Joe Biden has been the most unfairly treated POTUS in my lifetime. He quite literally inherited one of the worst situations of any modern day President and he just doesn't get any credit or acknowledgment of this.
Joe Biden has been the most unfairly treated POTUS in my lifetime. He quite literally inherited one of the worst situations of any modern day President and he just doesn't get any credit or acknowledgment of this.
My wife and I were both history majors at UCLA. I have spent my life from the time I learned to read avidly devouring books about history, historical novels, biography, historiography. The history illiteracy of our country is appalling, horrific, growing, a danger to our country and form of government, and exactly what the morbidly rich want. Because human history is an enormous cautionary tale. One filled with tragedy, malevolence and error, with few bright spots but innumerable lessons. Candidly, our legislators also have a rather poor grasp even of our own history, on both sides to be fair.
That is why I was so heartened to read of the recent $25 million gift by the Luskins, major UCLA donors, to its history department, one of the jewels of our university but one facing the same attackтАЩs demoralizing humanities and social sciences departments everywhere. The study of history is not a luxury. It is essential to avoid a shallow, uninformed, unreflective and uncritical mind. It should regain the place in K-12 education it once held, not suffer from propaganda attacks by the left but especially from the fascists we now face. I can no longer call them the right, because they are not right about pretty much anything.
Time for all of us to make history with our first woman President, appropriately the child of immigrants, as many of our early Presidents were, and multiracial, as only one (maybe two if you include Calvin CoolidgeтАЩs claimed Native American partial ancestry) of our previous Presidents has been.
To borrow from a former President I intensely opposed, I feel for the first time in this election cycle that it may really be morning in America.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is shocking how little Americans know of the outside world. Europeans know a lot more about us than we of them
And yet if you take it upon yourself to read widely, travel internationally and become fluent in a language other than English, the MAGA voters will label you a тАЬglobalistтАЭ and dismiss anything you have to say.
This INTELLIGENCER article from last summer explains (new to me) that the Republican Party of Reagan/Bush was actually an anomaly, and the Party of Trump is what the GOP was before Reagan/Bush and is now once again. Who knew?
If I could live my life over, I'd have been a college history professor, teaching classes about how dictators were allowed to thrive in Germany and other places. (I have a joint history-pol.sci degree.) The best teacher I ever had, college or HS, was Mr. Paden, my history teacher back in 1967-68. He finally retired only a few years ago. He was one in a million.
The best teacher I ever had was my first year in college. Gerald Sandvig, taught world history. He was such a captivating speaker and all his lessons were like listening to an on going never ending story. I had another US history teacher in tenth grade, Roger Steljes. Both were the same way.
He just retired???? WOW! 2 of my favorite profs were my history teachers....though I was a business major. I still remember humorous lines from one of them. For example, he referred to one of Mozart's musical rival/peer as someone who created bland...syrupy....but culturally very popular music. Sort of like...<as the prof paused and looked out the window subtly shaking his head in slight disgust>...Barry Manilow. The class howled as this was the early 80's and Manilow was very much a household name back then.
Mr. Paden was enthusiastic about history, all of it, and every student could see it and feel. His classes were a joy to attend, not a chore to be taken. And he instilled that into his students. (I got my love of history from him - something none of the teachers in college came close to doing to my immense disappointment.) Even the kids who didn't care about history paid attention in his classes. (There was one other history teacher who was almost as good who flat out said Truman was the best president of the 20th century.) When Mr. Paden finally retired maybe 5 years ago, the newsletter I got from the HS (who finally found me after decades) was filled with his praises from long past students like me to the new kids in the school.
I had that plan, and the same double major. But the programs to which I applied took less than ten graduate students each, and my languages were not sufficient against the competition (okay Latin, weak German, no French Italian or classical Greek). I had superb history teachers at every level, but my world history teacher in 1963-4, debate coach, mentor, surrogate mother and best friend was my inspiration in all things. She passed a few years ago, leaving an unfillable void in my life.
