Salman Rushdie on Censorship and Critical Thinking

I had the opportunity to hear Salman Rushdie speak twice on Monday at Central Michigan University. I even got to meet and speak with him briefly. It was amazing how what he talked about overlapped with many of the issues that librarians deal with on a regular basis.

Rushdie has had his books protested against and censored. He was even sentenced to death by the Ayatollah Khomeini (who issued a fatwa against him) in 1989 for his book The Satanic Verses. Some perceived his book as an attack on Islam.

As can be imagined, Rushdie is an outspoken critic of censorship. He noted that "being sentenced to death by a fanatical leader who sent people out to kill him" was "bad for his self-esteem." However, he also said he would write this book again and would not back down in the face of censors.

He also talked a great deal about using critical thinking skills when faced with information found online. When a student asked him about reports online that the United States (and not Al-Qaeda) was responsible for the 9/11 attacks he retorted, "This is just horse shit. Use your critical thinking skills, does that make sense? I saw the planes hit the buildings. Al-Qaeda has accepted responsibility for the attack. Did the United States attack Pearl Harbor to declare war on Japan? There are conspiracy theories about that too."

He also spoke against the US government and the responses made (including the Patriot Act) to 9/11.

His talks were very relevant for librarians. If you have a chance, I would encourage you to listen to Salman Rushdie speak.

Ye olde Google News: Stories from the 1700s

Ye olde Google News: Stories from the 1700s. This article has details on what appears to be a great new service from Google. Old newspapers can now be searched via Google News. I did a few searches and I like the layout and breadth of articles. Unfortunately, much of the content requires a fee. I have no problem with paying for articles I need but most causal searchers will not. For this reason, Google should allow a filter to remove subscription searches from the results if a searcher desires it. This is definitely worth checking out though and sharing with students.

From the site:

Google News is getting a sense of the past to balance out its relentless focus on the present.

Google Inc. (Charts) has added the ability to search through more than 200 years of historical newspaper archives alongside the latest contemporary information now available on Google News, the market-leading Web search firm said Tuesday.

"The goal of the service is to allow users to explore history as it unfolded," said Anurag Acharya, a top Google engineer who helped develop the news archive search.

"Users can see how viewpoints changed over time for events, for ideas and for people," said Acharya, who also built the Google Scholar service for academic researchers and once was a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Marcus Aurelius: The Philosopher-Emperor of Rome

Marcus Aurelius: The Philosopher-Emperor of Rome. My latest paper I had to write for the doctoral program is done. I have placed it online. It deals with Marcus Aurelius and his leadership skills. It is written a bit awkwardly due to requirements for the class as this assignment required us to incorporate elements from eight different courses to help prepare for the comp exams. However, from past experience, I know the Google spiders will find it and people will actually read this so here it is.

In the abstract I write, "Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of the Roman Empire from 161 AD to 180 AD. He was also a noted philosopher. Historians generally consider him to have been one of the greatest Roman Emperors. It is easy to see why. There are many aspects of his leadership which demonstrate his management skills. These include his ability to navigate ethics, his understanding of the culture of the Roman Empire, his ability to manage the organization of the Roman bureaucracies, his success in introducing change, his capability to set policy, and his cleverness in problem solving. This paper will look at examples from all of these areas as well as provide an overview of his life and his philosophical beliefs. The book Marcus Aurelius: A Biography (2000) by Anthony R. Birley will be used to illustrate some points."

I think Roman history is definetly a good places to look for models of good leadership (and bad)! I hope to emmulate Marcus Aurelius more and hope to never approach leadership from the point of view of Commodus (or Nero).

Library Handed 'Rare' Dracula Books

Library Handed 'Rare' Dracula Books. The Dublin City Library in Ireland has recently received a small (200 books) collection of rare vampire books. Some of the books may have been used by Brom Stroker when he wrote Dracula. This is great for the Dublin City Library. This should result in some clever PR which could perhaps bring in some new patrons. (Vampire party anyone? The Irish goth community may well become big library supporters.)

For more vampire fun, check out Vampires: The Romantic Ideology Behind Them.

From the site:

A rare collection of Dracula-related books is to be handed over to Dublin City Library, it emerged today.

