Forrest McDonald, part two

In my recent post on Dr. McDonald I commented on his teaching abilities. I must enter a few comments on his writings. We the People was earth shattering. For forty years historians had accepted unconditionally and taught what is known as the Beard Thesis on the writing of the Constitution, that the Founders drew up the document to protect their financial interests. Beard had delved into the financial records of the men at Philadelphia and found them wanting. McDonald took this to the next step. He researched the records of not just the men at Philadelphia, but those who attended the state ratification conventions. He demonstrated conclusively that the Beard thesis was not airtight. A brilliant and important book but not Dr. McDonald's best. Of all his writings, We the People is the most difficult read. The two books to follow are more indicative of a developed style. Whereas We the People can be considered an updated economic history of the Constitution, E Pluribus Unum and Novus Ordo Seclorum are the political and intellectual histories of that document respectively. Combined, the three books give one a thorough grounding in our how and why the Constitution was written. After finishing these, read A Constitutional History of the United States to see how the story proceeds over the next two centuries, if you can find it. To see how one of the key figures behind the Constitution implemented, read Alexander Hamilton: A Biography, still the best work on the first Secretary of the Treasury to date. The explanation of Hamilton's financial plan alone is worth the price.

The World Cup

Congratulations to Team USA for its thrilling 91st minute victory over Algeria to move on to the next round of the World Cup. Now for the rant. Am I the only one sick of the ESPN/ABC/ Disney hype over the World Cup? Hardly a mention on ESPNews of Wimbledon, Baseball (unless its the College World Series which they're covering) or any other sport. What's the matter? Did Tiger Woods, LeBron James, and Brett Favre (the three greatest athletes ever according to ESPN) go into hibernation? Commentators have been debating whether this victory is one of the greatest sports moments ever. Are you kidding me? Its not even the greatest American soccer moment ever! Two words: Brandi Chastain. Her World Cup clinching penalty kick was much more dramatic. Team USA (2010 version) was supposed to advance to the next round. They played in the weakest group and they had to pull out a last minute (literally) win over Algeria to do it. Algeria! This is a dramatic win but not a great win. Is it a great win if Texas beats Sewanee on a last second field goal? No. It's a great win if Sewanee beats Texas but that hasn't happened in a century. It comes down to hype: ESPN and all its related entities are going to hype this to draw in more viewers which means more advertising dollars. You want great? How about Wimbledon?
There is a second round match that started Tuesday that has yet to be completed. No, the weather is fine. An American and a Frenchman have been battling for over ten hours! The fifth set (due to Wimbledon rules no tiebreak) is tied at 59 games apiece. This is beyond great, this is epic. This is something that will be talked about beyond this weekend.

Forrest McDonald

I had only one class with Forrest McDonald in my college career but in that class I learned a lifetimes worth of lessons. The class covered the American Revolution and the New Nation, roughly 1763-1800. I do not believe there was a better teacher of this era. He would sit at the front of the classroom in a very relaxed manner, cigarette (unlit) in hand (he had quit smoking but still used the prop). He would go without notes for the entire class period. After having taught now for a few years myself, I find I am able to go without more than a minimal outline for a class period. There exists danger in this. First, getting sidetracked from the issue at hand. Students are there to learn the subject, perhaps find the relevance to today, and not some obscure point interesting to only three people with doctorates. Second, sometimes in the flow of talking, the facts get jumbled. Dr. McDonald never did this. The first danger he overcame by living, breathing and eating the subject at hand. The second danger was never a problem because Dr. McDonald had his own personal fact-checker. To call Ellen S. McDonald a fact-checker is not just. She kept him grounded, focused, and to use a political term "on message".
Theirs is a great partnership, an example of teamwork in action. Although she might deny it, it is my belief that she made him into a better writer and kept him focused on the task at hand. Without Ellen, we might not have as much of his insight to look back on in the numerous books and articles that he wrote. It is his writing that will be the subject of my next post.

