Mythbusting: Who Were the First Congressmen?

Because I was recently reminded of the popular idea amongst those favouring Congressional term limits and the ideal citizen legislator that the original intent was for yeoman farmers to serve a single term and return to his land, I decided to do a little bit of research.

Looking at the members of the House of Representatives in the First Congress (1789-91), I compiled information about how many terms they served, what their occupations were outside of politics, and what political offices they held prior and subsequent to their service in the House. The results were quite surprising.

The House of Representatives of the First Congress of the United States was comprised of 66 members. There were 65 seats, but one member, Theodorick Bland of Virginia, died in office and was replaced by William Giles. In calculating the average number of terms, I have used Giles. The average number of terms served in the House was 2.72.

However, of the 66, only two (George Gale of MD and Giles of VA) held no previous political office, though Gale was a member of his state’s convention to ratify the US Constitution. Of the rest, 48 had previously served in their state’s legislature and 29 had served in the Continental Congress. Only 13 ended their public service with their stint in the House of Representatives and only three of these were single term Congressmen. Seventeen served in the US Senate, including 4 of the 18 who only served one term in the House. Balancing out the 18 single-termers are 18 who served four or more terms.

Twelve held executive branch appointments after leaving Congress, including Thomas Tucker who served as Treasurer of the United States for 27 years,  John Steele, who was Comptroller of the US Treasury and Elias Boudinot who became director of the US Mint.

Others were elected to executive office in their home states, including seven governors and two lieutenant governors. Thirteen served as judges after leaving Congress, six on the supreme courts of their states and four as federal judges.

So how many were farmers? Of the 11 with agricultural interests, eight owned plantations. Only three could be referred to as lesser farmers. Of those three, only one, William Floyd of NY, was just a farmer. George Mathews of GA was also a merchant and Joshua Seney of MD was also a lawyer.

A lawyer? Surely there weren’t lawyers in Congress back in this golden era! Well, only 29 of them in the first House of Representatives. That’s 44% of the membership. Yes, almost half. The next closest occupation represented amongst the Representatives are the thirteen with mercantile interests. Five were clergymen and five were teachers (this includes William Baldwin of GA, who had been both).

There seems to be little evidence from the First Congress that members were expected to be yeoman farmers who spent a few weeks in Washington during a single two-year term and then went back to the land. For the most part they were lawyers and rich merchants who spent a significant part of their lives engaged in the business of government.

Turkey Continues to Dictate US Policy on the Armenian Genocide

President Obama campaigned hard to get the Armenian-American vote by taking a hard line on the Armenian Genocide. He even had a track record of complaining about the previous administration’s lack of recognition when Condoleezza Rice recalled the the US Ambassador to Yerevan, John Evans, because he publically used the word “genocide”. You can’t even use the “G” word when speaking to Armenians, as this is too upsetting to the Turks.

During the campaign, Obama said, “As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide.” Now Obama has decided that realpolitik is much more inportant than principle. The first Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day since Obama took office was last Friday. After all his bluster, when the White House issued a statement about the day, the word “genocide” was clearly left out.

Everyone noticed this, except of course the Turks, who were angry that any statement had been made. The under secretary in Turkey’s foreign ministry summoned to U.S. Ambassador  in Ankara to tell him that the Turkish government was uneasy about the statement because it didn’t mention the deaths of thousands of Turks during the rounding up of 1.5 million Armenians for extermination. Even in avoiding the “G” work, the Turks found some of Obama’s expressions “unacceptable”.

Who do they think they are? First of all, that the US Ambasssdor should be summoned by some second-rate bureaucrat is insulting enough. If the bloody Turks have a problem with the watered-down statement of the President of the United States, who has already flushed all of his principles to appease them, then why can’t the President or Prime Minister of Turkey can’t be bothered to pick up the phone and call them White House directly? At the very least the US Ambassdor should be asked to reply on behalf of the Administration directly to the President, Prime Minister, or Foreign Secretary. The Ambassador should have then had direct orders from the White House to explain into which bodily oriface the Turks can shove their revisionist denial of the slaughter of the Armenians.

Why do with let the Turks get away with this? What would happen if Germany decided to collectively deny the Holocaust? The US wouldn’t stand for that. Good grief, the US government is even trying its hardest to send an exonerated innocent man to Germany to stand trial for crimes he didn’t commit (that didn’t even occur on German soil) because the Germans have collectively forgiven themselves for anything they did during the Holocaust, just to show its committment to the cause.