It includes copies of books on vampires and Transylvanian history likely to have been used by Dublin-born author Bram Stoker for his classic horror novel, foreign translations of Dracula, and first editions of some of Stoker’s other books.

The Bram Stoker Society, which has organised the handover of the collection, said it contained more than 200 books in total.

SCORE History-Social Science Information Literacy

SCORE History-Social Science Information Literacy. This is a project from the Schools of California Online Resources for Education.

Peg Hill, San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools wrote, "A major goal of SCORE History-Social Science is to provide a resource to build the information literacy of students so that they are more able to function as effective workers and citizens in an era when everyone is continuously bombarded by data. Information literacy helps people deal with this data glut by developing the ability to plan a resource-based project, think critically about data, research for needed information and create and present a new synthesis to others using technology. The following is a first draft identifying the skills that our students will need. These skills are closely related to the intellectual processes that teachers have long identified as the Domains of History-Social Science Thinking. I would appreciate your comment and feedback."

This looks like a good initiative. Teachers/librarians often discuss information literacy in the context of science (the best hoax sites are science themed) but the social sciences are an area where information literacy is crucial.

I wrote a guide to history sources on the Web last year. My introduction touches on this need for critical thinking. I wrote, "I have prepared this guide to help students find the best history resources on the Web. Unfortunately, there is a lot of garbage on the Web. Some of it is from people who have real biases on issues and they are trying to portray historical events in a skewed manner. Others simply write and post material which they sincerely believe to good history. The reality is that many of these people have no training in history and the end results of their efforts is misleading, wrong, or strange. I hope this guide simplifies the search process for history on the Web. Don't just type a search phrase into Yahoo! or Google and use what you find. Some of the worst sites do well in search engines and relying on them could seriously harm your grades! "

The need is still there. In the last several years I have found sincere but utterly incorrect "history" sites claiming that the Apollo Moon landings were faked, that the Holocaust never happened, that Cleopatra was black, that the Romans were the original European colonizers of North America, and that Texas and Hawaii are independent nations undergoing military occupation by the United States. And they all listed tons of "evidence" proving that those disagreeing with them were ignorant or biased.

The late Carl Sagan, in The Demon Haunted World, argued that students need to be taught how to use their baloney detecting skills. I agree and we need to do this when teaching history as well.

The Heart of Change: Julius Caesar and the End of the Roman Republic

The Heart of Change: Julius Caesar and the End of the Roman Republic. I have put up another paper at michaellorenzen.com. This is yet another product of the doctoral program I am currently in. I normally write about library issues but I felt I needed a change of pace. This paper was written for a class on organizational change.

I am not a historian. As such, my historical analysis may be weak. Despite that, I hope some may find this of interest when they come upon it surfing the Web. I have applied the change model of Kotter and Cohen as they present in the book Heart of Change used it to explain the actions of Julius Caesar in the last days of the Roman Republic.

From the site:

Before examining the historical events that occurred to the Roman Republic, it is important to understand the mindset of the Roman people. They did not like change. In fact, they were quite resistant to the idea. Wrote Holland (2003), “Novelty, to the Citizen’s of the Republic, had sinister connotations. Pragmatics as they were, they might accept innovation if it was dressed up as the will of the gods or an ancient costume, but never for its own sake” (p. 4).

That is not to say the Romans rejected all change. However, they were very conservative about it. Holland (2003) further wrote, “Conservative and flexible in equal measures, the Romans kept what worked, adapted what had failed, and preserved as sacred lumber what had become redundant. The Republic was both a building site and a junkyard” (p. 4). This is a key concept when contemplating the actions of Julius Caesar as he brought about the end of the Republic. The government of the Roman Republic had lasted almost five hundred years (half a millennium!) despite wars, constitutional crisis, and territorial expansion. This is twice the length of time of the history of the United States of America today. During this time, the government of the Roman Republic changed very little. As such, the change process initiated by Caesar has to rank amongst some of the most significant of all change sequences in history.

The Anti-Semitic Disease

The Anti-Semitic Disease. This is an excellent article by Paul Johnson. It traces the negative impact of hating Jews on world history. This might make for an interesting information literacy lesson as the article ties anti-semitism with anti-Americanism. Both trains of thought are similar. What would your students think?

From the site:

No less worrying, to my mind, is a related European phenomenon—namely, anti-Americanism. I say “related” because anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism have proceeded hand in hand in today’s Europe just as they once did in Hitler’s mind (as the unpublished second half of Mein Kampf decisively shows). Like hatred of Jews, hatred of Americans can similarly be described as a form of racism or xenophobia, especially in its more vulgar manifestations. But among academics and intellectuals, where it is increasingly prevalent, it has more of the hallmarks of a mental disease, becoming more virulent, widespread, and intractable ever since the United States began to shoulder the duties of the war against international terrorism.

After all, to hate Americans is against reason. For centuries, and never more so than at present, the U.S. has harbored the poor and persecuted from the entire world, who have found freedom and prospered on its soil. America continues to receive more immigrants than any other country; its most recent arrivals, including the Cubans, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, and the Lebanese, have become some of the richest groups in the country and are enthusiastic supporters of its democratic norms. Indeed, since American society is now a vibrant microcosm of the human race, I would say that to hate Americans is to hate humanity as a whole.

That anti-Americanism shares many structural characteristics with anti-Semitism is plain enough. In France, as we read in a new study, intellectuals muster as many contradictory reasons for attacking the U.S. as for attacking Jews. Americans are excessively religious; they are excessively materialistic. They are vulgar money-grubbers; they are vulgar spenders. They hate culture; they are pushy in promoting their own culture. They are aggressive and reckless; they are cowardly. They are stupid; they are exceptionally cunning. They are uneducated; they subordinate everything in life to the goal of sending their children to universities. They build soulless megalopolises; they are rural imbeciles. As with anti-Semitism, this litany of contradictory complaints is fleshed out with demonic caricatures of particular individuals like George W. Bush. Just as 14th-century Christians once held the Jews responsible for the Black Death, Americans are blamed for all the ills of today’s world, starting with (real or imaginary) global warming. Particularly among French intellectuals, such demonization has become almost a culture, a way of life, in itself.

Memorial Day Special - Pacific Battle Islands of World War Two

Memorial Day Special - Pacific Battle Islands of World War Two. Miland Brown has an excellent post at the World History Blog dealing with Memorial Day.

From the site:

Today is Memorial Day in the United States of America. The World History Blog salutes the soldiers who are defending America by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and solemly remembers those who gave their lives for the USA over the last 230 years. Here is a collection of histories of a few Pacific islands that saw major battles during World War Two.

Pope John Paul II. The world lost a great man on Saturday. I am not Catholic but I had a great deal of respect for the Pope. He stood firm on his beliefs and made a difference in the world. Together with Ronald Reagan, he helped to break the power of communism in Europe. He also fought hard to get the people of the world to reconize and value the santicy of human life. He will probably go down as one of the greatest Pope's in the history of the Holy See.

In the unlikely event that I am chosen as the next Pope by the College of Cardinals, I want my papal name to be Pope Vinnie. That sounds like a name that the people of the world could find comforting.

History Posters & Prints

History Posters & Prints. This is a collection of art prints and posters. The purpose of these pages is to sell posters but I think it is a useful reference resource if you want to browse and find different art images. There are several thousand art pieces included and they are categorized by world culture and by place which makes searching here easier than using a Google image search if you aren't looking for a certain piece in particuar.

Examples:

French Culture Art
China Art
Ireland Art
Mexico Art
New Zealand Art

World History to Go - Libraries

World History to Go - Libraries. Berkshire Publishing has released a new five volume set dealing with world history. As a teaser, they are making this article on library history available.

From the site:

Libraries contribute significantly to the advancement of civilization. Since human beings began to record ideas and information for later recall, collections of those records, consisting of a few items or millions, have been viewed as important in preserving the memory of society. Records have been kept throughout the world for five thousand years, and though each period and locality is distinct, many issues, such as preservation and classification, are the same.

The Nature of Libraries

Libraries are collections of graphic records, organized for accessibility and maintained for the benefit of individuals in the community they serve. Libraries generally consist of portable physical entities (books) made of durable materials that contain written and artistic notations of reasonable length. The standard unit in libraries has been called the “generic book” because through the millennia it has utilized various materials—bones, skins, clay, bamboo, papyrus, paper, magnetic tapes, and plastic—and taken many forms—tablets, rolls, codices, reels, and disks. When collections consist primarily of records of institutions and individuals that are organically related—that is, they share a common creator, subject or purpose, as opposed to isolated, random artifacts—and maintained for access because of their continuing value, they are referred to as archives. When they consist of creative texts dealing with cultural and historical themes, they are called libraries.

