Obama in Africa

[Photo NY Times]
In case you didn’t already know, Illinois Federal Senator Barack Obama is in Africa right now. He’s been visiting various places, including his father’s country, Kenya. (Actually, after checking his website it looks like he’s already left Kenya and is on to Djibouti.)

Barack has been a local politician on the rise since his speech at the last Democrat National Convention and there have been rampant rumors of a possible presidential run in 2008.

For now you can check out some pictures and details of the trip here.

ABC7 reporter Charles Thomas has been following Obama and has been keeping an interesting journal on the trip here.

You can find out more at Obama’s site here.

Welcome Back

I hope that everyone at Elm enjoys their time back at school. It's a sometimes shocking adjustment but I'm looking forward to a great school year!

Moving Pictures: The Birth of Animation

Ww will be hearing a lot more about Winsor McCay in class, but for now I wanted to put up a link to and news item that mentions McCay's pioneering role in animation.
Enjoy!
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=08-25-06&storyID=24948

Fox Trot: History Test/Back to School

Lomax the Songhunter

Well, school is just around the corner and I should be getting my classroom ready but my bad back has me laid-up at home.

I just finished watching a P.O.V. segment on Alan Lomax. Lomax followed in his fatherÂ’s footsteps and made filed recordings for folk songs from the U.S. and around the world.

Alan Lomax (1915-2002) earned a singular place for himself in American culture and arts. Building on the pioneering work of his father, John, whom he accompanied on folk-song recording tours of the American South and Southwest in the 1930s and 1940s, Alan set out after World War II to do nothing less than draw the folk music map of the world.

Some of you may have seen the film O Brother which uses period music of the 30s as well as older folk and work songs.

This documentary was fascinating. Lomax was alive during the filming but of because of a brain hemorrhage is not completely cognate. The film maker retraces some of Lomax's journeys and interviews many people who knew Lomax and sang for him. Scenes of the film maker retracing Lomax's journey are interspersed with archival footage and scenes of a ghost-like Lomax at his Florida home. Although slow paced, it is a very powerful documentary on many levels.

Without the work of Lomax, his father, and others many of these traditional songs would be lost forever.

You can find out more about Lomax here at Wikipedia. The link section at the end is also helpful but for some reason doesn't have http://www.alan-lomax.com/home.html. You can also stream some of this music (realplayer) from the POV site here.

Sorry Lemont.

You played a valiant game. I was watching the Sox, the Cubs and . . . Little League? It’s a lot of pressure to put on 11 and 12-year-olds and I don’t know how I fell about that. What I understand the least is how the Little League game was the only one of the three in high-def. Go figure.

Of course, some people have questioned whether it’s even a good idea to put so much pressure on such young kids. While on one hand I did enjoy watching the game, ESPN-HD is a heck of a lot of pressure. Many of the kids appeared to be crying during the game. What, there are not enough good professional, minor league, college and high school baseball games?

That's too much pressure to put on such young kids.

Iraq

Oh, if only this 8/20/06 Doonesbury cartoon were true. I’ve largely avoided writing about the Middle East and the Iraq War. It is not that I don’t think about it, I just want to put a positive perspective on it. The problem is I can’t seem to find a “happy” angle. The worse things get, the more powerless if feel.

While America obsesses over the killer of JonBonet Ramsey, in one month (July 2006), 47 coalition troops died and over 3400 innocent Iraqis (that averages 110 a day!) were killed. There seems to be no new strategies coming out of the White House and Iraq is on the verge (if not there already) of civil war.

Today in the news they called up even more marine reserve troops.

I’m speechless.

This war is a nightmare and I can’t wake up.

What’s the solution? Pulling out would make Iraq even more of a blood bath in my opinion. Staying the present course is only weakening the U.S. position abroad and at home and strengthening terrorist and Iran and Syria’s influence not to even mention the death toll. There are no easy answers, but President Bush got us into this and he needs to provide vision to get us out.

History Detectives

Rather than try to discuss the recent foiled terrorist attack in the UK or the tenuous cease-fire between Lebanon and Israel and other very important current events I’m going to take a break and discuss some lighter fare with another favorite PBS show of mine.

History Detectives is just what the name says. Besides highlighting little-know parts of U.S. history, I love the show’s stress on the processes of research and discover. Sometimes the artifacts or paths that the detectives go down turn out to be dead ends but that’s not the point. It’s the journey and what we learn along the way. It makes personal connections from far off events to now.

I’m not sure how much I will be able to use this in the classroom but for anyone interested in U.S. history, this show is a must.