the tindog coffeehouse

Ars Technica has an interesting breakdown of AT&T’s 1922 plan to single-handedly control every radio station in America:

But AT&T had another idea—a network of almost 40 radio stations strung together via the telco’s long distance lines. They would broadcast to local areas wirelessly and share content via AT&T’s long routes. The company intended [New York City radio station] WEAF as the beginning of that experiment. …

As for competing stations, they would be “minimized or foreclosed through the efforts of the local broadcast associations to function inclusively,” Wurtzler explains, “encouraging all… to join in the shared collective effort.”

If this sounds all nice and Woodstocky in print, AT&T’s implementation of the concept was far less pretty in practice, and that led to the scheme’s demise. First the telco began denying non-Bell System radio stations access to its long distance lines for shared projects, forcing other networks to experiment with inferior telegraph rather than telephone connections for their experiments. Then AT&T drew more anger by suing a nearby competitor to WEAF, claiming that its broadcast operation infringed on the carrier’s patents. “To the public, already disturbed at the growth and power of trusts and cartels, AT&T seemed to be jumping with hobnailed boots over the little fellow,” write historians Christopher Sterling and John Kitross.

AT&T abandoned its plans for broadcast domination in 1926, opting instead to monopolize the wireline connections between stations. In its place, RCA, General Electric, and Westinghouse formed NBC, with CBS and ABC following soon behind.

Ars speculates that AT&T’s withdrawal from broadcasting probably had a negative effect on innovation, with today’s broadcasters “constantly standing in the way of competing platforms, such as cable television, satellite radio, Low Power FM, and white space broadband.” I’m not so sure. It’s reasonable to assume AT&T would’ve been just as obstructing, if not more (if the company’s history since then is any indication).

Either way, it’s an interesting reminder of a technological future that might’ve been.

Previously:
Can you hear me now?
Vanity Fair’s history of the Internet
The evil genius of AT&T MicroCells

Dallas Morning News columnist Jacuielynn Floyd framed the Texas State Board of Education’s incessant tussling over social studies standards perfectly:

But it glaringly underscores that this entire exercise, which I once naively believed to be part of an effort to produce intelligent, intellectually responsible citizens, is not about academics at all.

No, there’s nothing to see here but the same old blowhard talking points that currently pass for political discourse.

Religious conservatives who dominate the board don’t even bother trying to pretend otherwise. They’ve made it clear that they believe their mission is to even the score with what they see as snotty leftist academics who have poisoned public education.

It’s not about kids grasping history and learning to draw independent conclusions – it’s about who gets to run the indoctrination camp. …

Paradoxically, the saddest thing about all this is also the only consolation I can find.

It’s this: Ideological fist-pumping over such meddlesome trivia as substituting “free enterprise” for “capitalism” or “constitutional republic” for “democracy” won’t make much difference to teenagers who graduate without being able to punctuate, add simple fractions or find Panama on a map.

Indeed, the SBOE has spent months bickering over a trivial list of names each public school student should somehow be expected to memorize in order to be deemed properly educated. How many whites are on the list, how many blacks, how many Hispanics, women, Christians, non-Christians, conservatives, liberals, etc., etc. etc. How much should Christianity factor into history lessons, whether or not to emphasize certain Constitutional amendments over others, de-emphasize the Civil Rights Movement while championing free enterprise, and so on, ad nauseum.

As if any of that matters.

Here’s a tip for our esteemed Board: History has very little to do with individual names, facts, and figures. Anyone can look up a name or find a statistic. But without context they’re meaningless. And that’s what history is all about. It’s looking at a particular event or moment in time and understanding how it fits in with all the other events and moments of time. What are the political, economic, religious, and social factors that led up to this thing, and what are the repercussions as a result of it? What caused this event, and what are the effects? If you can’t answer those questions, you haven’t really learning anything, and none of those names, dates, and other random numbers will matter a bit.

