History Blogs

One of my goals for my second year of blogging is to use this technology for learning, sharing, and writing about history.  I recently learned from an article in the History New Network about the Cliopatria Awards.  For the past three years, these awards have been given to recognize excellence in various aspects of history blogging.

I’ve gone through the list and decided to add the following blogs to my feedreader:

• Digital History Hacks
• Old is the New New
• Easily Distracted
• Religion in American History
• Steamboats are Ruining Everything
• Axis of Evel Knievel
• Participant Historian

Another unique history blog I learned about via Found History, and is called Ten Years Ago.  Every day it features an historic event that happened on that date illustrated by hand in a moleskin day planner.  That’s just too clever to ignore.

Hopefully, reading these blogs will help inform the history initiative of Panorama of the Mountains.  And if not, I’ve given you some good alternate reading suggestions.

Political Links of the Day for 18 January 2008

I’m paying more attention the primary elections this year than I have in the past. I have some thoughts on the presidential election that I’m going to compile into a post eventually, but in the meantime, here are some links to articles of interest related to the electoral process and political issues:

• FactCheck provides an interesting analysis on how The winner-take-all system in the U.S. favors two stable parties. While I see this as a rational toward reforming the electoral process to allow greater participation in our democracy, Nick Baumann sees it as a reason to just give up on third parties entirely: Forward This to Every Naderite and Bloomberg(ite? ian?) You Know (Mother Jones, 1/10/08).
• Two articles contest the media emphasis on dramatizing the “wins” and “comebacks” in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary without noting how close the actual vote is and how the number of delegates pledged to the major candidates are almost equal! Now that’s what I call a Christmas bonus (FairVote.org, 1/9/08) and More Fuzzy Math: Why the Primaries Mean Whatever We Want Them to Mean by Joseph Lane (BritannicaBlog, 1/10/08). Here’s a scorecard from CNN to keep track of the actual delegates pledged to the candidates.
• Experience Does Not Mean Everything by Andrew Greeley (Albany Times Union, 1/11/08) – some of the most experienced candidates have made the least successful presidents while those with little experience have been among the best, including the greatest US President ever: Abraham Lincoln.
• Stooge or hypocrite? asks Steve Bogner (Catholicism, holiness or spirituality, 1/12/08) , a question every Catholic politician must make when deciding between favoring the Vatican viewpoint or opposing it. Very well written and timely post!
• Ironic Sans lists The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Propagandists (1/14/08) and how they’re being demonstrated by our presidential candidates.
• FactCheck.org again with What was known to U.S. intelligence and Congress about WMDs in Iraq before the vote to go to war? Worth reading especially considering that many of the candidates were members of Congress who approved the war without apparently reading all the documentation.
• Finally, a good column by Joan Chittister on racism and sexism in the election: What about the ones who are both sexist and racist? (National Catholic Reporter, 1/18/08).

EDIT on 1/20/08:  I just have to add this video in here, “Changes”: