Spelling on the Blackboard - 98 Years Later

Old 1917 Blackboard Treasures Discovered in Oklahoma

When contractors began work on four classrooms of Emerson High School in Oklahoma, they knew their remodel would improve education - but they never expected it would impact local history.

Looking to upgrade the rooms with new whiteboards and smart boards, the workers had to to first remove the outdated chalkboards. But when they began to pull away the old boards, they made a startling discovery.....  

Beneath the current boards rested another set of chalkboards - untouched for nearly 100 years. Protected and totally undisturbed, the century-old writings and drawings looked like they were made just yesterday. Here, a November calendar rolls into December. A turkey marks the celebration of Thanksgiving.  

A multiplication table gives us a glimpse into the curriculum and methods taught in 1917, techniques perhaps lost in the passage of time. When regarding a wheel of multiplication, Principal Sherry Kishore told The Oklahoman, “I have never seen that technique in my life.” 

But Oklahoma City school officials aren’t just shocked by what is written, but how it is written. Penmanship like this is clearly a lost art. This board reads, “I give my head, my heart, and my life to my God and One nation indivisible with justice for all.”

Within each of the four rooms, the subject matter and lessons mirrored one another - indicating, as an Oklahoma Public School Twitter caption reads, “aligned curriculum in 1917.” 

And though the boards’ style and subject matter might be unfamiliar to younger folks,  they certainly resonate with older generations.  Principal Kishore told The Oklahoman what it was like to show her 85-year-old mother the boards:  “She just stood there and cried. She said it was exactly like her classroom was when she was going to school.”

But these boards actually predate Principal Kishore’s mother by 13 years. Two dates were found on the boards: November 30, 1917, and December 4, 1917. 

Some of the writings and drawings were done by students, while others were made by teachers - but it’s not always clear whose is whose.

Regardless, the work is a striking look into days long gone. While reading the boards - like this one listing “My Rules To Keep Clean” - the past comes alive in a very personal way. 

English teacher Cinthea Comer told The Oklahoman, “It was so eerie because the colors were so vibrant it looked like it was drawn the same day. To know that it was drawn 100 years ago…..it’s like you’re going into a looking glass into the past.”

Built in 1895, Emerson High School has seen many renovations and improvements throughout the years - but nothing like this has ever been discovered. 

When removing old chalkboards in the past, contractors have only found broken pipes and wires, so this is a shocking surprise. Oklahoma City and the school district are now working to preserve these beautiful boards. 

Hopefully, the spirit of these teachers and their students will be enjoyed for many years to come. Who knew that scribbles on a chalkboard could become such a precious piece of history.

Do you remember the “blackboards”?

Michelle Swears in the Oath Ignorant of the Facts

On 18 June 2014, First Lady Michelle Obama attended a ceremony at the National Archives rotunda in Washington, D.C., in which 51 foreign-born immigrants were sworn in as American citizens:

“It’s amazing that just a few feet from here where I’m standing are the signatures of the 56 Founders who put their names on a Declaration that changed the course of history. And like the 50 of you, none of them were born American — they became American."

In Michelle's remarks she noted that the Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence — like current immigrants to the U.S. — became Americans rather than being born Americans.

What the First Lady was communicating on this occasion was that the Founding Fathers were not born into a fully formed and established America with its own history, customs, culture, and values, as modern American children are; they were born into a very different world as British subjects in a colonial empire, and they chose to seek new opportunities and lives for themselves - just as modern immigrants born outside America choose to transform their worlds by opting to leave their homelands for the United States and seek new lives through becoming Americans.

                                                                                                                                

So there's the history rewrite: the founding fathers actually are not like today's modern immigrants as they had transformed their world into something distinctive through the establishment of a new nation that made them quite different from any immigrants who followed them later--they established American freedoms that others later were seeking, a Constitutional freedom that the rest of the world has never been offered or ever had in history. 

  

In a strictly literal sense none of the Founding Fathers was born in the United States of America, because that country did not exist until they brought it into being through their efforts. It is true that many of the Founding Fathers were born in the original thirteen British colonies that later became the United States of America after those colonies jointly declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776. Michelle Obama’s remarks did not, however, as implied in the example quoted above, express her ignorance of that fact. 

