"I was not a great student in college. I liked learning, but not on someone else’s timetable. It was this story that woke me up and made me a scholar. I found it fascinating that a group of ordinary people from country towns who shared a fear that they were losing their democracy could figure out how to work together to reclaim it." This is a fascinating story about how you have become a scholar of not an ivory tower but of the people, by the people and for the people of America.
You know, I wasn’t a great student in school either. Perhaps because I had a learning disability that was never diagnosed. I did graduate high school in 3 years by going to summer school. So when I had to, I studied.
And I never quite but almost found my awakening. A high school teacher had been inspirational in getting me to write more since she found this was my early interest. So I wrote a bit for the literary magazine. It was mostly horsing around in satire. Art Buckwald was an early influence. And of course the great writer Sam Clemens, aka, Mark Twain, whose house was next to my high school and where I used to sneak out at lunchtime and bring my lunch over and sit on Twain’s porch and fantasize him stepping out to engage me in conversation. Twain was a compulsive writer. We only hear of the popular novels that he wrote but his discipline to write often had him writing from early morning to late afternoon. I’m only now finishing up my 2nd publication about cats and all the animals in my life. And the last will be my memoirs which I’m working on now. I enjoy collecting first edition Mark Twain books.
We, your faithful readers, are grateful that your inner scholar was awakened. You have kept me from despair on so many occasions, not because we are living in the darkest times of my 77 years, but because history (you) teaches us that the light will prevail.
So beautifully expressed, Evelyn. Did you ever read something and it resonated so that you wished you had written it? Well that was my experience on reading your lovely, insightful, and grateful missive. Thank you.
Bill, I was raised in NE and on one of our family vacations we drove across MO and stopped in Hannibal for the tour of the Tom Sawyer house. My dad had several Mark Twain books that I immediately read when I got home. On that trip we found a campground right on the Mississipi River that I still remember. The river was very wide there and was moving very fast compared to the lazy rivers in NE. Several barges passed by during our one day at the campground.
My wife and I were drawn to ME having vacationed here since the early 1990's. We finally made the move in 2003. It has always felt like home. One of our neighbors in Blue Hilll was a retired CEO of a major oil company and we would exchange pleasantries with him on our walks on the beach. Same with Noel Stookey. It seems when people get to Maine all of the haughty-taughtieness goes away IMO.
GJ Loft- I started in Maine, married and left to live in 9 other states before returning to Maine in 2021. NE was one of them(Lincoln) and MO(StJo) another one. However, once you're from Maine you're always from Maine and coming full circle has been nice.
My husband is from Indiana, and he feels similarly. He has often defined the midwestern culture/personality type that was quite evident in my in-law's interaction with me - it wasn't good. I'm from NY and his mother asked David if I was an east coast, New York, liberal, snob!!! He corrected that assumption. Thank you, Dave.
Our older daughter hasn't forgiven us for being in Indiana when she was born but in Colorado for her sister's birth. Agree each state has its plus points but the one I liked the least was MO. StJoseph natives told us "It's where the Pony Express started and Jesse James ended and nothing has happened since." The state itself was beautiful and I blame my dislike on the fact I was suppose to be a "corporate wife and act accordingly" which was an impossible assignment for me. So, I guess I can't, in all honesty, say the state was my least favorite. There are some wonderful parks like Squaw Creek which was full of snow geese and other birds. And Kansas City has amazing restaurants one of which introduced me to hummus and other new dishes and flavors. On a different subject, have you run into the artist Robert Shetterly in the Blue Hill area? He's well worth looking up.
I enjoy very poignant flashbacks when I listen to music from the 60's early 70's. I loved my high school days; I was immersed in athletics, school government and French - my eventual college major. My high school counselor advised me to have a well-rounded resume going forward. I have strived to be a renaissance woman ever since.
So you graduated from high school in New York? In the city or upstate?
Upstate NY is so cool but growing up in the city would be so cool.
Learning for life is the Marie Montessori motto that we heard repeatedly when our daughter attended. It was inspirational to me. Maria Konnikova has a chapter in her book about how the brain changes when you learn new things - Mastermind: How to think like Sherlock Holmes.
I graduated from high school in Watertown, a small town near the Canadian border. Attended college at SUNY Albany, graduate school at the University of New Hampshire. After college, I went to work in NYC at a French bank on Wall Street as a bi-lingual secretary. I agree - learning is a life long endeavor. (I just started a book on the history of the Roman Empire - not light reading.) I figure if I keep reading, I'll eventually learn something.....
Well as a fellow nondx learning issues person always good to find another survivor. Samuel Clemens! So you would
know The Prince and the Pauper( his social commentary runs throughout the book) and A Connecticut Yankee in Kings Arthur’s Court. Both worth knowing as his later writings which were really angry. Supposedly he was friends with the English author George McDonald and they both helped the Fisk College Jubilee Singer travel to England and the rest sof Europe. Mr McDonald hosted the singers and had them perform at a party in which all the village was invited . It supposedly was noted both med had tears flowing during the performance.
Thanks, Mary O.! Ah yes, Mark Twain! I recently acquired a copy of "The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn" (a "Penguin Classics" edition published about a century after the original). As the blurb on the back states: "Seelye's introduction discusses the context from which the novel emerged." And also gives this from Hemmingway: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckelberry Finn."
The intro has these interesting, and perhaps pertinent today, excerpts: "Huckleberries...are not associated with the Mississippi Valley but with New England hills, and it was a hucklelberrying party that Thoreau captained the day he was let out of the Concord jail. But if Huck's raft was constructed in part by materials from Thoreau's hut and Leatherstocking's shack, the route it followed came from "Uncle Tom's Cabin"... Huck and Tom join forces to set Jim free... The United States headed west again at about the same time as Huck Finn...and like Huck and Tom the expanding nation carried with it the American dilemma known as Jim, whose last name is never given..."
No I lead a boring life. Feeding the cats was once a simple procedure but now they insist on mooching on each other’s plates and the more dominant ones need shooing off.
As cats are excellent judges of character, I would surmise they would have something to add about their human furrend. Quality, honesty and steadfastness mean more than ever now. After existing in the PedoFelon’s turbulent shit show, “boring” sounds wonderful to me.
The most of rumor was that he had upto 19 cats in or around his house. There is not a lot mentioned. But now when I look at a black & white photos of Twain in his home, I closely look at furniture with scratches on them. It’s there. And my furniture also has scratches but I’m no longer concerned.i feel accomplished with I finish major cleaning as I have as of yesterday. My bedroom run needs vacuum and then the process begins again. It’s a lifestyle. Someone remarked that my house doesn’t smell of cats and it’s because I clean. Simple dimple. I now have 7 soon to be 8. A friend had 3 cats when I once visited him at his house and his house was quite a bit larger than mine. Be just didn’t constantly clean the litter boxes. I do, lol. I would like s Ellington cat urine. The other day I found a cst missed the kitchen litter box and immediately moved stuff out of the way and washed the kitchen floor.
Bill Katz, your posts are always thoughtful, insightful, scholarly and interesting. Nothing about that is boring.....I would love to live next door to you. (My husband loves cats; we no longer own them because travelling requires cat sitters, etc. -- too much hassle.) I hard horses - they don't live with you....
Oh… no not scholarly leave that one out, lol. I write emotively. The recent cat that showed me she wanted to come in right before the deep sub zero temps a month and a half later had a litter so now I’m being a good daddy ministering to her needs and those of the little ones. They have their own room.
Charming story; delighted that you shared these intimate slices of your past, present and your future goals. A refreshing departure from the usual......
I believe Art retired to Martha’s Vineyard and as I had visited a few times, I thought to pay him an unannounced call just because I was so enamored of his writing. I think he would have accepted my hello.
That is IT! It does take US. Ordinary people who will not succumb to tyrants and engage in policies that are not in the human interest of survival.
I figured out how I learn best. I do not learn in the linear. I have to experience what I am learning to retain it. Boy are we learning now.....not what I would have chosen to learn!
As someone who discovered my learning and social "disabilities" late in life, I find myself instantly drawn to your phrase " I do not learn in the linear". The story of my life (that drove those around me crazy).
PS:
I liked "I have to experience what I am learning to retain it." also.
You do mean you abilities, don't you? Creative thinking does not use linear lines. Outside the box is what transports us into the next solution. Also, linear learners have blinders on. This is the problem I see with our entire society. Time to look around and take in all possibilities.
Yes, thank you. I appreciate you pointing what I always knew, but which has taken a long time to accept and celebrate (still a struggle). Especially in the face of those who insisted that I was just "not trying hard enough"...:)
So, circular learning, visual learning, auditory learning, tactile learning - however we best receive information. That we wish to learn at all is required so we remain adaptable and able to maximize our understanding of stuff.....
At the same time, Heather provides a number of historical stories, so I'm often being reminded of and relearning our past - So if you're looking for some good historical reading I could suggest: A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison and the Forging of a Friendship by Louis Masur, and Jeffrey Rosen's excellent The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton and Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in American.
Another mediocre college student here, who found the motivation for knowledge and learning outside of the classroom and off of the syllabus. I can totally relate to that. I later got into the top MPA program in the country, with a big assist from a college professor who never gave up on me, and I think I justified his faith by excelling there.
What really matters though is what we do with that learning. Knowledge is not something to squirrel away in an ivory tower. It’s something be shared. Knowledge is power and knowledge shared and spread is an unstoppable superpower. Thanks to Heather for sharing hers every day.
Hiro, same thought and also why she gives us narratives, not just facts. I was not a great student (in Ohio) until college and went on to teach history in Mass. in a very different way than how I was taught, followed by years of being a Principal and then for 31 years, as Headmaster - where I also taught history and coached baseball.
① Maine became a state through the Missouri Compromise. It entered the Union as the 23rd state on March 15, 1820, after separating from Massachusetts.
② It is the largest state in New England. Maine covers about 35,380 square miles, making it the biggest state in the region by area.
③ Maine borders only one U.S. state. That state is New Hampshire, which makes Maine the only state in the country with exactly one fellow state on its border.
④ Maine reaches farther east than any other state. West Quoddy Head is the easternmost point in the United States.
⑤ Its nickname is the Pine Tree State. That name reflects Maine’s vast forests and timber history.
⑥ The state flower is the white pine cone and tassel. That is unusual, since most state flowers are blossoms, not cones.
⑦ The state bird is the chickadee. More specifically, Maine honors the black-capped chickadee.
⑧ Mount Katahdin is Maine’s highest point. It rises to 5,268 feet and is one of the state’s best-known natural landmarks.
⑨ Moosehead Lake is Maine’s largest lake. Its name fits the state well, since Maine is also famous for its moose population.
⑩ York was once the first chartered English city in America. In 1641 it was chartered as Gorgeana before later becoming York.
For those who don’t know, Mount Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. A couple thousand folks are already walking their way north from Georgia’s Springer Mountain. That will continue another month or so. A quarter usually finish.
That fact carries its own quiet poetry. While so much of the country feels frantic and fractured, there are still thousands of people walking north one step at a time toward Katahdin. And the attrition matters too. It says something about endurance, illusion, preparation, and will. A quarter finishing makes the mountain feel less like a destination and more like a reckoning.
Our northernmost county, Aroostook, is the largest county east of the Mississippi. It is largely privately owned by paper companies, with towns mostly along Rt 11 and Rt1. Much of the northern part reminds me of the Pennsylvania Dutch area of the '70s. And there's a town called Washburn in The County (as Mainers refer to Aroostook County).
I have two sets of first cousins, not related to each other, but related to me, originally from Western Pa, where there's shit in the streets from Amish horses, who now live in Maine.
Somewhere I have a picture I took of the Maine Daughters of the American Revolution Plaque proclaiming the Jamison Tavern in Freeport was where commissioners met in 1820 and signed the papers which separated Maine from Massachusetts. That plaque seems to have only lasted 110 years (1914 to 1924), removed after no official records could be found of such a meeting. It is now a second King's Head Pub in the same building as the former Jamison Tavern.
My paternal grandparents owned substantial undeveloped rural property in Maine -- I believe it was near the Canadian Border -- and my father spent many of his home-from-boarding-school summers there. I particularly recall him talking about trout fishing in a favorite brook -- actually, from the oil painting we had of it, a small river -- but to my great sadness I cannot remember its name. (That property was lost to the Crash of '29, part of the huge, permanently devastating loss that killed my father's plan to study history at McGill University in Montreal, taught him what he called "real life"and permanently reduced my family from notably wealthy to eternally struggling.)
(Google AI constantly garbles my posts, against which there is no defense, and usually I catch it. But I somehow missed this one -- didn't catch it until two hours after the fact -- for which I apologize.)
