Two great histories

Over the weekend NewMexiKen read Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick and The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. Both are excellent, readable and informative about two periods in American history where mostly myth abounds. Egan’s book won the National Book Award.

Philbrick begins by retelling the story of the Pilgrims, their voyage on the Mayflower, and their colony at Plymouth. But he also tells the story of the people who were there to meet them and the interdependence that developed — and then collapsed. Subtitled A Story of Community, Courage, and War, the second half of the book describes King Philip’s War, Philip being the adopted Christian name for the Pokonokets sachem, a son of Massasoit. It was the deadliest war, proportionately, ever fought on American soil.

Egan’s book is subtitled The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Centered around the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, southeastern Colorado and southwestern Kansas, and particularly Boise City, Oklahoma, and Dalhart, Texas, Egan tells a half-dozen personal stories from the greatest environmental disaster in American history.

It was a lost world then; it is a lost world now. The government treats it like throwaway land, the place where Indians were betrayed, where Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during World War II, where German POWs were imprisoned. The only growth industries now are pigs and prisons. Over the last half-century, towns have collapsed and entire counties have been all but abandoned to the old and the dying. Hurricanes that buried city blocks farther south, tornadoes that knocked down everything in their paths, grassfires that burned from one horizon to another— all have come and gone through the southern plains. But nothing has matched the black blizzards. American meteorologists rated the Dust Bowl the number one weather event of the twentieth century. And as they go over the scars of the land, historians say it was the nation’s worst prolonged environmental disaster.

And the worst of it was man made.

But it’s the stories of the people where Egan excels; of lost jobs, lost farms, lost children, and lost hope. Even in the years before the drought and dust, life was tough.

In the fall of 1922, Hazel saddled up Pecos and rode off to a one-room, wood-frame building sitting alone in the grassland: the schoolhouse. It was Hazel’s first job. She had to be there before the bell rang — five-and-a-half miles by horseback each way — to haul in drinking water from the well, to sweep dirt from the floor, and shoo hornets and flies from inside. The school had thirty-nine students in eight grades, and the person who had to teach them all, Hazel Lucas, was seventeen years old. … After school, Hazel had to do the janitor work and get the next day’s kindling — dry weeds or sun-toasted cow manure.

One of nine kids, Ike Osteen grew up in a dugout. A dugout is just that — a home dug into the hide of the prairie. The floor was dirt. Above ground, the walls were plank boards, with no insulation on the inside and black tarpaper on the outside. Every spring, Ike’s mother poured boiling water over the walls to kill fresh-hatched bugs. The family heated the dugout with cow chips, which burned in an old stove and left a turd smell slow to dissipate. The toilet was outside, a hole in the ground. Water was hauled in from a deeper hole in the ground.

March 5th is the birthday

It’s the birthday of novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, born in Albuquerque, New Mexico (1948). She grew up on a Pueblo reservation, where her community was made up of matrilineal families: Women owned the houses and the fields and were the authority figures, and men did much of the child rearing. Her first novel, Ceremony (1977), was one of the first novels ever published by a Native American woman, and many critics consider it a masterpiece.

The Writer’s Almanac

… of Penn Jillette. Penn of Penn & Teller is 52.

… of Adriana Barraza. The recent Academy Award nominee is 51 today.

Patsy Cline died in a plane crash on this date in 1963. She was 30. John Belushi was found dead from a drug overdose on this date in 1982. He was 33.

The Boston Massacre was on this date in 1770.

Best line of the day, so far

“The identity of the other lawmaker who contacted Mr. Iglesias remains unknown. Mr. Domenici is one of three Republican members of the state’s Congressional delegation. One of the others, Representative Steve Pearce, has said he did not contact Mr. Iglesias. The third, Representative Heather A. Wilson, has said she will not comment on the matter.”

That’s my congresswoman. Cries over Janet Jackson’s boob, but can’t say yes or no when it’s something meaningful. Quote from The New York Times.

America the Beautiful

Elsewhere, TheSonoranSon, official youngest brother of NewMexiKen, suggests that “America the Beautiful” would be better than “The Star-Spangled Banner” as a national anthem. NewMexiKen agrees.