But instead of figuring out how to actually teach context, about how to teach kids to ask questions and solve problems and think critically and then communicate those ideas verbally and in writing, the State Board would prefer to quibble over terminology and racial quotas, argue over which tune to fiddle while our public schools burn. That’s not progress. That’s not education. And it does nothing to benefit the students of Texas.

Previously:
Academic freedom amendment isn’t necessary
How much emphasis should be placed on Christianity when teaching history?
Should evolution be debated in public schools?

Just in time for this year’s census, Radical Cartography has published a bunch of amazingly detailed (and beautiful) maps and charts from the census of 1870.

The data essentially reinforce what you would expect to find in the first census since the end of the Civil War: The North had a higher population overall, more foreign-born residents, much fewer African-Americans, and was much wealthier than the South. The percentage of men in the West (California, Nevada, Idaho, etc.) far exceeded the percentage of women. And the federal government, whose expenditures were almost completely limited to the military, saw the national debt explode in order to pay for the Civil War.

Below: The Constitutional Population (“Excluding Indians not taxed”).

Below: The “Colored” Population. Almost exclusively located in the Deep South along the Mississippi River and Southern plantations.

Below: The Foreign Population. Notice that the foreign immigrants flocked mainly to the upper Midwest but also to Central Texas. The influx of German and Czech immigrants to Texas is responsible for the incredible barbecue we still salivate over today. In California, of course, most of the immigrants were Chinese.

Below: Church Accommodation. Almost 50% of the total population was either Methodist or Baptist (red striped area and green area, respectively), with smaller numbers in Presbyterian or Roman Catholic churches (blue and maroon areas). In New England, Congregational churches were more dominant (light blue striped area), while the Southwest was divided between Catholics (maroon) and Mormons (black).

Below: The National Debt. Almost non-existent before the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848) but then exploding during the Civil War, reaching a height of about $2.7 billion in 1866. It’s interesting to note that only a few years later the Panic of 1873 would plunge the nation into a major economic depression.

Check out all the maps in full size and stunning detail on the Radical Cartography site.

Previously:
Tonight we’re gonna panic like it’s 1873
A presidential view on debt

So we all learned the story of the first Thanksgiving, right? A bunch of Pilgrims on-board the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and set up a new colony. A year later, in 1621, they held a feast with the local Wampanoag tribe to celebrate the first successful harvest. Then after the feast, the men, in their funny black hats with the gold buckles, watched the Cowboys game while the women, in their bonnets, hurried off to go shopping. (OK, some of that may not be entirely accurate.)

But seriously, have you ever really thought about that story, about who the Pilgrims were? Dictionary.com defines a pilgrim as “a person who journeys, esp. a long distance, to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion”, and that’s exactly who the Plymouth settlers were. They were Puritans, English separatists who believed that the Church of England had become so tainted by politics and man-made doctrine that it was beyond reform. Many of them had initially fled England for Holland before joining up with another group of Puritans to settle in the New World.

This wasn’t an easy task. There were no guarantees that any of them would survive, and in fact two of the pilgrims died even before reaching land. Disease was rampant, food was scarce, the weather was extremely harsh, and there was always the threat of attack from the native tribes in the region. But they came anyway, not for financial gain — as those who settled in Virginia did — but because of their devotion to God.

And I have to wonder, would I do the same if I were them?

Would I have the courage and faith to put my family onto a ship headed for an almost completely unknown land halfway across the world, knowing that the odds of our survival were overwhelmingly not in our favor? Leave everything I have, everything I know to start over completely from scratch with virtually nothing on a whole other continent over 3,000 miles away? And do it all, not for the chance to strike it rich, but because it was what God was instructing me to do.

Honestly, I don’t know if I could. I don’t know if I could let go of my house, my car, my stuff, my safe and comfortable life and trade it for an uncertain and potentially disastrous future. And not just me, but choose that path for my wife and daughters, too.