I was forced to go to my default choice after graduating from UCLA. Lawschool. It happened to be Harvard, and it was probably for the best. I had a very successful legal career, and was indirectly in the UCLA history department as a volunteer, the founding President of History Bruins, the community representative in one of the departmentтАЩs rare but intense evaluation conferences, and supportive of my sponsor in the department, Peter Reill, until his retirement and then sudden demise, also a few years ago. History remains a compulsion, an addiction, for me.
My work-study in college from 69 to 73 on was for a professor who was compiling information on the right wing in the US (he'd already done LW). All before the internet, computers or any electronic aids. Browsed the library shelves daily for articles by Time, Newsweek, and others -all before they stopped being news sources - old newspapers, and books about and by the RW. Anyone else remember microfish? It was an education by itself.
Your last sentence, yup, that's me. But my tastes vary. For a good many years when I was thinking of the great American novel, I did research on literally a dozen countries from the 1600s on. Read a lot about countries that few history courses teach, such as Japan's shogun era (fell in love with Japanese art), the travels of explorers from Europe, to how people lived in those areas, to American slaves in the colonies - all over the world. When the novel idea got too unwieldy, I switched to WWII, and became immersed in Germany during the war and a few years after, toying with life in the German resistance stories.
And I donated dozens upon dozens of books that I hope the libraries appreciate getting. Still have several hundred to go. :-) Of course now, I can research nearly everything on line. :-) Still prefer books.
My Poli sci teacher was a friend and informal advisor to Walter Mondale. Not too Shabby to listen to someone that close to political history! Mondale was a fabulous person. Like Biden he probably didn't get the credit he deserved. But Mondale is credited the totally changing the role of VP. Unfortunately he is better known for losing 49 states to Reagan in 1984.
Reagan - the beginning of "celebrity" politicians, the beginning of government is bad (unless it helps the rich get richer), the beginning of putting optics above substance. Man has a lot to answer for. Hope he's in Purgatory, crying over the party he fathered.
And just think, what was once the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower has devolved into the party of Trump. It is the Theory of evolution in reverse.
You know...we all have seen the famous line delivered by Reagan at his debate with Mondale regarding their age difference and I've always appreciated that Mondale also laughed at Reagan's remark. Oh...I wish for times like those where there was still some civility left in politics.
I was primarily focused on European history from Ancient Greece and Rome to the present, and the history of science. In recent decades, I have read deeply and widely in our Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and German history. I had a great course in Japanese history at UCLA which my present wife also took, though we did not meet until 20 years later. I have also read a fair amount in Japanese and Chinese history, and studied Mandarin for two years at UCLA Extension, becoming modestly proficient and able to speak with Chinese people we met on vacations to Europe.
Unfortunately, a rare and very debilitating ailment struck me in 2002. Destroying most of my hearing and my balance, so tonal languages donтАЩt work for me. Heck, even English is garbled! But the written word is still superb. Thanks to my poor vision, I read almost entirely on my Kindle app where I can enlarge the print, but still love books more. I just find the small print too much of a strain. I do fondly remember researching amongst the seldom consulted treasures of the vast UCLA libraries. Indeed, on one of our last days in LA before moving to our present home in Sacramento, my wife, oldest daughter and I spent a day at the main undergraduate library at UCLA and wandered the campus reminiscing about our years there. As we downsize now, the one thing we are finding very difficult to part with is our rather large library. We may end up donating much of it, though interested recipients are diminishing in this electronic age. I feel blessed in many ways that we spent most of our life in a time when books and libraries were still the norm.
I'd forgotten about Greek and Roman history. I devoured library books about Greece and Rome, reading above my grade level when I was in grade school. Wanted to go to Greece and Rome. Life had other ideas. I used to spend days in the libraries nearest our home. In NYC, the library was only a few blocks away. When I was in HS in Binghamton, it was a walk of over a mile, no buses there, and I was still there almost every weekend.
