Historiann

Maybe because it’s almost back-to-school time, but vaccinations are in the news on my blogroll.  Pal MD has an unintentionally hillarious post about some scandalously stupid reportage on a so-called “victim” of Gardasil.  (Longtime readers will recall that support for inoculation/vaccination are just about the only thing that Historiann has in common with Cotton Mather!) 

She reports that she went to the ER and was told she was likely having a stroke, and was sent home to return if it got worse. Now, I realize we’re getting third-hand information, but a reporter is supposed to clarify this. No one who goes to the hospital with a “stroke” is sent home to see if it gets worse.

Uhm, wouldn’t a real reporter dump the lady boo-hooing about her off-label use of Gardasil, and instead, you know, figure out which local hospital is sending home people suffering from strokes?  Now that’s a man-bites-dog story if I’ve ever heard one!  Just go read the whole thing to feel teh stupid and how it burns.  He’s got another recent post about how people with medical degrees need to take back vaccination education, instead of leaving it to the cranks, the quacks, and the religiously insane anti-vaxers.

And speaking of quacks and cranks, our friend Knitting Clio (who is not herself a crank or a quack at all) reported last week that her friendly neighborhood chiropractor–who has been of great assistance with her back pain–is now giving helpful seminars in local tea-shops about the dangers of vaccination.  She writes about the hazards of this woo-peddling:  “Take Colorado [ed. note-- please!], where the rate of vaccination (75%) is below what is needed for herd immunity.  Between 1996 and 2005, 208 adults and 32 children in Colorado died of diseases that could most likely have been prevented by vaccinations. The state spends millions of dollars per year caring for children and adults with diseases such as pertussis (whooping cough), influenza, and measles that could have been prevented by vaccination.”  (Side note:  why do chiropractors hate the vax?  I’ve seen and heard of it before, but what’s the reason for it?)

The struggle over knowledge about vaccination is a cautionary tale about the dangers of professional complacency in the face of overwhelming success.  This is a paradox:  when an evidence-based consensus emerges within a profession and there are no professionals who truly disagree with the consensus in the main, that’s when movements propelled by outsiders (but legitimized by disgruntled or marginalized insiders) feel emboldened to challenge the consensus.  It’s not just primary-care physicians who have to worry about this–it’s also anthropologists and biologists, whose professional knowledge of Charles Darwin and the significance of his theories have been vigorously challenged by people outside of universities and without any professional credentials.  Historians also have had strange ideological struggles emerge out of what was a well-documented consensus on the facts of, for example, the Holocaust, the causes of the U.S. American Civil War, and the history and meaning of the Confederate flag. 

In all of these cases, a hardy band of conspiracy-minded and/or magical thinkers was able to gin up enough popular support to convince other neutral observers that there might be a scholarly ”controversy” where none in fact existed among the actual scholars.  Does this happen because there are a few determined cranks and quacks still inside each profession, and they’re just very good at finding allies outside the profession because they no longer have allies within?  Or do political movements seize upon those few disaffected professionals, flattering them and giving them an appreciative audience so that they’ll serve as scholarly figureheads?  In all of these cases, it seems that there are a few professionals who are willing to sign on to provide a ”respectable” face to the fake controversy–David Irving in the case of Holocaust denial, for example, or Michael Behe for ”Intelligent” Design?  These credentialed intellectuals were happy to provide a presentable face to deeply disreputable, and even dangerous, ideas. 

Fight the woo, within and without your profession, and remember that things like “evidence” and “overwhelming scholarly consensus” mean nothing if we don’t continue to explain exactly what the evidence is and what the consensus means.

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Well, imagine my surprise when I returned from my recent short vacation to find this little invitation in the mail from the University of Colorado.  (While I live in Colorado and work at a university, CU is not my employer–I work at the old aggie school I affectionately refer to as Baa Ram U.)  My surprise turned to delight when I opened this fine, glossy card, to read that I am invited to meet the new president of the University of Colorado, about whom I’ve blogged quite a bit here, here, and here.  (My overall take on uncredentialed politicians who presume to lead universities is here.)  Check it out below–the party is at the Potterville Country Club.

