“‘Evil Twin’ Ovarian Tumor Found In Skeleton From 16th Century Peru” Forbes

June 23, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

This is freaky! Anthropologists discovered a sixteenth-century skeleton that had ovarian teratoma. What’s ovarian teratoma? Kristina Killgrove explains that it is a “modern medical term coined from the ancient Greek words for ‘monstrous tumor,’ a teratoma usually presents as a cyst composed of multiple types of cells. This essentially means that a teratoma can grow into a variety of different tissues, including bone, teeth, hair, and organs.” Apparently it’s common today!

Read the entire article with close up pictures of the “teeth” here:

‘Evil Twin’ Ovarian Tumor Found In Skeleton From 16th Century Peru.

“Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays” – Yahoo News

June 22, 2015June 22, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

It’s not pretty, but we should know about this tragic history. Please watch this brief history of “the U.S. Government’s War on Gays.”

Uniquely Nasty: The U.S. Government’s War on Gays – Yahoo News.

https://news.yahoo.com/video/uniquely-nasty-u-governments-war-180000816.html?format=embed&player_autoplay=false

“Could Scientists Be Wrong About Global Warming?” | History News Network

June 22, 2015 / Debbie / 2 Comments

Using examples from the history of science Dr. James Powell explains why it is unlikely that climate scientists are wrong about global warming. However his final consideration is probably the most apropos in the current debate over climate change: the possibility “that scientists are deliberately wrong, engaged in a global conspiracy,” and concludes that “this notion, [is] the intellectual equivalent of believing that the Earth is flat or that men did not land on the Moon. To claim conspiracy is to prefer a blatant absurdity over scientific fact and only because accepting global warming does not happen to suit people. But the implacable laws of science remain unaffected by what suits us.”

Read his useful review of the history of mistaken theories in science:

History News Network | Could Scientists Be Wrong About Global Warming?

“The Hoax of Climate Denial” | History News Network

June 19, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Naomi Oreskes, historian of science, discusses her experience testifying before the Committee on Natural Resources last month. She explains, “In preparing my testimony, however, I realized that something far larger was at stake: the issue of politically driven science itself. It’s often claimed that environmental science done in federal agencies is “politically driven” and therefore suspect. It was, I realized, time to challenge the presumption that such science is bad science. While widely held, the idea is demonstrably false. Moreover, the suggestion that “government science” is intrinsically problematic for Republicans who eschew big government ignores the simple fact that most of the major contributions of the twentieth century, at least in the physical sciences, came from just such government science.”

Besides defending “government science,” Oreskes reviews the history of the current climate denialism, as well as the political and economic forces that are driving it. Read her important exposé here:

History News Network | The Hoax of Climate Denial.

“The Long and Proud History of Charleston’s AME Church” |History News Network

June 19, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

“When twenty-one year old Dylann Roof opened fire at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday night killing nine worshippers, including its pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, he struck at the very heart of black America.” Manisha Sinha is right, but if it is blow at the “heart of black America,” it is also a blow to the entire nation. It is a reminder of a shameful past, a past that some don’t want to face. But we must if we are to ever to heal as a nation. It is a reminder that we all have a responsibility to call out the lies and prejudices that fuel all kinds of hatred.

And as Rev. Dr. Carolyn McKinstry, a survivor of the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, implores: “Each of us is accountable for ourselves. Each of us must examine our lives and our treatment of others if we are going to have even a remote chance of living with the tremendous diversity that exists in our country. We still have not learned the simple principle of living next door to someone who may be different from us. We have not learned to treat others in the same manner that we ourselves want to be treated. We can begin changing America now, and continue one day at a time, if we have the will.” (Time magazine)

History News Network | The Long and Proud History of Charleston’s AME Church.

Bombshell Report from Common Cause: Privatizers Flood New York Politicians with Cash

June 19, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Please read Diane Ravitch’s summary of a report on funding and lobbying in NY state. Even though the report is about NY, it is representative of what is happening all across the country.

