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First of all "Right On!" šŸ‘

I've been researching Diphtheria mortality in the US around the year 1900 for a book project. Not much data from the US but the UK data are there for death before age 5, all causes. I could find nothing more specific.

My medical family started with Dr. Willam A. Rohlf who graduated in 1891 from the original med school in Iowa City. He wrote a book late in life about his experiences. I put it up on the web in the 1990s.

He goes into much detail about diphtheria, the (then) new antitoxin, and treating the disease with it.

FYI to all who might be interested...

gmd.rathe.org/chapt10.html

gmd.rathe.org/chapt14.html

gmd.rathe.org/chapt15.html

It is a TERRIBLE disease!! And it is still out there in the world...

#Diphtheria #Vaccination #Antitoxin #History #Iowa


#OnThisDay, 14 Nov 1960, Ruby Bridges goes to school.

She is the first African-American child to attend the all-white William Frantz school in Louisiana, USA. It is a symbolic act, breaking the segregation of education in the state.

Her 2022 autobiographical picture book, I Am Ruby Bridges, is in Scholasticā€™s ā€˜diverseā€™ collection, meaning school librarians can opt out of including them in school book fairs.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons


A few excerpts here from a beautifully written, deeply insightful, and ultimately inspiring essay by Chris Hedgesā€¦
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In the end, the election was about despair.

Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.

Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay.

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumpeted her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13% approval rating.

The smug, self-righteous ā€œmoralā€ crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic, and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy.

The American dream has become an American nightmare.
___________________________________

FULL ESSAY āž”ļø chrishedges.substack.com/p/theā€¦

#USA #Politics #History #Economics #Israel #Gaza


šŸ§µ 3/3

Hereā€™s Barack Obama, speaking in 2012...
______________________________________

ā€œMy administration has approved dozens of new oil and gas pipelines over the last three years. And as long as Iā€™m President, weā€™re going to keep on encouraging oil development and infrastructure.

ā€œUnder my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. Over the last three years, Iā€™ve directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states.

ā€œWeā€™re opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. Weā€™ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. Weā€™ve added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some.ā€
_____________________________________

āž”ļø obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/tā€¦

As I said above, when it comes to our climate and environment, we can't blame either the Democrats or the Republicans. We have to blame both. We have to blame capitalism.

#Politics #History #Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual


šŸ§µ 2/3

From the Washington Postā€¦
_____________________________

The Biden administration has now outpaced the Trump administration in approving permits for drilling on public lands, and the United States is producing more oil than any country ever has. The unplanned fossil fuel boom reflects an uncomfortable truth for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris: It is difficult for any president to stop the spigot of U.S. oil production, a leading driver of both the economy and climate change.

ā€œIf you were to show someone who came from Mars the line of U.S. oil and gas production over the last 15 years, they probably would not be able to tell whether a Republican or Democrat was in the White House,ā€ said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
_____________________________

āž”ļø archive.ph/VnlWF

#Politics #History #Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual


Itā€™s obvious that a second Trump administration will be worse in almost every conceivable way from what a Harris administration might have been.

But let's not fool ourselves into believing that a Harris victory would have been *good* for our climate and environment. We've been going in the wrong direction for at least 20 years under Presidents from both parties ā€” and there's no reason to think that Kamala Harris would have charted a different course.

SEE āž”ļø archive.ph/VnlWF

When it comes to our climate and environment, we can't blame either the Democrats or the Republicans. We have to blame both. We have to blame capitalism.

šŸ§µ 1/3

#Politics #History #Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual


Will people stop preemptively giving in to fascism???

The head archivist at the National Archives reportedly ordered the removal of references to Martin Luther King Jr., the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the governmentā€™s displacement of Indigenous tribes, union organizers, birth control, and more, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Shogan and her advisors have reportedly raised concerns that upcoming exhibits and educational displays might anger Republican lawmakers who control the agency's budget or a potential Donald Trump administration.
#USPol #History #Fascism

msn.com/en-us/news/us/america-ā€¦


In the six years between 2016 and 2021, according to data published in the most recent Circularity Gap Report, the global economy consumed 582 billion tonnes of materials ā€” nearly as much as the 740 billion consumed in the *entire* 20th century.

REPORT āž”ļø circularity-gap.world/2024

Thatā€™s very bad! But I wonder, do you think the world has been doing better since 2021? šŸ¤”

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that global consumption has NOT declined during the past three years. In fact, the level almost certainly has increased. But letā€™s just say it has remained steady.

If thatā€™s true, it means another three years of the world annually consuming ~97 billion tonnes of materials. So the total over the past nine years is now at least 873 billion tonnes ā€” or about 18% MORE than all the materials consumed in the 20th century!

Driven by capitalismā€™s incessant demand for profits at any cost, we are consuming ourselves to death. But who cares about that? As long as billionaires keep getting richer, thatā€™s all that matters, right?

Business As Usual must go on.

#History #Economics #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual


"The museum has removed references to Martin Luther King Jr., Japanese internment, Native Americans, union organizers, and birth control, because presenting American history honestly would make Republicans upset. "

Do not yield in advance. This is a bow to the far-right as much as the block on the endorsement of Harris in the Washington Post was. Ironically this piece comes from the same paper.

currentaffairs.org/news/its-goā€¦

#whitewashing #fascism #farright #history


Behind #Christian Nationalismā€™s Influence on the 2024 #Election
ā€”

The Christian right has become an increasingly powerful force in American #politics at every level, from school boards to the presidency. Its roots trace back decades.

propub.li/4flqBl6

#News #USPolitics #History #ChristianNationalism #Rightwing #Abortion #Trump #Project2025 #HeritageFoundation #Jan6


An important #history fact:

The American Revolution wasnā€™t just fought by white Protestants. Jewish patriots, Muslims, Catholics and other religious minorities played key roles in the fight for independence.

And they were not fighting to establish a Christian nation.
theconversation.com/during-theā€¦
#history #histodons @histodons


Captain Henry Ellis is a fascinating character of 18th-century England. During a voyage, which took place in 1746-1747, he gathered scientific data about the Gulf Stream and experimented to measure water temperature at different depths.

#climate #history #AMOC

āž”ļø open.substack.com/pub/theplaneā€¦


@Npars01
> Does #history have patterns or merely circumstances and unique contingencies? Certainly, the Germany of 1932 was a place unto itself. The truth, that some cycles may recur but inexactly, is best captured in that fine aphorism ā€œHistory does not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes.ā€ Appropriately, no historian is exactly sure who said this: widely credited to #MarkTwain, it was more likely first said long after his death.

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