Happy New Year!

2018?  That, as Karen said very early Mon AM, "sounds weird."  Indeed it does.  I wonder how many of us in my age bracket thought we'd ever say "2018."   Well, we have and let's make the most of it.

There's so much to say/write, yet as I've pondered the past few weeks, there's nothing to say/write.  I know, I know......

I can't believe it's been four weeks since my last post.  But final exams, the kids, the holidays all added up.  Like I noted, so much to say, nothing to say.

I did manage to read a bit over that time and one book was about the Christmas Truce of 1914, when soldiers from Germany (the Central Powers) and from Britain and France (the Allies) put down their weapons on the Western  Front (No Man's Land it was coined) and celebrated.  They traded "gifts," chocolate, cigarettes, scarves, hats, etc.  There were even some "football" (soccer) games between sides, friendly games of course.  All this reminded me of something I read years ago, a tee shirt or bumper sticker, something.  "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came."  Naive?  Of course.  But, at the same time, hopeful.

New Year's Resolutions?  I'm not big on them.  I have goals, but they aren't really tied to any one single new year.  I would hope, though, that this year I pay more attention to what I read.  That is, reading or hearing something is something I should check out, double check, before accepting it as fact or legitimate.  I know it's easy to fall into that trap, of assuming something is so just because it's out there in print or the air waves--and then repeating it.  I suppose that is one of the pitfalls of all this technology in communication and I, like many, fall for it, too.  "But it's on the Internet."  We laugh at this, but sometimes it's not funny.

Tying the previous two paragraphs, I am currently into a book about Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.  Even before all this social media (Oh, I dislike that term, but......), similar pitfalls have occurred.  One of the most celebrated of US historians was Richard Hofstadter.  His views on the Emancipation Proclamation became widespread, repeated in textbooks and lectures for decades without challenge.  And those views are wrong.  His claim that the EP had "all the eloquence of a bill of lading" was not just about the style of the document.  Certainly he was right that it doesn't have the "eloquence" of the Gettysburg Address or Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.  But his criticism wasn't just that or even primarily that.  It was that the EP was a posturing of sorts, that it really didn't free any slaves.  And that is demonstrably false.  In issuing it, Lincoln not only opened the door for the abolition of slavery, but actually succeeded in freeing tens of thousands, if not more, slaves.  Of course it was a wartime measure and Lincoln perceived it as such.  It was also a political move.  But it was also a legal document that had the force of law.  Yet, how many textbooks, how many lessons have indicated that the EP was an empty gesture, when it clearly wasn't?  Yet, because the noted Richard Hofstadter made such a claim, it was accepted. 

I also discovered something I didn't realize.  I've never been a big fan of John Kennedy.  I cringe when I hear or read that people think he was a great president.  No, he wasn't.  But I have grudgingly gained more, at least a little bit more, respect for him due to his spoken words.  He was a wonderful speaker, able to get/convince people to do things they ordinarily wouldn't do.  I certainly give him points for that.  Yet he refused to give a speech, in 1962 I think, at the Lincoln Memorial about the importance of the EP.  JFK was afraid of alienating southern Democrats/voters in the face of what he perceived would be a difficult re-election campaign in '64.  I'm not certain, but it might have been Truman, another Democrat, who said something about doing what's right and the rest will take care of itself.