Sorry about your health. My hearing is fine, but I don't listen to speeches - I read what was actually said. Which is why I couldn't figure out what was so bad about Biden's debate. He spoke English, Donald only spoke gibberish. Optics overrules actual words in today's world.
I started life Roman Catholic in the тАЬold daysтАЭ, so Latin was one of my earliest memories. I loved learning it in high school. An interest in ancient history came with all of that. As a Navy brat, I haunted base and hometown libraries wherever my Dad was stationed.
You are right about optics over content. As a competitive debater in high school and college, I learned the importance of both. Now, itтАЩs all about perception and the show. Substance seems lost on a country whose people appear to have mass attention deficit disorder.
He didn't inherit "one of the worst situtations," he inherited the absolutely worst situation ever, thanks to Trump's coup and his election lies which half the country still believes, coupled with his dropping the ball on Covid.
Possibly FDR could have an argument, but I don't disagree with you....especially given the coup attempt and lack of a good transition.
How the F did Trump get away with a piece of shix transition from simply a "good for the country and national defense" point of view? Sorry for the salty language but it's a real bone of contention with me...obviously.
Well, when you have dumbed down public education for 40 years and convinced every public tv to tune to Fox, what do you expect! It is the media/social media that has refused to give Biden credit -- along with the fact that Dems are notoriously bad at tooting their own horn when needed... luckily the new crop of Dems can do that.
Joe Biden has been the most unfairly treated POTUS in my lifetime. He quite literally inherited one of the worst situations of any modern day President and he just doesn't get any credit or acknowledgment of this.
What a short memory our country has.
That's why we read history books. They tend to get it right.
And that's why they don't really teach history any more.
My wife and I were both history majors at UCLA. I have spent my life from the time I learned to read avidly devouring books about history, historical novels, biography, historiography. The history illiteracy of our country is appalling, horrific, growing, a danger to our country and form of government, and exactly what the morbidly rich want. Because human history is an enormous cautionary tale. One filled with tragedy, malevolence and error, with few bright spots but innumerable lessons. Candidly, our legislators also have a rather poor grasp even of our own history, on both sides to be fair.
That is why I was so heartened to read of the recent $25 million gift by the Luskins, major UCLA donors, to its history department, one of the jewels of our university but one facing the same attackтАЩs demoralizing humanities and social sciences departments everywhere. The study of history is not a luxury. It is essential to avoid a shallow, uninformed, unreflective and uncritical mind. It should regain the place in K-12 education it once held, not suffer from propaganda attacks by the left but especially from the fascists we now face. I can no longer call them the right, because they are not right about pretty much anything.
Time for all of us to make history with our first woman President, appropriately the child of immigrants, as many of our early Presidents were, and multiracial, as only one (maybe two if you include Calvin CoolidgeтАЩs claimed Native American partial ancestry) of our previous Presidents has been.
To borrow from a former President I intensely opposed, I feel for the first time in this election cycle that it may really be morning in America.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It is shocking how little Americans know of the outside world. Europeans know a lot more about us than we of them
And yet if you take it upon yourself to read widely, travel internationally and become fluent in a language other than English, the MAGA voters will label you a тАЬglobalistтАЭ and dismiss anything you have to say.
Isn't it amazing that Republican party was a believer in free trade, open markets, alliances and globalists.
This INTELLIGENCER article from last summer explains (new to me) that the Republican Party of Reagan/Bush was actually an anomaly, and the Party of Trump is what the GOP was before Reagan/Bush and is now once again. Who knew?
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/trump-didnt-hijack-reagan-repubican-party.html
What was once known as the Republican party has certainly changed its spots over its history.
I know it was like this , but I am old .
Thanks Ann.
That's really interesting. I've lived through a lot of this and I wouldn't have picked that up.
If I could live my life over, I'd have been a college history professor, teaching classes about how dictators were allowed to thrive in Germany and other places. (I have a joint history-pol.sci degree.) The best teacher I ever had, college or HS, was Mr. Paden, my history teacher back in 1967-68. He finally retired only a few years ago. He was one in a million.