Side note:  I’ve never seen an academic’s spouse advertised like a warm-up act, but I guess it’s just further proof of the different ways that politicians think compared to people in academia.  (I don’t even know if my current Dean is married, and although one of her predecessors was married, I never met his wife, even when he hosted a nice luncheon for junior faculty at his house.  And, I’ve never seen or heard anything featuring the presence of the wife of the current president of Baa Ram U. or his immediate predecessor.)  Does anyone else think this is strange?

Five years ago, I donated a modest sum to a scholarship in memory of the historian and CU Professor Emeritus Jackson Turner Main upon his death, and I suppose a good deed sent to the development office never goes unpunished, which is why I get invitations to all sorts of parties for fancy donors to CU.  As if!  It reminds me of the Christmas card I got from George W. Bush and family in 2004–I had been a major donor to Kerry, so I wonder if the Bushies were just reaching out in case I wanted to make friends with the other team in victory.  Yes–it was the official White House Christmas card.  I also wonder if they sent the card out to Kerry donors to gloat!  (Maybe that’s what Benson is doing to Historiann?  Probably not–as they old saying goes, money talks, bull$hit walks, and they don’t know about my secret identity as Historiann.)

So, anyway, back to the current invitation on my desk:  what do you think I should wear?  (The invitation says “business casual,” but I don’t even know what that is any more.)

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“I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you,” as the old (very old!) song goes!

Well, Historiann is back from vacation.  (Why can’t famille Historiann just rent a beach house somewhere like normal vacationers, instead of doing the Indianapolis 500 from southern New England to Northern New England and back again, from the Green and White Mountains to Narragansett Bay?)  But, it was lots of fun, and full of family and old friends, so who’s complaining, eh??  What did I miss while I was drivin’ fishin’?

• I watched from afar, far far away from my own New Yorker subscription and wireless connection, as “covergate” exploded this week.  Diary of an Anxious Black Woman explained it all nicely here and here–after all, what can you say about such colossal cluelessness about African American history and the history of how the white media portray black people?  Do you think that if The New Yorker staff writers included more than just their overwhelming majority of white northeastern men over the age of 50 that somebody might have pointed out that there is more than one way to read those “satirical” images than the way that David Remnick and the rest of his sheltered band of naifs read it?  As always, le dernier mot goes to Bob Somerby, who derides Remnick’s “High Gotham Clueless” response to the outcry.
• Driving home from the airport, I heard that the horrible Bill Clinton is in the news again.  Typical!  You know, the Clintons will do anything, absolutely anything for power, even try to cure a disease that disproportionately afflicts children under age 5 and pregnant women living in developing countries!  What will this evil genius think of next?  Oh yeah–his loser Vice President will probably do something else ridiculous and self-aggrandizing, proving once again that you’d have to be crazy to want to have a beer with him!  Why won’t these exceptionally competent, smart, and compassionate individuals go away when the Democratic National Committee and the corporate media tell them to?  Why can’t they just hit the links and stick to the for-profit lecture circuit like Republican ex-Presidents?
• La famille stayed in a hotel with cable television (supreme luxury!) last night, and I awoke dumbstruck to the never-ending train wreck that is “Morning Joe” on MSNBC.  In every way, the show is a worthy successor to Don Imus, whose “nappy-headed” insults to the Rutgers University women’s basketball team got him fired last year.  “Morning Joe” has better production values than Imus’s show, which was essentially watching him do his morning radio show, but it’s still a production that more resembles a “morning zoo” in the local AOR radio station than a proper news program.  (What was I thinking, looking for news in the vast wasteland of MSNBCNNFOX?)  Seriously–who watches this stuff?  They had REO Speedwagon and the Eagles for bumper music (I think I turned it off before they played Styx), and of course, a woman on the show they can patronize and talk over constantly who goes by the name of Robin Quivers Mika Brzezinski.  I don’t usually watch this crap, but perhaps those of you with better cable packages can enlighten me:  does she ever not get interrupted, talked over, or all-around patronized?  The camera work supports the frat house atmosphere that the titular host Joe Scarborough encourages–when Brzezinski makes her ineffective and inarticulate interjections–usually to the effect of “no, no, I just…I mean…no,” the camera continues cutting back and forth between the male regulars and the reporters they invite on as guest experts on a given topic.  Even when they need to break for the news–Brzezinski’s apparent job is to be the resident newsreader–she had to make several starts at reading her news script this morning, because she was still being talked over!
• Mmmmm…Dunkin’ Donuts!  (We don’t have them in Northern Colorado, so it’s always a treat to visit the land of 3 Double-D’s on every corner!)  I even got to hear a local order a “regulah” this morning–it brought tears to my eyes!  (You New Englanders know that that’s a DD coffee with two shots of cream and two spoonsful of sugar, but you must know that that’s just a regional thing, right?)
• I’ve been getting offers to monetize this website.  Do any of you fellow bloggers have thoughts about this?  (I’m not really interested, but then, when do I have the chance to monetize anything I do, or even to use the verb “to monetize?”)  Is this just the kind of thing that happens when you have more traffic than just your mom and your friends (and maybe your mom’s friends) reading your blog?  Please advise.