This is even worse. This is like campaigning on the  promise of a Holocaust memorial, then denying the Holocaust once in office. If Obama had not taken a stand on this issue, it might be more understandable that he has bowed to the same pressure as every previous adminstration, letting the Turks dictate American policy. But to completely back down from promises he made to the Armenian disapora is reprehensible.

Rick Perry, Texas and Secession

I love that Texas Governor Rick Perry has stirred the liberal hornets’ nest over whether or not he said things supporting Texas’ right to secede from the Union. He is now saying that his comments were misinterpreted. What a shame. I thought the way the TEA Party crowd in Austin understood them was perfectly good. I say this realising that supporting Texas puts me on the Potential Terrorist List with Homeland Security. But then again, I suppose Rick Perry will have to be on the list for saying, “States’ Rights! States’ Rights! States’ Rights!” so I suppose I’m in good company.

Things didn’t work out so well the last time Texas seceded. Maybe it was because they were held back by all the other Confederate states. When that didn’t go to plan, I had relatives who moved to Cuernavaca rather than live under oppression from Washington.

I have enjoyed all the rantings in the comments to the CNN articles. Being the Commie News Network, it attracts a lot of lefties shrieking about treason. And then the silly comments like ” You can deal with Mexico on your own, as it will then be your neighbor and your problem – not ours” – yeah, because California doesn’t have a problem with illegal aliens and no one has ever trafficked into Arizona.

Or “Please separate from us. As a teacher, I am looking for creative ways to bring up our national average in education. Please leave by all means.” I wonder where that teacher lives and works. Maybe in California, which ranks 22 places lower in Moran Quintos “Smartest State” rankings. In fact Texas ranks above all of the enlightened Left Coast states. It also graduates a higher percentage from high school than all of them.

Then there was “We can pick up Cuba or PR to replace Texas so that we don’t have to change the flag.” Yes, it would be better to absorb a Communist country than have Texans who don’t believe in the dominance of central government. After all, Obama is lifting all the restrictions with Cuba and Castro has responded by saying he is willing to talk with the US about anything as long as it is on equal terms.  So it won’t be absorbed, but it is willing to be an equal partner. I’m sure Cuba is a model for the Obama administration – not just free health care, but government intimately caring about the lives of every individual. If Texas misses out on an opportunity like this, it will put Texas in the 2010’s and the rest of the US in the 1950’s.

If Texas can’t secede, then it should invoke it’s power in the Treaty of Annexation to divide into five states. That would give it ten US Senators and control over 18.5% of the Senate. This wouldn’t have an immediate effect, because the Democrats currently effectively control 58 seats and will probably have 59 when Al Franken is admitted. Eight added Republican seats would only give the Republican 49 of 108, but a 49/59 split is easier to overcome than a 41/59.

Quadruple Jeopardy

John Demjanjuk ought to be left alone. For the last 32 years, this 89 year old man has been fighting allegations that he was a Nazi collaborator and prison guard. First it was US federal prosecutors. When they couldn’t make it stick, the Israelis had a go. When that didn’t work, the US authorities had another shot. Now he is being sent to Germany.

In 1977,  Demjanjuk was accused by the federal authorities of having been a guard at Treblinka, after being identified as “Ivan the Terrible” in a photo during an investigation into someone else. After four years, they eventually could only get him for lying on his naturalisation application, so they stripped him of his citizenship. When he appealed and they couldn’t get rid of him, he was extradited to Israel. Under their Nazi-hunter law, the Israelis have entitled themselves to take anyone from anywhere in the world and put them on trial for their life.

An Israeli special tribunal found him guilty and sentenced him to death. It took seven years, but fortunately the Israeli Supreme Court overturned that in a 400-page ruling. After he was returned to the US, the Court of Appeals ruled that federal prosecutors had deliberately withheld evidence and they gave back his citizenship. A little thing like prosecutorial misconduct that’s not going to stop the Justice Department, so they turned around and made new allegations. It took another five years, but they got him stripped of his citizenship again. This time they tried to deport him to Ukraine, since that’s where he was born. He’s been fighting that since 2005.

Now the Germans have filed 29,000 counts against him for being a guard at Sobibor, a prison camp that closed 66 years ago, run by a regime that ceased to exist 64 years ago, on soil that it occupied illegally, and of which he was not a citizen. The basis of their jurisdiction is that he briefly lived in Munich – not at any time when any offense is alleged to have occured. He just lived there once. He is being deported this week and will be held in prison awaiting trial, unless he is too ill, in which case he will be held in a clinic. It is expected to take several months after his incarceration before his trial begins.

