Kelly in Kansas

New York Post Online Edition:: "Hillary's Hollywood gala that raised $1 million in hard money that August. This meant that the campaign could use soft money to pay for all costs up to $400,000. David Rosen conveniently reported to the campaign treasurer that the event did, indeed, cost $400,000, avoiding the necessity of spending any hard money on the affair."

Via Cranky Professor

Cut Buster Loose: "Today, with iPod earphone cords dangling from millions of heads, and movies flooding into homes where they jostle for plasma screen time with video games, Americans are entertaining themselves into inanition. Furthermore, journalism and imitations of it have become social smog. Even in airport concourses you are bombarded by televised human volcanoes verbally assaulting each other about the 'news,' broadly-- very broadly--defined to include Kobe Bryant's presence on Michael Jackson's witness list.


In 1967 public television did at least increase, for many, the basic television choices from three--CBS, NBC, ABC--to four. Not that achieving some supposedly essential minimum was, or is, the government's business. In today's 500-channel environment, public television is a preposterous relic."

Diana and I presented information about what we are doing with primary sources to help teachers meet state standards. The session was decently well-attended and several teachers had follow-up questions - which is always a good sign.

Now to concentrate on this.

Today I went to see one of our grant teachers teach about Washington DC and the monuments to her third graders. She's doing a great job of teaching her students more about American history - especially when elementary teachers have very little time to devote any specific time to anything else besides math, reading, and science. She gave me some ideas for some books about reading comprehension and one she'd found from the Ellis Island Foundation about doing genealogy with kids. I learned a great deal just watching how the students did - it's a major task just to keep them on task and in their seats. It's just amazing to watch the multitasking a teacher has to do. And their questions go all over the place. We went from the Lincoln Memorial to segregation. A third grader (a third grader!) remembered that Martin Luther King, Jr., made a speech there but was a little confused because he thought it was a speech against slavery. The teacher did a great job of helping him understand that it was a different time period but when you think of how little background he has to pull from, that was a great connection. And she made the most of it.

We had a session at the TAH project directors' meeting last week about evaluation - most importantly that it should be ongoing and not just at the end of the project (after all, that's only worthwhile to others, not necessarily the project itself once it's over). And treating teachers and students like they are people and NOT lab rats. I am definitely going to do more individual teacher interviews about the grant is impacting them and their teaching along with what their students are learning. Their last assignment in their online course (this is the grant with the delivered Master's degree) is to write a paper about what impact the grant is having in their teaching. Should be interesting reads - the first two that have been submitted are!

Blast Radius: A World of Pain: "Thursday, April 21, 2005
A World of Pain

Professor Jasper Rine lectures at UC Berkeley. Recently his laptop was stolen by a thief who was after exam data. Unfortunately for the thief, Professor Rine had some important stuff on that laptop.

The webcast of last Friday's Biology 1A lecture gets very interesting at timecode 48:50. I've transcribed Prof Rine's comments here, so you can see what a world of shit the thief is in:"

Kansas History Teachers Association, 2005 Central Plains Conference on History

Now I'm here with about 20 of our grant teachers. . . .

Teaching American History 2005 Project Directors' Meeting - 04/19-20/05

I've just returned from here . . .

AGH Library -- Video Game Firsts: "'VIDEO GAME FIRSTS'

by Michael Rubin

(Appeared in the February 1984 issue of 'Computer Games' Magazine)


The First Home Video Game

Odyssey 100, made by Magnavox. Invented by Ralph Baer and introduced in 1972, the Odyssey 100 could play several varieties of tennis and hocky, as well as some maze games.

"

The Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers: "Between 1972 and 1976, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein emerged as two of the most famous journalists in America and became forever identified as the reporters who broke the biggest story in American politics. Beginning with the investigation of a 'third-rate burglary' of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex, Woodward and Bernstein uncovered a system of political 'dirty tricks' and crimes that eventually led to indictments of forty White House and administration officials, and ultimately to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Now available to the public for the first time are Woodward and Bernstein's notes from source interviews, drafts of newspaper stories and books, memos, letters, tape recordings, research materials, and other Watergate papers. These materials document Woodward and Bernstein's four-year partnership telling the story of Watergate in Pulitzer Prize winning articles for The Washington Post, in two best-selling books, All The President's Men and The Final Days, and in the multiple academy award-winning movie of All the President's Men. Purchased by The University of Texas at Austin in 2003, the Woodward and Bernstein Watergate Papers provide students, scholars, and other researchers a unique resource for behind the scenes insight into the journalism, politics, and humanity of Watergate."

Your Linguistic Profile:

75% General American English

15% Dixie

5% Midwestern

5% Yankee

0% Upper Midwestern

The Iola Register Interactive: "Gas man gets prison

Aaron T. Anderson of Gas, convicted for his role in an accident that claimed the lives of two Galesburg people, was sentenced Monday to 41 months in prison.

In handing down the sentence, District Judge C. Fred Lorenz denied a defense motion to break from Kansas sentencing guidelines to either find an alternative sentence to prison or to shorten the proposed length of Anderson's sentence.

In February, Anderson, 27, also known as Aaron T. Fudge, pleaded guilty to two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

Then, he admitted to driving while legally drunk south of Iola on U.S. 169, when he crossed the center line in his vehicle and struck a southbound sport utility vehicle. Killed in the accident were Kirk A. Brunghardt, 40, and Sandra L. Coover, 51, both of Galesburg.

Lorenz denied the defense motion to alter the sentence after hearing testimony from several witnesses on Anderson's behalf, as well as acquaintances of Brunghardt and Coover."
-------------

This article doesn't mention that he admitted to smoking pot each day and that he had been to three different places to drink that night but that he really thought it was the fatigue that caused the accident. He doesn't remember anything between when he left work that afternoon and when he woke up on the highway that night . . .

The Morning Sun: Single-car accident 04/12/05: "Crawford County Sheriff's Deputy Jeff Stokes gathers evidence as Baker Fire Department firefighter Chuck Parsons douses flames on a pickup truck found burning in a strip pit east of Pittsburg Monday afternoon. At right is Dave Chiapetti, who spotted the fire and reported it. A Pittsburg woman sustained minor injuries after the pick-up truck she was driving skidded off the road and into the ditch. According to the Crawford County Sheriff's Department, xxx was driving a 2002 Chevy C-1500 pick-up truck south on U.S. Highway 69 about 12:10 a.m. on Sunday. Sosensen said she bent down to get a cup of coffee and the vehicle fell off the shoulder on the west side of the road. She over-corrected, skidded across the highway and entered the east ditch"

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Although working on the wireless network at the Hilton bar at the OAH was great, it wasn't so great when there were errors in posting to the blog. But it appears to be a problem on the other end since the post did eventually show up - but only several days later and thus, the blogging day-by-day option was lost. Technology always has glitches.

The highlight of Day 2 was taking the teachers down to San Francisco - none of them had been there before. We made it out to Fisherman's Wharf and ate dinner in Chinatown. We also spent quite a bit of time on Caltrain that day.

Saturday's highlights included a publisher focus group session along with attending Paula's session. I loved her Keynote turned PowerPoint slides that said "And now the presenter will read aloud to other adults in the audience" . . . . I also met with another publisher and it appears that the market is recognizing the rewards of teaching.

Activities with H-Net also seem to be accelerating.

Going to a Colleague-to-Colleague meeting about computing/internet issues tomorrow in Wichita. Should be a good day. Hopefully the storms are done.

Reporter's Notebook: Highlights from the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians: "Reporter's Notebook: Highlights from the 2005 Annual Meeting of the Organization of American Historians
By Rick Shenkman "