Many have suffered the same fate in history. I hope you do not feel the loss as personal. My parents did, and spoke volumes about it, instead of concentrating on the present, living in the past. I do understand.
Never took it personally; just recognized it -- probably from about age 10 onward -- as part of the relentless, often violent savagery that routinely confronts any genuinely progressive-minded person in grassroots USia. (In my life, the {only} exception to that embittering rule was New York City, where every day was a blessed encounter with why the great James Baldwin so memorably labeled it "Another Country," in other words {not} the realm eternally tyrannized by the white-supremacist, Christian-misogynistic Moronic Majority.) Eternally? Indeed; start your studies of USian sociology with Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Mencken; then read Vance Packard, and follow him with Allen Ginsburg's "Howl," which begins with the finest English-language lead ever written, "I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." In conclusion, merely dare a truly open-eyed, open-minded look at what we are today.
Thank you, but my browser [is] Firefox; the problem is my email, which is Google, aka gmail, in which I have to fight AI's anticipatory (and sometimes illiterate or nonsensical) composition whenever I try to write (anything) of any complexity. And I cannot change email servers because the unspeakably odious ordeal of changing email addresses to institutional recipients -- to insurors, retailers, credit cards and the like -- is genuinely prohibitive. (For example, I am permanently locked out of LinkedIn -- which was my {only} way of communicating with a number of former journalistic colleagues -- because the email address with which I was registered with LinkedIn, q.com, was killed by Century Link, which means there is {no} way for me to get the required access code to open my LinkedIn account and therefore {no} way to {ever} reconnect with about a dozen people. (It took me -- no exaggeration -- three days of effort to discover there is absolutely no way around the lock-out; LinkedIn's numerous claims of "it's easy" all proved to be lies.) Fortunately by the time this happened I had already changed the email address registered with my more vital institutional correspondents, an unspeakably difficult process that required about half-a-day's unnerving, frustrating, god-cursing, indescribably infuriating struggle per institution and thereby stole an entire work-week, again no exaggeration, from my life. (This exemplifies why I utterly despise computers, and why I do so with a truly bottomless hatred, the only inanimate object in my life that has ever agitated such an utterly negative response, a reaction further intensified by the fact computers destroyed nine of every ten jobs in print journalism and put the burdens of eight of those jobs on the individual reporter -- the {real} reason USian newspapers have all turned to shit .)
Interesting. My father had been admitted to a New York medical school in 1931 and a well off uncle agreed to pay for his first year schooling and board. Then he rescinded the offer and my father never tried to reapply. It apparently devastated him and he subsequently would open the letter announcing his admission and I now have the letter.
My paternal grandparents were British subjects whose wealth came from my grandfather's role as one of the founders of the automotive industry. He was Amos Read Bliss, a civil engineer whose first work was designing bridges for the Canadian Pacific as it built westward. After about 1898 he specialized in automotive engineering, designed and patented the automotive dynamo (what we today would call a generator or an alternator) and was the head of the team that invented and designed the electric starter. My Massachusetts-born father's intent had been to obtain a graduate-level degree in history, serve the British Empire for maybe a decade as an army officer and then settle into a professorship somewhere in the United States or Canada. Studying history on his own -- our household library overflowed a 30-foot, ten-foot-ceiling wall and a half-dozen additional multi-shelved bookcases, three of them oaken, glass-fronted five-shelf antiques -- he became, by far, the most knowledgeable historian I've ever known (and history -- for me also a subject of lifelong reading -- was a big part of my interdisciplinary BA). Indeed -- apart from what I cannot but regard as her misguided optimism -- Dr. Richardson's essays are in style and content frequent reminders of conversations I had with my father, which is no doubt one of the reasons I cherish her work. My father was also a Mensa, and given the opportunity provided by the war effort, he rose quickly to upper managerial ranks, having served the War Production Board/War Assets Administration as what today would be a deputy regional director. But the horrors of the Crash of '29 turned him into a lifelong Marxian, and the Plutocracy responded with the hateful, sadistic viciousness by which it always seeks to destroy anyone who dares be less than an incipiently Nazified pro-capitalist fanatic; he was purged from the federal government in 1947 and soon permanently exiled from his beloved New York City, rural Michigan and rural New England. By the time he died -- in 1971 -- he was running an Esso station outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. (When he died -- though I was living 2200 miles away in Bellingham, Washington, attending what was then Western Washington State College -- he momentarily appeared at the foot of my bed, which I was sharing with an Irish girlfriend, who actually saw him more clearly than I.)
One of my duty stations in my Navy career was at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (which is actually in the town of Kittery ME). Great people, beautiful location. Don’t forget the honor & bravery of the men of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg.
Love the seemingly tongue-in-cheek opening, the weaving of history, and the clarion call for today’s world at the end.
But I also see that today’s voters seem to be more motivated by the scarcity of toilet paper, the price of eggs, and the cost of oil than by any sense of fighting an oligarchy based on repression…in other words, repression is out of mind when it seems to be directed towards others. We have much more educating to do.
I do agree that we have much more educating to do. I also think it's really important to remember that there is no such monolithic group as "today's voters." I belong to MarkersforDemocracy.org, and I promise you, we are not here because of the price of toilet paper. And there are millions of voters all across the country who are waking up (or were already awake) to the care we need to take if we want to live in a democratic republic, or, democracy. Nokings.org No Kings Day 3 on March 28!
Unfortunately -- despite Trump's proper placement in the pollsters' cesspool -- those of us willing to do the work of revolution remain a powerless, ineffectual minority. We can protest and petition 'till the proverbial cows come home, but atrocities like these -- https://jessica.substack.com/p/a-georgia-hospital-turned-her-in?publication_id=11153&post_id=190871462&isFreemail=false&r=cb67r&triedRedirect=true and https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/justice-department-indicts-30-anti-ice-church-protest-rcna261021 -- combine with the ever-escalating war and all the other horrors with which the criminal regime assaults us to make its ChristoNazi onslaught a conquest on too many fronts to defeat. What's worse, "American mind" has become an oxymoron; once fiercely humanitarian enough to fight to end slavery, today its definitive characteristic is self-obsessed, reflexively hateful moronic imbecility, focused entirely on comfort issues and notably defective in terms of its ever-more-institutionalized hostility to empathy. Jefferson's Missouri-Compromise-era belief cited by Dr. Richardson -- that the slavery question would destroy the republic -- was genuinely prophetic. Institutionalized slavery is the origin of the white-supremacist race-hatred that unites in ecogenocidal symbiosis with Christian misogyny to energize our true national ethos of domestic and international might-makes-right social Darwinism, and that malignancy has indeed slain the former United States, reducing it to a failed nation. Thus the utterly ineducable Moronic Majority rules, which is precisely why the plutocratic puppet-masters and their ChristoNazi puppets run amok, secure in the technologically omnipotent, bribery guaranteed certainty they can't be stopped by anything short of an entirely unlikely miracle. (That doesn't mean I'll surrender; Tacoma's 28 March No-Kings demonstration is in Wright Park, directly across the street from the senior housing complex where I dwell, and a number of folks from here plan to attend. Assuming I'm still alive, and I can find somebody to push my wheel-chair up the steep terrain, I'll photograph it for our monthly newsletter. If I'm able to do it, it'll doubtless be my photographic swan song, the last such reportage of my life.)
I'll look forward to that photograph Loren. I hope you can post it here.
That " miracle" you speak of will happen. I don't know how or where it will come from but miracles are happening daily. We just need to pay attention. Admittedly I never would have thought this country would condone a pedophile in the white house. Its discouraging but we just have to each continue to do our part. Surrender is not an option. You hang in there, we need you!
Gloria-Mass protest may not topple the regime but they do bring we the people together to demonstrate our strength. If we don’t show resistance we’ll be consumed by the lies the regime promotes and our own complacency.
I am sorry for my need to say your weak defense of protesting shows for sure the "American mind" has been invaded with the insanity trump and regime are promoting. We are insane to think a protest is going to bring about change. A protest is too weak an action to accomplish what needs accomplishing. I am basically trying to stay sane in an ever more realm of insanity.
But November is our chance & they know it. Protests are a permission slip for those on the sidelines, they give hope to the hopeless. The ones in MPLS were a powerful show of resolution & a proof point of the admin’s slipping grip.
I understand how you're feeling but remember that mass protest and demonstrations helped to end the Viet-Nam War. They want us to give up, they want us to be too demoralized to oppose them. Do what you can and safeguard your sanity. We're all in this together and I believe there are more of us than there are of them.
Ms. Parsons...It will not; no protest (or any other constitutional process) will liberate us from the conquering ChristoNazis -- brazenly sadistic eecogenocidal killers -- who with their MAGAstapo lynch mobs and military legions of death have already cancelled our constitution and destroyed our republic. See "The Last Article" for the perfect fictional metaphor for our true circumstances, https://ia601501.us.archive.org/19/items/last-article-harry-turtledove/Last%20Article%20Harry%20Turtledove.pdf . But we most keep protesting; our species honor demands no less; see also my response to Mr. Lawler.
That, and strong, committed leadership. It's why the Congressional Veterans (Slotkin, Kelly, Crow, etc.) were so effective. It's We the People, but need that strong leadership commitment to our Constitution.
“The power of the people is greater than the people in power”. -Cory Booker
The education the people need is a focus on the tactics those in power use to separate us (race, gender, religion, region etc). If we are truly serious about saving (and amending) our democracy we have to come together because we’re stronger together and that’s how we overcome the forces that are trying to destroy ideals like equality and liberty and justice for all.
Terry Nicholetti, yes, I should have written "many of today's voters." Mea culpa. But I also see an inability on the part of many to engage in inductive reasoning, i.e., to trace back to the source of the high price of eggs, etc., to the causes thereof. In part, the sources are intentionally obscured, hence the need for education. Thank the universe for HCR.
All of those 'self-interest' concerns are hardships that can result from government decisions, though. Our work should be to connect the dots for others, as HCR does, so that people can understand the cause and effect.
Just today, someone asked Belle of the Ranch why the correspondent's MAGA Marine relative was recoiling at Hegseth saying "no quarter' when nothing else had shaken their MAGA faith. Belle explained how close to home that hit; that, now, Irani soldiers won't surrender ('no quarter' means death, no prisoners) and that US military can't expect any better in return.
Is it another case of "I'm good with it until it hits those I care about?" Yes. But help them connect the dots to understand why.
The Michigan synagogue would-be shooter also comes to mind. Was it a hate crime? Yes. Was the assailant given ample reasons to hate, reasons that any MAGA would understand?
Tragically, yes. Actions have consequences. Victims have relatives. But people hearing half the story won't know what motivated him.
There was a book called *Surplus Powerlessness* I believe by the amazing Michael Learner that bears upon this topic. Many people deeply believe themselves to be powerless to a greater degree than they actually are. Thus, they give up easily when faced with paper tigers. I don't want us to blame these victims; rather, as you say, we need to educate them as to their true power and motivate them to work for change.
I know what you mean!! But perhaps the issue of eggs and gas prices as the main topic is presented to us because that’s what pundits and pollsters have decided we should think. If a person is asked, on the spot, what matters or even as a list of priorities, it can affect their immediate answers. And don’t our media folks live it to be simple, dumbed down and not of substance. I have some hope that if they were given some good questions to consider, they’d answer more thoughtfully than just about eggs. Although…eggs are important…
Ellen, I don't mean to give the impression of an elitist smart-ass, but I sincerely believe that a significant majority of U.S. residents cannot define "oligarchy." And that gets to the crux of our challenge.
Dale, you are undoubtedly correct. They can, however, throw around the words socialism and communism. They do not know what those words mean either, but they are all rugged individuals who do not need anything from the government.....until they do and are first in line. They also ignore our deep connection to nature and the earth. Everything is a commodity. I just finished the book, The Arrogant Ape, which discusses this in detail. She even had a part where she talked about the nutty idea of living on Mars touted by the likes of Elon. I agreed with what she said, but as I read, I was sickened by the people who are in charge now. Just when we need wisdom, we get chest pounding.
Couldn't agree more, Michele. As I referenced elsewhere in today's conversation, as an evangelical boy, I was expected to memorize the Bible, verse by verse, along with corresponding references. My brain doesn't work that way and I failed, although I remember themes.
What struck me as an adult is that evangelicals are required to memorize the Bible, but are not required to understand or follow what they memorized, except as it can be used as a weapon, the "sword of the Lord." When confronted with "the other," their response is to quote scripture at people who scare them.
Likewise, conservatives (strongly influenced by evangelicals) don't understand words in a secular context. Authority figures tell them certain words are bad, and that's all they need to know.
I do not often get quotes, but usually I will pray for you. I had an elderly Catholic friend who prayed for me every day and that was OK as it was done lovingly. But the others....it is like being cursed. Bad energy.