As trial courts seem very willing to convict Demjanjuk, even with prosecutors who have no qualms about doing whatever they have to do to get that conviction, there will no doubt be a lengthy appeal process. He could be well into his 90s before this round of prosecution is resolved, though obviously the chances of him surviving it are slim.

This once again highlights one of the problems with current developments in international law, the over-extension of criminal jurisdiction. Nations feel free to pass legislation saying that even non-citizens can be prosecuted for acts committed outside that country. This has most recently been used by the US  to detain people at Guantanamo Bay and by the British to stop sex tourism in Thailand, though it was also used by Spain to arrest Pinochet in Britain for things he did in Chile as president of Chile. The justification is that these are bad people, so it doesn’t matter how you get them, as long as you get them.

The only country that should be trying anyone for anything done at Treblinka or Sobibor is Poland. Both were on Polish soil, both then and now. If the Poles aren’t interested interested in pursuing quadruple jeopardy againt Demjanjuk, the whole thing should be left alone.

Obama Throws Churchill Out of the White House

We are already learning what’s in and what’s out with the change of administration in Washington. Brits have noticed one thing: Winston Churchill is definitely out. The whole “special relationship” thing between the US and UK is on thin ice anyway, but Churchill has left the White House.

After 9/11, the British Government loaned President Bush a bronze bust of the former Prime Minister, a Jacob Epstein creation worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. It had pride of place in the Oval Office. After all, US Presidents like to quote Churchill, as noted in one of the most viewed stories on the Daily Telegraph website. Presidents, that is, other than Barack Obama.

Obama’s view of Churchill is coloured by his grandfather’s alleged torture by the British during the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya in 1953 when Churchill was Prime Minister. So when the British Government offered to extend the loan of the Churchill bronze, Obama declined. He sent Winston packing.

The Brits didn’t exactly know what to do with him. They tried to avoid reporters questions until they found an suitable alternative location in residence of the British Ambassador to the US.

So Obama has moved the racist Churchill out of the Oval Office and replaced him with the racist Abraham Lincoln. Of course the difference is that only academics know Lincoln was a racist – since they are the only ones who bother to read what he actually wrote – and nobody would believe them. People who surely know better – like the well-educated Mr Obama – dare not bring it up.

But Mr Obama has a lot to look up to when it comes to following the example of Mr Lincoln. It was Mr Lincoln, after all, who took advantage of a very difficult time in history to aggrandize the power of the Presidency and the Executive branch. Mr Lincoln trampled over the power of the sovereign States.

Lincoln’s actions led to deaths of over 600,000 Americans. Yet such is the re-writing of Yankee hagiography that he is was recently ranked the best president in a survey of 65 historians. Mr Lincoln gets credit for freeing slaves, even though no action of his ever freed a single one. I’m sure Mr Obama will find things to take credit for that he’ll have never done either.  I just hope he isn’t responsible for as many deaths in the meantime.

So it’s out with Mr Churchill and in with Mr Lincoln. God help us all.

The Importance of Family Connections

It’s hard to believe I have gone this long without posting anything. The run up to half-term break has been busy and when I’ve not been busy with work, I have been distracted by other things.

The last few days I have been absorbed with genealogical stuff as I have been revamping my family history website, trying to account for all of the descendants of my paternal great-great-great-great-grandparents who are over 70 or dead. It is the standard practice on genealogical websites to keep anonymous anyone who is living and under 70.

The downside of all this work is my worry that I am the only one of my surname who really cares about these things, so no one my ever access the site. Just because I think it is important for people to know where they come from and to whom they are related doesn’t mean anyone else does. But the information will be out there for the taking. Perhaps somehow an unknown cousin will be trying to uncover the forgotten past that their parents didn’t care about and find what I’ve provided.

There was a time when more people cared about who they were and realised that they were not simply a single identity.

The same attitude is common in the Church today. Christians reading the New Testament often read the words of Jesus or St Paul when they use the word translated “you” and assume that it is in the second person singular. Sadly, this is often re-enforced by preaching. “Me & Jesus” Christianity is not biblical. St Paul tries to get this across in I Corinthians 12, but sadly most people so many people even read that just to find out what spiritual gift(s) they have.

Likewise in our natural family, we need to appreciate, learn from, and be a part of the extended group of people, both past and present, of which God has chosen to make us a part. We often have no problem realising that family is the foundational institution of society. It was created by God. In wedding ceremonies we usually hear the “leave and cleave” passage from Genesis 2:24 and think of the new nuclear family as its own little capsule of love. However, if we look at the examples of family in the Bible, we don’t see that.

