{"id":674,"date":"2010-06-25T22:39:56","date_gmt":"2010-06-26T03:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=674"},"modified":"2010-06-26T23:16:47","modified_gmt":"2010-06-27T04:16:47","slug":"lots-of-babies-a-great-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/06\/lots-of-babies-a-great-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Lots of Babies \/ A Great Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 June 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, this morning, one of my co-workers showed up with his new (~10 days old) baby daughter. Then, this afternoon, another co-worker showed up with her 3 week old baby daughter. There are 16 people working in my department and four of them have had new babies this calendar year: one in January, one in February, and two in June.<\/p>\n

We’re about 35 days from the baby’s due date. I’m happy to say we’ve really made some progress in the naming department. For a boy, we’ve decided on a first name, and we just need to check one more thing before we agree on the middle name. For a girl, we’ve decided on a middle name, and we’ve got the first name down to two options. So, hopefully we can narrow this down to two for-sure names (one for each gender) within the next five weeks.<\/p>\n

Owen and I went out to the garage today and, while he road his trike and badgered me every 5 minutes to ask when we’d be going back inside, I put the final touches on the cradle. I didn’t really need to, but I felt like sanding and sealing the bottom – something I hadn’t done before. Certainly no one will ever see it, but, you know, there were some rough spots and markings on it that I wanted to get rid of. Now it’s just a matter of waiting while the fumes dissipate. It should be fine in a few weeks. So, if the new baby is early, he\/she won’t have a cradle for a while until it’s fume-free. But I guess that’s okay.<\/p>\n

25 June 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

QUESTION: What person gets the most historical markers in any state? Nope, it’s not Abe Lincoln in Illinois, nor is it Washington in Virginia. Just keep reading.<\/p>\n

Today I finally finished reading James Loewen’s book Lies Across America<\/em>. I bought this book shortly after hearing Loewen’s lecture at St. Thomas<\/a>. I’ve been reading it ever since. It took me a long time to read the book, since I was busy reading books for school, then I was simultaneously trying to work through the Little House<\/em> books.<\/p>\n

This was one of the best books I’ve read in a while. Loewen travels across America; each chapter (they’re very short chapters) discusses a monument, memorial, statue, or museum in the country and Loewen points out why it is a lie. In some chapters, he uses the museum or monument he’s discussing as a springboard to talk about a larger issue. At other times, he points out, not actual errors, but oversights, such as the fact the Scottsboro, Alabama doesn’t have any marker for the famous case of the Sottsboro boys.\u00a0 In other cases, he points out monuments and plaques that ARE effective. He’s a fan, for instance, of the Lincoln Memorial, and he praises a marker in Maine.<\/p>\n

The book begins in Alaska (where he discusses the horrendously names Mount McKinley) and then progresses east, ending on the east coast. He explains this only makes sense, because that’s the order in which America was settled. Never thought of it that way, have ya?<\/p>\n

Here’s another interesting fact: Did you know that King County, Washington changed it’s name to…King County? Yep, it did. First it was named for Vice President William King (VP under Franklin Pierce, and a pro-slave racist), but in 1986 officials changed the name to honor Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n

And here’s an interesting thing: following World War I, “The War to End All Wars,” many towns set up a monument to honor their soldiers. But, of course, that war didn’t end all wars. So, following World War II, the monuments were far more modest, sometimes the World War I markers were just amended to included World War II. This is odd considering America’s active involvement in part II lasted more than twice as long as its participation in part I.<\/p>\n

And here’s a slight against men: Many markers tells of violence against women, but there’s not many that discuss similar violence against men, despite the fact that men are 4.2 times more likely to die a violent death than women. Loewen says that killing women is news…killing men is not.<\/p>\n

Loewen frequently point out how markers tell of things being “settled” or “discovered” only when white people finally do it. The inference being that only once whites have seen a place has humankind actually discovered it. One area (Block Island, Rhode Island) displays a copper scroll on a boulder that says it was settled in 1661, despite the fact that prior to that date, there were over 1,350 people living there and, in 1911 (when the marker was erected), there were only 1,314. So…”settlement,” in this case, meant fewer people.<\/p>\n

Much of the book discusses aspects of the civil war, and I was surprised to learn of the honors erected to the confederate as far north as Montana. Meanwhile, other monuments praise many confederate leaders, and outright lie about blacks helping in the Southern fight (they were not allowed to fight in the war until March 1865, mere weeks before the war had ended).\u00a0 Of course, much of this is due to the KKK’s efforts and the end of reconstruction, but it’s amazing that so many “good darkie” statues and other markers praising slavery continue to exist to this day. And did you know Helen Keller’s birthplace sports a Confederate flag these days? Despite the fact that she was a strong anti-racist advocate and early supporter of the NAACP.<\/p>\n

And do you know of Elizabeth van Lew? Maybe not…because the city of Richmond, Virginia, purposely built a school at the site of her childhood home in order to obliterate any memory of her (yeah, that’s another thing about many of the southern states: they get rid of any interesting sites regarding people who fought for equality), but you should. See, she was a spy during the Civil War. Probably because she was “only a woman” she managed to evade the eyes of confederates. In this case, the sexism came in handy. Though living in the Confederacy, she did not hide her anti-slavery feelings. She hid Union soldiers in her home, and nursed the wounded and, during a break at a POW camp, she helped 59 of the 109 escapees to get away clean.<\/p>\n

Members of Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ staff ran away to the north, and Van Lew helped them. She even set fire to Davis’ mansion, though it was put out before too much damage occurred.<\/p>\n

Van Lew set up a relay station to get information to Union headquarters. She was often able to supply general Grant with a morning copy of the Richmond newpaper – sometimes with fresh flowers included!She spent much of her time pacing the streets of Richmond acting insane so that no one would think she was worth the trouble and, in doing so, she was free to sneak in to Confederate offices and grab some information.<\/p>\n

Following the war, she was a hated member of the community and lived like a pariah until her death. In 1912, the city of Richmond tore down her mansion “to get rid of all traces of her,” according to one historian.<\/p>\n

The book has several stories like this. Stories that I’d like to see made into Hollywood films if for no other reason than to remind us that these people existed. We’ve had enough “War is awesome!” movies.<\/p>\n

Go read this book. I’m adding it to my “25 Favorite Non-Fiction Books of All Time” list right now.<\/p>\n

ANSWER: Confederate cavalry leaders and founder of the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest in Tennessee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 June 2010 So, this morning, one of my co-workers showed up with his new (~10 days old) baby daughter. Then, this afternoon, another co-worker showed up with her 3 week old baby daughter. There are 16 people working in my department and four of them have had new babies this calendar year: one in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}