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

The lyrics (above is just the first stanza) were originally written as a poem by Katharine Lee Bates after a trip to Pikes Peak. The poem was first published in 1895 and for years sung to various melodies, most notably “Auld Lang Syne.” In 1910 the lyric was published with the music for “Materna,” composed by Samuel A. Ward in 1882.

Of course, in a perfect world our national anthem would be Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Some children left behind

New Mexico is failing when it comes to academic achievement, particularly among low-income and minority students, according to a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
. . .

The 50 states and Washington, D.C., were graded in nine categories that included post-secondary and work force readiness, and in return on investment — both in which New Mexico also received F’s.

The news wasn’t all bad for New Mexico, though. The state received B’s for being honest about student achievement and for its teacher quality, data quality, and flexibility in management and policies, such as its charter schools.

New Mexico received a C for its rigor of standards.

AP via The New Mexican

And you think gasoline is expensive

In the Navajo community of Pueblo Pintado, some 30 families scattered around the community have to haul their drinking and washing water long distances.

The water comes out of pipes 30 miles away in Lybrook or 43 miles away in Crownpoint, said Rena Murphy, coordinator at the Pueblo Pintado senior center.

Sometimes, when the drive is too much or no vehicle is available, Murphy lets residents fill up small containers at the center. “My elderlies,” she said, “when they run out of water, will bring 5 gallons and 10 gallons to the senior center.”

The Pueblo Pintado water haulers are among an estimated 63,500 people on the Navajo Nation who lack running water. Some drive as far as 100 miles in their trucks to fill water tanks, Navajo Nation statistics show.

As gasoline prices rise, hauling water is increasingly expensive. Taking into account the gas and time required to haul water, Navajo Nation water planners estimate that in 2003 it cost tribal members at least

$16,000 per acre-foot, or almost $5 per gallon.

The New Mexican

Peeps Season

With glee, the Sunday Source announces its first-ever Peeps Diorama Contest.

Read that sentence again if you like.

We’re serious. It’s the start of Peeps season, when those marshmallowy chicks and rabbits clog checkout lines. Now you have an incentive to buy them (or use the ones that have been languishing in your pantry the past three Easters).

We want you to make a diorama of a famous occurrence or scene. It can be a historic or current event, or it can be a nod to pop culture. The one rule is that all the characters in the diorama must be played by Peeps.

(Our ideas? “The Peeple v. Larry Flynt.” Or Penelopeep Cruz in “Volver.” Or a scene from MTV’s “Peep My Ride.”)

The Washington Post

142 years ago today

. . . Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln

Delivered March 4, 1865; first several sentences omitted.

Birthdays on March 4th

It’s the birthday of crime novelist James Ellroy, born in Los Angeles, California (1948). He is best known for his “LA Quartet,” a series of four novels that attempt to depict the criminal history of Los Angeles from the 1940s through the 1950s. The first book in the series was Black Dahlia (1987).

The Writer’s Almanac

Patricia Heaton of ”Everybody Loves Raymond” is 49 today.

Sonny and Cher’s daughter Chastity is 38.

Famed Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockne was born on this date in 1888. He died in a plane crash at age 43 in 1931.

As a player and captain of the 1913 Notre Dame team, the first to ever beat the Army, Rockne began his shaping of football’s destinies by bringing the forward pass suddenly and dramatically into the front of the game. Army that season had scheduled Notre Dame as a “breather” game on its schedule. Only a small crowd turned out, and they stood amazed as Notre Dame defeated Army, 35 to 13. Gus Dorais, now coach at Detroit, threw seventeen passes in that game and thirteen were completed, and a great majority of these went to the short, chunky end, Knute Rockne.

The forward pass had been more or less of a haphazard thing until that time. The success of this Western team with it amazed the football world. Dorais and Rockne remained behind at West Point for a few days after that game to show the Army how it was done. One of the results of that was the famous Pritchard to Merrillat combination of Army teams.

The New York TImes

The U.S. Constitution went into effect on this date in 1789.

Red Moon Rising Tonight

Ecliptophiles, get out your binoculars. The moon could be turning red again.