In North America and in some of western Europe, we have lost the sense of extended family that is still evident in much of the world. Somehow we think this loss is progress, when in fact it is regress. Just as in many areas, we have left behind the wisdom of centuries.

One of the things that has interested me as I have been doing research over the last few days is how names are important and passed on. My grandfather, my uncle, and my brother all had the same uncommon middle name and I recently found out that it goes back at least four more generations. Even though I use a pseudonym for this blog, there are a lot of real Solomons. The matriarch of our surname is remember in succeeding generations of Sarahs. Generations were connected.

Prosperity and technology has brought mobility and families have geographically grown further and further apart. I am probably the most extreme example in my own family. Fortunately in these most recent days it has brought advances in communications so that the world can be a smaller place. It has also allowed access to data that would not be so easily shared.

In this regard, I hope I am expended efforts on things that will matter.

A Film I’m Destined to See

I don’t know how this one slipped under my radar, but a book I read a number of years ago has been made into a film. Stone of Destiny is current showing in Scotland and will be released across England on Friday.

It is the true story of the Scottish students who stole – or perhaps re-appropriated – the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve, 1950. The Stone had been used for the coronation of every Scottish monarch  since at least Kenneth MacAlpin in the mid ninth century (it may have been used as early as 574 when Aedan was anointed and crowned King of Dalriada by St Columba) until it was stolen by Edward I in 1296. It had been fixed under the St Edward’s Chair (the coronation throne) since that time.

This incident prompted the only ever closing of the border between Scotland and England, as police searched for the 336 lb rock. The cops were unsuccessful and the Stone was only recovered in April 1951 after the students chose to leave it at Arbroath Abbey.

I’ve seen the Stone three times, twice in Westminster Abbey and once in Edinburgh Castle, where it sits since it was sent back to Scotland by the last Conservative Government in 1996. It stays there with the understanding that it will be returned to London for future coronations.

The film has received a number of favourable reviews. I doubt that I will get a chance to see it before we leave for Christmas. I hope it is still in cinemas when we get back. It is not often that I specifically want to see something on the big screen, but this is one of those times.

UPDATE: There is a good article in the Daily Telegraph about Ian Hamilton, QC, who was the ringleader of the students. It was his book that inspired the film.

Giving It All Away

In the course of recent research on my book, I came across political history of which I was entirely unaware. I was looking at information about Cordell Hull, Secretary of State under FDR and known as the Father of the United Nations. I’m sure you’ve heard of the United Nations, that rather useless organisation headquartered on American soil, with 20% of its budget funded by US taxpayers, opposed to most everything the US does or collectively believes. Yeah, that’s the one.

The only relevance of my book to Hull is that one of the characters may have once owned a house later owned by Hull’s father and I was just trying to suss that out. Both of them lived in an area now under Dale Hollow Lake. I get easily sidetracked when I’m doing research.

What I didn’t know was that Hull – in addition to giving away as much US sovereignty as possible – also authored the original Federal Income Tax law of 1913 and the Inheritance Tax law of 1916 when he was a member of the US House of Representatives. He had the audacity to argue that an income tax would restrain Government spending because Congress would realise that it was spending money directly taxed from the American people.

I can’t find what excuse he gave for the inheritance tax. I’m guessing he figured he’d pulled off taxing the living, so why not tax the dead. After all, Democrats vote when they’re dead, so why shouldn’t Republicans pay taxes at the same time?

Yes, that’s right, this man gave away both your country and your money. Cordell Hull influenced Al Gore. He must be Barack Obama’s hero.

Endless Research

I’ve been a bit scarce of late, but it’s not because I haven’t been writing. The creative juices have really started to flow with my novel and I have been spending every available moment doing research. I even have the tentative first couple pages drafted.

Do you know how difficult is it to find out the price of a train ticket from Nashville to Algood, Tennessee in 1912?

And what about the statutory interpretation of a 1881 Jim Crow law that railroad companies were “required to furnish separate cars for colored passengers who pay first-class rates”. If a white person and a black person were to both buy second-class tickets, could they then ride in the same car? And before you think that there wouldn’t be provision for black people to go first-class, the law was amended in 1882 so that railroads were “required to supply first-class passenger cars to all persons paying first-class rates.” It’s not the sort of thing a lot of people need to know.

And what was travel like in a day car? Photo archives that I’ve seen only show the inside of first-class carriages. I have a fight to stage and I need to know what I’m working with here.

Enjoying Research

When it came out, many of my friends Stateside raved about Gods and Generals, the prequel to Gettysburg. Being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, I was a bit out of the loop. The film went to DVD and I went on to other things and it drifted from my mind.

