Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 104
March 6, 2012
Libraries: A Necessity not a luxury
I am in Albany, New York today as part of Library Advocacy Day. Once again, libraries are the first on the chopping block and last to be restored come austerity time.
But choking off funding for libraries is like eating our "seed corn" –the thing that we need to grow and produce more.
As a writer, as a lover of books and reading, as a lover of learning, I know that the public library and school libraries in Mt. Vernon, New York where I grew up, shaped me. A trip to the public library was like a visit to a sacred shrine. We cannot afford to take that away.
So why, in a country that professes to value the importance of free education, free information, and free expression do we always look to destroy the best places to nurture those fundamental American necessities? Yes, Necessities. Public libraries, like schools or the fire department, are not luxuries. Politicians, who may have never darkened a library door, do not understand that basic fact of life. The public library is more than just our soul. It is our lifeblood too. And you can see that when you stop in any library where droves of people –more during the Great Recession — are not just checking out bestsellers, but clamoring for information, education, answers and direction.
What commodities, what resources, are more valuable? Libraries are a necessity not a luxury.
March 2, 2012
New Online Video Series With ABC News Debuts
In partnership with ABC News, I have begun a new series of videos that will explain presidential history and explore the presidents. The first explains the Electoral College.
225 Words that Changed the World: Happy Seuss Day
If your book was turned down 27 times, "what would you do?"
If you were Theodor S. Geisel, get a friend to publish the book. Thus was born Dr. Seuss. Actually born on this date, March 2, 1904, Theodore Seuss Geisel first turned his knack for words and pictures to advertising and editorial cartoons. But Dr. Seuss influenced entire generations of children with his nonsensical poems that put "See Spot run" on the endangered species list.
So what do you know about Seuss? Heaven Save Us/Try this quick quiz.
1. Inspired by the rhythmic sound of an ocean liner's engine, what was Seuss's first book?
2. Which Seuss classic used just 225 words?
3. Boris Karloff once made his voice rather scary/But in a remake, he was played by Jim Carey. Who is he?
4. Here is a clue/that may surprise you/What did Seuss do/in the War known as Two?
Dr. Seuss died on September 24, 1991. (New York Times obituary)
Here is a link to the informative and whimsical Dr. Seuss Memorial Sculpture Garden in his birthplace, Springfield, Mass.
Answers
1. And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The idea came to Seuss on an ocean cruise.
2. The Cat in the Hat, published in 1957 in response to the 1954 reports of poor reading in America.
3. The Grinch.
4. He drew anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese propaganda cartoons, images sharply at odds with his whimsical drawings for children. They were published in a collection, Dr. Seuss Goes to War (2001).
February 27, 2012
The Bible Riots of 1844 (A Don't Know Much About® Minute)
I was on public radio's "The Takeaway" this morning, discussing Presidential candidate Rick Santorum's "nausea" over John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 speech about running for President as a Catholic. Santorum believes that Kennedy "threw faith under the bus."
Given that religion has once more been introduced into the campaign rhetoric, I thought it would be useful to revisit my editorial called "Why U.S. is NOT a Christian Nation" that appeared last summer on CNN.com
I thought it might also be useful to review a chapter in American History left out of most textbooks, the violently anti-Catholic "Bible Riots" of 1844.
In May 1844, Philadelphia –the City of Brotherly Love– was torn apart by a series of bloody riots. Known as the "Bible Riots," they grew out of the vicious anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment that was so widespread in 19th century America. Families were burned out of their homes. Churches were destroyed. And more than two dozen people died in one of the worst urban riots in American History.
The story of the "Bible Riots" is another untold tale that I explore in my book A NATION RISING
February 22, 2012
February 21, 2012
The Electoral College–Not a Party School
The Electoral College is NOT a Party School
Grown men turn weak and stammer when asked who makes up the Electoral College. The subject of a once-every-four-years debate over its existence, the institution plods on, an enigma to those Americans who think the voters decide who will be president.
Like many creations of the American political system, the Electoral College was the result of a compromise. When the Framers sat down to write the Constitution in the summer of 1787 and figure out the rules for electing the president, there was only one certainty: George Washington would be the first president. As Ben Franklin told the delegates, "The first man at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards."