I am often amazed how people do not seem to understand what they read or memorize especially the first three Gospels. I find the OT more harsh. I read an excellent book on the OT titled, I think, How the Bible Came to Be. My fav book I have read recently is God, an Anatomy which is sure to infuriate the religious. I loved it. I make a distinction between being religious and being spiritual.
The most recent book I read about Christianity is a long tome called Lower than Angels, about Christianity and sex. It was complete and excellent.
Just after (?) the most recent turn of the century, there was a headline in my local paper about how government figures showed growing and much increased economic inequality in the American economy. Experts cited in the article predicted it would be a major political issue.
Except it wasn't. "Inequality" had it's 15 minutes of fame, and popped it's head above the surface from time to time, but always was pushed to the periphery of what the public ostensibly cared about. Many mainstream Democrats have mocked Bernie Sanders for going on about it so.
And guess what? Money is power, or at least one form of it. So is political position, so is violence; and the more corrupt a society, the more they bleed together. What right had Elon Musk, et al, to take over Tesla, or decide what public services to destroy? Money. Why is AI being foisted on us whether we want it or not? Money. Years ago when a prankster called Scott Walker and recorded it, Walker was panting like a puppy when he thought he had a call from a Koch Bro. You try calling a governor.
The Bible says that the (I presume exclusive) LOVE of money is the root of all evil, or something like that. I reject extreme right and left and see complimentary roles for the private and the public sector; yet both, along with all of us as individuals, have social responsibilities; and if we don't, who does? I'm not a "centrist". but I believe in dynamic balance, in "sweet spots" in the interplay of circumstances. Life depends on dynamic balance, and we are currently, in many ways, running off the rails. Liberty and Justice for ALL, or not.
Today's Oligarchs are using their economic influence to affect every American negatively, KEM. They have corrupted our political system with dark money made possible by corrupt right-wing Supreme Court Justices also with dark money and religious groups. The recent reporting of the DOGE employee trying to share Social Security information illegally obtained by the DOGE incursion into the SSA and reportedly up loaded to an unsecured cloud site that even today SSA officials don't have access to.
The information they have applies to every citizen who has a Social Security number, personal information that can enable massive fraud in the wrong hands. The DOGE employee made a deal with a right-wing organization that intends to use that info to overturn elections.
With trump purging the Inspector Generals when he took office, any investigation is unlikely. We will not know what Elon Musk is doing with all the data he stole from every agency and department he invaded in the name of DOGE. He bought the opportunity to steal our data and end any government regulation on his company with nearly $300 million donated to trump's campaign. The Oligarchs have used dark money to buy enough political office holders to make it very difficult to apply any regulations to the social media and AI tech they own.
The toxic conditions that have divided this nation were designed, developed, deployed, and funded by today's Oligarchs.
And it negatively affects everyone but the ultra-rich.
Yes AND the Dems have to take some responsibility for their approach during the past 40 years that made this take-over possible. While the GOP, starting w. Reagan & Gingrich, were stirring up hatred among all the ordinary folks against "left-wing, lunatic liberal communists," Democrats were listening to high-priced consultants and only supporting candidates in elections we could win. The rest of of the country was ONLY hearing the GOP, right wing, Christian Nationalist messages, from local candidates who showed up at the town halls and local meeting places. As Ricky Ricardo never said to Lucy (!) We got some 'splainin' to do!
I have been thinking out how to map out all the various threads of human civilization that caused us to be where we are in this moment . So much violence and rises and falls and tides and wades and today I went into anger territory where I just want those in power to not be. It’s not as if the people on this earth are filled with greed or hatred the majority are not but those within the power abd control matrix fear. From fossil fuels companies and next time Senator Whitehouse does a speech I wish he would play Sant Saens Carnival of the Animals highlighting the dinosaurs. But he has been doing sources to nearly empty chambers for awhile. Gleaners by Millet should all the Democrats and Indigence where a shirt if that paining of people gathering the last gleams of harvest? Shoukd they sing Bread and Roses together the next time a joint session is called? Shoukd they do like Senator Dirkinsen from Illinois’s and not only tear up papers but march out and resign from the Party and create a new more lively group? Sending out emails and texts just as if everything is still normal is beyond maddening it’s like this ongoing tragedy that line the old kick the can game goes on way past bedtime. Just since 2948 when the sun was created and Eleanor felt a shit that was scary to her it’s been an era of better but also so much yuck below the surface riding now and then. Underground mineral rights and how business created so many roadways rolling over property rights and heritages
. The march is coming but we need an action play the old SOAP from medical charging. What is the plan? How many people are able to help that we are still unaware of? There has to be some. And how to use art in a better way than SNL. It would be great to have a big big big event at the entertainment awards but I don’t see that happening. Mother Jones has a children’s march. I am at that point now with demands and a written manifesto and series of actions depending on the answers given. Sitting and not moving perhaps.
We aren’t angry enough that the right lies to our faces and games the system, like they alway have. They dulled our patriotism with ads and products and comfort.
I blame the Kardashians. I’m joking, but the quest for what they seem to be has eroded society.
Gloria, as I have often opined, Donald is not the cause of our mental illness. He is the main symptom. He would not have risen to power if there weren't millions of poorly educated, racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, christofascist U.S. citizens who believe as he does.
These folks are not the majority of Americans, but they have gotten control of the levers of power, including our media, our legislature and our electoral system. The only remaining rampart is our judicial system, which is weakened, but still holding by a thread in favor of democracy.
Well she raised the alarm in 2016. I think some people were worried about confusion
between criminal behavior abd a dx from the DSM. The APA and Yale were terrible to her. We have the scenario of a fourth generation white collar crime family with all that that ensues now with engenders man who is hardly functioning in an appropriate way for his office Ali g with the fact he has been compromised for decades by his crime and oligarchy world ties.
Maine is a beautiful state, and its people have always struck me as being fiercely independent and decent. Your piece reminded me of my favorite Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Yes one group was called the Heritage Society and they sure have changed the world. But there are others meeting in small yet determined groups who are also showing up on our Substacks and in our email accounts and in our feeds these days, and if we give them our attention, our support and amplify their message, they will grow and together we will bring the country back from the brink stronger and wiser.
I've made the same mistake and been corrected. The right-wing extremist Heritage Foundation is a distinctly different organization than the non-partisan Heritage Society.
I was reminded of the children’s book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and had a nice dive into his life and other books. I have always wanted to visit Arcadia National Park.
My other connection is the ship and the Spanish American War and the motto which his Remember the Maine but supposedly more misinformation than fact. That would be interesting if HRC has not written about our entry into that military action. Seems relevant.
Acadia National Park is definitely worth a visit. And Robert McCloskey's books are beloved by children and the adults who read to them. There are statues of the ducklings in "Make Way For Ducklings" in the Public Garden in Boston.
Meanwhile we have a group of thought-less self-obsessed twits who ought to be committed running the Country. And one of our Senators from Maine, is right in there with em.
I can see why this story woke you up, so to speak. Hearing the stories of earlier Americans makes our history alive. Thank you for sharing this with us.
As I said above, Jefferson's concern about the slavery question was truly prophetic -- its residual white supremacy has slain the republic and -- in symbiosis with Christian misogyny -- reduced it to a failed state. That's what we of the Resistance must defeat if we are to achieve liberation.
Supremacy frames itself in different ways, including theocratic, but it is all about absolute power. It is all about unmitigated ego pushing every other human concern out of the nest, malignant narcissism, the essence of evil. It twists the central message of what is said to be the teachings of Jesus of humbleness and kindness into greed, aggression,and conquest, endorsing slavery, torture, genocide and subjugation. Orwellian before Orwell. $COTUS is doing the same to our Constitution. Phrases such as "master race", "real Americans", and Christian, Muslim, whatever in the domineering sense, are all that "same old serpent".
Sarah, I agree and it's why I try and read as much as possible about our history as a nation. I'm reading Centennial by James Michener (it's fictional) but it is based on deep research of the past with the characters based on real people and their struggles on the plains of the American west and how it was settled, which is quite disturbing and with parallels of today that scream off the pages.
Interesting that you found that detail . Somehow with my reading I missed done of the facts or glossed over them. I am always pleased to see certain authors were aware of what was going on. I always like James and his Tales of the Pacific - the musical South Pacific old with issues but at least there was the song You Have to be Carefully Thought . He had a team of researchers doing the work the him.
I have to give a shout out to my wife, who read his works in the past to direct me to read this book, and you are correct he did deep research along with staff on the subject of his writing. I love that he picked a particular spot on earth and wrote about it from the beginning of time to the publishing of the writing.
I know his book on Poland was chock full of history and so complex! It made me realize all countries and peoples have multiple layers and to really respect the deepness. Good for your wife. Sometimes my late husband and I would have read the same book but years apart. At least one time we shared reading a book. That was really good. We shared The Sparrow and also went to hear the author Mary Doria Russell speak. That and its sequel the best writing on trauma at individual and civilization levels . It speaks to the whole caboodle.
The key question is whether the midterms WILL, indeed, actually, arrive, or become another of this series of stories. The USofA is home, still, to a group of people who believe in a ruling class.
The Constitution of the United States of America clearly assigns administration of elections to the States (Article 1 Section 4). This is a great strength, as it is difficult though not impossible to interfere with elections in every state.
However, the current president has repeatedly said outright that he is going to interfere with or even cancel the 2026 elections and beyond. He has already taken steps to do this.
Because of the urgency of this problem, we the undersigned [your state] voters hereby demand that the [governor/members of legislature] take the following steps:
—at every opportunity affirm election integrity in Massachusetts and proclaim factual numbers on any actual election fraud within the state;
—work together with governors of other states to protect elections across the country;
—ensure that voting lists are maintained properly and in a timely fashion;
—ensure that voting lists are never transferred to federal agencies;
—ensure that early voting and mail-in voting are preserved;
—prevent ICE and other federal agents from entering polling places or approaching polling places closer than 500 feet while polling is taking place and while the vote is being counted and transmitted;
—ensure continued use of a signature as the only identification required to vote;
—announce and deliver preliminary election results in a timely fashion; and
—ensure that final election results are certified in a timely fashion.
The undersigned, all voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, request that the governor and legislature of Massachusetts move immediately to enact these matters.
We are getting signatures at the No Kings rally in two weeks and will bring it to her right afterwards. Feel free to take it to your groups of whatever sort and bring it to the Statehouse.
I love your last paragraph, Professor. When the passion strikes, there's no denying it and no knowing when it will or where it will take you. And I love the history you give us. It's not about memorizing dates or events, it's stories about the people and how they shaped the events that made this the great country it was until the modern-day MAGA Republicans shot it all to hell and set us back a couple hundred years.
Social justice seems to be uneven in all societies at all times, but some societies sure do better than others. Lincoln was clearly one who more than self his country loved. I think we should restore his birthday as a major US holiday, and follow his lead to further make our aspirational founding principles more congruent with our lived reality.
JL, I agree that significant presidents' birthdays should be celebrated on the actual days. Inventing "Presidents Day" is just another one of the insidious ways that capitalism without conscience has distorted our national identity in favor of commercial enrichment of the corporate merchant class. It also provides an opening for the orange scourge to include himself among the celebrated presidents.
As Heather wrote, "In 1859, Abraham Lincoln would articulate an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs of slavery," We here, and throughout our country, are ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs... Not oligarchs as they were understood in 1859, but we stand together against the oligarchs of 2026 who would like to return our country to a time when they alone had the power, when they alone decided that propertied, white, Christian men were the only ones to vote. It us up to us to keep universal suffrage the law of the land and to stand together against the oligarchs.
And not so very long ago. What was done was done, and it's where we are today. Hopefully, we can restore some kind of order without 'someone' throwing a nuke into the mix.
Oh wow. I think I will never say bad things about my aunt Elenor again even though she kicked her sister aunt Fanny out of the apartment she rented from her for non payment of rent. I remembered that day I yelled at her.
Thank you, Heather. You wrote a perfect last paragraph to end Saturday night on an enlightened note, tying what made you a scholar to today’s call for citizens action to save our imperiled democracy.
Good for Heather to be able to celebrate the early history of her beloved Maine.
Funny, though, how she narrates a bit of her own early history, too -- how she wasn't particularly good in college, given that she balked at performing to the timetables of others.
And now? How many of us must continue reacting to the criminal in the White House, and to that cabal of fellow criminals, dictators, thieves, rapists, and murderers worldwide with whom he's allied?
I have little doubt that if Lincoln were to be somehow teleported to the present he would read us the riot act about our current care of what he tried so hard to preserve and further.
You know, you’re giving me an idea. Thanks. A play consisting of a dialogue between Abe Lincoln and Donald Trump. Hum… or maybe just a short story in dialogue form.