The best teacher I ever had was my first year in college. Gerald Sandvig, taught world history. He was such a captivating speaker and all his lessons were like listening to an on going never ending story. I had another US history teacher in tenth grade, Roger Steljes. Both were the same way.
He just retired???? WOW! 2 of my favorite profs were my history teachers....though I was a business major. I still remember humorous lines from one of them. For example, he referred to one of Mozart's musical rival/peer as someone who created bland...syrupy....but culturally very popular music. Sort of like...<as the prof paused and looked out the window subtly shaking his head in slight disgust>...Barry Manilow. The class howled as this was the early 80's and Manilow was very much a household name back then.
Retired history teacher here, Eva. What was it about him that made him the best?
Thank you, Sandy, for teaching history. Love it!!
Mr. Paden was enthusiastic about history, all of it, and every student could see it and feel. His classes were a joy to attend, not a chore to be taken. And he instilled that into his students. (I got my love of history from him - something none of the teachers in college came close to doing to my immense disappointment.) Even the kids who didn't care about history paid attention in his classes. (There was one other history teacher who was almost as good who flat out said Truman was the best president of the 20th century.) When Mr. Paden finally retired maybe 5 years ago, the newsletter I got from the HS (who finally found me after decades) was filled with his praises from long past students like me to the new kids in the school.
Thx. Always good to know about great teachers.
I had that plan, and the same double major. But the programs to which I applied took less than ten graduate students each, and my languages were not sufficient against the competition (okay Latin, weak German, no French Italian or classical Greek). I had superb history teachers at every level, but my world history teacher in 1963-4, debate coach, mentor, surrogate mother and best friend was my inspiration in all things. She passed a few years ago, leaving an unfillable void in my life.
I was forced to go to my default choice after graduating from UCLA. Lawschool. It happened to be Harvard, and it was probably for the best. I had a very successful legal career, and was indirectly in the UCLA history department as a volunteer, the founding President of History Bruins, the community representative in one of the departmentтАЩs rare but intense evaluation conferences, and supportive of my sponsor in the department, Peter Reill, until his retirement and then sudden demise, also a few years ago. History remains a compulsion, an addiction, for me.
My work-study in college from 69 to 73 on was for a professor who was compiling information on the right wing in the US (he'd already done LW). All before the internet, computers or any electronic aids. Browsed the library shelves daily for articles by Time, Newsweek, and others -all before they stopped being news sources - old newspapers, and books about and by the RW. Anyone else remember microfish? It was an education by itself.
Your last sentence, yup, that's me. But my tastes vary. For a good many years when I was thinking of the great American novel, I did research on literally a dozen countries from the 1600s on. Read a lot about countries that few history courses teach, such as Japan's shogun era (fell in love with Japanese art), the travels of explorers from Europe, to how people lived in those areas, to American slaves in the colonies - all over the world. When the novel idea got too unwieldy, I switched to WWII, and became immersed in Germany during the war and a few years after, toying with life in the German resistance stories.
And I donated dozens upon dozens of books that I hope the libraries appreciate getting. Still have several hundred to go. :-) Of course now, I can research nearly everything on line. :-) Still prefer books.
My Poli sci teacher was a friend and informal advisor to Walter Mondale. Not too Shabby to listen to someone that close to political history! Mondale was a fabulous person. Like Biden he probably didn't get the credit he deserved. But Mondale is credited the totally changing the role of VP. Unfortunately he is better known for losing 49 states to Reagan in 1984.
Reagan - the beginning of "celebrity" politicians, the beginning of government is bad (unless it helps the rich get richer), the beginning of putting optics above substance. Man has a lot to answer for. Hope he's in Purgatory, crying over the party he fathered.
And just think, what was once the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower has devolved into the party of Trump. It is the Theory of evolution in reverse.
Can't disagree, much as I want to.