Teachers I Have Known

Along the lines of my last post, I was thinking about those teachers who influenced me, the ones who taught me more than the subject at hand, who taught me to be a teacher and who are with me still.
The first is Dr. Robert Benson. He has recently retired after having taught Literature at Sewanee for thirty years. Although he was a student of the Agrarian Donald Davidson at Vanderbilt, that is not how he influenced me. The first class was English 202 in which we read The Divine Comedy. This was a class that met Tuesday Thursday Saturday at 8 in the morning(Yes we had Saturday classes back then). Now if you know anything about me anything at 8 in the morning is not my style. But I only missed the class once (the first one). It was Dr. Benson's passion for the subject that was so infectious. His knowledge of Medieval literature, history, and religion made this one of the best classes I ever had, and I still read whatever I can about Dante. I also had him for Arthurian literature in the summer of 1982 in the British Studies at Oxford program. This class met daily Monday through Friday for five weeks in one of the seminar rooms at St. John's College Oxford. We read Malory's Morte D'Artur in the original language. It was so intense that more than one of the students reported having dreams in that language. It also provided an opportunity to see that he had a wicked sense of humor. This was the summer after a movie about Arthur had come out Excalibur and students would be saying during class 'But it didn't happen that way in the movie!" This was mildly frustrating to Dr. Benson until one day I chimed in (sarcastically) "But that's not how it happened in Monty Python and the Holy Grail! He liked that one. In fact when I saw him several years later that was the first thing he said to me.
I learned from Dr. Benson to be passionate and committed about the subject and that the knowledge considered by some to be peripheral to the subject actually allows for a better comprehension of the subject.

Teaching

As one may have gathered from reading these entries, I am a teacher. I am not a professor nor an educator nor a learning process facilitator. I am a teacher. A teacher of history to be precise. Why teach? Certainly not for the financial reward. If you are a teacher simply for the money that is wrong on so many levels. I love History and have ever since I can remember. I love reading about it, talking about it, writing about it, the last of which should come as no surprise. In short, I am passionate about History in a way that I am about nothing else. I am blessed to live in a society where I can do that.
I almost wrote the last sentence as "blessed to live in a society that allows me to do that." What would be wrong with that statement? On the surface, perhaps nothing. But is a society "that allows me to do that" a free society? Cannot the same society that allows me to do that also, at its whim, prevent me from teaching? Here endeth the digression.
Teaching allows me to do what I love. The heart of teaching History is telling stories and I love doing that. Telling stories has been a major part of civilization since the days of Homer. There is also the joy in what I call "the light bulb moment" when a student pots A and B together and sees how it leads to D.
Of course teaching is not without its downside: paperwork. And now I must close as I have 45 tests to grade before morning.

The Student of 2010

So here is where I take a step towards being an old fogey. The college student of today is a literalist. Nuance in language is beyond him. If everything is not explained down to the last iota (that's letter for you youngsters) the student of today does not understand. When giving a test to a class you must explain on the test that they will respond in ink. It does not matter how many times you have told them in the previous week that it will be in ink or they will be penalized, there will be at least one student writing in pencil. One might think that for an hour test it is understood you do not leave to go to the bathroom. No, you have to explain this as well. You write on the test do five identifications. Sure enough someone does six. You have spent the whole semester in the same class, you have taken every test there. A student will contact you after the final saying he missed it because he thought it was in another room. For the uninitiated one might wonder where teachers get there laughs. I'll tell you a little secret: go to the faculty lounge and hear them swap tales of the most outlandish excuses they've heard. Our students today are very creative storytellers, but most of them want to go into business. Many could be good storytellers, writers of creative fiction, movie screenplays and so forth: the raw talent is there. On second thought, maybe business is a good place for them.

Something Different

Dallas is a religious city. In the fall we go to our churches up to four times on weekends. Friday night its high school football. Saturday is for college football. Sunday morning we go to the house of worship of our choice and pray the sermon doesn't run so long that we are late for the fourth service: the Cowboys. Dallas has been like this as long as I can remember. When Roger Staubach retired in 1980, all the local stations (except the PBS affiliate) carried it live. So it comes as no surprise that the lead story on the news tonight is the apparently imminent breakup of the Big 12 conference. Colorado is gone (were they ever in?). Nebraska is on the verge of leaving. And rumors are flying as to what UT, Tech, A&M, OU, and OSU are going to do. If they follow Colorado's lead and go to the Pac-10, I believe they will feel right at home. USC's latest shenanigans would have been right at home in the days of the Southwest Conference and the Big 8. The Jackie Sherrill era at A&M, the Mike Leach era at Tech (from which the dust has yet to settle), the Barry Switzer years at OU. All of these draw some comparison to USC's current troubles. Now we know why Pete Carroll left La-la land for the Pacific Northwest. He said in his statement today that he knew nothing of the charges against USC while he was coach. Sorry Pete, but your audition for the role of Sgt. Schultz in the remake of Hogan's Heroes is next week. If USC does have to vacate the title from their blowout of OU, what does that say about Vince Young and UT's win over virtually the same team the next year? Certainly one of the greatest games ever. The sad thing about all the commentary about USC? I heard one talking head compare in severity to that of SMU in the 80s. Isn't it time to leave SMU alone?