When Lincoln gazed upon those reptilian eyes he knew. Being the statesman he was his enigmatic gaze held until Donald blurted apologetically, “I’m going to kill them until they like me!”
There is an actual poem with a statue in West Virginia entitled Lincoln Walks at Midnight I think by Vachel Lindsey who helped Langston Hughes with getting into the poetry world but oh my some of his works! It’s not the best poem but I like the idea. There also is a strange old film about a president and a ghost or angel something about Gabriel. I would love to see both the entire White House complex and Capitol haunted and all those statues in the
The film an old 1933 one Gabriel Over the White House starring Walter Houston financed by Hearst as a paradigm for the new incoming president. Kind of yikes but one of the things I love about history is the old materials you can look at and just come up with your own analysis.
The poem speaks of "The prairie-lawyer," and I think that Lincoln's humble origin is part of his education and power. Jesus was not born to a billionaire either. That said, some from privileged backgrounds have become reformers, but not by trying to monetize their every subsequent move. By tradition, Buddha was a prince, but ditched it all to become an ascetic: then found "the middle way".
Thank You for this wonderful story of the Abe Lincoln statue in West Virginia! I worked there in 1979-81 with the National Health Service Corps in Summersville. The statue and names of those who helped brought back wonderful memories.
Perhaps it’s again time for Northern States like Maine , Minnesota and other like minded states to create their own new union. One that has actual compassion and common sense. What should we call it?
Great answer. Yesterday I read that the USA has lowered the cost of officially renouncing citizenship.
Source: Chat GPT
The United States drastically reduced the official fee to renounce citizenship.
What changed:
Old fee (2014–2026): $2,350
New fee: $450
Reduction: about 80%
Effective date: April 13, 2026 (after the rule was published March 13, 2026).
This returns the cost to the same $450 fee that existed from 2010 to 2014 before the government raised it sharply. �
Why the fee was lowered:
Several things pushed the change:
Years of criticism and lawsuits from Americans living abroad who said the $2,350 fee was excessive. �
AP News
Pressure from groups representing so-called “accidental Americans” (people born in the U.S. but who lived almost their entire lives elsewhere).
The State Department ultimately decided not to charge the full administrative cost anymore as a policy decision.
Why the fee was so high before
In 2014–2015, the U.S. government increased it from $450 to $2,350 because:
The number of people renouncing citizenship had surged.
Processing renunciations required substantial consular time and review.
Important things that did not change
The fee reduction does not make the process simple. Renouncing still involves:
Appearing in person at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad.
Multiple written and verbal confirmations that you understand the consequences.
Taking a formal oath of renunciation.
Final approval by the State Department before issuing a Certificate of Loss of Nationality.
If you’re curious, I can also tell you something interesting: the United States is one of the very few countries that taxes citizens even when they live abroad, and that policy is a big reason some expatriates consider renouncing.
There can also still be tax implications (the so-called “exit tax”) for people with high assets or income.
There are also a number of treaties the U.S. has with other nations to avoid double taxation of income, many of them are with EU nations and the UK, as well as other countries.
As most Canadians will admit, Canada is not perfect either. They have stumbled and gotten back up and still struggle within their own ranks to form a more perfect union.
More than 40,000 people loyal to the Crown, called “Loyalists,” fled the oppression of the American Revolution to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario), which was mainly Loyalist, Protestant and English-speaking, and Lower Canada (later Quebec), heavily Catholic and French-speaking.
That internal division continues to affect modern Canadian politics, as do other pan-Canadian issues.
And the current attacks by Trump and associates against Canada are not the first time the U.S.A. has attacked our northern neighbors. Believing it would be easy to conquer Canada, the United States launched an invasion in June 1812. The Americans were mistaken. Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, supported British soldiers in Canada’s defense. In 1813 the Americans burned Government House and the Parliament Buildings in York (now Toronto). By 1814, the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed. The present-day Canada-U.S.A. border is partly an outcome of the War of 1812, which ensured that Canada would remain independent of the United States.
It wasn't until after the American Civil War that the Dominion of Canada was officially born on July 1, 1867.
Has Canada remained a true bastion of democracy? Here I would agree with you, for the most part. But they have struggled with succession attempts and discrimination in other forms.
My husband's Ojibway mother was born on Mississauga reserve, Ontario. His "Indian Card" feels like a get-outta-jail free card now for our family. No questions or searches at our Michigan/Canada border!
Joe, I think we just need to be patient. Voters in southern states don't know it, but they continue to vote for politicians and policies that will kill them off. In time, the voters who made the red states red will be pushing up daisies and the "woke" survivors will be voting for compassion and common sense.
Oh you clever, clever girl!! I hope people are paying attention to today’s lesson. There will be a quiz on November 3 so go do your studying and make sure to get to school on time!
Wow. I wish I had taken an interest in history a few decades before I started reading your daily emails. You are the one who's opening my eyes. Thank you, Heather.
How a group of ordinary citizens can work together to figure out how to keep their country an open, free, accessible republic rather than let oligarchs turn it into a private outhouse before throwing it away....
The Constitution of the United States of America clearly assigns administration of elections to the States (Article 1 Section 4). This is a great strength, as it is difficult though not impossible to interfere with elections in every state.
However, the current president has repeatedly said outright that he is going to interfere with or even cancel the 2026 elections and beyond. He has already taken steps to do this.
Because of the urgency of this problem, we the undersigned [your state] voters hereby demand that the [governor/members of legislature] take the following steps:
—at every opportunity affirm election integrity in Massachusetts and proclaim factual numbers on any actual election fraud within the state;
—work together with governors of other states to protect elections across the country;
—ensure that voting lists are maintained properly and in a timely fashion;
—ensure that voting lists are never transferred to federal agencies;
—ensure that early voting and mail-in voting are preserved;
—prevent ICE and other federal agents from entering polling places or approaching polling places closer than 500 feet while polling is taking place and while the vote is being counted and transmitted;
—ensure continued use of a signature as the only identification required to vote;
—announce and deliver preliminary election results in a timely fashion; and
—ensure that final election results are certified in a timely fashion.
The undersigned, all voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, request that the governor and legislature of Massachusetts move immediately to enact these matters.
Thank you, Heather. You wrote a perfect last paragraph to end Saturday night on an enlightened note, tying what made you a scholar to today’s call for citizens action to save our imperiled democracy.
I, too, was a mediocre student. I was that way until my passion for a specific topic lit me up. I’d been soaking up tons of what I wanted to soak up ever since I was a very young girl, less than 5 years old. Once you get on that roller coaster ride, there’s no reason at all to stop! I’m going to start mentioning this part of you and others like you who carve their own paths and your own timelines. So fun and so logical. 🤗
I think what our schools could do better is to show kids what they can do with what they are learning, at least compared to what I went though. My mother had a hobby interest in American History, and I liked what she would share. Mostly specific journals of people who lived it, not the grand stuff one got at school. Our school history tests were mostly names and dates, not the process of events, and names and dates were of little interest to me. History got more interesting in college when we put the more of the puzzle pieces together. Our past is the tool we use to re-cognize patterns in the present.
JL, you've casually mentioned a feature of U.S. education that has defeated me and probably millions of students throughout our history.
Not that I now care, but I couldn't participate in Bible quizzes because I couldn't memorize the verses or references. In Geometry Class, I always got the right answers to the questions, but could not memorize the theorems, so I got poor grades. In U.S. and World History Classes, I could remember the sequence of events, but could not memorize names and dates, so I got poor grades. In Geography Class, I enjoyed learning about other cultures, but I couldn't memorize the lists of capital cities, so I got dinged on test scores.
I'm told that I have a nice singing voice, but I don't sing publicly because I can't memorize the lyrics.
I can't be the only one who can remember, but can't memorize. Education techniques that rely on rote memorization are lousy and should be abandoned.
I agree Dale. For me it was trigonometry. I struggled with it my senior year in highschool, but I took it again in Community College. The professor gave an example of how you can measure a distance indirectly (across a river for example) by measuring angles from a baseline. It was like a light bulb went on and I realized the use of trig as a tool. I went on to a University for two years.
I struggled in high school to process the general quadratic equation, and then, in my '60s I took a week long class from a prof that explained how Thumbnail for Al-Khwarizmi, the founder of modern algebra, came up with it and literal tears came to my eyes. It's geometric at its heart, and it made so much sense. They just don't tell you these things.
Don't just teach kids a collection of stuff, teach em skills, that they can use to DO things. I somehow think of a video game my daughter played where you can pick up magical objects that can help you later in the game.
I also remember having to memorize for the "test" how many bananas some Central American country exported in a year; but now, DAMN; I forgot; though I can look it up next time the need arises.
Justin, trig wasn't a required course for graduation, so I ran from it like it was a plague.
Ironically, I went on to spend decades in department store architectural design, then in general architectural design, doing geometry all day, every day. Never once did I need to write down a g*dd*mned theorem, and all the projects got built correctly.
Ha ha. I never had to use a damned theorem either. I rarely had to use trig, and never had to use calculus, which was the hardest class I ever took. Aren't computers wonderful?
Certain sorts of memorization can be very useful, and everything we "know" is part of memory, but we differ in our constellations of mental abilities, and I would say that is more a feature than a bug. Our breadth of societal abilities, tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, etc. makes the whole much greater than the sum of it's parts; and yet there is this drive to standardize. Yes we need a common language and some some standard skills, but children have long been bullied into cookie cutter molds that kill the goose that lays the golden eggs so far as I can tell. I was performing Watch Mr. Wizard (TV) science experiments in kindergarten but later could not spell for $#@% and was a slow reader. I still struggle with simple math, but grasp mathematical concepts well. I thought of these a unique quirks until learning, in graduate psychology. about "learning disabilities' and that the quirks were not so unique after all. My ultimate conclusion is that human societies are NOT a beehive, and we prosper in our widely distributed neurodiversity, but we struggle, as a society, to recognize and celebrate that, and we struggle to really understand one another. We have the capacity as a species to do much better.
Thank you for your salute to a great state, Heather! Congratulations to you, and all Mainers.
"I was not a great student in college. I liked learning, but not on someone else’s timetable. It was this story that woke me up and made me a scholar. I found it fascinating that a group of ordinary people from country towns who shared a fear that they were losing their democracy could figure out how to work together to reclaim it." This is a fascinating story about how you have become a scholar of not an ivory tower but of the people, by the people and for the people of America.
You know, I wasn’t a great student in school either. Perhaps because I had a learning disability that was never diagnosed. I did graduate high school in 3 years by going to summer school. So when I had to, I studied.
And I never quite but almost found my awakening. A high school teacher had been inspirational in getting me to write more since she found this was my early interest. So I wrote a bit for the literary magazine. It was mostly horsing around in satire. Art Buckwald was an early influence. And of course the great writer Sam Clemens, aka, Mark Twain, whose house was next to my high school and where I used to sneak out at lunchtime and bring my lunch over and sit on Twain’s porch and fantasize him stepping out to engage me in conversation. Twain was a compulsive writer. We only hear of the popular novels that he wrote but his discipline to write often had him writing from early morning to late afternoon. I’m only now finishing up my 2nd publication about cats and all the animals in my life. And the last will be my memoirs which I’m working on now. I enjoy collecting first edition Mark Twain books.
We, your faithful readers, are grateful that your inner scholar was awakened. You have kept me from despair on so many occasions, not because we are living in the darkest times of my 77 years, but because history (you) teaches us that the light will prevail.
So beautifully expressed, Evelyn. Did you ever read something and it resonated so that you wished you had written it? Well that was my experience on reading your lovely, insightful, and grateful missive. Thank you.
Every day, Jean, every day.
Bill, I was raised in NE and on one of our family vacations we drove across MO and stopped in Hannibal for the tour of the Tom Sawyer house. My dad had several Mark Twain books that I immediately read when I got home. On that trip we found a campground right on the Mississipi River that I still remember. The river was very wide there and was moving very fast compared to the lazy rivers in NE. Several barges passed by during our one day at the campground.
My wife and I were drawn to ME having vacationed here since the early 1990's. We finally made the move in 2003. It has always felt like home. One of our neighbors in Blue Hilll was a retired CEO of a major oil company and we would exchange pleasantries with him on our walks on the beach. Same with Noel Stookey. It seems when people get to Maine all of the haughty-taughtieness goes away IMO.
GJ Loft- I started in Maine, married and left to live in 9 other states before returning to Maine in 2021. NE was one of them(Lincoln) and MO(StJo) another one. However, once you're from Maine you're always from Maine and coming full circle has been nice.
I also have lived in 10 states altogether.
I enjoyed them all to some degree, but Indiana least of all.