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By coincidence today, amidst the news of the Senate’s capitulation on the FISA vote, I stumbled upon a new installation on collaborative art in the main library at my university, Baa Ram U.  This is a mixed-media merry-go-round of four ponies with questions and answers typed on them that lead the reader/viewer into some excellent circular logic.  The artists are Stefani Rossi and Chloe Leisure.  Well, imagine my surprise when the first pony said:

In case you can’t see it, the last photo shows a close-up of the question typed onto the pony.  (This is also the title of the piece.)

On the FISA vote, please see also this post by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft.

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UPDATED BELOW–IT’S A MUST-READ!

I’m as much into the corny pageantry of politics as anyone–I marched with the Weld County Dems last week in the Stampede Parade, after all, dodging horse poop with Congressman Mark Udall, and I’ll probably park myself in front of the TV to watch the next president’s inauguration, as I have ever since Ronald Reagan’s second inauguration in 1985.  But, does anyone else think it may be a little risky for Barack Obama to ditch the many millions of dollars for rent and renovation of the Pepsi Center in Denver in favor of renting out the even bigger venue of Invesco Field (formerly Mile High Stadium) for his acceptance speech?  (This is the convention that’s already having fundraising problems, after all!)  If he wins the election, this move may look providential, or even presidential–but if he doesn’t win, what will this stunt look like?

Has Obama learned nothing from Commander Codpiece’s ridiculous ”Mission Accomplished” speech on May 1, 2003, when he announced that ”major combat operations in Iraq have ended?”  The photo at left is the image that embodies the arrogant faux-masculinity, incompetence, and all-around a$$hattery of George W. Bush.  (The photo of him surveying the damage of Hurricaine Katrina from 37,000 feet is a close second, and I must admit, there are plenty to choose from, h/t Susie at Suburban Guerrila.)  This picture confirms what so many of us knew all along about Bush:  that he was a boy playing at dress-up, not a man capable of being President.  Will the Obama campaign announce next week that they’ve invited the pope to crown him Emperor, so that Obama can grab the crown and perform the second autocoronation in world history?  Napoleon was a successful emperor, at least until he wasn’t, and this painting by David below (The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte) still makes him look like a presumptuous jerk, more than 200 years later:

The images of U.S. Presidents and presidential candidates that become iconic are those that capture a widely recognized idea or set of ideas about the person in question.  (Please note that I didn’t say these photos capture a truth about these men and women, although they may do that, too.  In some cases below, the photos capture a moment that’s used to caricature the men in question, and have little if anything to do with the truth of their character or their performance as president.)  Thus, the iconic image of Lyndon Johnson holding his beagle Him by the ears–everyone knew Johnson was a crude man and a bully, and this photo summed it all up:

When Michael Dukakis stepped out of that tank 20 years ago, the iconic photograph of him (at right) sealed his fate.  He looked too goofy to be a “Commander in Chief,” although the photo opportunity was originally intended to beef up his military credentials.  So much for good intentions!

