Action-Packed Nonfiction

a bulletin board of history and my thoughts! enter if you dare (or care)

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Construction of the Twin Towers.

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a millenium generation conflict

As a teenage user of cyberspace, I have this internal conflict between retreating inside myself and absorbing the world via simple consumption of media versus so-called "expressing myself" on the Internet and regurgitating some of the media I consume. My dilemma is blogging vs. blogging. Looking back at my old blog, I wince at how dumb/pretentious I sound, making me want to retreat further inside myself, but I fear that with retreating, I'm losing some of the articulation abilities I once had.  I'm worried that if I convince myself that I have nothing important to regurgitate say, than I won't have anything to say ever.

O, the pressing conundrum!

What do you people think? Is it better to blog or stay quiet (I realize I pose this question on a blogging website but agh nonetheless)?

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US WWII ration book, 1943.

from here.

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Surrender of General Burgoyne by John Trumbull, 1821. What this depicts is the British surrender on October 17, 1777 after the Second Battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne gives his sword to General Horatio Gates (who stole all of Benedict Arnold's credit in this battle just saying). Daniel Morgan stands next-ish to him in white.

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A person I work with has a tattoo like this -- historical tattoos are the best!

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The lazy man does not stand in the way of progress. When he sees progress roaring down upon him he nimbly steps out of the way.

Christopher Morley, in his essay On Laziness from 1920

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March 30th, 1981: White House senior staff gather in the Situation Room to discuss the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan.

From left to right:

Helene Von Damm (Director for Presidential Personnel),

Fred Fielding (White House Consul),

Drew Lewis (Secretary of Transportation),

Richard Allen (National Security Advisor),

Don Regan (Secretary of the Treasury),

Alexander Haig (Secretary of State),

David Gergen (Director of Communications),

Max Friedersdorf (Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs),

Larry Speakes (Acting Spokesman for the White House),

Richard Darnum (Assistant to the President),

Caspar Weinberger (Secretary of Defense).

Picture from here.

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A German painting from 1834 of people playing Ninepins, basically bowling but with nine pins instead of ten. In colonial America, people played this game on tables.

If anyone cares, the name of the painter is Friedirch Eduard Meyerheim.

from here.

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President James A. Garfield's casket lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Garfield was shot at a train station in DC on July 2nd, 1881, and died on the Jersey shore (doctors thought being by the ocean would be good for him) on September 19th.

from here.

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Sleep and the Teenage Brain

How a seemingly simple change can have a profound effect on everything from academic performance to bullying. "Sleep is the greatest crea

Thank you!! More sleep please!!

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Happy Fourth of July!

(Photo: JFK meets the Liberty Bell, July 4, 1962, Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Robert Knudsen/JFK Library)

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Two Vice Presidents in one picture! Also they're watching something historical happen!

Okay as pictures of politicians past and present spending time together go, this one really isn't mind blowing, but I just thought this was a cute picture of LBJ and Vice President Spiro Agnew at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16th, 1969. All of the sunglasses are really neat too. Except for LBJ. LBJ is too cool for sunglasses.

Also, what they're watching is Apollo 11 taking off, which is probably more important than the cuteness level of this picture.

picture from here.

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Four Vice Presidents in one picture! This is Spiro Agnew's swearing-in ceremony to become Vice President on January 20th, 1969. From left to right: Lyndon Johnson (Vice President from January 1961-November 1963), Richard Nixon (VP from 1953-1961), some other non vice presidential person (Everett Dirksen), another non vice presidential person (mystery man), Spiro Agnew (VP from January 1969 - October 1973), and Hubert Humphrey (VP from 1965- 1969).

picture from here.

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A ‘Service on the Home Front.’ poster from the Pennsylvania State Council of Defense, c 1943

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Once the election is over, the Vice President's usefulness is over. He's like the second stage of a rocket. He's damn important going into orbit, but he's always thrown off to burn up in the atmosphere.

an aide to Hubert Humphrey

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My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

John Adams of the Vice Presidency

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Cleveland's Secret Surgery

Did you know that on July 1st, 1893, during Grover Cleveland's second term as president he had a secret surgery on a boat to remove a cancerous cist? This is what the Senate website has to say about it:

A habitual cigar-smoker, Cleveland had developed cancer of the mouth that required immediate surgery. The president insisted that the surgery be kept secret to avoid another panic on Wall Street over the thought of a silverite like [Adlai] Stevenson [I] in the White House. While on a yacht in New York harbor that summer, Cleveland had his entire upper jaw removed and replaced with an artificial device, an operation that left no outward scar. The cancer surgery remained secret for another quarter century. Cleveland's aides explained that he had merely had dental work.

How can you do surgery on a boat??? Man the Gilded Age sure was a crazy time.