My husband is from Indiana, and he feels similarly. He has often defined the midwestern culture/personality type that was quite evident in my in-law's interaction with me - it wasn't good. I'm from NY and his mother asked David if I was an east coast, New York, liberal, snob!!! He corrected that assumption. Thank you, Dave.
Our older daughter hasn't forgiven us for being in Indiana when she was born but in Colorado for her sister's birth. Agree each state has its plus points but the one I liked the least was MO. StJoseph natives told us "It's where the Pony Express started and Jesse James ended and nothing has happened since." The state itself was beautiful and I blame my dislike on the fact I was suppose to be a "corporate wife and act accordingly" which was an impossible assignment for me. So, I guess I can't, in all honesty, say the state was my least favorite. There are some wonderful parks like Squaw Creek which was full of snow geese and other birds. And Kansas City has amazing restaurants one of which introduced me to hummus and other new dishes and flavors. On a different subject, have you run into the artist Robert Shetterly in the Blue Hill area? He's well worth looking up.
I enjoy very poignant flashbacks when I listen to music from the 60's early 70's. I loved my high school days; I was immersed in athletics, school government and French - my eventual college major. My high school counselor advised me to have a well-rounded resume going forward. I have strived to be a renaissance woman ever since.
So you graduated from high school in New York? In the city or upstate?
Upstate NY is so cool but growing up in the city would be so cool.
Learning for life is the Marie Montessori motto that we heard repeatedly when our daughter attended. It was inspirational to me. Maria Konnikova has a chapter in her book about how the brain changes when you learn new things - Mastermind: How to think like Sherlock Holmes.
I graduated from high school in Watertown, a small town near the Canadian border. Attended college at SUNY Albany, graduate school at the University of New Hampshire. After college, I went to work in NYC at a French bank on Wall Street as a bi-lingual secretary. I agree - learning is a life long endeavor. (I just started a book on the history of the Roman Empire - not light reading.) I figure if I keep reading, I'll eventually learn something.....
Well as a fellow nondx learning issues person always good to find another survivor. Samuel Clemens! So you would
know The Prince and the Pauper( his social commentary runs throughout the book) and A Connecticut Yankee in Kings Arthur’s Court. Both worth knowing as his later writings which were really angry. Supposedly he was friends with the English author George McDonald and they both helped the Fisk College Jubilee Singer travel to England and the rest sof Europe. Mr McDonald hosted the singers and had them perform at a party in which all the village was invited . It supposedly was noted both med had tears flowing during the performance.
Thanks, Mary O.! Ah yes, Mark Twain! I recently acquired a copy of "The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn" (a "Penguin Classics" edition published about a century after the original). As the blurb on the back states: "Seelye's introduction discusses the context from which the novel emerged." And also gives this from Hemmingway: "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckelberry Finn."
The intro has these interesting, and perhaps pertinent today, excerpts: "Huckleberries...are not associated with the Mississippi Valley but with New England hills, and it was a hucklelberrying party that Thoreau captained the day he was let out of the Concord jail. But if Huck's raft was constructed in part by materials from Thoreau's hut and Leatherstocking's shack, the route it followed came from "Uncle Tom's Cabin"... Huck and Tom join forces to set Jim free... The United States headed west again at about the same time as Huck Finn...and like Huck and Tom the expanding nation carried with it the American dilemma known as Jim, whose last name is never given..."
I greatly enjoyed reading James, by Percival Everett, the account of things from Jim's perspective
You have had an interesting life. I look forward to reading your memoirs!
No I lead a boring life. Feeding the cats was once a simple procedure but now they insist on mooching on each other’s plates and the more dominant ones need shooing off.
As cats are excellent judges of character, I would surmise they would have something to add about their human furrend. Quality, honesty and steadfastness mean more than ever now. After existing in the PedoFelon’s turbulent shit show, “boring” sounds wonderful to me.
And I think that I remember that Clemens was a lover of cats.
(much like Hemingway)
The most of rumor was that he had upto 19 cats in or around his house. There is not a lot mentioned. But now when I look at a black & white photos of Twain in his home, I closely look at furniture with scratches on them. It’s there. And my furniture also has scratches but I’m no longer concerned.i feel accomplished with I finish major cleaning as I have as of yesterday. My bedroom run needs vacuum and then the process begins again. It’s a lifestyle. Someone remarked that my house doesn’t smell of cats and it’s because I clean. Simple dimple. I now have 7 soon to be 8. A friend had 3 cats when I once visited him at his house and his house was quite a bit larger than mine. Be just didn’t constantly clean the litter boxes. I do, lol. I would like s Ellington cat urine. The other day I found a cst missed the kitchen litter box and immediately moved stuff out of the way and washed the kitchen floor.
Robert A Heinlein - another noted cat man too.
"When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade, without further introduction." -- Mark Twain
Bill Katz, your posts are always thoughtful, insightful, scholarly and interesting. Nothing about that is boring.....I would love to live next door to you. (My husband loves cats; we no longer own them because travelling requires cat sitters, etc. -- too much hassle.) I hard horses - they don't live with you....
Oh… no not scholarly leave that one out, lol. I write emotively. The recent cat that showed me she wanted to come in right before the deep sub zero temps a month and a half later had a litter so now I’m being a good daddy ministering to her needs and those of the little ones. They have their own room.
I burst into tears reading that paragraph of Heather’s. I’m still welling up.
Which paragraph. She is a fine writer.
Charming story; delighted that you shared these intimate slices of your past, present and your future goals. A refreshing departure from the usual......
Mr. Katz,Art Buckwald,Mark Twain, cats and dogs, no wonder I am touched and inspired by your comments
I believe Art retired to Martha’s Vineyard and as I had visited a few times, I thought to pay him an unannounced call just because I was so enamored of his writing. I think he would have accepted my hello.
That is IT! It does take US. Ordinary people who will not succumb to tyrants and engage in policies that are not in the human interest of survival.
I figured out how I learn best. I do not learn in the linear. I have to experience what I am learning to retain it. Boy are we learning now.....not what I would have chosen to learn!
As someone who discovered my learning and social "disabilities" late in life, I find myself instantly drawn to your phrase " I do not learn in the linear". The story of my life (that drove those around me crazy).
PS:
I liked "I have to experience what I am learning to retain it." also.
You do mean you abilities, don't you? Creative thinking does not use linear lines. Outside the box is what transports us into the next solution. Also, linear learners have blinders on. This is the problem I see with our entire society. Time to look around and take in all possibilities.
Yes, thank you. I appreciate you pointing what I always knew, but which has taken a long time to accept and celebrate (still a struggle). Especially in the face of those who insisted that I was just "not trying hard enough"...:)
So, circular learning, visual learning, auditory learning, tactile learning - however we best receive information. That we wish to learn at all is required so we remain adaptable and able to maximize our understanding of stuff.....
At the same time, Heather provides a number of historical stories, so I'm often being reminded of and relearning our past - So if you're looking for some good historical reading I could suggest: A Journey North: Jefferson, Madison and the Forging of a Friendship by Louis Masur, and Jeffrey Rosen's excellent The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton and Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in American.
Thank you, Hiro, for articulating my thoughts far better than I ever could!
Beautifuly said!
How lucky for all of us! This is a VERY important story if it inspired Dr. Cox Richardson!
Another mediocre college student here, who found the motivation for knowledge and learning outside of the classroom and off of the syllabus. I can totally relate to that. I later got into the top MPA program in the country, with a big assist from a college professor who never gave up on me, and I think I justified his faith by excelling there.
What really matters though is what we do with that learning. Knowledge is not something to squirrel away in an ivory tower. It’s something be shared. Knowledge is power and knowledge shared and spread is an unstoppable superpower. Thanks to Heather for sharing hers every day.
Hiro, same thought and also why she gives us narratives, not just facts. I was not a great student (in Ohio) until college and went on to teach history in Mass. in a very different way than how I was taught, followed by years of being a Principal and then for 31 years, as Headmaster - where I also taught history and coached baseball.
Hear hear!
Happy Statehood Day to Maine!
① Maine became a state through the Missouri Compromise. It entered the Union as the 23rd state on March 15, 1820, after separating from Massachusetts.
② It is the largest state in New England. Maine covers about 35,380 square miles, making it the biggest state in the region by area.
③ Maine borders only one U.S. state. That state is New Hampshire, which makes Maine the only state in the country with exactly one fellow state on its border.
④ Maine reaches farther east than any other state. West Quoddy Head is the easternmost point in the United States.
⑤ Its nickname is the Pine Tree State. That name reflects Maine’s vast forests and timber history.
⑥ The state flower is the white pine cone and tassel. That is unusual, since most state flowers are blossoms, not cones.
⑦ The state bird is the chickadee. More specifically, Maine honors the black-capped chickadee.
⑧ Mount Katahdin is Maine’s highest point. It rises to 5,268 feet and is one of the state’s best-known natural landmarks.
⑨ Moosehead Lake is Maine’s largest lake. Its name fits the state well, since Maine is also famous for its moose population.
⑩ York was once the first chartered English city in America. In 1641 it was chartered as Gorgeana before later becoming York.
For those who don’t know, Mount Katahdin is the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. A couple thousand folks are already walking their way north from Georgia’s Springer Mountain. That will continue another month or so. A quarter usually finish.
That fact carries its own quiet poetry. While so much of the country feels frantic and fractured, there are still thousands of people walking north one step at a time toward Katahdin. And the attrition matters too. It says something about endurance, illusion, preparation, and will. A quarter finishing makes the mountain feel less like a destination and more like a reckoning.
I've climbed it twice and did knife's edge!
Our northernmost county, Aroostook, is the largest county east of the Mississippi. It is largely privately owned by paper companies, with towns mostly along Rt 11 and Rt1. Much of the northern part reminds me of the Pennsylvania Dutch area of the '70s. And there's a town called Washburn in The County (as Mainers refer to Aroostook County).
I have two sets of first cousins, not related to each other, but related to me, originally from Western Pa, where there's shit in the streets from Amish horses, who now live in Maine.
Somewhere I have a picture I took of the Maine Daughters of the American Revolution Plaque proclaiming the Jamison Tavern in Freeport was where commissioners met in 1820 and signed the papers which separated Maine from Massachusetts. That plaque seems to have only lasted 110 years (1914 to 1924), removed after no official records could be found of such a meeting. It is now a second King's Head Pub in the same building as the former Jamison Tavern.
I hope Mainers show Senator Collins the door this fall.
I think I would like to live on that island.
My paternal grandparents owned substantial undeveloped rural property in Maine -- I believe it was near the Canadian Border -- and my father spent many of his home-from-boarding-school summers there. I particularly recall him talking about trout fishing in a favorite brook -- actually, from the oil painting we had of it, a small river -- but to my great sadness I cannot remember its name. (That property was lost to the Crash of '29, part of the huge, permanently devastating loss that killed my father's plan to study history at McGill University in Montreal, taught him what he called "real life"and permanently reduced my family from notably wealthy to eternally struggling.)
(Google AI constantly garbles my posts, against which there is no defense, and usually I catch it. But I somehow missed this one -- didn't catch it until two hours after the fact -- for which I apologize.)
Many have suffered the same fate in history. I hope you do not feel the loss as personal. My parents did, and spoke volumes about it, instead of concentrating on the present, living in the past. I do understand.
Never took it personally; just recognized it -- probably from about age 10 onward -- as part of the relentless, often violent savagery that routinely confronts any genuinely progressive-minded person in grassroots USia. (In my life, the {only} exception to that embittering rule was New York City, where every day was a blessed encounter with why the great James Baldwin so memorably labeled it "Another Country," in other words {not} the realm eternally tyrannized by the white-supremacist, Christian-misogynistic Moronic Majority.) Eternally? Indeed; start your studies of USian sociology with Ambrose Bierce and H.L. Mencken; then read Vance Packard, and follow him with Allen Ginsburg's "Howl," which begins with the finest English-language lead ever written, "I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." In conclusion, merely dare a truly open-eyed, open-minded look at what we are today.
You can avoid this by using others browsers, Firefox…of course Safari doesn't steal your information…it blocks Google’s mining your search data.