As I was doing work on my own Civil War novel that I hope will one day be picked up by a big Hollywood studio (or Ted Turner, as was the case with those two), I though about it again and thought it might be helpful in working on my mid-19th century dialogue. One of the online discount DVD stores had both in a boxed set for £5.99 with free shipping. No-brainer.

So late to the party, here’s my review of Gods and Generals: it’s a pretty good film, even if they left Sharpsburg on the cutting room floor. I would have watched the as of yet never released director’s cut of over 6 hours. The film is really about Stonewall Jackson, and I don’t mind that at all.

The film certainly gives justifiable attention to Jackson’s Christianity. While very serious about his religion, the general is not portrayed as dour as he is often thought to have been. His was not a miserable faith.

The only glaring problem I saw with the film was when a bunch of Confederate officers sang “Silent Night” around Christmas of 1862. While the music was composed in 1818, the English lyrics were not written until 1863. They certainly would not have been available in the hymn book handed to Stonewall’s adjutant by his soon-to-be fiancée.

I’m sure there were other liberties taken with history, but they didn’t jump out at me. The thing to remember is that it is the adaptation of a novel, not a documentary.

Ninety Years

At eleven o’clock this morning, the class I was teaching paused for two minutes of silence. Actually, it was a couple of minutes after eleven, because it took a couple of minutes to achieve silence. Thus while we were being silent, there was noise around us. There was no bell to indicate the time so that everyone was in synch.

Even though Year 9s cover the Great War in history, it is not until the summer term. The Year 9s I was teaching didn’t even have the benefit of knowledge to help them grasp the significance that we were observing the moment that exactly ninety years before has seen the end of the most devastating war up to that time.

When I was growing up in the States, we didn’t think much about that war. But then the US lost a mere 116,708 soldiers with 205,690 wounded. That may sound like a lot, until you realise that the UK with half the population at the time lost 994,138 with 1,663,435 wounded, it puts it into perspective. That’s why there is a war memorial in every village in the UK. They were engraved with the names of local boys lost in First World War with most of them amended with a smaller list from the Second.

Though my pupils sat through a Remembrance Day assembly a couple of hours before, it focused on those who served in all wars since 1918. Ninety years is a long time, after all. Most of my students don’t know who their great-grandparents (or reaching back to WWI, often great-great-grandparents) were, not to mention whether they took the King’s Shilling in the Great War. I doubt that even one of them remembered somebody during that 120 seconds at eleven o’clock who served in the War to End All Wars. It might as well have been the Wars of the Roses – history with no connection to the present. History only for the historians.

May enough people continue to care so their memory might be eternal.

Keeping History in Context

At the same time as the election of Barak Obama, in GCSE history we are covering race relations in the United States 1929-90. I’ve never taught this in an American school, but imagine the approach of the syllabus would be roughly the same. We look at the KKK, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the effect of the Depression on blacks, segregation in the Second World War, Brown v. Board of Education, Little Rock, Ole Miss, Rosa Parks, MLK, and the key events of the Civil Rights Movement. The key idea is that white people, especially but exclusively Southern white people, hated black people (though we aren’t authorised to cover that they were only called “black” for a brief moment in time in the shifting language from Colored to Negro to black to Africa-American). Whites were mean and evil to them, but somehow the black people passively resisted all the white people and eventually Barak Obama was elected.  That last bit falls outside the time period, but it is too good to not mention.

I was commenting on another blog about the relationship between Obama and the legacy of slavery, an institution which the blog owner referred to as an atrocity, saying the same thing I told my students when introducing the background of slavery in the US: we have to be careful in imposing the values of the present day upon the past. People in the mid-19th century lived within a completely different frame of reference. It is very possible that people living 130 years from now will be tempted to condemn aspects of the present day which we cannot imagine would be any other way.

C.S. Lewis says as much in his well-known introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation:

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook – even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united – united with each other and against earlier and later ages – by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century – the blindness about which posterity will ask, “But how could they have thought that?” – lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H. G. Wells and Karl Barth.

Thus I think about my cousin Melba. Melba was my dad’s first cousin, born in Kentucky in 1915. I got to know her before she died and I don’t think there was an unkind bone in her body. I don’t think I ever heard her speak an unkind word.

Melba and her husband were tobacco farmers. Her husband had died not long before I met her as an adult (we had visited in their home when I was a very young child) and she was winding down the farming. Being the family genealogist that I am, you can imagine that I took in every story I could about living through the 20th century as a tobacco farming family. Tobacco farming is very labour-intensive. Melba spoke with affection about the niggers that worked for them, especially one man who worked for them for many years.