Michelle Obama turned a flag-waving swearing-in ceremony for 50 new American citizens into a platform to call for action on the long-bogged-down issue of immigration reforms by the Obama administration. 

Who were the 56 signators of the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two Lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners who were men of means and educated. They signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Obama Economy Failure Exposed in Pictures

This is a montage of pictures of the Depression Era, 1935-39, 80 years ago. I bring up the age of the pictures because generations that follow do depend upon those before them to honestly tell what they are about. In this case, "Pictures do speak a thousand words." so not much more needs to be told; that said, I find our current President always waffling history facts and fabricating stories to suit his false, deceptive narratives to further his socialist agenda.

Many times during the past six and a half years which now is almost at the end of the Obama second term, Obama still complains things are still so bad. It's been since G.W. Bush's term as he has been trying his best to bring the United States out of that economic ditch. Well maybe he should see where we were as a nation way before under FDR, another Progressive Democrat. Yeah, Obama is right, with all his record IRS taxes collected, the highest in history, they have not helped to stem the flow of U.S. Federal spending programs yet!--it's hard to fill a hole if you keep digging it deeper--approaching $20 Trillion U.S. Debt and counting.

Do you remember these scenes during the Bush years?

Take a real look at an American family eating in 1940 New Mexico. The Depression is still not over yet as they hungrily devour Karo shortening laden flour biscuits with gravy, garden grown pickle relish or hot green peppers, creamed corn, okra gumbo and fresh milk.

OMG!...Where are these people's iPhones, flat screen TVs, Xbox game controllers, air conditioners and heaters, bottled water and SNAP EBT cards (Federal Food Stamp Cards)?--things must have been really tough back then!

President Lyndon B. Johnson 1964 Legacy to Obama

President Barack Obama will attend a major summit on Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legacy at the LBJ Library in Austin on April 10, 2014 the White House confirmed. Obama will deliver a keynote address on the final day of the three-day summit, following presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton on the two previous days. George W. Bush is tentatively scheduled to speak on April 10 as well.

Summit organizers said. “On Thursday, April 10th, President Obama and First Lady will travel to the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas, to deliver remarks at a Civil Rights Summit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act,” a White House statement said. “Further details about the President and First Lady’s travel to Texas will be made available in the coming days.”

As President Ronald Reagan said, "No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!" 

How true about LBJ's 1965 "Great Society" Agenda!

This legacy goes back fifty years to the passage of "The Great Society" Bill enacted in 1965 by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson, a 'good ole boy Southern Democrat' known for his racially bigotted comments and ways. 

The oft quoted "I'll have niggers voting Democratic for two hundred years" -- in the biography, "LBJ", Inside the White House by Ronald Kessler. The quote is attributed to Robert M. MacMillan, a steward aboard Air Force One Jet.

"[LBJ] called me 'boy,' 'nigger,' or 'chief,' never by my name... Whenever I was late, no matter what the reason, Johnson called me 'a lazy good for nothing nigger'...I was afraid of him because of the pain and humiliation he could inflict at a moment's notice." -- Robert Parker, LBJ's chauffeur, in his autobiography, "Capital Hill in Black and White".

The Democrat party historically was always actively promoting laws that supported racial segregation and had several Ku Klux Klansmen such as: Democrat Senators Robert Byrd, Senator Al Gore Sr., Democrat President Harry S. Truman, Democrat Governors Strohm Thurmond filibustered against civil rights in 1957 and George Wallace blocked black students entry into segregated schools in 1957. As a side note, as a Democrat Senator, JFK himself voted against the 1957 civil rights act too.

President Lyndon B. Johnson was the former longtime U.S. Senate Democrat Majority Whip who was boorish, bullying, boastful and politically savy. Lyndon literally 'white-washed' the Democrat Party past history as he used black voters for pawn pieces on his Washington, D.C. chess board to win their support for his 1964 Presidential race and bragged that his Democrat voter legacy legislation, the 1965 'Great Society' Bill, would last, "for the next 200 years." ~ his own personal bigotry certainly remained. The 1964 'Civil Rights Act' provided the political cache' to win the 1964 Presidential election with a Democrat Majority Congress that enabled LBJ to submit eighty-seven bills to Congress, and Johnson signed eighty-four, or 96% into law for the 1965 'Great Society' Bill's agenda on his 'War on Poverty.'