I do wonder which AI program use Google data for their training…
Thank you, but my browser [is] Firefox; the problem is my email, which is Google, aka gmail, in which I have to fight AI's anticipatory (and sometimes illiterate or nonsensical) composition whenever I try to write (anything) of any complexity. And I cannot change email servers because the unspeakably odious ordeal of changing email addresses to institutional recipients -- to insurors, retailers, credit cards and the like -- is genuinely prohibitive. (For example, I am permanently locked out of LinkedIn -- which was my {only} way of communicating with a number of former journalistic colleagues -- because the email address with which I was registered with LinkedIn, q.com, was killed by Century Link, which means there is {no} way for me to get the required access code to open my LinkedIn account and therefore {no} way to {ever} reconnect with about a dozen people. (It took me -- no exaggeration -- three days of effort to discover there is absolutely no way around the lock-out; LinkedIn's numerous claims of "it's easy" all proved to be lies.) Fortunately by the time this happened I had already changed the email address registered with my more vital institutional correspondents, an unspeakably difficult process that required about half-a-day's unnerving, frustrating, god-cursing, indescribably infuriating struggle per institution and thereby stole an entire work-week, again no exaggeration, from my life. (This exemplifies why I utterly despise computers, and why I do so with a truly bottomless hatred, the only inanimate object in my life that has ever agitated such an utterly negative response, a reaction further intensified by the fact computers destroyed nine of every ten jobs in print journalism and put the burdens of eight of those jobs on the individual reporter -- the {real} reason USian newspapers have all turned to shit .)
Interesting. My father had been admitted to a New York medical school in 1931 and a well off uncle agreed to pay for his first year schooling and board. Then he rescinded the offer and my father never tried to reapply. It apparently devastated him and he subsequently would open the letter announcing his admission and I now have the letter.
My paternal grandparents were British subjects whose wealth came from my grandfather's role as one of the founders of the automotive industry. He was Amos Read Bliss, a civil engineer whose first work was designing bridges for the Canadian Pacific as it built westward. After about 1898 he specialized in automotive engineering, designed and patented the automotive dynamo (what we today would call a generator or an alternator) and was the head of the team that invented and designed the electric starter. My Massachusetts-born father's intent had been to obtain a graduate-level degree in history, serve the British Empire for maybe a decade as an army officer and then settle into a professorship somewhere in the United States or Canada. Studying history on his own -- our household library overflowed a 30-foot, ten-foot-ceiling wall and a half-dozen additional multi-shelved bookcases, three of them oaken, glass-fronted five-shelf antiques -- he became, by far, the most knowledgeable historian I've ever known (and history -- for me also a subject of lifelong reading -- was a big part of my interdisciplinary BA). Indeed -- apart from what I cannot but regard as her misguided optimism -- Dr. Richardson's essays are in style and content frequent reminders of conversations I had with my father, which is no doubt one of the reasons I cherish her work. My father was also a Mensa, and given the opportunity provided by the war effort, he rose quickly to upper managerial ranks, having served the War Production Board/War Assets Administration as what today would be a deputy regional director. But the horrors of the Crash of '29 turned him into a lifelong Marxian, and the Plutocracy responded with the hateful, sadistic viciousness by which it always seeks to destroy anyone who dares be less than an incipiently Nazified pro-capitalist fanatic; he was purged from the federal government in 1947 and soon permanently exiled from his beloved New York City, rural Michigan and rural New England. By the time he died -- in 1971 -- he was running an Esso station outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. (When he died -- though I was living 2200 miles away in Bellingham, Washington, attending what was then Western Washington State College -- he momentarily appeared at the foot of my bed, which I was sharing with an Irish girlfriend, who actually saw him more clearly than I.)
I know I would love to live on that island in Buddy's image! I noticed the absence of overhead utility wires, did you notice the same Bill?
I didn’t. Seems the photo is taken from a drone unless there is a steep hill nearby.
One of my duty stations in my Navy career was at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (which is actually in the town of Kittery ME). Great people, beautiful location. Don’t forget the honor & bravery of the men of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg.
Love the seemingly tongue-in-cheek opening, the weaving of history, and the clarion call for today’s world at the end.
But I also see that today’s voters seem to be more motivated by the scarcity of toilet paper, the price of eggs, and the cost of oil than by any sense of fighting an oligarchy based on repression…in other words, repression is out of mind when it seems to be directed towards others. We have much more educating to do.
I do agree that we have much more educating to do. I also think it's really important to remember that there is no such monolithic group as "today's voters." I belong to MarkersforDemocracy.org, and I promise you, we are not here because of the price of toilet paper. And there are millions of voters all across the country who are waking up (or were already awake) to the care we need to take if we want to live in a democratic republic, or, democracy. Nokings.org No Kings Day 3 on March 28!
Unfortunately -- despite Trump's proper placement in the pollsters' cesspool -- those of us willing to do the work of revolution remain a powerless, ineffectual minority. We can protest and petition 'till the proverbial cows come home, but atrocities like these -- https://jessica.substack.com/p/a-georgia-hospital-turned-her-in?publication_id=11153&post_id=190871462&isFreemail=false&r=cb67r&triedRedirect=true and https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/justice-department-indicts-30-anti-ice-church-protest-rcna261021 -- combine with the ever-escalating war and all the other horrors with which the criminal regime assaults us to make its ChristoNazi onslaught a conquest on too many fronts to defeat. What's worse, "American mind" has become an oxymoron; once fiercely humanitarian enough to fight to end slavery, today its definitive characteristic is self-obsessed, reflexively hateful moronic imbecility, focused entirely on comfort issues and notably defective in terms of its ever-more-institutionalized hostility to empathy. Jefferson's Missouri-Compromise-era belief cited by Dr. Richardson -- that the slavery question would destroy the republic -- was genuinely prophetic. Institutionalized slavery is the origin of the white-supremacist race-hatred that unites in ecogenocidal symbiosis with Christian misogyny to energize our true national ethos of domestic and international might-makes-right social Darwinism, and that malignancy has indeed slain the former United States, reducing it to a failed nation. Thus the utterly ineducable Moronic Majority rules, which is precisely why the plutocratic puppet-masters and their ChristoNazi puppets run amok, secure in the technologically omnipotent, bribery guaranteed certainty they can't be stopped by anything short of an entirely unlikely miracle. (That doesn't mean I'll surrender; Tacoma's 28 March No-Kings demonstration is in Wright Park, directly across the street from the senior housing complex where I dwell, and a number of folks from here plan to attend. Assuming I'm still alive, and I can find somebody to push my wheel-chair up the steep terrain, I'll photograph it for our monthly newsletter. If I'm able to do it, it'll doubtless be my photographic swan song, the last such reportage of my life.)
I'll look forward to that photograph Loren. I hope you can post it here.
That " miracle" you speak of will happen. I don't know how or where it will come from but miracles are happening daily. We just need to pay attention. Admittedly I never would have thought this country would condone a pedophile in the white house. Its discouraging but we just have to each continue to do our part. Surrender is not an option. You hang in there, we need you!
How will another mass protest topple the current regime?
Gloria-Mass protest may not topple the regime but they do bring we the people together to demonstrate our strength. If we don’t show resistance we’ll be consumed by the lies the regime promotes and our own complacency.
I am sorry for my need to say your weak defense of protesting shows for sure the "American mind" has been invaded with the insanity trump and regime are promoting. We are insane to think a protest is going to bring about change. A protest is too weak an action to accomplish what needs accomplishing. I am basically trying to stay sane in an ever more realm of insanity.
But November is our chance & they know it. Protests are a permission slip for those on the sidelines, they give hope to the hopeless. The ones in MPLS were a powerful show of resolution & a proof point of the admin’s slipping grip.
I understand how you're feeling but remember that mass protest and demonstrations helped to end the Viet-Nam War. They want us to give up, they want us to be too demoralized to oppose them. Do what you can and safeguard your sanity. We're all in this together and I believe there are more of us than there are of them.
Ms. Parsons...It will not; no protest (or any other constitutional process) will liberate us from the conquering ChristoNazis -- brazenly sadistic eecogenocidal killers -- who with their MAGAstapo lynch mobs and military legions of death have already cancelled our constitution and destroyed our republic. See "The Last Article" for the perfect fictional metaphor for our true circumstances, https://ia601501.us.archive.org/19/items/last-article-harry-turtledove/Last%20Article%20Harry%20Turtledove.pdf . But we most keep protesting; our species honor demands no less; see also my response to Mr. Lawler.
Deeply disturbing! So true.
That, and strong, committed leadership. It's why the Congressional Veterans (Slotkin, Kelly, Crow, etc.) were so effective. It's We the People, but need that strong leadership commitment to our Constitution.
“The power of the people is greater than the people in power”. -Cory Booker
The education the people need is a focus on the tactics those in power use to separate us (race, gender, religion, region etc). If we are truly serious about saving (and amending) our democracy we have to come together because we’re stronger together and that’s how we overcome the forces that are trying to destroy ideals like equality and liberty and justice for all.
Lincoln said Right Makes Might, which is pretty much the same thing. Yes, beware of Jim Crow 2.0
Terry Nicholetti, yes, I should have written "many of today's voters." Mea culpa. But I also see an inability on the part of many to engage in inductive reasoning, i.e., to trace back to the source of the high price of eggs, etc., to the causes thereof. In part, the sources are intentionally obscured, hence the need for education. Thank the universe for HCR.
All of those 'self-interest' concerns are hardships that can result from government decisions, though. Our work should be to connect the dots for others, as HCR does, so that people can understand the cause and effect.
Just today, someone asked Belle of the Ranch why the correspondent's MAGA Marine relative was recoiling at Hegseth saying "no quarter' when nothing else had shaken their MAGA faith. Belle explained how close to home that hit; that, now, Irani soldiers won't surrender ('no quarter' means death, no prisoners) and that US military can't expect any better in return.
Is it another case of "I'm good with it until it hits those I care about?" Yes. But help them connect the dots to understand why.
The Michigan synagogue would-be shooter also comes to mind. Was it a hate crime? Yes. Was the assailant given ample reasons to hate, reasons that any MAGA would understand?
Tragically, yes. Actions have consequences. Victims have relatives. But people hearing half the story won't know what motivated him.
“There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -- Thoreau
Today it's the exact opposite: a thousand hacking at the branches of good and an entire plutocracy striking at its root.
It's a conflict "as old as dirt".
There was a book called *Surplus Powerlessness* I believe by the amazing Michael Learner that bears upon this topic. Many people deeply believe themselves to be powerless to a greater degree than they actually are. Thus, they give up easily when faced with paper tigers. I don't want us to blame these victims; rather, as you say, we need to educate them as to their true power and motivate them to work for change.
I very much think that's so.
I know what you mean!! But perhaps the issue of eggs and gas prices as the main topic is presented to us because that’s what pundits and pollsters have decided we should think. If a person is asked, on the spot, what matters or even as a list of priorities, it can affect their immediate answers. And don’t our media folks live it to be simple, dumbed down and not of substance. I have some hope that if they were given some good questions to consider, they’d answer more thoughtfully than just about eggs. Although…eggs are important…
True. They never ask questions like, “Are you concerned about the oligarchy taking over the U.S. government?” 😏
Ellen, I don't mean to give the impression of an elitist smart-ass, but I sincerely believe that a significant majority of U.S. residents cannot define "oligarchy." And that gets to the crux of our challenge.
Dale, you are undoubtedly correct. They can, however, throw around the words socialism and communism. They do not know what those words mean either, but they are all rugged individuals who do not need anything from the government.....until they do and are first in line. They also ignore our deep connection to nature and the earth. Everything is a commodity. I just finished the book, The Arrogant Ape, which discusses this in detail. She even had a part where she talked about the nutty idea of living on Mars touted by the likes of Elon. I agreed with what she said, but as I read, I was sickened by the people who are in charge now. Just when we need wisdom, we get chest pounding.
Couldn't agree more, Michele. As I referenced elsewhere in today's conversation, as an evangelical boy, I was expected to memorize the Bible, verse by verse, along with corresponding references. My brain doesn't work that way and I failed, although I remember themes.
What struck me as an adult is that evangelicals are required to memorize the Bible, but are not required to understand or follow what they memorized, except as it can be used as a weapon, the "sword of the Lord." When confronted with "the other," their response is to quote scripture at people who scare them.
Likewise, conservatives (strongly influenced by evangelicals) don't understand words in a secular context. Authority figures tell them certain words are bad, and that's all they need to know.
I do not often get quotes, but usually I will pray for you. I had an elderly Catholic friend who prayed for me every day and that was OK as it was done lovingly. But the others....it is like being cursed. Bad energy.
I am often amazed how people do not seem to understand what they read or memorize especially the first three Gospels. I find the OT more harsh. I read an excellent book on the OT titled, I think, How the Bible Came to Be. My fav book I have read recently is God, an Anatomy which is sure to infuriate the religious. I loved it. I make a distinction between being religious and being spiritual.
The most recent book I read about Christianity is a long tome called Lower than Angels, about Christianity and sex. It was complete and excellent.
Just after (?) the most recent turn of the century, there was a headline in my local paper about how government figures showed growing and much increased economic inequality in the American economy. Experts cited in the article predicted it would be a major political issue.
Except it wasn't. "Inequality" had it's 15 minutes of fame, and popped it's head above the surface from time to time, but always was pushed to the periphery of what the public ostensibly cared about. Many mainstream Democrats have mocked Bernie Sanders for going on about it so.