My late 20th century ears were a bit shocked at first. After all, this was a word for which I received corporal punishment from the school principal when I was in the second grade back in 1972. (In my defense, even then, I didn’t habour any ill feelings for the black pupil. I was only saying it because my friend Scott was saying it, but it was a offense of strict liability.) Then she referred frequently to a nigger woman that had been her domestic help until recently.

I don’t for a minute think that she thought of any of these people as equals. But neither did she habour any ill will. It was just the society in which she was raised. She probably supported segregation as long as it lasted in the Bluegrass State. I don’t remember her speaking about it in any negative way. That was just the way it was. On the other hand, I never heard her complain about integration. Maybe she did at the time, but by the time we talked, that was just the way it was.

At the same time we can be glad that everyone in the United States has the same civil rights and participation in the political process, and appreciate that common attitudes have changed, we need to be careful how we characterise the nature of those developments and the broad strokes with which we tend to paint history.

Vandalising History

From The Times:

Castles, monasteries and stately homes that have survived battles, the Reformation and the elements are falling victim to a more modern adversary — drunken youths.

Vandals have caused hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of damage at historic buildings around Britain in more than 170 incidents during the past year.

Germany Legally Invades Britain

The case of Dr Gerald Toben is extremely disturbing. Dr Toben is accused of publishing materials “of an anti-semitic and/or revisionist nature”. This is a crime in Germany. The only problem is that Dr Toben wasn’t in Germany at the time.

Actually, another problem is that Germany has a law like this at all. Free speech or a free press are not particularly valuable commodities with the Germans. While I have no sympathy with Dr Toben’s views concerning the Holocaust, I have less sympathy with the Germans, who say that any discussion of history which suggests anything other than the officially approved story must be punished with imprisonment. Dr Toben already did a nine-month stretch in 1999 for being a denier.

Now he has been arrested in the UK and is being held – not for anything done in the UK, but simply for passing through Heathrow Airport on his way from the US to Dubai with a German warrant for his arrest, issued for being a Holocaust denier outside of Germany. That’s the impact of a 2003 agreement signed by EU member states.

In essence, this means that any law passed by any EU country can create a crime that can be committed anywhere in the world which has to be enforced by any member state. Theoretically, the Reichstag Bundestag can pass a law that any criticism of Germany, at any time in any place, is illegal and every other member of the EU will have to be on the lookout for anyone crossing its borders to deport them to Berlin.

It is just me, or does this disturb anyone else?

Ancestral Lands

Since I have been visiting my parents, where much of my personal library is located, I have had a chance to read a book that I got many years ago when it was withdrawn from circulation by the Gonzales Public Library, an establishment that was a regular haunt of mine in my college days.

In what has been one of the more popular posts on this blog, I talked about my Uncle George Littlefield. The book I am reading is George Littlefield: Texan by J. Evetts Haley, published in 1943 by the University of Oklahoma Press. At the time I acquired it, I knew that I was related to Uncle George – and he was always referred to as Uncle George Littlefield by my mother’s family – but I hadn’t made the exact genealogical connection. I just knew that he had put my great-grandmother through college.

Since, as you might expect, the first chapter of the biography covers his family background, it has been very interesting to read about my great-great-great-grandparents (his parents) in a real book (not a self-published genealogy-driven tome) with real footnotes referencing a wide range of primary source materials. The book details both real and personal property they possessed, acquired and sold. Through my genealogical research, I knew where some of this land was.

The personal recollections of former slaves continues to confirm my understanding the positive relationship they shared with my family. Because that is relevant to the novel I am intending to write, this has been particularly helpful.

During the years I lived in Gonzales County, I had thought it would be a nice place to settle. River bottom being the most desirable and fertile real estate, I had always wanted to own the land at the confluence of the San Marcos and Guadalupe Rivers. I figured if one river made for good land, two must be so much the better.

Having never read that book I bought from the Gonzales Public Library, I had no idea my great-great-great-grandmother thought the same and not only acquired that land, but also moved there from the original plantation where she had settled with my great-great-great-grandfather located about 15 miles up the Guadalupe.

Were I to someday win the lottery or perhaps become a wildly successful writer – though the lottery win is the more likely of the two – I might yet buy that land.

Summer Reading Progress

It is only two weeks into the summer holidays and I have finished half of my reading list.

Thanks to a mention by Elizabeth over a year and a half ago, I finally read The Sign of the Cross: The Gesture, the Mystery, the History by Andreas Andrepoulos. I recommend it highly. It is very readable.

