcars were torn out of the roads, people found all sorts of uses for the old carriages.
There’s the Marilyn Monroe colorized section.
And this node was cool too for its before and after shots. A restaurant in 1937, this Savannah Georgia address has gone downhill since.
I Googled Cornhole, a popular game in these parts and I discovered this site – it’s not drop dead hilarious but it has a couple of gems. If nothing else, you’ll waste a good 10 minutes.
Anyways, back to Cornhole. From Wikipedia:
The true history of the game is mostly unknown,[5] though stories abound. One story claims that the game was first played during the 14th century in Germany, then rediscovered in Kentucky within the last century.[5] Despite debate about whether the game was actually created in the Kentucky farmland, Champaign, IL or the West Side of Cincinnati,[6] some sources credit the invention to western Cincinnati,[7] but by whom or when is unknown. Popularity of the game began to increase in the late 1990's in Cincinnati area universities, particularly Miami University where cornhole became a mainstay at parties and as a casual drinking game. Helped along by the advent of commercial cornhole bags and boards under the trademark Baggo, cornhole is now a popular game in and around the Midwest and Rust Belt states.
The key score of this research project is the new terminology I learned while wikipedia-ing Cornhole. While the lexicon of throwing beanie bags at a wooden box included such lame ones as “cornfusion” (when players can’t agree on the scoring), my personal favorites are “dirty bag” (a bag that it is hanging off the board touching the ground) and the various fractions of “Galbraith” (all four bags in the hole). The complete list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornhole
By the way, the governing body of Cornhole is the American Cornhole Association of course. This man is their President.
Two hundred and thirty four years ago our fore fathers declared their independence from … ummm, Uruguay? France? the Czech Republic?
Another post from the convention center in New Orleans. Today is, of course, super duper – almost – Tuesday. There are votes in 12 states today. There’s a nice rundown here.
As we vote, I wondered why the second Tuesday. Couldn’t find much on why the second Tuesday in June but it seems likely that it followed the same second Tuesday in November model. So why the second Tuesday in November? Here’s a neat little explanation.
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