Another Reading Excursion

Several days ago I was at Half-Price Books (surprise). I came across a copy of Literature Lost by John M. Ellis. Its subtitle "Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities" indicates that it is about topics like Deconstruction and Political Correctness. Normally these are topics I will not be commenting upon, but what made this book fascinating were the comments scribbled in by a previous owner. It is obvious that this person did not agree with the author. Unfortunately, the quality of those comments validates one of Ellis's main contentions: that the PC crowd is not interested in rational debate but instead relies on ad hominem arguments and invective. Comments like " uh no" and "oh puleez" add so much to our discourse. Sadly, it is a reflection of a greater problem in our society. We can say something is wrong or disgree without having to give a valid reason. A reason implies a thought not a feeling.

Last Thoughts on New Deal, Raw Deal.

Beyond the economic arguments, Folsom's book is noteworthy in the analysis of FDR's effect on the office of the President. He argues that FDR's character changed the office.

"Before the Great Depression, the personal integrity of the president was a key ingredient in his ability to be nominated by a major party and elected by the voters. This did not mean that presidents were paragons of virtue....But Americans nonetheless expected presidents to be men of virtue, and Washington and others said that without that the American system would fail. The massive increase of the federal government into American life in the 1930s created new incentives for presidents. As FDR discovered, he could promise one thing in an election and deliver something quite different and get away with it as long as many constituencies received their subsidies. Constituents, who previously had little or no direct
economic interest in a presidential candidate (except for occasional tariffs and infrequent subsidies), now had many reasons to look at what presidential candidates were promising to do with the increased tax revenue flowing into the federal treasury. Would different groups receive more than they paid out? That question led many voters to look more closely at money promised than at the integrity of the presidential contenders." (270)

More Reflections on New Deal, Raw Deal

Folsom's work is particularly interesting in light of our current economic situation. There are many differences between the two events, but the response that has been undertaken in the last twenty months bears a marked resemblance to what some were calling for in 1932. Has it worked? Perhaps in the short term it slowed the bleeding, but are we through it yet?
The crux of Folsom's argument though is not the attempted solution to the Great Depression by FDR and "The Brain Trust". Rather it is how FDR changed the Presidency and the longterm effects of the New Deal. Folsom offers eleven examples. These are: minimum wage, Social Security, labor unions, farm subsidies, AFDC, tariffs, Federal Reserve, FDIC, SEC, taxes, and character.

What I am Reading

I have just finished New Deal or Raw Deal by Burton Folsom, Jr. If the title does not provide a clue as to where the author stands, look at the subtiitle: "How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America." Folsom could be called a Conservative Revisionist and the historical view of the New Deal is in need of some revising. He portrays FDR in a more negative light than Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. or William Leuchtenberg but does not go to the extreme of a John Flynn or Charles Beard. Folsom is a more enjoyable author to read than Thomas DiLorenzo (another Conservative Revisionist). DiLorenzo portrays his subjects (Lincoln, Hamilton) as evil. Folsom is more evenhanded. In his writing, Folsom brings in opposing viewpoints without automatically labelling them "Far Left".

Are We There Yet?

Last week I finished reading While America Aged by Roger Lowenstein. It is about the financial crisis that looms on the horizon: Pension plans. Lowenstein's three examples are GM, the New York City subway system, and the City of San Diego. Each entity put off to future generations the payment of large pensions. When the bill came due, each was driven to extreme measures to avoid bankruptcy. Do you think these are isolated incidents? Yesterday the Wall Street Journal carried an article regarding a bill proposed by Senator Casey (D-PA) to bailout pension funds managed by unions. It is only $8 billion, says the Senator. But the article states it is actually more like $160 billion! More debt for someone to pay. But it makes sense for the senator, because those pensioners are voters. Those questioning who is going to pay for this are fewer in number and less organized. The bigger question remains Social Security. Babyboomers start hitting 65 next year, and the money is not there. And what about all of the other pension plans out there?

First Post

How many initial postings are titled "First Post"? Why will this blog be different? Who in the world is DaveB? A little bit about myself is a good start. I live in Texas (the Dallas reference) and consider myself a student of the Nashville Agrarians who wrote I'll Take My Stand in the 1930s. This doesn't mean I agree with everything they wrote but it has been a good starting point for me. I will be posting my thoughts on the news of the day, books I am reading, and general speculation.