The anecdotal and historical parts of the book only take up the first 42 pages. The rest of it focused on the general needs for signs and symbols, the idea of the sign of the Cross as a prayer in and of itself, and some speculative ideas – in particular, juxtaposing the spiritual power of the sign with New Age ideas.

I finished Bernard Cornwell’s The Pale Horseman in the wee hours of this morning. It is the second of four books in his Saxon Stories series, set in the reign of Alfred the Great. It was a situation where I could hardly stay awake, but I couldn’t put it down. Even though Cornwell shows Alfred (and Christianity generally) in a not-so-favourable light, and downplays his contribution to literature and law, it is clear at this point why Alfred is called “the Great”.

Cornwell always tells a great story with interesting characters. As with the Starbuck Chronicles set nearly 1000 years later during the War Between the States, his principle characters are fictional but play a key roles in otherwise historical battles. For those unfamiliar with the period, he provides a helpful historical note at the end of each book to help the reader distinguish the fact from the fiction.

The history of this period is fascinating enough that I’m added a couple of books to my reading list,
Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources and The Anglo-Saxons edited by Campbell, John and Wormald.

Russian Genocide Deniers

The Russians are angry with the Ukrainians. Nothing new there.

Seems the Ukrainians are insisting on bringing up the past. In particular they are bringing up the time the Russians murdered millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor of 1932-33. Estimates of the number of unnatural deaths during this period range from a conservative three million to a frequently referenced seven or even ten million.

It all started earlier than that. The attack on Ukrainian nationalism began in 1928.  First the Russians eliminated the cultural elite – academics, writers, and significantly most of the Orthodox clergy who had separated from the Moscow Patriarchate. With the leadership out of the way, the Russians then starved the rest of the population.

How did they starve the breadbasket of Russia? The agriculural collectivism of communism meant that all grain was state property. The grain was shipped off to Russia or simply allowed to rot. Stealing any amount of grain was a capital offense. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, capital offenses were not subject to a lengthy process of judicial review. Whole villages were taken out to dig their own graves and then shot to fill them.

But Putin and his puppet president don’t want anyone to mention this and they most certainly don’t want anyone to blame the Russians. They have become genocide deniers. Perhaps this is offensive to Russian-ness like admitting the Armenian genocide is offensive to Turkishness.

I have written about the Holodomor in a previous blogging identity, but this was brought to mind again by a extensive article in today’s Dail Mail. Definitely worth a read.

39

It was 39 years ago today that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. It will be another 12 years before anyone goes back.

I’ve just never understood that. I know there’s a lot of money involved, but the overall benefits of Lunar research far outweigh the costs. I was five years old at the time of the first landing and I’ll be 55 before the next one.

After Columbus reached the new World, what if the Spanish (or any other European power) had waited 50 years to go back? Or to put it into a better perspective – one of technological advancement – it would be like waiting from Columbus until Charles Lindberg to cross the Atlantic again.

How much opportunity has already been lost? How could this world have been different if that one had been used effectively?

64th Anniversary

On this day in 1944, approximately 2,500 Allied soldiers lost their lives as the invasion of Normandy began. I have twice visited the beaches at Omaha and Utah, the bombed out batteries at Pointe du Hoc, and the graves at Colville-sur-Mer. I still marvel at the bravery of landing against the withering machine gun fire.

It should be remembered that there were German soldiers who did not believe in the Third Reich and Poles forced by the Germans to fight in Ost battalions against the Allies. Many of them were also killed.

For those who gave their lives for the freedom of others, may their memory be eternal.

Good Turk, Bad Turk

Boris Kemal Bey Johnson, the new mayor of London, is an ethnic Turk. His paternal great-grandfather was Ali Kemal Bey, a high profile Turkish journalist and Interior Minister.  Boris’ grandfather Osman, who was born in England while Ali was in exile, took on his grandmother’s maiden name of Johnson.

As longtime readers will know, I’m not big on the Turks. Despite the doner kebab being my favourite takeaway meal, Turks in positions of governmental authority tend to worry me. But not wanting to be given to stereotyping, I must acknowledge that there are good Turks and bad Turks. Boris comes from a line of good Turks.

I say this because Ail Kemal Bey passionately condemned the attacks on the Armenians during the genocide of 1915. Again, as longtime readers will know, I am not willing to let the Armenian Genocide be swept under the rug of history.

The question is whether the good line stops at Boris. Ali’s great-grandson has not made an passionate condemnation of the genocide. There have been a number of oportunities in Parliament to do so. In the current session there have been four Early Day Motions about it, none of which have been signed by the MP for Henley. In the last session a motion by then-Tory MP Bob Spink garnered 182 signatures. Boris’ wasn’t one of them.