Bob Dole’s fall off of a speaking platform during his 1996 presidential campaign cemented his image (unfairly) as a bumbling older man who may not have the stamina for the presidency.  In this case, it’s an iconic video of the pratfall, rather than a still photo.  Similarly, the iconic image of Bill Clinton as president was probably a video of him shaking his finger and proclaiming, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”  Everyone knew he was a tough dog to keep on the porch–and most suspected that he was untruthful.  (Lying about sex?  Who does that?)

The iconic image of the John F. Kennedy presidency was perhaps not one of the president himself, but rather the photo of his family with his little son John Jr. giving him a final salute as his casket passes by.  The image at left captures the feeling of lost opportunities and lost innocence, for both the young family and the nation.

I suppose that if Obama avoids pseudomilitary clothing, animal cruelty, and leaves his sceptre and main de justice  at home, the Mile High acceptance speech will probably work out just fine for him.  But, it seems to me that in a time of war, global environmental crisis, and economic peril for most Americans, a little modesty and humility would go a long way, especially after the breadless circuses we’ve been treated to for the past seven and a half years.  Being photographed speaking to a stadium filled with 76,000 people, after a warm-up by Bruce Springsteen or Stevie Wonder–well, that seems to confirm a lot of suspicions about Obama that even many Democrats have–that it’s all about him, Barackstar Obama, and that it’s not about the greater good of the Democratic Party or the country. 

A friend of mine who has volunteered for Obama and has regularly donated to his campaign sent me some initial thoughts about the Mile High speech, after receiving an e-mail from the campaign offering her a chance to win tickets to the speech if she donates still more money:

I feel like the Obama folks are convinced that his supporters require nothing but being able to bask in his presence. We’re not concerned with silly things like his policy decisions, or a sense of his stance on key issues, like abortion or gun control. Give us the possibility of 15 seconds in the man’s presence, and we’re satisfied. Its demeaning and irritating.

Whose party is it, anyway?  I mean both the one in Denver next month, and the one that calls itself “Democratic.”  (But, I will give Obama bonus points if his first words at Mile High are, “Hello Cleveland!”)

UPDATE, Tuesday afternoon:  Chris Bowers at Open Left reports (via Iowa Indepdendent) that “the the Obama campaign is not integrating downticket campaigns into a ‘coordinated campaign’ structure. Instead, local Democratic staff are being fired and replaced with Obama staff.”  Chris continues, “As such, what is really disturbing about these charges is that the promise Obama’s campaign and movement held out for a fifty-state strategy that supported downticket candidates everywhere could be a mirage. If local staff are being fired, coordinated campaigns are being abandoned, and everything is replaced with Obama-focused infrastructure, then this isn’t really party building, it isn’t really a fifty-state strategy, and it isn’t really a movement. It is, instead, an entirely top-down organization serving a single purpose: electing Barack Obama.”  Now you’re catching on, Chris!

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Well, it’s been a heckofa holiday weekend, U.S. American-style:  rodeo Thursday, marching in the Stampede Parade with the Weld County Democrats Friday morning, swimming in the smokin’ heat Friday afternoon (thank goodness for friends with access to pools!), a neighborhood cookout Friday night along with a viewing of the legal fireworks display at the rodeo grounds, errands and a movie Saturday (Kit Kittredge–see the review below), and a visit from friends on Sunday.  Land sakes, a cowgirl needs a vacation from all of this time off!