Excerpt: “The current trend of market-based education proposals can be seen as interrelated to the ideology and policy goals that contributed to the pre-2008 deregulations of the financial industry and to the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC. Using a long term, multi-pronged strategy, the self-styled “education reform” organizations (whose boards are populated by the very hedge fund executives who have dominated Super PAC contributions since the Citizens United decision) are framing this issue. They have used their wealth to access and infiltrate the policy landscape on almost every front except one: the teachers’ unions. 13 In an increasingly polarized debate, these camps are battling for ideological control of the future of education policy at all levels of government.”

Diane Ravitch's blog

Please read this report and send it to everyone who cares about the future of public education in the United States. Send it to your friends, your school board, your legislators, your editorial boards, and to anyone else who needs to know about the money that is committed to demolishing public schools and turning the money over to private hands.

Common Cause has released an important new report about the dramatic increase in funding and lobbying by groups in New York State committed to privatization of public schools. The report contrasts the political spending of the privatizers to the political spending of the unions, and it is a fascinating contrast.

The report is titled: “Polishing the Apple: Examining Political Spending in New York to Influence Educational Policy.”

The report rejects the term “reformers” and uses the term “privatizers.” It explains here (p. 3):

We use the terms pro-privatization and privatizer…

View original post 1,233 more words

Mark Byrnes Defends the Magna Carta

June 17, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

In response to Tom Ginsburg (“Stop Revering the Magna Carta”) and David Allen Green (“The Destructive Myth of the Magna Carta”), Mark Byrnes argues that it’s “OK to celebrate Magna Carta.” Read his argument here:

History News Network | It’s Ok to Celebrate Magna Carta.

King John signing the Magna Carta (1215). Undated illustration, after a painting by Chappel. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

“Guns Were Much More Strictly Regulated in the 1920s and 1930s than They Are Today” | History News Network

June 16, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

Robert J. Spitzer gives a brief overview of gun regulation in the 1920s and 1930s, and concludes that “guns were much more strictly regulated decades or even centuries ago than they are today.” This is a pretty narrow slice of gun control history on which to base such a broad conclusion, but looking at the “Table of Contents” from his book (Guns Across America) it looks like Spitzer’s conclusion is grounded in a much broader history of gun control from the founding to today.

Despite its brevity, Spitzer’s summary of gun control in the 1920s and 1930s is very interesting. To read his summary go here:

History News Network | Guns Were Much More Strictly Regulated in the 1920s and 1930s than They Are Today.

“By the Bizarre Logic of Anti-Gay Marriage Zealots, the Supreme Court Should Allow Businesses to Discriminate Against Interracial Couples” | History News Network

June 15, 2015 / Debbie / Leave a comment

At the History News Network the legal scholar Robert J. McWhirter calls out the “anti-gay zealots” for their rhetorical tricks, which they use as a cover for their bigotry. Here’s an excerpt from his incisive piece:

“’Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival. . . . To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, [is] … directly subversive … [to] the 14th Amendment . . ..’ Opponents of same-sex marriage can’t attack this head on. So the first play is to argue definitions. After all, said George W. Bush, ‘marriage is between a man and a woman.’ Subtext: ‘We don’t deny gay people a fundamental right, we just define them out of it.’”

Read the entire article here:

History News Network | By the Bizarre Logic of Anti-Gay Marriage Zealots, the Supreme Court Should Allow Businesses to Discriminate Against Interracial Couples.

Stop Revering Magna Carta – NYTimes.com

June 15, 2015 / Debbie / 7 Comments

“Magna Carta has everything going for it to be venerated in the United States: It is old, it is English and, because no one has actually read the text, it is easy to invoke to fit current needs.” So true!

Read Tom Ginsburg’s argument de-mythologizing the famous document:

Stop Revering Magna Carta – NYTimes.com.