And guess what? Money is power, or at least one form of it. So is political position, so is violence; and the more corrupt a society, the more they bleed together. What right had Elon Musk, et al, to take over Tesla, or decide what public services to destroy? Money. Why is AI being foisted on us whether we want it or not? Money. Years ago when a prankster called Scott Walker and recorded it, Walker was panting like a puppy when he thought he had a call from a Koch Bro. You try calling a governor.
The Bible says that the (I presume exclusive) LOVE of money is the root of all evil, or something like that. I reject extreme right and left and see complimentary roles for the private and the public sector; yet both, along with all of us as individuals, have social responsibilities; and if we don't, who does? I'm not a "centrist". but I believe in dynamic balance, in "sweet spots" in the interplay of circumstances. Life depends on dynamic balance, and we are currently, in many ways, running off the rails. Liberty and Justice for ALL, or not.
Today's Oligarchs are using their economic influence to affect every American negatively, KEM. They have corrupted our political system with dark money made possible by corrupt right-wing Supreme Court Justices also with dark money and religious groups. The recent reporting of the DOGE employee trying to share Social Security information illegally obtained by the DOGE incursion into the SSA and reportedly up loaded to an unsecured cloud site that even today SSA officials don't have access to.
The information they have applies to every citizen who has a Social Security number, personal information that can enable massive fraud in the wrong hands. The DOGE employee made a deal with a right-wing organization that intends to use that info to overturn elections.
With trump purging the Inspector Generals when he took office, any investigation is unlikely. We will not know what Elon Musk is doing with all the data he stole from every agency and department he invaded in the name of DOGE. He bought the opportunity to steal our data and end any government regulation on his company with nearly $300 million donated to trump's campaign. The Oligarchs have used dark money to buy enough political office holders to make it very difficult to apply any regulations to the social media and AI tech they own.
The toxic conditions that have divided this nation were designed, developed, deployed, and funded by today's Oligarchs.
And it negatively affects everyone but the ultra-rich.
Yes, that's pretty much what I was saying.
Yes AND the Dems have to take some responsibility for their approach during the past 40 years that made this take-over possible. While the GOP, starting w. Reagan & Gingrich, were stirring up hatred among all the ordinary folks against "left-wing, lunatic liberal communists," Democrats were listening to high-priced consultants and only supporting candidates in elections we could win. The rest of of the country was ONLY hearing the GOP, right wing, Christian Nationalist messages, from local candidates who showed up at the town halls and local meeting places. As Ricky Ricardo never said to Lucy (!) We got some 'splainin' to do!
I have been thinking out how to map out all the various threads of human civilization that caused us to be where we are in this moment . So much violence and rises and falls and tides and wades and today I went into anger territory where I just want those in power to not be. It’s not as if the people on this earth are filled with greed or hatred the majority are not but those within the power abd control matrix fear. From fossil fuels companies and next time Senator Whitehouse does a speech I wish he would play Sant Saens Carnival of the Animals highlighting the dinosaurs. But he has been doing sources to nearly empty chambers for awhile. Gleaners by Millet should all the Democrats and Indigence where a shirt if that paining of people gathering the last gleams of harvest? Shoukd they sing Bread and Roses together the next time a joint session is called? Shoukd they do like Senator Dirkinsen from Illinois’s and not only tear up papers but march out and resign from the Party and create a new more lively group? Sending out emails and texts just as if everything is still normal is beyond maddening it’s like this ongoing tragedy that line the old kick the can game goes on way past bedtime. Just since 2948 when the sun was created and Eleanor felt a shit that was scary to her it’s been an era of better but also so much yuck below the surface riding now and then. Underground mineral rights and how business created so many roadways rolling over property rights and heritages
. The march is coming but we need an action play the old SOAP from medical charging. What is the plan? How many people are able to help that we are still unaware of? There has to be some. And how to use art in a better way than SNL. It would be great to have a big big big event at the entertainment awards but I don’t see that happening. Mother Jones has a children’s march. I am at that point now with demands and a written manifesto and series of actions depending on the answers given. Sitting and not moving perhaps.
We aren’t angry enough that the right lies to our faces and games the system, like they alway have. They dulled our patriotism with ads and products and comfort.
I blame the Kardashians. I’m joking, but the quest for what they seem to be has eroded society.
How many HCR followers have read Dr Brandy Lee? Is the USA mental ill? due to one mentally ill person?
Gloria, as I have often opined, Donald is not the cause of our mental illness. He is the main symptom. He would not have risen to power if there weren't millions of poorly educated, racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, christofascist U.S. citizens who believe as he does.
These folks are not the majority of Americans, but they have gotten control of the levers of power, including our media, our legislature and our electoral system. The only remaining rampart is our judicial system, which is weakened, but still holding by a thread in favor of democracy.
Well she raised the alarm in 2016. I think some people were worried about confusion
between criminal behavior abd a dx from the DSM. The APA and Yale were terrible to her. We have the scenario of a fourth generation white collar crime family with all that that ensues now with engenders man who is hardly functioning in an appropriate way for his office Ali g with the fact he has been compromised for decades by his crime and oligarchy world ties.
Hope!
Maine is a beautiful state, and its people have always struck me as being fiercely independent and decent. Your piece reminded me of my favorite Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Yes one group was called the Heritage Society and they sure have changed the world. But there are others meeting in small yet determined groups who are also showing up on our Substacks and in our email accounts and in our feeds these days, and if we give them our attention, our support and amplify their message, they will grow and together we will bring the country back from the brink stronger and wiser.
I've made the same mistake and been corrected. The right-wing extremist Heritage Foundation is a distinctly different organization than the non-partisan Heritage Society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation
https://www.heritagesociety.org/about-ths
It’s as if we have forgotten our beginnings. A small group of people went up against a king, a country.
What starts out as small can often grow, be it progress or corruption.
I was reminded of the children’s book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and had a nice dive into his life and other books. I have always wanted to visit Arcadia National Park.
My other connection is the ship and the Spanish American War and the motto which his Remember the Maine but supposedly more misinformation than fact. That would be interesting if HRC has not written about our entry into that military action. Seems relevant.
I loved Blueberries for Sal - and such wonderful illustrations. Ditto Make Way for Ducklings.
Acadia National Park is definitely worth a visit. And Robert McCloskey's books are beloved by children and the adults who read to them. There are statues of the ducklings in "Make Way For Ducklings" in the Public Garden in Boston.
I love the ducklings in the city! I betcha today they are dressed in green for St Pats day!
Thank you for that quote. So true.
Meanwhile we have a group of thought-less self-obsessed twits who ought to be committed running the Country. And one of our Senators from Maine, is right in there with em.
I can see why this story woke you up, so to speak. Hearing the stories of earlier Americans makes our history alive. Thank you for sharing this with us.
It's the process by which we came to be in our present circumstances. That ought to tell us something; if and when we are paying attention.
As I said above, Jefferson's concern about the slavery question was truly prophetic -- its residual white supremacy has slain the republic and -- in symbiosis with Christian misogyny -- reduced it to a failed state. That's what we of the Resistance must defeat if we are to achieve liberation.
Supremacy frames itself in different ways, including theocratic, but it is all about absolute power. It is all about unmitigated ego pushing every other human concern out of the nest, malignant narcissism, the essence of evil. It twists the central message of what is said to be the teachings of Jesus of humbleness and kindness into greed, aggression,and conquest, endorsing slavery, torture, genocide and subjugation. Orwellian before Orwell. $COTUS is doing the same to our Constitution. Phrases such as "master race", "real Americans", and Christian, Muslim, whatever in the domineering sense, are all that "same old serpent".
Sarah, I agree and it's why I try and read as much as possible about our history as a nation. I'm reading Centennial by James Michener (it's fictional) but it is based on deep research of the past with the characters based on real people and their struggles on the plains of the American west and how it was settled, which is quite disturbing and with parallels of today that scream off the pages.
Interesting that you found that detail . Somehow with my reading I missed done of the facts or glossed over them. I am always pleased to see certain authors were aware of what was going on. I always like James and his Tales of the Pacific - the musical South Pacific old with issues but at least there was the song You Have to be Carefully Thought . He had a team of researchers doing the work the him.
I have to give a shout out to my wife, who read his works in the past to direct me to read this book, and you are correct he did deep research along with staff on the subject of his writing. I love that he picked a particular spot on earth and wrote about it from the beginning of time to the publishing of the writing.
I know his book on Poland was chock full of history and so complex! It made me realize all countries and peoples have multiple layers and to really respect the deepness. Good for your wife. Sometimes my late husband and I would have read the same book but years apart. At least one time we shared reading a book. That was really good. We shared The Sparrow and also went to hear the author Mary Doria Russell speak. That and its sequel the best writing on trauma at individual and civilization levels . It speaks to the whole caboodle.
Mary,
Thank you for the recommendation, it will go on the list.
Beautiful photo.
Let today's Letter be a reminder of what WE are capable of, and what we WILL do!
The midterms can't arrive fast enough!
The latest deep red district to flip blue is in Louisiana.
🎶 Nothing worth having comes without a fight 🎶
🎶 You gotta kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight 🎶
Bruce Cockburn
Let’s hope. It’s so unfortunate that we must experience so much destruction in order to win.
Certainly nothing that is constrained by human power.
PRIMARIES ARE HERE NOW! Super important way to get the best candidates for the midterms. Huge turnouts get noticed by the press and the POTUS. 🎃🤡💩
The key question is whether the midterms WILL, indeed, actually, arrive, or become another of this series of stories. The USofA is home, still, to a group of people who believe in a ruling class.
There will be an election. There are many warriors who will defend our elections. 💪🏼🇺🇸
What do we do against masterful billionaires rigging it any which way they can?
We do what we can, day by day.
A letter regarding protection of elections
The Constitution of the United States of America clearly assigns administration of elections to the States (Article 1 Section 4). This is a great strength, as it is difficult though not impossible to interfere with elections in every state.
However, the current president has repeatedly said outright that he is going to interfere with or even cancel the 2026 elections and beyond. He has already taken steps to do this.
Because of the urgency of this problem, we the undersigned [your state] voters hereby demand that the [governor/members of legislature] take the following steps:
—at every opportunity affirm election integrity in Massachusetts and proclaim factual numbers on any actual election fraud within the state;
—work together with governors of other states to protect elections across the country;
—ensure that voting lists are maintained properly and in a timely fashion;
—ensure that voting lists are never transferred to federal agencies;
—ensure that early voting and mail-in voting are preserved;
—prevent ICE and other federal agents from entering polling places or approaching polling places closer than 500 feet while polling is taking place and while the vote is being counted and transmitted;
—ensure continued use of a signature as the only identification required to vote;
—announce and deliver preliminary election results in a timely fashion; and
—ensure that final election results are certified in a timely fashion.
The undersigned, all voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, request that the governor and legislature of Massachusetts move immediately to enact these matters.
Did you send this Maura Healy and if so did you receive a reply?
We are getting signatures at the No Kings rally in two weeks and will bring it to her right afterwards. Feel free to take it to your groups of whatever sort and bring it to the Statehouse.
The possible.
IF they arrive.....
Be careful what you wish for Miselle.
I love your last paragraph, Professor. When the passion strikes, there's no denying it and no knowing when it will or where it will take you. And I love the history you give us. It's not about memorizing dates or events, it's stories about the people and how they shaped the events that made this the great country it was until the modern-day MAGA Republicans shot it all to hell and set us back a couple hundred years.
Social justice seems to be uneven in all societies at all times, but some societies sure do better than others. Lincoln was clearly one who more than self his country loved. I think we should restore his birthday as a major US holiday, and follow his lead to further make our aspirational founding principles more congruent with our lived reality.
JL, I agree that significant presidents' birthdays should be celebrated on the actual days. Inventing "Presidents Day" is just another one of the insidious ways that capitalism without conscience has distorted our national identity in favor of commercial enrichment of the corporate merchant class. It also provides an opening for the orange scourge to include himself among the celebrated presidents.
You are so correct. It is terribly sad and disheartening .
.
And yet what clearly happened once (good or bad) can often, with proper fitment to the times, happen again, and even gain additional ground.
As Heather wrote, "In 1859, Abraham Lincoln would articulate an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs of slavery," We here, and throughout our country, are ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs... Not oligarchs as they were understood in 1859, but we stand together against the oligarchs of 2026 who would like to return our country to a time when they alone had the power, when they alone decided that propertied, white, Christian men were the only ones to vote. It us up to us to keep universal suffrage the law of the land and to stand together against the oligarchs.
I often think if Lincoln had lived into a ripe old age. Born in 1809, he could have lived to the 20th century. So tragic.
I am sorry to say it was one of my relatives on my maternal Grandmother's side, John Wilkes Booth, who shot Lincoln.
