You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Uncategorized' category.
Alright, so we’ve only got one day more of class. While it seems unlikely that anyone will actaully take me up on this, I’ve decided to outline some of the events going on in and around Lawrence this summer that promise to be not only fun, but also informative.
First up, Eudora’s CPA picnic starts today. In it’s hundredth year, it’s a small town carnival with a ton of interesting vendors. Further, a statue of Eudora (the young girl who the city was named after) and her father was unveiled last year as one piece of a city wide beautification project.
From August 11-19, the annual Civil War on the Western Fronteir takes place. There wasn’t much information available about this event except that many of the events are free (that’s right, my fellow students, free!). Please call 785-841-4109 for more information.
http://www.lasr.net/travel/city.php?City_ID=KS0301011 provides a list of places to visit around Lawrence which I’ve copied and pasted below.
The point of this blogpost, in short, is to inspire students from Kansas to learn more about their state and their history even after class is over. For students outside of Kansas, I hope that you see Lawrence for more than just the commonly held perceptions about it.
Thanks for a great semester, and have a good break 
!
Lawrence Area Attractions
- Santa Fe Trail Ruts – (Baldwin City, Kansas)
- Haskell Indian Nations University – (Lawrence, Kansas)
- Kenneth Spencer Research Library – (Lawrence, Kansas)
- Clinton Lake Museum – (Lawrence, Kansas)
- Museum of Anthropology – (Lawrence, Kansas)
- Collins Library – (Baldwin City, Kansas)
- Palmyra Post Office – (Baldwin City, Kansas)
- Territorial Capitol Museum – Lane University – (Lecompton, Kansas)
- Signal Oak, Historical Marker – (Baldwin City, Kansas)
- Grove and West Parks – (Baldwin City
Watching the video this morning, the thing I was most surprised to learn was that Brown vs. Board really represented so many people and cases. The story I learned growing up made Linda seem like Cinderella wishing for the ball. When she finally got to go, we were happy and the story was finished. Likely because of the way in which our Americanized fairy tales typically play out, it never crossed my mind nor the minds of my classmates to ask what happened next. We were used to Happily Ever After… The End. Why should we ask? Linda was happy, right? Well, maybe…
The comments the woman made at the end of the video really made sense. Even now, this was the first time I can say that I honestly stopped and thought deeper about the Brown v. Board case. This was a hard decision for the plaintiffs to make. They exposed their children to anger and potential retaliation, but had faith that they would be able to protect them and that they were doing the right thing. Families lost their homes, were threatened with their lives. I think as a child I assumed that as integration became more common and then faced enforcement it was a big change that people adjusted to relatively quickly after it was completed. This, however, could not have been the case.
Even today’s portrayals (think movies such as Remember the Titans) fail to portray the tension and frustration completely. In this movie, all the students have to deal with is the new presence of racially different students. What it doesn’t mention is that many black students and white students were separated from their friends and sent to new schools. All of the sudden, they were forced to make new friends, get used to new teachers, and compete for positions in clubs, organizations, and on teams that they had likely taken for granted before. While I would never say that all of these issues should have been reason enough to halt integration before it started, I do think it’s important to remember and respect the sacrifices that these students of all races made, especially in light of the excessively positive spin it’s usually given in the classroom. As an example, I included a link to an elementary classroom pack on the Brown v. Board case. Included are a short story, discussion questions, and a set of worksheets related to the material. www.abanet.org/publiced/lawday/schools/lessons/docs/k6kansas.doc
Still thinking about how it must have felt for all of these students to make such large adjustments, I began to think that the idea seemed quite similar to the consolidation of rural districts that has been such a trend in the country during the last ten or fifteen years. As budgets get tighter and tighter, administrators and officials have begun to look for ways to help cut the costs of education. Individuals from urban areas have long argued that the consolidation of smaller schools would allow for greater opportunities, better supplies, and cheaper operation than the smaller, local schools that are currently in place.