There was lots of history in the news this weekend, of personal and professional interest.  So, herewith, is my latest roundup:

• The Black American West Museum has come into the possession of most of the land that once was home to the Dearfield Colony in Weld County, Colorado, an African American agricultural community from 1910-1948.  They’re working with a Weld County Commissioner and hoping to attract volunteers and donors to turn it into a historic site for its 100th anniversary in 2010.  See the Rocky Mountain News story on it, which also includes an interview with two men who lived there, and an audio slide show of Dearfield.  The history of African Americans in the west is overshadowed by a mythology that overwhelmingly privileges the perspectives of white settlers.  The preservation of the Dearfield Colony would be a tremendous contribution to the history of black Coloradoans in the early twentieth century.
• University of Pennsylvania historian and McNeil Center Director Daniel Richter was featured in a Weekend Edition Sunday look at colonial and early national Philadelphia.  He waxes eloquent on the crowding and mucking up of William Penn’s “greene countrie towne.”  Next week, they’re doing an in-depth investigation of Charles Wilson Peale and his museum as a hook for moving into an exploration of the nineteenth century city.
• Historiann took advantage of the air conditioning in a local movie theatre Saturday afternoon to see Kit Kittredge:  An American Girl.  Yes, it was inspired by a book that’s part of the insidious “American Girl Doll” borg, but it was more than halfway decent.  Set in the midst of the Great Depression in Cincinnati, it renders a kid’s-eye view of living with the tumult of hard times when Kit’s father moves to Chicago to find work, while she and her mother turn the family home into a boarding house, plant a garden, and even sell eggs to make ends meet.  It was entertaining for adults without resorting to double-entendres and trashy jokes in the fashion of so many movies putatively for children.  And, one bonus of films set in a reasonably distant historical period:  absolutely no product placements or advertising, despite the movie’s connection to the American Girl marketing juggernaut.  (It would have been in very bad taste to advertise anything in a movie about the depression, in any case.)

More on KK:  Well-known character actors from the American film repertoire like Wallace Shawn, Joan Cusak, Glenne Headly, Jane Krakowski, and Stanley Tucci, did their jobs quite well in their roles as the eccentric adults that come into Kit’s life as she lives in the boarding house and struggles to get her articles published in the local newspaper.  (Perhaps unsurprisingly, these adult actors overshadow the lead character, played by Abigail Breslin.)  The movie turns into a caper when a rash of local burglaries cast suspicion on the inhabitants of the local hobo jungle, and on the young day laborers who work for Mrs. Kittredge.  It’s also an extended exercise in nostalgia for twentieth-century childhood, with a tree house, a secret club, strap-on roller skates, children who are permitted to take streetcars downtown without chaperons, bullies in school who get their comeuppance, and a heroine who’s writing it all down with her typewriter, complete with stuck keys when she types too fast.  All in all, wholesome fare that was well-received by the under-12 set in the theatre–and when you consider the absolute absence of decent movies that feature a girl heroine and leader of her kid gang, well–it’s more than worth a look if you’ve got 4-11 year old girls or boys in the house on a too-hot or too-rainy summer afternoon.

Historiann’s only complaint about Kit Kittredge is that Julia Ormond and Chris O’Donnell are too glamourous and good-looking to be cast as Kit’s parents.  You just can’t believe anything could really be all that bad with those two as the resident loving authority figures.  (Am I crazy, or does O’Donnell look better than ever with some grey hair and a bit of a middle-aged paunch?  A few imperfections make him look almost like a real man instead of a cookie-cutter himbo.)  Willow Smith is adorable as hobo sidekick Countee–which turned out to be a great “passing” role!

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Well, I have to admit that all of you Obama supporters in the liberal blogosphere were right and I was wrong.  How could I not see that he is the Progressive Messiah?  Except, well, maybe not progressive even more awesome than I had guessed!  I mean, I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, and it’s yummy super-delicious!  And spiked with tequila.  It’s been an awesome two weeks!  I wonder what he’ll come up with next?  (That’s OK–I’m not pregnant with an anencephalic fetus, not right now anyway, and I wasn’t really using my Verizon mobile phone or my fourth amendment rights.)

Just kidding.  With all of the weeping and rending of clothing and gnashing of teeth over the past two weeks about Barack Obama’s tack to the center-right, I’d like to remind you all that Historiann called this more than two months ago!  (And, quite frankly, he doesn’t have to run as far to the right as Clinton did in 1992.  How hard is it to run against Mr. 23%, anyway?)  Don’t be surprised that Obama took Richard Nixon’s advice (like every other presidential candidate!):  run to the (left) in the primary, then run to the center-right for the general election.  Consider this a public service announcement about the dangers of Kool-Aid.  Remember, issues are more important than politicians, and as I said back in February, “one man’s political fortunes are not transformational.”  Politicians are not causes–they are a means to better ends, not the ends in themselves. 