And not so very long ago. What was done was done, and it's where we are today. Hopefully, we can restore some kind of order without 'someone' throwing a nuke into the mix.
Oh wow. I think I will never say bad things about my aunt Elenor again even though she kicked her sister aunt Fanny out of the apartment she rented from her for non payment of rent. I remembered that day I yelled at her.
Thank you, Heather. You wrote a perfect last paragraph to end Saturday night on an enlightened note, tying what made you a scholar to today’s call for citizens action to save our imperiled democracy.
Good for Heather to be able to celebrate the early history of her beloved Maine.
Funny, though, how she narrates a bit of her own early history, too -- how she wasn't particularly good in college, given that she balked at performing to the timetables of others.
And now? How many of us must continue reacting to the criminal in the White House, and to that cabal of fellow criminals, dictators, thieves, rapists, and murderers worldwide with whom he's allied?
I have little doubt that if Lincoln were to be somehow teleported to the present he would read us the riot act about our current care of what he tried so hard to preserve and further.
You know, you’re giving me an idea. Thanks. A play consisting of a dialogue between Abe Lincoln and Donald Trump. Hum… or maybe just a short story in dialogue form.
Just ordered a book of quotes. I’m game.
When Lincoln gazed upon those reptilian eyes he knew. Being the statesman he was his enigmatic gaze held until Donald blurted apologetically, “I’m going to kill them until they like me!”
Isn't it like putting God in a dialogue with the devil? Just a thought from an arheist....
Well the Devil went down to Georgia, He was lookin' for a soul to steal. He was in a bind 'cause he was was way behind
And he was willing to make a deal....
OH NO! LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!😉
Great!
There is an actual poem with a statue in West Virginia entitled Lincoln Walks at Midnight I think by Vachel Lindsey who helped Langston Hughes with getting into the poetry world but oh my some of his works! It’s not the best poem but I like the idea. There also is a strange old film about a president and a ghost or angel something about Gabriel. I would love to see both the entire White House complex and Capitol haunted and all those statues in the
Rotunda come to life!
The film an old 1933 one Gabriel Over the White House starring Walter Houston financed by Hearst as a paradigm for the new incoming president. Kind of yikes but one of the things I love about history is the old materials you can look at and just come up with your own analysis.
Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight by Vachel Lindsay - Famous poems, famous poets. - All Poetry https://share.google/EAD4QzhuBPXQ3a4XS
The poem speaks of "The prairie-lawyer," and I think that Lincoln's humble origin is part of his education and power. Jesus was not born to a billionaire either. That said, some from privileged backgrounds have become reformers, but not by trying to monetize their every subsequent move. By tradition, Buddha was a prince, but ditched it all to become an ascetic: then found "the middle way".
Thanks Pat for doing that!
Thank You for this wonderful story of the Abe Lincoln statue in West Virginia! I worked there in 1979-81 with the National Health Service Corps in Summersville. The statue and names of those who helped brought back wonderful memories.
I would like to see those statues come after Trump.
Yes!!
Even a split second feels too long. It should have been done already. Remove him.
Perhaps it’s again time for Northern States like Maine , Minnesota and other like minded states to create their own new union. One that has actual compassion and common sense. What should we call it?
Canada, Joe. Call it Canada. A very big and democratically true Canada.
Great answer. Yesterday I read that the USA has lowered the cost of officially renouncing citizenship.
Source: Chat GPT
The United States drastically reduced the official fee to renounce citizenship.
What changed:
Old fee (2014–2026): $2,350
New fee: $450
Reduction: about 80%
Effective date: April 13, 2026 (after the rule was published March 13, 2026).
This returns the cost to the same $450 fee that existed from 2010 to 2014 before the government raised it sharply. �
Why the fee was lowered:
Several things pushed the change:
Years of criticism and lawsuits from Americans living abroad who said the $2,350 fee was excessive. �
AP News
Pressure from groups representing so-called “accidental Americans” (people born in the U.S. but who lived almost their entire lives elsewhere).
The State Department ultimately decided not to charge the full administrative cost anymore as a policy decision.
Why the fee was so high before
In 2014–2015, the U.S. government increased it from $450 to $2,350 because:
The number of people renouncing citizenship had surged.
Processing renunciations required substantial consular time and review.
Important things that did not change
The fee reduction does not make the process simple. Renouncing still involves:
Appearing in person at a U.S. embassy or consulate abroad.
Multiple written and verbal confirmations that you understand the consequences.
Taking a formal oath of renunciation.
Final approval by the State Department before issuing a Certificate of Loss of Nationality.
If you’re curious, I can also tell you something interesting: the United States is one of the very few countries that taxes citizens even when they live abroad, and that policy is a big reason some expatriates consider renouncing.
There can also still be tax implications (the so-called “exit tax”) for people with high assets or income.
Funny, Veronica, if all the blue states joined Canada.
That would leave the red states totally begging for the subsidies which the blue states have been paying to float their sorry posteriors.
Yet the citizens of the red states keep idolizing the antichrist. Ignorance is bliss...they say.
There are also a number of treaties the U.S. has with other nations to avoid double taxation of income, many of them are with EU nations and the UK, as well as other countries.
Thank you Kathy. Good to know. I am in Asia. Retired RN
Canada has its oligarch problems too, but not so batcrap crazy as here.
As most Canadians will admit, Canada is not perfect either. They have stumbled and gotten back up and still struggle within their own ranks to form a more perfect union.
More than 40,000 people loyal to the Crown, called “Loyalists,” fled the oppression of the American Revolution to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario), which was mainly Loyalist, Protestant and English-speaking, and Lower Canada (later Quebec), heavily Catholic and French-speaking.
That internal division continues to affect modern Canadian politics, as do other pan-Canadian issues.
And the current attacks by Trump and associates against Canada are not the first time the U.S.A. has attacked our northern neighbors. Believing it would be easy to conquer Canada, the United States launched an invasion in June 1812. The Americans were mistaken. Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, supported British soldiers in Canada’s defense. In 1813 the Americans burned Government House and the Parliament Buildings in York (now Toronto). By 1814, the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed. The present-day Canada-U.S.A. border is partly an outcome of the War of 1812, which ensured that Canada would remain independent of the United States.
It wasn't until after the American Civil War that the Dominion of Canada was officially born on July 1, 1867.
Has Canada remained a true bastion of democracy? Here I would agree with you, for the most part. But they have struggled with succession attempts and discrimination in other forms.
---
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/corporate/publications-manuals/discover-canada/read-online/canadas-history.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secessionist_movements_of_Canada
My husband's Ojibway mother was born on Mississauga reserve, Ontario. His "Indian Card" feels like a get-outta-jail free card now for our family. No questions or searches at our Michigan/Canada border!
Joe, I think we just need to be patient. Voters in southern states don't know it, but they continue to vote for politicians and policies that will kill them off. In time, the voters who made the red states red will be pushing up daisies and the "woke" survivors will be voting for compassion and common sense.
Compassionate States of America!
Oh you clever, clever girl!! I hope people are paying attention to today’s lesson. There will be a quiz on November 3 so go do your studying and make sure to get to school on time!
Love, love, love! Thank you for sharing your time, talent, and passion!
Wow. I wish I had taken an interest in history a few decades before I started reading your daily emails. You are the one who's opening my eyes. Thank you, Heather.
Same Lena!
How a group of ordinary citizens can work together to figure out how to keep their country an open, free, accessible republic rather than let oligarchs turn it into a private outhouse before throwing it away....
That is the question, isn't it?
Happy Birthday, Maine!
A letter regarding protection of elections
The Constitution of the United States of America clearly assigns administration of elections to the States (Article 1 Section 4). This is a great strength, as it is difficult though not impossible to interfere with elections in every state.
However, the current president has repeatedly said outright that he is going to interfere with or even cancel the 2026 elections and beyond. He has already taken steps to do this.
Because of the urgency of this problem, we the undersigned [your state] voters hereby demand that the [governor/members of legislature] take the following steps:
—at every opportunity affirm election integrity in Massachusetts and proclaim factual numbers on any actual election fraud within the state;
—work together with governors of other states to protect elections across the country;
—ensure that voting lists are maintained properly and in a timely fashion;
—ensure that voting lists are never transferred to federal agencies;
—ensure that early voting and mail-in voting are preserved;
—prevent ICE and other federal agents from entering polling places or approaching polling places closer than 500 feet while polling is taking place and while the vote is being counted and transmitted;
—ensure continued use of a signature as the only identification required to vote;
—announce and deliver preliminary election results in a timely fashion; and
—ensure that final election results are certified in a timely fashion.
The undersigned, all voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, request that the governor and legislature of Massachusetts move immediately to enact these matters.
Thank you, Heather. You wrote a perfect last paragraph to end Saturday night on an enlightened note, tying what made you a scholar to today’s call for citizens action to save our imperiled democracy.
I, too, was a mediocre student. I was that way until my passion for a specific topic lit me up. I’d been soaking up tons of what I wanted to soak up ever since I was a very young girl, less than 5 years old. Once you get on that roller coaster ride, there’s no reason at all to stop! I’m going to start mentioning this part of you and others like you who carve their own paths and your own timelines. So fun and so logical. 🤗
I think what our schools could do better is to show kids what they can do with what they are learning, at least compared to what I went though. My mother had a hobby interest in American History, and I liked what she would share. Mostly specific journals of people who lived it, not the grand stuff one got at school. Our school history tests were mostly names and dates, not the process of events, and names and dates were of little interest to me. History got more interesting in college when we put the more of the puzzle pieces together. Our past is the tool we use to re-cognize patterns in the present.
JL, you've casually mentioned a feature of U.S. education that has defeated me and probably millions of students throughout our history.
Not that I now care, but I couldn't participate in Bible quizzes because I couldn't memorize the verses or references. In Geometry Class, I always got the right answers to the questions, but could not memorize the theorems, so I got poor grades. In U.S. and World History Classes, I could remember the sequence of events, but could not memorize names and dates, so I got poor grades. In Geography Class, I enjoyed learning about other cultures, but I couldn't memorize the lists of capital cities, so I got dinged on test scores.
I'm told that I have a nice singing voice, but I don't sing publicly because I can't memorize the lyrics.
I can't be the only one who can remember, but can't memorize. Education techniques that rely on rote memorization are lousy and should be abandoned.
My memory is excellent Dale. The only difficulty I have with it is duration.
😁 That's a whole 'nother problem!
I agree Dale. For me it was trigonometry. I struggled with it my senior year in highschool, but I took it again in Community College. The professor gave an example of how you can measure a distance indirectly (across a river for example) by measuring angles from a baseline. It was like a light bulb went on and I realized the use of trig as a tool. I went on to a University for two years.
I struggled in high school to process the general quadratic equation, and then, in my '60s I took a week long class from a prof that explained how Thumbnail for Al-Khwarizmi, the founder of modern algebra, came up with it and literal tears came to my eyes. It's geometric at its heart, and it made so much sense. They just don't tell you these things.
Don't just teach kids a collection of stuff, teach em skills, that they can use to DO things. I somehow think of a video game my daughter played where you can pick up magical objects that can help you later in the game.
I also remember having to memorize for the "test" how many bananas some Central American country exported in a year; but now, DAMN; I forgot; though I can look it up next time the need arises.
Indeed. You could look it up.
Exactly JL. Teach them useful skills.
Justin, trig wasn't a required course for graduation, so I ran from it like it was a plague.
Ironically, I went on to spend decades in department store architectural design, then in general architectural design, doing geometry all day, every day. Never once did I need to write down a g*dd*mned theorem, and all the projects got built correctly.
Ha ha. I never had to use a damned theorem either. I rarely had to use trig, and never had to use calculus, which was the hardest class I ever took. Aren't computers wonderful?
Certain sorts of memorization can be very useful, and everything we "know" is part of memory, but we differ in our constellations of mental abilities, and I would say that is more a feature than a bug. Our breadth of societal abilities, tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, etc. makes the whole much greater than the sum of it's parts; and yet there is this drive to standardize. Yes we need a common language and some some standard skills, but children have long been bullied into cookie cutter molds that kill the goose that lays the golden eggs so far as I can tell. I was performing Watch Mr. Wizard (TV) science experiments in kindergarten but later could not spell for $#@% and was a slow reader. I still struggle with simple math, but grasp mathematical concepts well. I thought of these a unique quirks until learning, in graduate psychology. about "learning disabilities' and that the quirks were not so unique after all. My ultimate conclusion is that human societies are NOT a beehive, and we prosper in our widely distributed neurodiversity, but we struggle, as a society, to recognize and celebrate that, and we struggle to really understand one another. We have the capacity as a species to do much better.
I can't even spell neurodiversity, but I looked it up and now I know what it is. Thank you.