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History

Film, History

Film: Remembering Amache

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We were right to fight the war against Japan until our victory; it was nonetheless a profound error to place Americans of Japanese descent into camps during that war. See, also, Revisiting a World War II Internment Camp, as Others Try to Keep Its Story From Fading @ New York Times.

History

Jefferson’s Hotel Stay & Public Policy

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There’s an oft-repeated story about Thomas Jefferson’s visit to a Baltimore hotel when Jefferson was vice-president of the United States.  (I don’t know the date of story’s first written account, or where that account first appeared.) Here’s the telling of Mr. Jefferson’s unsuccessful reservation, from a website on the vice-presidency: In another classic anecdote, our…

Film, History, Press

Film: The Newspaper Crisis of 1945

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Print newspapers once dominated America’s news media and culture. Those days are long past; they’ll not return. Embedded below, though, is a short film describing a newspaper strike in 1945, told from the point-of-view of a New York newspaper and emphasizing how important newspapers once were.

Animals, History

Calvin Coolidge’s Pet Raccoon

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First Lady Grace Coolidge and Rebecca the Raccoon. Calvin Coolidge was a good president, but as for his taste in pets, I’m not so sure: One of the best-known four-legged White House residents during the Coolidge years — a raccoon — had actually been meant to be eaten. She was sent from Mississippi to be…

America, History, Law, Liberty

Understanding America Backwards

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There’s a longstanding maxim of liberty that Americans inherited from England: ‘those things not prohibited by law are permitted.’ The burden is on the state: if there’s no express ban under law, then a person is free to act.  Since government has to enumerate restrictions if it wants to enforce them, a free society places…

Animals, Art, History, Nature

The Imagination at Work

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Long before they saw animals from faraway places, European artists imagined what they might look like, from tales they heard from others. Vincze Miklós writes about the art of the unfamiliar — See, How Europeans Imagined Exotic Animals Centuries Ago, Based on Hearsay.

History, Holiday

Happy Thanksgiving

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From the earliest European settlers to our continent, and by the efforts of several presidents and intervening generations, Thanksgiving comes to us. (Along these lines, see Nathan Raab’s When Was The Real First Thanksgiving? That Depends.) For today, here’s George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of October 3, 1789: By the President of the United States of…

History, Human Nature

Blaming the Younger Generation

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One reads now and again of unruly, uncontrolled – dare one say raucous? – young people. Consider this heartfelt lament: Furthermore, during the last thirty years customs have changed; now when young…get together, if there is not just talk about money matters, loss and gain, secrets, clothing styles, or matters of sex, there is no…

History, Religion

Happy Easter 2013

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A portion of the Urbi et Orbi Message, Easter, 2013: We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means (cf. Lk 24:4). What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than…