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Happy 400th birthday, Québec!  Je me souviens–et vous, mes amis?  Do you remember the world before 1759?

Historiann’s most recent trip to Québec was late last August, and the city was shined up and ready for its international closeup in 2008.  Its nickel roofs were gleaming, and all of the historical sites and churches in Vieux-Québec were recently renovated, painted, and looking good.  All of you Englishers (or Bastonnais, as French Canadians used to call Anglo-Americans) either in Canada or in the U.S., should get on up there and expand your view of what early American history is.  By car from Maine, you could take the old route up the Kennebec and Chaudière River valleys through the Beauce region, which was the route that Benedict Arnold took to his ill-fated siege of Quebec in 1775.  It’s very pretty in the autumn, with the changing leaves, and very safe because there’s much less smallpox going around these days.  (This route is probably similar, if not identical, to the one that Esther Wheelwright and other mission Abenaki took to Québec earlier in the century, by canoe and portage, but it’s Arnold’s failed invasion that is commemorated along the way instead.  Right there is a little lesson on the importance of boundaries, language, and nationalism in historical memory–but I digress.)

To celebrate the anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s founding of Québec, here’s a seasonal new drink that I call a Québec Libre (Free Québec, after Charles de Gaulle’s famous speech declaring “Vive le Québec libre” on July 24, 1967.)  For each serving:

• Two ounces of brandy (French brandy, natch)
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1 t maple syrup (or to taste, up to 1 T)
• seltzer water

Mix the first three ingredients well in the bottom of a tumbler (12-16 oz).  Fill the tumbler with ice, and then top it off with the seltzer water.  If it’s late summer and you’re in Québec, garnish with slices of locally-grown stone fruit on a fancy skewer, or (better yet) with a few ground cherries on a toothpick, with their papery skins still on.  (I suppose you could also call this the mojito del norte grand y blanco, but shhh…don’t tell!)

If you’re not in Québec, here’s the celebration’s theme song, “Tant d’histoires”(”So Many Stories”) by Danny Boudreau.  (Warning:  its not in fact sung by Celine Dion, but it’s not a stretch to imagine her singing it.)  You can see what’s going on in Québec today here.  It’s going to be a heckofa party–or très éspecial, as the locals might say.

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UPDATED BELOW, 7/7/08

Never mind that he’s a tough and cool politician now.  Never mind that he looks like Captain Scarlet’s boss, Colonel White, Commander in Chief of Spectrum.  Gen. Wesley Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO.  Do you know what that means?  Well, neither do I, at least not exactly, but I do know that that’s about the greatest job title ever.  Most of the media morons piling on Wes Clark this week aren’t fit to shine even the tiniest bar on his chestful of medals.  But there they go, like good little lapdogs, chasing after a manufactured “controversy” that benefits the Republican presidential candidate.  When questioned by Bob Schieffer about John McCain’s qualifications for the presidency on Face the Nation Sunday, Clark made the sensible point that “I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”  (Here’s a good rundown of this week’s fauxtrage, h/t to Sarah at Corrente.)

Aside from proving that they’re so not over the huge crush they’ve had on John McCain since 1999, many in the media have also once again illustrated their utter ignorance of military service.  (These two things are interrelated.  Many people in the media, especially men, tend to be deferential of military service in the peculiar fashion of those who never served yet fetishize military experience.)  If Michele Norris had gone to a service academy instead of the University of Wisconsin, do you think she would have challenged Clark like this today on All Things Considered?

When you yourself were a candidate for president, you touted your own military service. And I seem to remember you saying that that was part of what made you a well-qualified candidate to sit in the Oval Office.