Oh sure, I can serve where I am. I can give without really having to give up. But could I — would I — get on that ship if God asked me to? I’d like to say yes, but I really don’t know.

Many of the separatists didn’t. Of those who fled England for Holland, only a few dozen made the decision to emigrate to the New World. Most stayed behind in the relative safety of their new home. And yet, those who did go, those who did act on their faith would end up establishing one of the most important settlements in modern history.

So today I’m thankful for those who followed their faith, those that chose God over everything else. And I hope that one day I would have the courage to do the same.

It was 40 years ago yesterday, on October 29, 1969, that the first message was sent across ARPANET (which would evolve into today’s modern Internet). The message? “LO”. Yeah, it was supposed to be “LOGIN”, but the thing crashed after the “O”.

And thus was the born the inspiration for AT&T’s wireless network. The End.

Previously:
Vanity Fair’s history of the Internet

(Click to enlarge.)

Apparently, education is a popular topic this week. Yesterday, I mentioned the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act being debated in the U.S. House, which would give the Department of Education the authority to “develop” and “disseminate” high school curricula.

Today, the Texas State Board of Education begins debating social studies curriculum standards that would affect history, government, and economics classes in public schools for the next 10 years. And naturally, the debate isn’t without controversy.

One of the biggest questions is how much emphasis should be placed on the role of Christianity in history books. Critics argue that the Board is showing a clear Christian bias, including appointing conservative Christian experts to review current standards.

Some of the board-appointed reviewers are picking and choosing certain people and events from history to make an argument that America is a Christian nation, said John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College, a Christian school in Grantham, Pa.

“Students are not learning history. They are learning the facts about the past that suit some larger agenda, a cultural and political agenda,” said Fea, who has been following the Texas curriculum process.

“My best advice would be to respect the historians, respect the voice of historians,” said Fea, “and try to keep politics out of the teaching of history.”

A few observations here:

First, it’s impossible to teach history or government without discussing politics and religion. Go on, try it. It can’t be done. It’s a proven fact that 99% of history involves politics and/or religion to some extent. The other 1% mainly involves men in funny hats, but even that often is related to politics and religion.

Second, all historians have an agenda. Don’t be fooled by their stunning good looks, these folks are serious. And as someone with a History degree, I know of what I speak. The reality is that history, while comprised of objective facts and statistics, is largely subjective. What history “is” depends on how the historian interprets those facts and statistics. So any time an “expert” tells you a history book is completely unbiased, they’re lying. The bias might not be great, but it’s there. The critics in Austin simply want to trade a bias that they don’t like for one that they do.

Third, the United States is a Christian nation, so to downplay the role of Christianity in our history is pretty reckless. Now, when I say the U.S. is a “Christian nation”, what I mean is that Christianity has played a critical role throughout our existence. Christopher Columbus, the Puritans, the Founding Fathers, the U.S. Constitution, slavery, the Civil War, Manifest Destiny, the Enlightenment, Prohibition, the Civil Rights Movement, abortion, gay rights. Every single one of these topics was influenced in one way or another by Christianity.

Does that mean we should ignore the role of Judaism, Islam, or other religions in U.S. and world history? Absolutely not. But just because you discuss a particular religion in an historical context doesn’t mean you’re promoting it.

Finally, I’m struck by the irony of this debate. This is the same Board of Education who only 6 months ago voted to eliminate the “strengths and weaknesses” requirement when teaching evolution in science classes, pretty much guaranteeing that evolution will go unquestioned in public schools. The critics who argue that the Board is being biased with social studies now didn’t seem to mind them being biased with science back then. I’m sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.

As I said back in January regarding the evolution question, I think students need to be able to do their own research and come to their own conclusions, and they should be free to question and debate as part of the process. That’s true with science, and it’s just as true with history.

Previously:
Should evolution be debated in public schools?
Bill would protect the grades of students who disagree with evolution
History to be (re)written by the victors?

“History is written by the victors.” — Winston Churchill

Now it looks like it might be rewritten by those who won the 2008 election.