There are plenty of others who argue against such consolidations. Growing evidence suggests that smaller learning environments do not harming the learning opportunities of students. Furthermore, the local governance allows for local parents and teachers to address local problems instead of trying to focus on a wider range of more diverse issues occurring over a much larger population of students. Further, in some instances, the case for consolidation seems to come more from its commonality than from evidence and information pertaining to specific schools and communities. The harm/benefit ratio will vary from one community to another, and there are likely many communities which will benefit greatly from having taken these measures, but the success of one cannot guarantee the success of another. For more information on the pros and cons on consolidation, please refer to http://www.newrules.org/journal/nrsum00schools.htm
Here is a link to an interview posted by a public library. http://skyways.lib.ks.us/orgs/fordco/dustbowl/irenethompson.html The woman being interviewed is discussing her childhood during the dustbowl years. I was really surprised by everything that she said was occurring during this time frame. It’s hard to think that some houses at this time might have still been little shacks on the prairie while other homes were relatively modern. The interviewee talks about how her parents would make popcorn and home-made fudge as a way to entertain the smaller children during dust storms, as it was such a scary situation for them. She also discusses how her family and the families around her would purchase sacks of flour, picking out the prettiest material so that it could later be cut and sewn into a dress. I guess, for me at least, it was a shock to think about cocoa powder or chocolate being available to make fudge, but still having only a couple of dresses to wear, and making the new ones from flour sacks! Overall, the interview is actually rather lengthy. I do think it would be of interest to read it in its entirety if and when you have a moment. However, if you’re short on time you might just try to search for key words as the conversation really does cover nearly every topic mentioned in class about the dustbowl and plenty more.
Her discussions about conservation and farming practices also caught my attention. It seemed that for those that lived through those times, it’s a fairly obvious fact that these actions helped compound the situation. As I was thinking about that, I began to think about a comment made in class today about the diminishing levels within the water tables. While drought and water supply has been a concern for a great many years, the following link, http://skyways.lib.ks.us/orgs/fordco/dustbowl/irenethompson.html will take you to the materials for an insurance meeting held in Salina in 2007. I was blown away thinking that farming and ranching were still such a hot topic in current agricultural events and discussion. Perhaps this can serve as some form of re-assurance that there is something that we can do to minimize our affect on the land as well as minimizing the impact endured by natural cycles of rain and drought. These notes, however, were a bit shocking.
The topics seemed so similar to what we were discussing in class these last few days about the dust storms that happened 80 years ago. I know that in terms of the life of the planet, that’s hardly any time at all. And, it would be rather unreasonable to expect such a big problem to be fixed in such a short amount of time. For us right here today, however, it seems discouraging to know we’re still trying to make the same changes we were trying to make that long ago. As one girl mentioned in class, many of us are directly associated with the land itself. Just as we have spilled our sweat and blood on those grounds, it seems to also run through our veins. The thought of something so dear to me suffering from something so preventable breaks my heart.
So what’s being done to prevent a recurrence of these tragic events? Well, the first thing that came to my mind (especially with the water table comment still so fresh within it) was the proposal of creating injection wells near the Wichita area to inject river water into the Equus Beds Aquifer. I’ve provided the link to the project website, so that you may peruse it at your leisure should you so desire. http://ks.water.usgs.gov/Kansas/studies/equus/ Even these efforts though, have been met with disapproval and suspicion. A variety of wells have been installed in this area. Water is being collected from the Arkansas Rivers and maneuvered into the recharge wells. After some purification, the water is being directly injected into the Equus beds. There is no way to know, however, exactly how pure the water is.
For citizens within the city limits this may be no big deal. Their water is run through the city’s purification system before reaching their faucets anyway. However, for many rural residents who obtain their water supply directly from private wells with no additional purification, this action poses potential risks to their personal health as well as the health of their crops and livestock. So, the question becomes, is any action better than none? Or have we been too quick to forget that it was our intentional manipulation of nature that led to these predicaments to begin with? While we may be solving a problem that we ourselves created, who’s to say that meddling with rivers and natural water reserves doesn’t pose many unseen risks? It was a mistake to assume that we could do whatever we so chose to the land with no negative consequences. While it is a good and right thing to want to make up for our past mistakes, our mission now needs to be ensuring that our solutions are not more problems in disguise.
So we’ve all been learning about the crazy amount of historical information that is associated with Kansas. And, living in Lawrence, we probably have a pretty good idea of the amazing events occurring here. Contrail’s Raid, the Underground Railroad, Native American Heritage… we’re even noted in more recent times to be the town in which the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was published for the very first time (in the midst of controversy, as is only fitting for Kansas happenings.) All of that in mind, I thought I’d share some information about a little town just northwest of Lawrence.
Lecompton, as we discussed in class, was the first capital of the Kansas Territory when it was expected that Kansas would enter the Union as a slave state. There are a number of sites here that are still of interest. Among them are the first Democratic headquarters in Kansas, the Territorial Capital building, Rowena Hotel, a replica of Fort Titus, and Lane University.
This brings me to my particular point of interest, at least as it pertains to this blog. As the town of Lecompton was expected to become a thriving capital, land and money were donated to build the capital building. The hotel, churches, and the capital building located on the main street in town encouraged all who saw them to believe that they were part of history in the making, and the foundations of a new capital building promised a bright future. Unfortunately, the infamy of the territorial capital has long since outlived its glory.
