the vampire’s university

Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him. Karl Marx, Capital  David Blacker has a piece at monthlyreview.org with the […]

State of the Nation: IN PERIL! (Bachmann speech / videos)

On his MSNBC Hardball program last week, Chris Matthews was calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) a “balloon head” — somebody who speaks freely without knowing anything, about U.S. history, in particular, and somebody who need to go back to school to learn something about history, so that she might finally know something about the things she likes […]

Tea Partiers & anti-democratic ignorance

The fact that GOP and Tea Party candidates can get away with this nonsense — at least to the extent of garnering enough support to force runoff elections, if not to secure GOP nominations — demonstrates the sad state of historical education in this country. Alabama GOP runoff candidate Rick Barber is running this ad […]

wingnuts cry “bias” on AP report (with links to audio and video)

At a right-wing blog titled “Wolf Howling,” there’s a post titled “AP Goes APE Over Texas School Book Changes,” attacking April Castro for her coverage of the Texas State Board of Education’s demolition of the state’s social studies standards. “Wolfhowling” writes: The author, Ms. Castro, does not want to admit that what we are seeing […]

Texas SBOE vs. “Capitalism” (with audio)

I’m too busy this week to follow the circus going on now in Austin; I’ll have to catch up later. However, I think I should post some audio (below) to provide background on this business, as reported by TFN Insider: 12:04 – The current standards draft currently refer to the economic system that exists in the […]

Ohio Council for the Social Studies on Ohio curriculum revision

Here’s a position statement by OCSS on the revision of Social Studies standards in Ohio: 

Tiger Woods and Social Studies

Here’s what I, as a Social Studies educator, find completely unacceptable from Tiger Woods: Woods weighs in on Augusta membership GolfWeb Wire Services — July 16, 2002 GULLANE, Scotland — Tiger Woods was vague, his answers repetitive. For the first time at a major championship, he seemed unprepared and uncomfortable when handling a topic that […]

SBOE: The Missing Episodes

From what we hear in these proceedings, there could be an SBOE majority, along with the Commissioner, who are open to this kind of politicization of committee membership, not only for TEKS development, but for textbook approval as well. They have the power to do this even thought it’s not really required by the statute (as Ames falsely claims that it is). Still, in case the claim about the statute will not be put to rest by the Board’s TEA lawyer, the sane attorneys Craig and Berlanga must be prepared to request an opinion from the Attorney General, which would decisively shut down this claim by the appointees of Bradley and McLeroy.

“honest history” for Texas social studies standards?

In her testimony Wednesday night, November 18, before the Texas State Board of education, Carole Haynes (phonetic) helpfully informed the Board members that There has been so much controversy over the Civil Rights [legislation], … and the truth was, Republicans voted for it and the Democrats voted against it. … We need to set that […]

the debate I wanna see (Will Phillips v. Carrie Prejean)

On CNN Monday morning (Nov. 16, 2009), ten-year-old Will Phillips his reason for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance in his fifth-grade class: I’ve grown up with a lot of people and I’m good friends with a lot of people who are gay and I think they should have the rights all people should, […]

Chris Hedges | BookTV | Colbert Report

On Sunday, October 11th at 12pm noon (ET), BookTV on CSpan2 will be re-airing their “After Words” interview of Chris Hedges on his new book, Empire of illusion: the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle. I saw this segment last weekend, and then I bought the book. Hedges has more depth and perspective […]

civic education study 2009

Two people landed on this blog today by doing searches on “civic education study 2009”. I think I’ve had browser windows open for the last few days on what they probably were looking for, but I hadn’t had the time to save those items, much less post anything about them. Anyway, the most substantial source […]

Three books for civic economic literacy (Book TV)

Three books on BookTV (CSpan2) this weekend: Economics Does Not Lie: A Defense of the Free Market in a Time of Crisis , by Guy Sorman About the Program Mr. Sorman argues that to get rid of the free market because it’s imperfect would be a danegrous overreaction to recent events. Rebuilding trust in the […]