History with Attitude

Lies My Teacher Told Me is one of the funnest, most informative rants I’ve read in quite a while. James Loewen is ticked at the stupidity of American history high school textbooks, and he has reason to be.

One 1990-era textbook offered this whopper: “President Truman easily settled the Korean War by dropping the atomic bomb” (p. 320), which has so many errors in it I hardly know where to begin.

But there’s more. Lots more. The textbooks are wrong when they say that . . .
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What’s My Motivation Here?

Many years ago I was talking to a freelance proofreader who was several weeks late getting a project back to me. She chronicled the various issues in her life that were keeping her from completing the job. She concluded by saying, “I really want to get this done. I feel extremely guilty I am so late.”

I replied, “Well, that just proves what a poor motivator guilt is.”

There was a very long, very silent pause at the other end.
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Who Do Books Make Us?

Maybe I’m old fashioned. Maybe I’m out of style. Maybe I’m the hipster culture’s worst nightmare. But I still think books make a difference.

David Brooks’s piece in the New York Times cites another study that shows the power of print. When students take books home for the summer, the impact is as great as attending summer school–aligning with the 27-country study I mentioned here previously.

Brooks makes the interesting point though, that books not only improve our thinking or reading abilities, books make us into different people. They shape not only how we see the world but how we see ourselves. We gain an identity as a learner or science fiction fan or lover of history or maybe just as a reader.

Books help make us who we are. And I think that’s a good thing.

Speaking of Nightmares

Anxiety dreams are common. It’s the day of finals and you can’t find the classroom–in fact, you have neglected to attend class all semester. Or it’s the big game and the coach sends you in as the point guard–only you are short and a really bad basketball player who hasn’t practiced with the team all season. Or you are suddenly called on to give a speech with a few only a minutes’ notice.

Except that the last one wasn’t a dream for me. It really happened once.
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A Footprint Bigger Than Its Foot

Sometimes a publisher has a footprint bigger than its foot. That certainly has to be the case with Copper Canyon Press. Respected if not revered by poetry patrons and literature lovers everywhere, Copper Canyon, since its founding in 1972, has developed an international reputation for doing (and doing well) what virtually all other publishers studiously avoid–publishing poetry. And we’re not talking sentimental rhymes here. We’re talking Nobel laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners.
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Happy 2nd of July, America!

Some 230-plus years ago, thirteen colonies were unhappy with the mother country. So the leaders of these New World governments gathered in Philadelphia to debate, discuss and bargain. Finally, they cobbled together a unanimous vote (with one abstention–New York!). As all school children know, the momentous day in 1776 on which the colonies declared independence was July the 2nd.
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