One solution was allowing the legislature –Congress- to choose. Men who wanted to maintain separation of powers between the branches saw this as dangerous. Congress might too easily influence a president chosen by legislators.
To most of us today, the obvious answer would have been direct election by the people. But this was opposed by many of the Framers. They had legitimate practical concerns: how could a voter in Massachusetts know a candidate from Virginia or South Carolina in late eighteenth-century America? They also feared corruption and bribery. And delegates from small states feared being overwhelmed by more populous states.
But the Framers also feared that too much democracy was a dangerous thing. To some of them, democracy was one step away from "mob rule." They also didn't believe that most people had the education (or intelligence) to make a wise choice.
To maintain control over the presidential process, they came up with the idea giving each state presidential "electors" equal to the number of its senators and representatives in Congress. These "electors," chosen by whatever means the separate states decided, would vote for two men. The candidate with a majority of electoral votes became president and the second-place finisher became vice president.
The fact that slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person meant slave states received electors out of proportion to their free, white population –providing a large measure of the "slave power" that meant that five of the first seven presidents were slaveholding, two-term presidents.
But the safety valve built into this plan was the agreement that if the electoral vote failed to produce a winner, the election would be sent to the House of Representatives, where each state would get a single vote. In an era in which political parties were disdained, the common wisdom was that after George Washington, no man could win the votes needed for election, and the real decisions would be made by the enlightened gentlemen in Congress.
Within a short time after Washington, two presidential elections failed to produce a victor and were sent to the House of Representatives. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, from the same party, received seventy-three electoral votes each. The election went to the House, which put Jefferson in the White House. Following this election, the voting for president and vice president was separated under the Twelfth Amendment.
Then, in 1824, Andrew Jackson led in the popular vote but failed to win a majority of electoral votes. In this case, the House of Representatives bypassed Jackson in favor of John Quincy Adams.
The popular vote winner has lost the election three more times. In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden beat Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote. But a controversial post-election commission gave Hayes enough tainted electoral votes to seal the victory. Then again in 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost to Benjamin Harrison in the Electoral College. Finally in 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote after the long recount battle in Florida and the Supreme Court decision that favored Bush.
Today, the Electoral College is 538 Electors, equal to the 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate, plus three electoral votes for the District of Columbia. (Residents of Washington, D.C. did not vote for President until ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961.)
And who are the mysterious electors? These people, who cannot be members of Congress, are mostly party loyalists and state elected officials selected by their state political parties to fulfill the largely ceremonial task of casting the electoral votes that were decided on Election Day. States have their own rules as to how Electors must vote.
The "Electoral College" is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration which maintains a website providing more detail about electors and state-by-state rules that govern them.
You can read more about Election history and the Constitutional Compromises in Don't Know Much About History and America's Hidden History.
Don't Know Much About@ History (2011 Revised and Updated Edition)
A Nation Rising: A Video Q&A with Author Kenneth C. Davis
(Originally recorded in May 2010)
"With his special gift for revealing the significance of neglected historical characters, Kenneth Davis creates a multilayered, haunting narrative. Peeling back the veneer of self-serving nineteenth-century patriotism, Davis evokes the raw and violent spirit not just of an 'expanding nation,' but of an emerging and aggressive empire."
-Ray Raphael, author of Founders
February 20, 2012
Don't Know Much About® Ansel Adams
Born today –February 20 in 1902– a man who changed how we see the world, Ansel Adams.
It was the photography that launched a thousand calendars, posters, and greeting cards. You have seen his ethereal outdoor photography –maybe even if you did not know it.
But you may not know about another side of his work: In 1943, Adams photographed Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp. The Library of Congress offers an online exhibit of Adams' wartime photos of Japanese Americans.
. "]
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Ansel Adams, photographer, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-DIG-ppprs-00257
Of the photographs, Adams wrote, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice, and loss of property, businesses and professions, had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment…
In an earlier post, I also wrote about photographer Dorothea Lange's work documenting the internment of Japanese Americans
Adams died at age 82 on April 22, 1984. Here is his New York Times obituary.
