Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Years later I worked with a guy who was a couple of years older than me who said he never dated anyone who couldn't tell him where they were when Kennedy was assassinated - they were, he opined, either too young or too out of it. As for me, my family had moved from Fort Worth to the Chicago suburbs the summer I turned nine. The elementary school I attended in Park Forest was close enough that I used to walk home for lunch. That Friday 50 years ago, my brother and I had come home as usual and were watching Bozo's Circus on WGN when the station broke away for news flashes that President Kennedy had been shot. I wasn't sure what to think other than it seemed shocking - impossible to believe. But I'd seen it on television. My class had introduced to the idea of  "current events" that year. We were supposed to tell something we'd heard or read about in the news. This seemed like the ultimate current event. I headed back to my classroom (I have no recoll...

If (as they say) a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll leave it to you to do the math at the Iconic Photos blog. The tag line for the site is "Famous, Infamous and Iconic Photos. The format is simple: presentation of a photo or photos, along with some background information to provide a little context. I spent about ten minutes just flipping through pages and saw any number of images I recognized or recalled: the balcony in Memphis the moments after Martin Luther King's assassination , the young JFK, jr, solemnly saluting his father's coffin , and the moments before the second aircraft slammed into the World Trade center on September 11, 2001 . One of my favorites is Nelson Rockefeller flipping the bird to a heckler . The look of utter glee is too good to be missed. They don't make Republicans like him any more - or at least they don't nominate them. Hit the " Random Post " link on the right sidebar for something you didn't expect. Be...

The word "anniversary" doesn't feel right - anniversaries are something I associate with joy. I don't feel qualified to make any profound observations or pontificate on the significance of today. I'll leave that to others. Instead, let me point you to a piece in the New York Times entitled " Mom's Last Lesson, " written by a friend who lost his brother at the Pentagon that day. Today's Doonesbury pretty much nailed it, too. For the record, I'm leaving my TV off today, too. I rewatched that horrible footage way more than was healthy when it first aired.

With all this business in Wisconsin and their union-busting governor, it's become quite popular amongst some to bitch about "the unions." For all of their faults, there are strong and compelling historic reasons for why unions exist. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 caused the deaths of 146 garment workers , many who were trapped because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. The fire is often cited as a catalyst in shifting the public's sympathies in favor of labor reform. PBS's American Experience series now has an excellent documentary entitled Triangle Fire that gives the background and events leading up to this tragedy. Watch it online and re-visit some of the rhetoric which is being bandied about these days by right-wing politicians (and I include Tea Partiers and self-styled libertarians in this group) and uber-rich business interests . They are making the same tired "private prope...

Theodore D. Roosevelt (October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919) was the 26th President of the United States, and elected as a Republican. Compare his legacy to some of those Republicans who followed him. He fought to increase the regulatory power of the federal government. One of his first acts as President was to deliver a 20,000-word address to Congress on December 3, 1901, asking it to curb the power and abuses of the business community, and during his presidency he brought 44 lawsuits against major corporations. In addition to breaking up J.P. Morgan's Northern Securities Company (a railroad holding company) he used the powers of the federal government to dismantle J.D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil in to 30 separate competing companies. The Hepburn Act gave the ICC the power to replace existing railroad rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates, with the ICC to define what was just and reasonable and pushed Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. During...

Having traipsed around Washington, DC for the last couple of days, for our final day we decided to do something different. Part of this was dictated by having a hard stop on our activities, since we had a plane to catch. After some discussion, we ended up heading down to Mount Vernon . Mount Vernon, located south of Alexandria, VA on the banks of the Potomac River is of course George Washington's estate and final resting place. The estate was purchased from Washington's great-grandnephew, John A. Washington, Jr., in 1858 by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union. The house and grounds had fallen in to a state of disrepair by that time. During the Civil War, despite fighting all around it, Mount Vernon was treated as neutral ground. See the Wikipedia article for an extended history. I confess, though this was my suggestion, I thought it might end up being a bit of a bore. Not so. The main estate has been thoroughly restored, with lots of information posted throu...

Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny day in Washington, DC. Today: cold and rainy. We got up and, after much diddling around, finally left the hotel in Fairfax to head back to DC. At the Metro Park and Ride, a "Lot Full"sign greeted us. After much testy negotiation, we drove around until we found Metro station with a Park and Ride lot. Back in DC (at last) we headed back to the Smithsonian Museum of American History and finished viewing the Price of Freedom: America at War , which examines how wars have shaped American culture and society, from the War of Independence to the present. The amazing thing about the Smithsonian is its astonishing collection of miscellaneous objects of enormous historic importance. Things like the coat Marion Anderson wore when she sang at the Lincoln Memorial, security badges worn by workers on the Manhattan Project, the Ruby Red slippers worn by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. On a less serious note, they had the triple portrait of Stephen Colbert s...

Today was the day of our George Mason campus visit. We arrived (late) at the Johnson Center (home of the Admissions department) and joined our tour (already in progress) led by bright enthusiastic student Ambassadors, who answered parent and prospective student's questions. After a walk around the campus where the dorms and major academic buildings were pointed out, we grabbed lunch at the Johnson Center and hit the bookstore for GMU t-shirts and the like. We wandered over to the Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering, where we were fortunate enough to catch up with the Associate Chair of the department. She sat and talked with us about the program for a good 30 minutes -- not bad for having no appointment. We left extremely impressed and pleased with our choice of George Mason. All this is beginning to get real for youngest son. As it was only about 2:45, we headed into DC via the Metro. Students can take the free GMU shuttle to the Vienna/Fairfax station but w...