That’s right:  tragically unlucky Lieutenant Commander = Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO.  There’s no difference!  So, either military experience matters, or it doesn’t, yes or no, and the media is too lazy or stupid to ask useful questions or make evaluative judgments.  Apparently, the bad actors who ran Abu Ghraib have the same qualifications to run for president as Sergeant York.  I think I heard Clark’s eyeballs roll back in his head at this point in the interview, and yet he still answered Norris very patiently:

I did lead the armed force of NATO to a successful military action that saved a million and a half Albanians. I did make the recommendations on targeting. I did go to heads of state and ministers of defense and ministers of foreign affairs, the North Atlantic council, and helped hold NATO together. So I not only saw war at the bottom, but I saw war at the top.

Duh.  Can’t the media see that they’re being played like a fiddle?  The last thing McCain wants is for Wes Clark to be Barack Obama’s running mate, because McCain knows that Supreme Allied Commander beats unlucky Lieutenant Commander ever time, and Clark’s long and deep military credentials would give the Obama ticket a hell of a lot of gravitas.  This whole fracas was a masterful example of the bitch-slap theory of politics, designed to test Obama and, perhaps more importantly, to disqualify Clark as a Vice Presidential candidate.  And unfortunately, the media weren’t the only ones who fell for it this week.  (Confidential to B.O.:  Distancing yourself from the Supreme Allied Commander because the Republicans want you to makes you look weak.  You’re the one who got rolled, friend.)

UPDATE, 7/7/08:  Via TalkLeft, Digby notes that Clark is off of the Obama campaign.  Mission accomplished, indeed!  When will Democrats stop taking orders from Republicans?  When, my Lord, when?

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As we here in Potterville pull on our boots and get ready for the big rodeo and ”western celebration” coming to town, I’m happy to report that a few of you are getting out of your towns to attend conferences and conduct some research.  Here are some interesting museums featured on a few blogs I read regularly:

• Anxious Black Woman is just back from the National Women’s Studies Association annual meeting in Cincinnati, and gives us a great report on the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a new museum there.  I’m particularly grateful for her review, because Historiann lived in southwestern Ohio when this museum was being planned a decade ago, and she was a little skeptical of the concept.  (White people in and around Cincinnati are really into the Underground Railroad, and every little town has at least two or three mythological sites or houses that people commemorate as alleged stops on the UGRR.  Historiann was always suspicious that this was a means for white people to re-write the history of slavery and to cast their ancestors in heroic roles as slavery resisters, rather than in the much more likely role of slavery enablers, especially because African Americans were enslaved in southwestern Ohio, contrary to the provisions of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.  I lived in a town near the Ohio-Indiana border I’ll call “Boxford,” which likes to pretend that its proximity to the authentic Quaker town of Richmond, Indiana somehow retroactively turns all nineteenth-century Boxfordians into abolitionists.)  ABW’s verdict on the museum?  Disappointing in its interest more in masters than enslaved people and in its erasure of women, although the introductory movie was good.  (But go read her more thorough treatment yourself!)  The good news is that the NWSA itself was a great experience–I’m envious that I wasn’t there!
• If your summer travel plans take you to Cincinnati, the Cincinnati area has all kinds of new museums–for example, the Creation Museum of Hebron, Kentucky, just a few exits down the road from the Cincinnati airport, is another museum that was just under construction when Historiann lived nearby.  It’s a creationist extravaganza of imaginary natural history–tell them Bing McGhandi sent you!  Here’s a reality-based review of the CM.
• Professor Zero is in Lima (Peru, not Ohio!), and went to the Museo de Pedro Osma, which sounds like an interesting palace filled with colonial as well as twentieth-century art.
• Do any of you have recommendations for interesting fine arts, history, or other museums in your home towns (or that you’ve encountered on your travels) for summer vacationers? 
• Finally, for those of you in the academy who are public historians, or work with public historians, what’s your sense of public history’s relationship to non-public history (frequently referred to somewhat condescendingly as “academic history,” as though public history is an inferior intellectual pursuit)?  My sense is that there used to be more conflict or resentment among “academic” historians, but that these distinctions (well, snobberies, actually) are fading.  Is Historiann (who is not a public Historiann) overly optimistic?

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