The House of Representatives is expected to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (HR-3221), which, in addition to expanding federal grants and other education initiatives, would allow the Department of Education to get in the business of creating high school curricula, something previously not allowed by federal law.

Section 505 of the bill states (emphasis mine):

(a) Open Online Education- From the amount appropriated to carry out this section, the Secretary is authorized to make competitive grants to, or enter into contracts with, institutions of higher education, philanthropic organizations, and other appropriate entities to develop, evaluate, and disseminate freely-available high-quality online training, high school courses, and postsecondary education courses. Entities receiving funds under this subsection shall ensure that electronic and information technology activities meet the access standards established under section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d).

Yet, under federal law the Department of Education is specifically disallowed from creating or controlling curricula taught in schools (emphasis mine):

(a) Rights of local governments and educational institutions
It is the intention of the Congress in the establishment of the Department to protect the rights of State and local governments and public and private educational institutions in the areas of educational policies and administration of programs and to strengthen and improve the control of such governments and institutions over their own educational programs and policies. The establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the Federal Government over education or diminish the responsibility for education which is reserved to the States and the local school systems and other instrumentalities of the States.
(b) Curriculum, administration, and personnel; library resources
No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection or content of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.

By allowing the ED to create high school and other courses, the federal government is specifically infringing upon rights previously reserved for state and local entities. Exactly what curricula would be “developed” or “disseminated”, of course, remains to be seen. But parents might want to scrutinize their children’s history books a little closer going forward.

Did Karl Marx, the Father of Socialism, invent college football’s Bowl Championship Series (aka the BCS)?  Or would he have approved of a “communistic” playoff system?

That appears to be the big question in college football (and even on Capitol Hill) these days.

First, during a hearing in May by the House Energy and Commerce Committee (because apparently they have nothing better to do), Congressman Joe Barton compared the BCS, which decides bowl placement based on several computer algorithms and human polls, to communism:

“It is interesting that people of good will — I think everybody on whatever side of the issue is a person of good will — keeps trying to tinker with the current system.”

“It’s like communism, you can’t fix it.”

But Big 12 Commissioner Dan Beebe disagrees, arguing that allowing lesser conferences to face off against “more productive” ones (i.e. the Big 12) in a playoff system is really the Soviet-approved option:

“My memory of when I studied history and Karl Marx was that a major tenet of communism involved taking from each according to their ability and giving to each according to their need,” Beebe said.

“It’s ironic we’re being labeled as communists when what was actually being asked of us was to be more communistic, taking from those of us who produce more in the marketplace and giving to those who don’t produce in the marketplace.”

Beebe may not have all his terms right, but his argument reveals exactly why he’s so adamantly opposed to playoffs.

Far from being the model of Marxism, the BCS really more closely resembles an oligopoly, an economic condition in which a small number of sellers control the market and consequently have the power to artificially manipulate supply.  In this case those small number of sellers include the six conferences with an automatic bowl bid: the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Pac-10, and SEC.  Teams from other conferences can and do make it to BCS bowls, but the spots are limited and there’s no guarantee.  Instead, the BCS is designed to reward teams from the six participating conferences, even if teams from other conferences are ranked higher.

Is that fair?  No.  Is it meant to be?  No.

Just like OPEC and other oligopolies, the BCS is designed to protect the interests of its members at the expense of other potential sellers (or conferences).  One of the reasons why conferences like the Mountain West are “less productive” is because they don’t get the same kind of national exposure that BCS conferences get.  They don’t get the same television contracts, they don’t get the same licensing deals, and they don’t get the same bowl invitations, even when the BCS’s own ranking system says they should.

So does that mean we should force the BCS into total equality or replace it altogether with a playoff system?  That would be ideal, but it’s clearly not going to happen.  At least not without a revolution.

Previously:
Yes, the BCS is flawed. What’s your point?
Longhorns Inc.

