Here is the latest–a contribution to the LOA series. (Check out the entire collection here).
humor
Cartoon of the Day
Populism:
A Conference Call in Real Life
In case you haven’t seen this yet:
Trump and Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast
It’s a selective comparison, but it’s still very funny:
What a Historian Who Writes About Donald Trump Gets for Christmas
My daughter Allyson likes to customize her Christmas gifts:
The Daily Show Goes to the Trump Rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania
This is my backyard, folks:
Comic Relief of the Day
“Drastic Times Require Drastic Measures” or Why We Need Phil Davison!
Phil Davison ran for Stark County, Ohio Treasurer in 2010. I think it’s time for him to get back into the political ring! We need you, Phil!
POLITICS IS ABOUT WINNING!!! 🙂
We Discussed the Gadsden Purchase Today
I love breaking-out this video in my U.S. Survey to 1865 course when we discuss the Gadsden Purchase:
These Paleface Illegals are Stealing Our Land and Our Buffaloes
SNL does Thanksgiving:
Seen Today in Grand Rapids, Michigan
One of our correspondents, a twenty-two-year-old history major at Calvin College, sent us this photo today:
Kevin Harlan’s Epic “Cat on the Field” Call at Last Night’s Cowboys-Giants Game
I love this:
“That is the sound of ultimate suffering” and other *Princes Bride* lines that double as comments on the papers of first-year college students
This is from February 2012, but I am seeing Jennifer Simonson’s McSweeney’s piece for the first time.
Inconceivable!
Donald Trump’s 4th of July Speech Has Forced Me to Revise the Syllabus for My “Age of Hamilton” Course
It was this part of the speech that forced me to rethink my entire understanding of the American Revolution:
Here is what I wrote on Facebook earlier today:
Students in my “Age of Hamilton” course this Fall will be learning how Hamilton, as Washington’s “right hand man,” aided the great general in the takeover of colonial airports at Newark, White Plains, and Boston.
We will also spend a few class periods discussing how Hamilton convinced Washington that control of Morristown Municipal airport was absolutely essential for the protection of the Continental Army’s headquarters during the Winter of 1779/1780. (I think it is worth noting that most courses on the Revolutionary War will not give students this kind of in-depth of analysis. The role of the small Morristown Municipal Airport does not often make it into U.S. History survey textbooks or even some of the best specialized textbooks on the Revolution. Before I started writing this post, I went to my bookshelf and picked-up books by Gordon Wood, Robert Middlekauf, John Ferling, David Hackett Fischer, and Joseph Ellis and found no references to this important event ).
We will also discuss how Washington and his troops “manned the air” and “did everything it had to do” by traveling nearly 40 years into the future so that they could defeat the British at Fort McHenry on September 13-14, 1814.
One of the more popular songs in Lin Manuel-Miranda’s musical “Hamilton” is “The Battle of Yorktown.” So in this course we will spend considerable time discussing Alexander Hamilton’s role in this important battle. Lectures will focus primarily on how the Continental Army, with Hamilton’s help, was able to remove the feudal lord commonly known as “Cornwallis of Yorktown” from his seat of power.
It’s going to be a great course! Bigly!
What’s a Dial Tone?
If this is real, it is hilarious. These kids can’t figure out how to use a rotary telephone. Is there any significance to the fact that the phone is sitting on a Harry Potter box?
Meme of the Day
A little snark this afternoon:
What if a Pastor Did a Post-Sermon Interview?
“Every NASCAR Post-Race Interview”
Beto O’Rourke Apologizes for High-School Mixtape
REO Speedwagon? A taste from Andy Borowitz’s piece at The New Yorker:
“In my youth, I put a song on a mixtape that I deeply regret adding,” O’Rourke told a stunned crowd at an Iowa City diner. “REO Speedwagon does not represent who I am.”
The Democratic strategist Tracy Klugian cautioned that O’Rourke’s apology might not have put the mixtape scandal to rest.
“If that’s the only tape out there, then Beto moves on from this,” he said. “But if a mixtape comes out with Air Supply on it, he’s done.”
Read the tragic story here.
🙂