February 17, 2012
Electoral College–Not a Party School
The Electoral College is NOT a Party School
Grown men turn weak and stammer when asked who makes up the Electoral College. The subject of a once-every-four-years debate over its existence, the institution plods on, an enigma to those Americans who think the voters decide who will be president.
Like many creations of the American political system, the Electoral College was the result of a compromise. When the Framers sat down to write the Constitution in the summer of 1787 and figure out the rules for electing the president, there was only one certainty: George Washington would be the first president. As Ben Franklin told the delegates, "The first man at the helm will be a good one. Nobody knows what sort may come afterwards."
One solution was allowing the legislature –Congress- to choose. Men who wanted to maintain separation of powers between the branches saw this as dangerous. Congress might too easily influence a president chosen by legislators.
To most of us today, the obvious answer would have been direct election by the people. But this was opposed by many of the Framers. They had legitimate practical concerns: how could a voter in Massachusetts know a candidate from Virginia or South Carolina in late eighteenth-century America? They also feared corruption and bribery. And delegates from small states feared being overwhelmed by more populous states.
But the Framers also feared that too much democracy was a dangerous thing. To some of them, democracy was one step away from "mob rule." They also didn't believe that most people had the education (or intelligence) to make a wise choice.
To maintain control over the presidential process, they came up with the idea giving each state presidential "electors" equal to the number of its senators and representatives in Congress. These "electors," chosen by whatever means the separate states decided, would vote for two men. The candidate with a majority of electoral votes became president and the second-place finisher became vice president.
The fact that slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person meant slave states received electors out of proportion to their free, white population –providing a large measure of the "slave power" that meant that five of the first seven presidents were slaveholding, two-term presidents.
But the safety valve built into this plan was the agreement that if the electoral vote failed to produce a winner, the election would be sent to the House of Representatives, where each state would get a single vote. In an era in which political parties were disdained, the common wisdom was that after George Washington, no man could win the votes needed for election, and the real decisions would be made by the enlightened gentlemen in Congress.
Within a short time after Washington, two presidential elections failed to produce a victor and were sent to the House of Representatives. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, from the same party, received seventy-three electoral votes each. The election went to the House, which put Jefferson in the White House. Following this election, the voting for president and vice president was separated under the Twelfth Amendment.
Then, in 1824, Andrew Jackson led in the popular vote but failed to win a majority of electoral votes. In this case, the House of Representatives bypassed Jackson in favor of John Quincy Adams.
The popular vote winner has lost the election three more times. In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden beat Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote. But a controversial post-election commission gave Hayes enough tainted electoral votes to seal the victory. Then again in 1888, Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost to Benjamin Harrison in the Electoral College. Finally in 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote after the long recount battle in Florida and the Supreme Court decision that favored Bush.
Today, the Electoral College is 538 Electors, equal to the 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate, plus three electoral votes for the District of Columbia. (Residents of Washington, D.C. did not vote for President until ratification of the 23rd Amendment in 1961.)
And who are the mysterious electors? These people, who cannot be members of Congress, are mostly party loyalists and state elected officials selected by their state political parties to fulfill the largely ceremonial task of casting the electoral votes that were decided on Election Day. States have their own rules as to how Electors must vote.
The "Electoral College" is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration which maintains a website providing more detail about electors and state-by-state rules that govern them.
You can read more about Election history and the Constitutional Compromises in Don't Know Much About History and America's Hidden History.
Don't Know Much About@ History (2011 Revised and Updated Edition)
February 16, 2012
Don't Know Much About® George Washington
When I was a kid, we got two holidays: one for Lincoln's Birthday and another for Washington's Birthday. Now, we have to make do with a three day weekend in February for what most people call "Presidents Day." But officially, it is still "Washington's Birthday." (Check out my other blog on Washington's Birthday for the explanation.)
Think you know about the Father of Our Country?
This video contains a few things that might surprise you.
Want to learn a little more?
Here is the website for the National Park Service's Birthplace of Washington site:
http://www.nps.gov/gewa/index.htm
And here is the National Park Service website for Fort Necessity, scene of Washington's surrender and "confession."
http://www.nps.gov/fone/index.htm