Or maybe orange. Or maybe a dull brown. The color is unpredictable because it depends on the amount of dust and clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere, which filters and refracts the indirect light from the sun that manages to reach the moon even during a total eclipse.

But whatever the color, this is a show worth watching when the moon rises Saturday evening in the eastern sky and is eclipsed by the Earth’s shadow. You just have to be in the right spot.

In America, that means being east of the Rockies, ideally in New England, where the sky will be darkest during the eclipse. The farther west you go, the more twilight there’ll be in the sky — but there could still be plenty to see if you start looking east after sunset. For details on how to watch, check out NASA’s guide and map. Sky and Telescope magazine offers another guide. At MrEclipse.com, you’ll find a primer on eclipses as well as photography tips.

I advise against trying the Columbus eclipse ploy, which he used in 1504 on a trip to Jamaica. Thanks to a handy almanac, he managed to extort food from the natives by threatening to make the moon disappear, and then agreeing to return it just before the eclipse ended. This tactic might frighten your children into better behavior — “See what you’ve made me do to Mr. Moon!” — but any short-term benefits would be outweighed by the shrink bills during adolescence.

TierneyLab

Actually, I Was in Great Expectations with Robert De Niro, Who Was in Sleepers with Kevin Bacon

Hispanic teen chick: Anyone ever tell you you look like Kevin Bacon?

Ethan Hawke: Yeah… Haha… Uhhh…

–Diner, Abingdon Square

Overheard in New York.

Once again, the above as much for their headline as the item itself. I thought this one was cute:

Little boy #1: I wish dinosaurs lived in Central Park.
Little boy #2: Dinosaurs aren’t real — they’re from the TV.
Little boy #3: Dinosaurs are real, they just live on other planets.
Little boy #2: Like Pluto!
Little boy #1: Pluto isn’t a planet anymore. The scientists blowed it up.

–M86 bus

‘Who Is Cherokee?’

The Cherokees, so proud that they survived the racism and greed that forced them to leave the East and settle in Oklahoma, are embroiled in a debate that is dredging up some of the most painful chapters of their history. The fundamental question they are asking is: Who is Cherokee? And it is raising ugly accusations of racism, from both inside and outside the tribe.

At issue is a group barely known outside of Indian country, the Freedmen. These are the descendants of black slaves owned by Cherokees, free blacks who were married to Cherokees and the children of mixed-race families known as black Cherokees, all of whom joined the Cherokee migration to Oklahoma in 1838.

The Freedmen became full citizens of the Cherokee Nation after emancipation, as part of the Treaty of 1866 with the United States. But in 1983, by tribal decree, the Freedmen were denied the right to vote in tribal elections on the ground they were not “Cherokee by blood.”

They sued, and in December won their challenge. But that has prompted a bigger fight. On Saturday, the Cherokee Nation is holding a special election — believed to be the first of its kind — to decide, in essence, whether to kick the Freedmen out of the tribe.
. . .

“There are Freedmen who can prove they have a full-blooded Cherokee grandfather who won’t be members,” said Ms. Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. “And there are blond people who are 1/1000th Cherokee who are members.”

The New York Times

I say vote to kick ’em out of the Tribe and then make them wear a yellow Star of David.

‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ …

Star-Spangled Banner … became the official national anthem of the United States on this date in 1931.

You know what that means? For 155 years is was not the official national anthem. For just 76 years it has been. We could change it. It isn’t etched in granite.

The first (of four) verses:

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The United States Department of the Interior

… was established on this date in 1849.

The Mission of the Department of the Interior is to protect and provide access to our Nation’s natural and cultural heritage and honor our trust responsibilities to Indian Tribes and our commitments to island communities.

DOI manages 507 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States, including:

  • 262 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management
  • 95 million acres managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service
  • 84 million acres managed by the National Park Service
  • 56 million acres managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs
  • 8.6 million acres managed by the Bureau of Reclamation

Well, they deserve it

[Senator Bernie] Sanders’s office came up with some interesting numbers here. If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family — the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune — would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.

The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.

Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation — some of the world’s evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D’Ivoire — if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That’s more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.

Matt Taibbi at AlterNet