In addition to being a flamboyant character, Boris is now in one of the most influential poilitical roles in the country. He has been elected by a greater constituency than any other Conservative politician. Is he going to be one of the good Turks? We have yet to see, but so far it doesn’t look promising.  Neither the Conservative Party nor the Labour Government have been supportive of the Armenian cause. Politics has won out over truth. I hope pressure can be brought to bear to encourage Boris to follow the example of his great-grandfather.

This Day in History

It was 965 years ago today that Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England.

It was 126 years ago today that Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford.

And it was a mere 76 years ago that my father was born in the Osage Hills of northeastern Oklahoma.

May God grant him many years!

Misrepresenting the Truth to Defame the Church

In a bid to show me how bad the Church is, an anti-clerical sort over where I been discussing science and religion included a link to an anti-Catholic site. It includes this picture:

The interesting thing is that Joseph Ratzinger is shown in priestly vestments. In fact, without the caption you might think he was doing anything from consecrating the Body and Blood to blessing the congregation. But, no, this website assures us he is saluting Hitler.

There’s only one tiny problem. Ratzinger was ordained in June of 1951.  That is a full six years after the death of Hitler.

I guess there’s no limit to the depth some people will go to villify the Church.

Update:

Here is the whole picture. It is more likely that the Ratzinger brothers are about start a sychronised dive than that they are saluting a long-dead German dictator.

Ratzinger Brothers Ordination

No Passion for the Passion

We started watching the first part of the BBC’s The Passion.  They start off with playing fast and loose with the historical record.  Jesus doesn’t send anyone to get the donkey for Him to ride into Jerusales.  Jesus buys it from travellers along the road.

Then he send some disciples ahead to drum up a crowd. They walk through the streets telling everyone to go over to the east gate. Then Jesus enters Jerusalem, and instead of the people spreading clothes and tree branches, a few of them waved a few palms. Well, it was really more like shaking.

We got bored. The woman turned the channel back to repeat of CSI we had already seen.

Learning History and Citizenship

I’ve previously discussed the bias in history textbooks in the UK. In his most recent blog entry, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens looks at how the approach to British history seeks to undermine everything that is British.

At the same time that Britishness is being de-emphasised to the British, it is being heavily enforced with those who want to move here, or those, like me, who have been a long time but want to become citizens. New immigrants or those who want to upgrade their status have to take the Life in the UK test. It’s mostly aimed at limiting the number of dark-skinned people, but since the law has to be seen to be impartial, it takes in palefaces like me who are not from EU member states.

Since they keep increasing the fee, I can’t afford to apply for citizenship. Thus I haven’t bought the book I need for studying to take the test. The test costs £34 for each sitting. I have had a look at the website linked above, to see what sort of things I need to know.

You would think that someone who speaks English as a first language and is certified to teach Citizenship to GCSE level wouldn’t have any trouble with the test. Surely they wouldn’t expect new immigrants to know more than someone with a good GCSE grade. Oh yes, they do.

I was just looking at the most recent available past paper for the OCR’s Citizenship Short Course GCSE. The bits that aren’t multiple choice or short answer are based on provided sources. The examinee doesn’t have to know any citizenship – they just have to be able to read for comprehension.

Typical GCSE questions:

State one example of a global evironmental problem
Citizens of the UK have rights and responsibilities. State one employment right that citizens have.
State one legal responsibility parents in the United Kingdom have to their children aged under 16.
State one employment right that citizens have.

Included topics in Life in the UK test:

How is the process of buying a house different in Scotland?
What are the powers of the devolved administrations?
How is European law organised?
What are quangos and non-departmental public bodies?
How can people find a dentist? (Clearly a trick question)
Which groups of people receive free dental treatment? (See the previous question)
How is education different in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales?
Who can offer information on occupational or personal pensions?

Textbook Agenda

I’m not suggesting that textbooks in this country are biased and driven by a political agenda, but I’m looking for another satisfactory explanation for the following definitions in a textbook I’ve been given to teach history.

Socialism: movement to make the country fully democratic, with equal rights for everyone

Left-wing: believing that society should be made more equal

Right-wing: believing that the country should be strong and that ordinary people should have little or no power

Why, how could I think that somebody (like author Andrew Boxer) has a “Left-wing good/Right-wing bad” or “Socialism good/Capitalism bad” message they are trying to get across to 14- to 16-year-olds? Of course he never comes out directly and says it. He doesn’t need to, really.