After human beings began to speak , the need arose to preserve orally transmitted information. Although visible marks of any kind could record some ideas, in order to transmit information reliably from one generation to another and ultimately from one culture and era to another, a system needed to be developed whereby those marks would be conventional enough to convey complex ideas over time—that is, the marks needed to be somewhat standardized in order to be understood by others. After several centuries of experimentation with pictographic symbols and multishaped tokens and their representations, writing appeared in both Mesopotamia and Egypt sometime before about 3000 BCE.

State of the Union Address 2005

State of the Union Address 2005. President George W. Bush delivered the 2005 State of the Union Address tonight. It was a good speech and I liked how he closed it. This generation is not alone in facing adversity. Others fought and beat such evils as slavery and fascism. We can help make the world a better place too.

The Conclusion of the Speech:

In these four years, Americans have seen the unfolding of large events.

We have known times of sorrow, and hours of uncertainty, and days of victory. In all this history, even when we have disagreed, we have seen threads of purpose that unite us.

The attack on freedom in our world has reaffirmed our confidence in freedom's power to change the world. We are all part of a great venture: To extend the promise of freedom in our country, to renew the values that sustain our liberty, and to spread the peace that freedom brings.

As Franklin Roosevelt once reminded Americans, "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth." And we live in the country where the biggest dreams are born. The abolition of slavery was only a dream -- until it was fulfilled.

The liberation of Europe from fascism was only a dream -- until it was achieved. The fall of imperial communism was only a dream -- until, one day, it was accomplished. Our generation has dreams of its own, and we also go forward with confidence. The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable -- yet we know where it leads: It leads to freedom.

Thank you, and may God bless America.

Second Inaugural Address of George W. Bush

Second Inaugural Address of George W. Bush. I was sick again yesterday so I got to watch the President give his Inaugural Address at home. It was a well written speech. His delivery was off at the beginning (I think he was waiting for applause) but then he got into it and did an excellent job. Here is the text of the speech.

From the site:

On this day, prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution and recall the deep commitments that unite our country. I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.

At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half-century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical -- and then there came a day of fire.

We have seen our vulnerability, and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny -- prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder -- violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders and raise a mortal threat.

There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant. And that is the force of human freedom.

Tsunami. I have been away for the holidays the last few days. As such, I am not keeping up with the news very well. I was shocked today when I heard about the death and chaos caused by the killer tidal waves in Asia. My sympathies to all those who lost loved ones. It just shows that we really are at the mercy of this planet. This event will have a definite chapter in the history of Asia. My check to the Red Cross relief fund is on the way.

Teaching about the United States Supreme Court. In the United States, it looks like there will probably be several new appointments to the Supreme Court in the next several years. This will be widely covered in the media and should provide teachers and librarians many teachable moments about the Supreme Court. The blogged site of the day has a nice essay on the topic.

From the site:

The Supreme Court is one of the most important institutions in the United States. Thus, social studies teachers should emphasize the significance of the Court in our nation's history. This ERIC Digest highlights the origin and foundations of the Supreme Court, discusses the changing role of the Supreme Court in the United States, and recommends World Wide Web resources helpful in teaching and learning about the Supreme Court.

CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY FOUNDATIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT.

The majority of the men who met in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 agreed on the need to create a more powerful central government. Concurrently, however, many of the delegates feared the abusive power a new national government could wield. During the ratification struggle, James Madison, in "Federalist 51," emphasized the necessity of providing for "auxiliary precautions" to limit governmental power. The judicial branch was designed in part to exercise such precautions on the legislative and executive branches. At the same time, the framers placed checks on the judiciary in order to ensure that no single branch would dominate the others.