Just thought this was interesting, considering I’ve discussed (and quoted) author Donald Miller a few times and recently blogged about Robert McNamara. Seems Miller had a a few words to say on his blog about the former Secretary of Defense as well.

Yesterday, Robert S. McNamara passed away. MacNamara was President of Ford Motor Company before going to work at the Department of Defense. He was instrumental in the bombing of Japan in World War II, and is often called the architect of the war in Vietnam. But toward the end of his life, MacNamara began to reconsider his actions. He even wrote a book confessing what he felt were his wrongs. He left the Johnson administration and ran the World Bank, some believe, to make up for the many lives lost under his command.

I don’t have a strong opinion about the war in Vietnam. War is messy, and I tend to believe we had good reason to be there, though it certainly didn’t turn out the way we would have hoped. But hindsight is twenty-twenty. I am more interested in MacNamara, though. I am more interested in a man with a distinguished career suddenly coming out and admitting he was wrong. It is so rarely seen by a government leader.

Like many of those who commented on Miller’s blog, I don’t know that I can buy the theory that McNamara’s move to the World Bank was a way to make up for his role in the Vietnam War. Not that he wasn’t remorseful for his actions — I have no way of knowing that — but I tend to agree more with John Perkins’ assessment of him as an economic imperialist rather than reformed benefactor. Maybe that’s the pessimist in me, or maybe I’m just disillusioned.

Previously:
What do Iran, Honduras, and Robert McNamara have in common?

In a blog post a couple of days ago about Honduras, I mentioned a book by John Perkins called Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Coincidentally, that same day it was announced that Robert McNamara, the former defense secretary in the Kennedy administration and a key figure in the book, had died. It’s funny to think how McNamara is related to the events unfolding in Honduras, as well as the ongoing protests in Iran.

Confessions centers around Perkins’ career as an “economic hit man” in the ’70s and ’80s, a position whereby governments in underdeveloped nations were made to accept massive loans from organizations such as the World Bank for infrastructure improvements and other public service projects. Once in debt, those nations would then be willing to accept contracts with American companies, who would exploit the countries’ natural resources for their own gain. Such nations would also become politically indebted to the U.S., thus furthering American political influence around the world during the Cold War.

Robert McNamara is remembered by most for his contributions to the Vietnam War, but according to the book, he played a major role in this expansion of the U.S. “corporatocracy” as well:

McNamara was a frequent visitor to our discussion groups — in absentia, of course. We all knew about his meteoric rise to fame, from manager of planning and financial analysis at Fort Motor Company in 1949 to Ford’s president in 1960, the first company head selected from outside the Ford family. Shortly after that, Kennedy appointed him secretary of defense. …

As we sat around the table discussing world events, we were especially fascinated by McNamara’s role as president of the World Bank, a job he accepted soon after leaving his post as secretary of defense. Most of my friends focused on the fact that he symbolized what was popularly known as the military-industrial complex. He had held the top position in a major corporation, in a government cabinet, and now at the most powerful bank in the world. Such an apparent breach in the separation of powers horrified many of them; I may have been the only one among us who was not in the least surprised.

I see now that Robert McNamara’s greatest and most sinister contribution to history was to jockey the World Bank into becoming an agent of global empire on a scale never before witnessed.

As Perkins points out, this process of economic empire-building began in 1953, when the U.S. organized a coup to oust Iran’s prime minister and replace him with the Western-friendly Shah. In 1979 the Shah’s reign ended with the Iranian Revolution and the appointment of the anti-American Ayatollah Kohmeini. Today the massive “Green Revolution” protests in Tehran and the growing threat of Iranian nuclear weapons are direct descendants of those earlier events.

