History
Thursday, May 19, 2011
History Seven historic sites worth saving
- waymarking.com
- ENDANGERED: The White-Baucum House in Little Rock has been boarded up to keep out vagrants.
The Historic Preservation Alliance has released its annual list of endangered properties. It includes historic houses in Benton, Pine Bluff and Little Rock (one being the Packet House, which may be saved by a pending proposal to develop a restaurant there); a cemetery; a Civil War battlefield, and more.
Details:
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (25)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Mike Huckabee / History Huckabee's latest huckstering: History
For the sucker born every minute, Mike Huckabee has a get-rich scheme a minute.
Thanks to the Tolbert Report for news of a new Huckabee enterprise. It's called Learn Our History. It's a company peddling American history through a cartoon video series, with the proper emphasis and restoration of the good stuff the dirty commie teachers won't tell you. And, best of all, no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks:
It's widely accepted that kids learn best through experience. But, unfortunately, the only way kids are experiencing history today is by having it force-fed to them through dry text books, monotonous lectures and boring lessons. On top of that, our children's classes and learning materials are often filled with misrepresentations, including historical inaccuracies, personal biases and political correctness.With this knowledge, we set out to create the most experiential history product ever - one that would make it easy and fun for kids to understand American history, while remaining true to the facts and free from distorted messages that dilute the significance of our nation's most important stories.
The website lists Brad Saft, apparently a young New York investments executive, as co-founder. Surely David Barton is lurking on the team somewhere.
Don't delay. Moneyback guarantee. History as it was meant to be told.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (11)
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Religion / History The facts on 'historian' David Barton
Mike Huckabee has said the American people should be "forced at gunpoint" to listen to David Barton, "the single best historian in America today."
Barton has visited Hot Springs to aid the Religious Right's takeover of the levers of local government in the spa.
So it's a timely moment for a report from People for the American Way, debunking — again — Barton's religious proselytizing under the pretext of history.
It's all there — the myth of the Christian nation, biblical capitalism and anti-environmentalism, gay prejudice, cherry picking facts on civil rights.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (56)
Thursday, March 31, 2011
History Mount Holly Cemetery wall damaged
Anne Orsi, a member of the Mount Holly Cemetery Association, writes to tell me a vehicle crashed three times Wednesday morning into the historic cemetery's wall along Broadway. The collisions did catastrophic damage, perhaps as much as $70,000 worth.
I'll have a longer report from her and photos later. Needed: white knights. The association had to work hard two years ago to repair less damage from a serious collision. This one is going to be even tougher.
UPDATE: Still awaiting some detailed information, but Orsi says a driver of a 2004 Tahoe says she lost control about 2 a.m. Wednesday because she was sideswiped by another car and her spinning car hit the wall front and back in three places. She told police she had insurance, but the extent of that coverage isn't known. The wreck uprooted a couple of the cemetery's huge climbing rose bushes.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (9)
Thursday, February 17, 2011
History UCA prof's tribute to Union soldiers
I start the morning with congratulations for Lorien Foote, an associate professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, who's a finalist for the Lincoln Prize, awarded to scholarly works on Abraham Lincoln, for her book "The Gentlemen and the Roughs: Violence, Honor, and Manhood in the Union Army."
Here in David O. Dodd land, where an annual full-page tribute to the traitorous R.E. Lee remains a popular feature of the state's largest newspaper, Foote treads into dangerous (or at least locally unexplored) territory:
Foote's book examines the conflict with the Union army over ideals of manhood — whether men needed to be moral, have honor, be genteel, or display strength and aggressiveness."One of the most important contributions of my book is that it shows how important honor was to Union soldiers. Most scholars believe that only southerners held ideals of honor by the time of the Civil War," she said. "I explored records that other historians had ignored — courts-martial records - and discovered that affairs of honor were common for northern men and that they had recognized rituals of honor. Indeed, what makes my book unique is its use of military records to explore cultural issues."
Yankees, honorable? Sounds like fighting words to me.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (18)
Thursday, February 10, 2011
History Nobody tell Loy Mauch about this
Confederate sympathizers are trying to get a commemorative license plate in honor of Rebel general and KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Forrest was accused of war crimes for allowing his troops to massacre black Union soldiers and Southern unionists. Memorials to him in Tennessee have provoked continuing protests over the years.
This resonates in Arkansas, of course, because Forrest City was named for Forrest, who based some operations at the site of today's city after the war while building a rail line between Little Rock and Memphis.
A David O. Dodd plate anyone?
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (7)
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
History Still time, barely
For all those who've put off going to the "Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War" exhibit at the Arkansas Studies Institute, stop putting off. It runs through Friday. We went today and were glad we did. Hoped to see Loy Mauch there, but we missed him.
Posted by Doug Smith on | Permalink | Comments (0)
Thursday, January 13, 2011
History Take the train
A local steamhead has written in to seek help in winning the vote to have a special Union Pacific excursion train come to Little Rock.
The "Little Rock Express" is one of four potential routes that have been put to a vote on the website of Union Pacific's Great Excursion Adventure contest. The winning route will be graced by one of two steam-powered locomotives that serve as mechanical goodwill ambassadors for the company.
If the Little Rock Express route pulls out a win, the train will depart from Kansas City, then travel through St. Louis and Poplar Bluff before ending up in Little Rock. We're currently neck and neck with the next-highest vote-getter, The Tuscola Turn, through Iowa and Illinois. Voters are entered to win tickets for the excursion train. Voting ends January 17.
Posted by David Koon on | Permalink | Comments (9)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
History Lincoln gives papers to Butler Center UPDATE
Blanche Lincoln is giving her senatorial papers to the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies at of the Central Arkansas Library System. If he keeps adding papers, Bobby Roberts is going to have to find another building or two to renovate.
UPDATE: Blog reader Durango said earlier today that he'd gotten information that Lincoln would be forming a government consulting (aka lobbying, when allowable) firm with Robert Holifield, an Arkansan on the Senate Ag committee staff.) A spokesman for Lincoln said, yadda yadda yadda. The direct quote: "Senator Lincoln is grateful for the opportunity to have served her home and the people of Arkansas in the United States Senate. She is contemplating several options regarding the next step of her career and will certainly share those plans." Late Tuesday, I got a response from Holifield to my Facebook message: "Right now I'm still thinking about the next steps for my career. But most of all, I'm enjoying being surrounded by hog fans in new orleans."
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (8)
Monday, December 27, 2010
History Plan your Civil War parties now
Rob Moritz at Stephens Media has rounded up some of the events that will be part of the Arkansas observation of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. Fair and balanced, that's Arkansas. There will be a secession vote re-enactment and a commemoration of the state's rejoining of the Union. Choose your poison.
No mention if there will be a re-enactment of the hanging of David O. Dodd.
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (17)
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
History Sitting Bull: Hero or villain?
President Obama has apparently stirred up Fox News and similar by including Sitting Bull among an eclectic group of 13 people to whom he pays tribute for traits he sees in his own children.
Fox headlined its coverage, "Obama praises Indian chief who killed U.S. general." Inaccurate, yes, but the thing took off with predictable sides drawn.
Had Obama praised Robert E. Lee (who also killed U.S. generals) or David O. Dodd (who provided information aimed at killing U.S. troops) there would have been no such outcry, of course. But an Injun. Doesn't Obama know this is our country, not theirs?
Posted by Max Brantley on | Permalink | Comments (14)
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