After the Lecompton Constitution was defeated in Congress in favor of the Topeka Constitution, building on the new capital building stopped. For awhile building materials laid out under the open sky. The land was eventually donated to land university, and the building was completed and dedicated in 1882. It was named after James Lane, a Kansas Senator who had ironically tried to destroy the town shortly after the ratification of Kansas’ constitution. James was intended to endow the University, but was prevented from doing so by his suicide in 1866. (On a side note: Dwight D. Eisenhower’s parents met at the University and were married in Lecompton. Also, James Lane is buried in Oak Hill Cemetary right here in Lawrence.)
Most of these buildings have disappeared or at least fallen out of use and into disrepair. The Capital building recently was nominated as a finalist in the 8 Wonders of Kansas competition, but ultimately was not chosen. Along with Lane University it has been preserved and is now a museum and an historical landmark.
So where am I going with all of this? Lecompton is a very cool little town. And all of you have the opportunity to explore its history this weekend. Lecompton Territorial days begin Friday night and end late on Saturday. There is a great little small town carnival with some rides and food. More to our interest, however, there will also be a ton of demonstrations, speeches, etc. about life in the territories, Lecompton’s contribution to American history, and James Lane. Please check your e-mail for more information!
The information above was compiled from the following cites as well as the notes from class:
I was surfing the web today trying to think of something amazing to blog about, and remembered hearing in a class last semester that the native population tends to have the highest suicide rate in the nation. I intended to write about the psychological services available to Native Americans, attempting to touch on how/why we in the psychological community continue to fall so short of providing this ethinic/racial group with successful help, but I ran accross this quiz and thought it would prove my point more thoroughly and concisely.
Please do take a moment and take the quiz at http://www.understandingprejudice.org/nativeiq/. If you just answer the questions it will only take a moment, but each one provides an explination of the answer, and I think you’ll find yourself caught up in it.
Personally I found most all of the information it provided to be shocking and insightful. While we all learn about the atrocities committed against the natives upon our ancestors’ arrival here, we rarely stop and think about the enormity of these actions. Who among us would have really stopped and compared the slaughter of Native Americans to the holocaust? But still, those comparisons exist. It seems almost ironic now to say that we studied about Indians in school. Did we really? Or was our glossed over version of history, like Chief Whahoo, just a patronizing nod towards a group of people whose suffering is still largely ignored?
While we devote special attention to most other ethnic groups in our attempts to make things “fair and equal” I’m not sure that we could honestly say the same about the Natives. Perhaps this stems from their historical narrative. While so many other minorities’ ancestors found their key to survival being in gradual assimilation, Natives were noted for their desire to remain atonomous and still today retain citizenship of their own Nations, separate rights and liberties, reservations, etc.
Because it is harder to understand what you don’t know (and becuase human beings haven’t traditionally been very good getting to know other cultures) we’ve historically done a poor job of learning to relate to an individual or group who’s main desire is to retain their separate culture. We know that the ability to feel sympathy towards an individual is increased when we feel we can relate to that person. However, in a time in which most Native Americans live and work alongside us rather than living apart on a reservation, we still find ourselves unable to relate to this population, and hence unable to help thwart the mental health cotastrophe they’re facing.
One can’t help but wonder if Satanta didn’t know what he was talking about when he warned that his people would surely “grow pale and die” if forced to live within the confines of European civilization…
Acknowledgements: www.understandingprejudice.org for the contribution of the quiz linked above, and Tuesday’s slideshow for the information, context, and partial Santana quote.
Given the definition(s) provided for us within the question itself and having come from the free dictionary.com, I think the answer to this question is a definite yes. While today we consider those individuals of Native American descent to be fellow citizens, we still grant these peoples membership to their own Indian Nations as well. At the time that the Indian removal was occurring, these groups were considered to be separate nations altogether as opposed to being separate peoples with one common citizenry. That said, the decision to move them away from their current homes and into the unsettled and less desired regions of the western territories was a nationalistic act.
First, this action was committed with the desire to prevent exposure to another culture that was, at the time, considered to be a lesser culture. It also demonstrates the belief that the new American nation would fare better making decisions completely autonomously, rather than incorporating the ideas and viewpoints of another nation into this process. While today we tend to think of another nation as being another country with clear borders and documented governmental rule, we mustn’t forget that the Indian nations were then just as much a separate nation as we would think of Germany or China being today.
While the conclusion reached might vary according to the exact definition of nationality used, given the above information, it seems that the case can be made quite clear for the nationalistic intent that drove the decisions made in passing and implementing Indian Removal legislature.