The current crisis in Honduras is also at least indirectly related to the empire-building described in Confessions. American foreign policy relating to Central and South America during the Cold War was driven by the desire to not only extend our economic influence over the region but also our political influence, a clear extension of the Monroe Doctrine. As such, Marxist revolutions such as the ones in Cuba, Nicaragua, and El Salvador became direct threats to the U.S. and our economic interests. If ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya had gotten his way, he likely would’ve led that nation down the same anti-American path as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

In my earlier blog post, I quoted Roger Noriega, the former assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, in his argument for removing Zelaya. Such a position, it could be argued, stems from a vision of Latin America eerily reminiscent of the corporatocracy described by Perkins.

According to Tom Barry at the International Relations Center:

In a February 2006 report entitled “Two Visions of Energy in the Americas,” Noriega warns Latin American and Caribbean countries against going down the path of energy outlaws who violate the laws of the free market—pointing to Venezuela and Bolivia. In his essay, Noriega advocates that corporations and governments “can and should work together to foster genuine growth and development in the hemisphere that serves both the bottom line and the moral imperative of helping raise millions out of poverty through the sound stewardship of natural resources.” …

What is more, Noriega encourages “Western energy companies” to “use their capital and technical expertise as levers to encourage countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to adopt clear and fair policies that make investments safe and sound.” Noriega rightly notes that there is political sentiment in Latin America and the Caribbean that represents a “setback for market principles” and constitutes a “vision of energy in the Americas” that may run counter to the expectations and interests of the United States and U.S. energy corporations.

Another example of Robert McNamara’s legacy as it relates to Iran and Honduras is the Iran-Contra scandal which became public in 1986. Through complex covert operations, the U.S. sold arms to anti-Khomeini forces in Iran and then used the money from those sales to fund anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua, with Honduras serving as a base of operations for the CIA.

My point is, these various events occurring around the world today are not isolated events. History doesn’t exist in a bubble. The consequences of decades-old decisions are still feeling felt today, just as today’s decisions will have consequences for decades more to come. While I don’t think we should necessarily continue the Cold War-era empire-building described in John Perkins’ book, I don’t think it’s wise to fully retreat from those policies either, as the results of kowtowing to despots like Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be disastrous.

Instead, I agree with George Santayana: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Previously:
Choosing sides in Honduras
Obama and the end of the Monroe Doctrine

In 1823 President James Monroe established a policy which came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine stated that efforts by European governments to colonize land or interfere with states in North, Central, or South America would be viewed by the U.S. as an act of aggression. The policy effectively marked the entire western hemisphere as being under the protection and influence of the United States, and revolutions like the one in Cuba in the 1950s were seen as a direct threat to the U.S.

The Monroe Doctrine drove much of America’s foreign policy in Latin America through the 20th Century, but that may be coming to an end, if President Obama’s stance on the recent upheaval in Honduras is any indication.

Obama should have welcomed the removal of Zelaya from Honduras. Zelaya had recently sided with the Iranian ayatollahs in their suppression of a democratic election: no wonder he demanded readmission to Honduras in the name of God. His illegal attempt to defy the constitution through a plebiscite his supporters were tooled-up to rig was condemned by the Honduran Congress, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and the chief Electoral Tribunal. …

But Obama has a soft spot for socialists, hence his insane cosying-up to the Bolivarian fruitcakes. He has invented a brand new kind of foreign policy: supporting regimes that are violently anti-American. Call it neo-masochism. Obama has reversed the Monroe Doctrine as well as the definition of “democracy”. In supporting the megalomaniac dictators who are trying to drag Latin America into the year 1917, he is mouthing the same claptrap as Miguel D’Escoto Brockman, president of the UN General Assembly and former lieutenant of Ortega in the Sandinista dictatorship, and Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) and Fidel Castro’s champion.

It remains to be seen how the crisis in Honduras will play out or what the repercussions will be for that nation and throughout Latin America. But whatever the outcome, Obama’s lack of support for the Honduran government is alarming, and coupled with his equally flaccid stance against nations like Iran and North Korea, the position of the U.S. has been significantly weakened, not just in the western hemisphere but worldwide.

Previously:
Choosing sides in Honduras