What has happened to the core of black America since the 1965 'Great Society', the largest reform agenda passed since Roosevelt's New Deal, with a set of domestic programs: Operation Headstart, aid to urban mass transit, a demonstration cities program, a housing act that included rental subsidies, an act for higher education and jobs Corps?

All their families have been destroyed:

In 1950, 17 percent of African-American children lived in a home with their mother but not their father. By 2010 that had increased to 50 percent. 

In 1965, only eight percent of childbirths in the Black community occurred out-of-wedlock. In 2010 that figure was 41 percent; and today, the out-of-wedlock childbirth in the Black community sits at an astonishing 72 percent. 

The number of African-American women married and living with their spouse was recorded as 53 percent in 1950. By 2010, it had dropped to 25 percent.

President Johnson's legacy to Obama is a multi-billion dollar debacle of the largest proportion of waste to the wealth and people of the United States. Obama has learned nothing from his legacy and continues on with the Liberal, Progressive Democrat out-of-control programs bent on destroying the economy and country. 

Obama vs. Lyndon Johnson - No Contest

During the course of any day many different people normally offer the conciliatory "Hello, how are you?" greeting and then turn away without waiting for any reply, no intended insults taken either--everyone is polite, but busy. Occasionally conversations take up after the perfunctory salutations, then it can be an opportunity to share ideas about the weather or more substantive topics. 

Lately, however, I have realized that I have been in amongst an ever-growing population of the living dead; Vampires, a pejorative description for liberals who may appear to be regular people. Contrary to popular misconceptions about the mythical Vampires, they can stand the light of day but not direct sunlight because they will sparkle showing what they really are--it sounds just like Vampire Liberals who cannot withstand any media spotlight highlighting their true colors, otherwise people should fear them as well.

The unfortunate tragedy here is that many of these Vampire Liberals are unaware they are transformed into the walking dead. They have been unknowingly programmed due to repeated exposure from a barrage of left-wing mainstream media assaults at home while inundated with propaganda under the auspices of the federally funded liberal school curriculums. The left-wing agenda has literally permeated the whole societal fiber of the citizenry today in order to control the politics. 

So how does this trend reverse itself?  Sadly the quick answer is a very slow one as it has taken from 1960 to 2013, fifty years plus, to indoctrinate two generations into joining federal entitlement programs. A generation is defined as thirty years it takes for a person to be born and to have children of his own. Lyndon Johnson started "The Great Society" program to mimic the FDR "New Deal" program which then encompassed "The Civil Rights Act" and "Medicare Act". Lyndon Johnson, who was ambivalent to the Civil Rights Bill changed his tune when he realized he could put a lock on a whole voting block real cheap, for the next fifty years, it was then a political deal that he really relished.

Factoid: The 1964 election brought in many new liberals to Congress, making the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938 due to public sympathy after the JFK assassination and completing JFK's program to lower the upper tax bracket by 20% and middle income ones too which increased the GDP 10%. Even though the House and Senate both had 2/3 Democrat members, during the heated debates on the Civil Rights Act, the Southern Dixiecrat Democrat segregationists voted against it to block it. The party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party, voted in the legislation to enable it to pass. The Social Security Act of 1965 authorized Medicare. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act ended a long-standing political taboo by providing significant federal aid to public education, but it opened up ever since a pandora's box of intrusive Washington political agendas in all school levels through college.

Economist Thomas Sowell argues that Lyndon Johnson's "The Great Society" programs only contributed to the destruction of African American families, saying "the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, then began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.

The Johnson Administration submitted eighty-seven bills to Congress, and Johnson signed eighty-four, or 96%, arguably the most successful legislative agenda in U.S. Congressional history. 

Obama can't get anything passed - Does that say anything?