This isn't exactly encouraging: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/are-humans-getting-intellectually-and-emotionally-stupid-121924658/
You know...we all have seen the famous line delivered by Reagan at his debate with Mondale regarding their age difference and I've always appreciated that Mondale also laughed at Reagan's remark. Oh...I wish for times like those where there was still some civility left in politics.
And humor
I was primarily focused on European history from Ancient Greece and Rome to the present, and the history of science. In recent decades, I have read deeply and widely in our Civil War, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, and German history. I had a great course in Japanese history at UCLA which my present wife also took, though we did not meet until 20 years later. I have also read a fair amount in Japanese and Chinese history, and studied Mandarin for two years at UCLA Extension, becoming modestly proficient and able to speak with Chinese people we met on vacations to Europe.
Unfortunately, a rare and very debilitating ailment struck me in 2002. Destroying most of my hearing and my balance, so tonal languages donтАЩt work for me. Heck, even English is garbled! But the written word is still superb. Thanks to my poor vision, I read almost entirely on my Kindle app where I can enlarge the print, but still love books more. I just find the small print too much of a strain. I do fondly remember researching amongst the seldom consulted treasures of the vast UCLA libraries. Indeed, on one of our last days in LA before moving to our present home in Sacramento, my wife, oldest daughter and I spent a day at the main undergraduate library at UCLA and wandered the campus reminiscing about our years there. As we downsize now, the one thing we are finding very difficult to part with is our rather large library. We may end up donating much of it, though interested recipients are diminishing in this electronic age. I feel blessed in many ways that we spent most of our life in a time when books and libraries were still the norm.
I'd forgotten about Greek and Roman history. I devoured library books about Greece and Rome, reading above my grade level when I was in grade school. Wanted to go to Greece and Rome. Life had other ideas. I used to spend days in the libraries nearest our home. In NYC, the library was only a few blocks away. When I was in HS in Binghamton, it was a walk of over a mile, no buses there, and I was still there almost every weekend.
Sorry about your health. My hearing is fine, but I don't listen to speeches - I read what was actually said. Which is why I couldn't figure out what was so bad about Biden's debate. He spoke English, Donald only spoke gibberish. Optics overrules actual words in today's world.
I started life Roman Catholic in the тАЬold daysтАЭ, so Latin was one of my earliest memories. I loved learning it in high school. An interest in ancient history came with all of that. As a Navy brat, I haunted base and hometown libraries wherever my Dad was stationed.
You are right about optics over content. As a competitive debater in high school and college, I learned the importance of both. Now, itтАЩs all about perception and the show. Substance seems lost on a country whose people appear to have mass attention deficit disorder.
" Now, itтАЩs all about perception and the show. Substance seems lost on a country whose people appear to have mass attention deficit disorder."
Sadly have to agree.
My best teacher was 8th grade Civics; he is why I am in places like this one today. We really need Civics back in classrooms.
Like I have repeatedly said; history and historians will regard Biden much higher than voters do today.
The NYTimes always had an article going, even when it was good news, on тАЬHow thatтАЩs bad for BidenтАЭ.
They would print a headline like, "Bad News For Biden, His Cancer Cure May Cost Him The Oncologists' Vote"
He didn't inherit "one of the worst situtations," he inherited the absolutely worst situation ever, thanks to Trump's coup and his election lies which half the country still believes, coupled with his dropping the ball on Covid.
Possibly FDR could have an argument, but I don't disagree with you....especially given the coup attempt and lack of a good transition.
How the F did Trump get away with a piece of shix transition from simply a "good for the country and national defense" point of view? Sorry for the salty language but it's a real bone of contention with me...obviously.
Yes, FDR most definitely could have an argument.
Unfair? That's Trump's always line.
Yes...and Joe Biden never uses it. Definitely shows the difference in character for sure.
Yes. I don't think any Democrat uses it.
memory of a gnat
Well, when you have dumbed down public education for 40 years and convinced every public tv to tune to Fox, what do you expect! It is the media/social media that has refused to give Biden credit -- along with the fact that Dems are notoriously bad at tooting their own horn when needed... luckily the new crop of Dems can do that.