The judiciary was the least discussed branch of government at the Constitutional Convention, and Alexander Hamilton in "Federalist 78" later referred to the Supreme Court as the "least dangerous" branch of the proposed national government because it possessed neither the power of "the purse" (legislative power) nor that of "the sword" (executive power). The debates surrounding the Court's creation reveal a broad consensus that the federal judiciary shall have jurisdiction in all cases pertaining to the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties. The delegates provided for the Supreme Court to have original jurisdiction only in cases involving "Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party." In all other cases under its authority, the Court was granted "appellate jurisdiction" (Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution). In addition, the convention delegates agreed that Congress would be empowered to establish inferior courts (Casto 1995, 14).

Vanished Library: History of the Library of Alexandria. This is an interesting site. It is hosted at Geocities which means it might not be around long but hopefully it will. It tells of the myth and history of the ancient Library of Alexandria, and also covers the topics of the mystery of destruction and the new library. Also includes a quiz, personal presentation outline, and sources/links.

From the site:

The Library of Alexandria was the most famous library of the Hellenistic Age, and it is referred to by some as the "Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World." It was not the first library to be founded (made by Peistratus), but was certainly the first project of the magnitude and kind.

"The first mention we have of the library is in The Letter of Aristeas (ca. 180-145 B.C.E.), a Jewish scholar housed at the Library chronicling the translation of the Septuagint into Greek by seventy-two rabbis." From Perseus.tufts.edu

The library, located in Alexandria, Egypt, was not Egyptian. Alexandria was, as we learned, self-named by the Greek adventurer Alexander the Great. The library was planned and founded by King Ptolemy I (Soter) at the beginning of the third century BCE. However, it was actually created during the reign of his son Ptolemy II (Philidelphus). The initial organization is attributed to Demetrius Phalereus. The library was maintained and augmented by successors. I would like to quote Roy MacLeod from his book, The Library of Alexandria.

Pearl Harbor Anniversary. It has been 63 years now since the USA was forced into World War 2. On this day in 1941, Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor without declaring war first. From the History of Japan, "Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and set up the puppet state of Manchukuo. In 1933, Japan resigned from the League of Nations. The Japanese invasion of China in 1937 followed Japan's signing of the anti-Comintern pact with Nazi Germany the previous year and was part of a chain of developments culminating in the Japanese attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. " My thanks to all the Americans who struggled through on that day as well to those from around the world who helped to defeat Japan.

No Blood for Cocoa. In the history of Cote d'Ivoire (known as the Ivory Coast to us English speakers), the history of France has often overlapped. It is happening again. France is actively engaged in a war in the Ivory Coast right now. Strangely, they have not sought the permission of the United Nations to do this. As France is still critical of the USA's war in Iraq for not having UN approval, this can only be seen as being hypocritical. I guess the French version of international law does not apply to France. As the Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of cocoa, I want to hear the anti-war protesters take up a new chant. No blood for cocoa!

Inaugural Addresses of the American Presidents. I am feeling like history again today. I was reading through the various addresses that American Presidents have given on the day they were sworn in. Over hundreds of years, many of the same elements are found in nearly all the speeches. Yet, you can also get a sense for what the president was facing. FDR gave a short tired speech near the end of WW2. Lincoln spoke of forgiveness during his second Inaugural which was close to the end of the Civil War. George W. Bush spoke of the grace of his recently defeated opponent after the election of 2000 controversy.

Sample Inaugurals:

Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address
Second Inaugural Address of Andrew Jackson
Inaugural Address of Rutherford B. Hayes
Inaugural Address of William Howard Taft
Second Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan

Thoughts on the Current Presidential Election. I realize that much of the world is focused on the US Presidential Election happening today. I made a post about the election at my American Presidents Blog that I think I will repost here. I have already voted for Bush. However, I will be supportive of Kerry if he wins. I hope everyone else will be just as civil regardless of the outcome.

Here is the post:

I am currently at the Michigan Library Association Annual Conference in Traverse City, Michigan. I am finding it hard to find Internet access so I have missed a few days of blogging.

One thing that bothers me here at the conference is that so many of my colleagues are making claims like, "This country is more divided now than in any point of our history." And they believe this.

Really?

Has no one heard of the election of 1860 and the American Civil War? Please do go and check the History of the United States of America. The country was so divided that the election of Lincoln lead to war. In the following four years, hundreds of thousands died.

No matter what happens this year, there will not be another American Civil War ensuing. All things considered, we just are not that divided...