August 22

Sunny morning which should stay comfortable as far as temperature goes. I might get out and do some more clearing and cleaning up on the patio. While I am at it I should also straighten up in the shed. We'll see how things go. I don't have to cook today because I have a big pot of beef/vegetable soup in the fridge. I made that up Wednesday using a chunk of leftover roast added to a package of stew beef. Part of today is going to be recovering from yesterday. We had a checkup with one of the neurosurgeons associated with the surgeon who did mom's neck surgery about six months ago. Thankfully he had good news after reviewing her x-rays. He thought they were really good and she has recovered very well. Better than they expected given her age and the severity of her injury. He saw no reason for further follow up appointments. No more days thoroughly taken up with a minimum of 2 hours driving plus however long we have to be in the office. That really destroys a day. We have managed to move all her medical needs to the local area.

I have watched Trumps assault on the D.C. museums (while promising that other such institutions across the country would be given his attention soon) and some memories resurfaced. Three are from thirty years ago. 

First, while I was a teaching assistant in an history department a new professor arrived on a temporary one year appointment. Two of my friends were assigned to be his TAs and they were totally pissed when they saw his lesson plans which did not mention slavery at all in the period leading up to and after the Civil War. He thought the issue was not relevant. They made sure their sections got a thorough grounding in the issues. I agree with them. Slavery wasn't just a moral issue or a religious issue. It was involved in economics, society beyond the south, and politics. There is no way to present the history without mentioning slavery. Ever hear of the FREE SOIL, FREE LABOR platform especially of the new Republican Party? Why did the Whig Party die? Why did the Democratic Party split into Northern and Southern factions which allowed the Republicans win the presidential election of 1860 and Lincoln to enter the White House?

Second, around the same time the Smithsonian Museum made the news in a not very good way. They planned a major exhibit as we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII around the Enola Gay. The Museum planned a comprehensive exhibit which involved not just the plane and the men who flew her but also the political decision to drop the bomb (which wasn't by any means a unanimous decision) and the effects of the bomb on the cities and people who experienced it. Various veterans groups went ballistic because they felt that any reference to the effects of the bomb on the Japanese somehow exonerated their government starting the war and with the attack devastating attach on Pearl Harbor. Their indignant firestorm of complaints finally cause the Smithsonian to scrap the event and only display the plane with a small sign noting that it dropped the bomb. It is interesting that this year Hegseth's Defense Department tried to scrub mention of the Enola Gay because their algorithm searching their site flagged the word GAY as DEI. 

Third, in the same time period a fellow grad student criticized our history club for inviting a historian who was deeply involved in the New Western History (as in American West) which she hated because those historians focused on the roles of women, native Americans, Mexican Americans, blacks and other people who were involved in and, sometimes, bulldozed by the westward movement of American civilization. My colleague preferred the prettified picture what saw it as a grand adventure and Manifest Destiny as the civilizing of an untamed wilderness.

Another memory from a decade later: Florida politicians trying to scrub the school curriculum of anything they saw as disloyal, disparaging, and damaging to the development of children's sense of patriotism. At least they haven't gone so far as Athens did when they convicted Socrates of impiety and corrupting the morals of the youth (look up Socrates and hemlock). Although that might not be too far off if the attitudes of the Superintendent for Pubic Education in Oklahoma become more widespread. He want's to subject any teacher moving into the state from a "woke" state to an ideological purity test before certifying them to teach. And Oklahoma has a big teacher shortage.

A little bit ago the Weather Channel teased a program to be aired tomorrow and Sunday saying they would cover a water shortage that would "affect 40million people." I asked Which One? Erin Brockovich posted this piece mentioning several cities world wide that are tipping into scarcity if not into a total lack of water. She doesn't try to either minimize or simplify the problem. And gives some good ways individuals can prepare in case their water supply is interrupted.

Well Texas Republicans jammed through their mid-decade "redistricting" plans. One lawmaker was bluntly honest that the whole measure was designed to "improve the party's performance." California is going to put its plans to the voters shortly. I would laugh long and hard if, after all this controversy, the Republicans wind up losing enough seats to shift the balance to a narrow Democratic majority. As the poet said "the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry."