This Day in History 8/23/12

          On this day in 1814, first lady Dolley Madison saves a portrait of George Washington from being looted by British troops during the war of 1812.
          According to the White House Historical Society and Dolley's personal letters, President James Madison left the White House on August 22 to meet with his generals on the battlefield, as British troops threatened to enter the capitol. Before leaving, he asked his wife Dolley if she had the "courage or firmness" to wait for his intended return the next day. He asked her to gather important state papers and be prepared to abandon the White House at any moment. The next day, Dolley and a few servants scanned the horizon with spyglasses waiting for either Madison or the British army to show up. As British troops gathered in the distance, Dolley decided to abandon the couple's personal belongings and save the full-length portrait of former president and national icon George Washington from desecration by vengeful British soldiers, many of whom would have rejoiced in humiliating England's former colonists.
          Dolley wrote to her sister on the night of August 23 that a friend who came to help her escape was exasperated at her insistence on saving the portrait. Since the painting was screwed to the wall she ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas pulled out and rolled up. Two unidentified "gentlemen from New York" hustled it away for safe-keeping. (Unbeknownst to Dolley, the portrait was actually a copy of Gilbert Stuart's original). The task complete, Dolley wrote "and now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take." Dolley left the White House and found her husband at their predetermined meeting place in the middle of a thunderstorm.
          The next night, August 24, British troops enjoyed feasting on White House food using the president's silverware and china before burning the building. Although they were able to return to Washington only three days later when British troops moved on, the Madisons were not again able to take up residence in the White House and lived out the rest of his term in the city's Octagon House. It was not until 1817 that newly elected President James Monroe moved back into the reconstructed building.

This Day in History 8/22/12

          On this day in 1938, Hollywood’s most famous dancing duo, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, are featured on the cover of Life magazine, offering readers a graceful vision at a time when America is in the grips of the Great Depression.
          Born Frederick Austerlitz on May 10, 1899, in Omaha, Nebraska, Astaire began touring the vaudeville circuit with his sister and dancing partner, Adele, in early childhood. By 1917, the siblings were performing in New York and London. After Adele married an English lord, Astaire began working in films, starting with a small role in Dancing Lady (1933). In his second film, Flying Down to Rio (1933), he was paired with Ginger Rogers, who had been born Virginia Katherine McMath on July 16, 1911, in Missouri. As a teenager, Rogers had been a champion Charleston dancer and had also toured on the vaudeville circuit. In 1930, she made a splash on Broadway in George and Ira Gershwin’s musical Girl Crazy.
          Astaire and Rogers turned out to be a perfect match on the dance floor, and audiences flocked to see their dazzling, complex routines in the 10 movie musicals they made together, including The Gay Divorcee (1933), Top Hat (1935), Swing Time (1936) and Shall We Dance? (1937). The actress Katherine Hepburn once famously said of the couple: “He gives her class, and she gives him sex.” The pair’s final film together was 1949’s The Barkleys of Broadway.
          Although best known for her partnership with Astaire, Rogers made some 70 films during her career and won a Best Actress Academy Award for Kitty Foyle (1940). A savvy businesswoman, she invested her earnings wisely and became one of Hollywood’s wealthiest actresses. Married and divorced five times, Rogers had no children and continued to perform for most of her life, scoring triumphs on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! in 1965 and in London with Mame in 1969. Rogers died on April 25, 1995, at the age of 83.
          After his partnership with Rogers in the 1930s, the debonair Astaire continued dancing onscreen with other partners, including Paulette Goddard, Rita Hayworth and Lucille Bremer. He went on to make such films as 1957’s Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn, and 1974’s The Towering Inferno, which co-starred Steve McQueen and Paul Newman; his performance in the latter film earned Astaire his only Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. Astaire died at age 88 on June 22, 1987.

This Day in History 8/21/12

          The modern United States receives its crowning star when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting Hawaii into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.
          The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century. In the early 18th century, American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands' sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii and by the mid 19th century had become well established. American missionaries and planters brought about great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious life. In 1840, a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority.
          In 1893, a group of American expatriates and sugar planters supported by a division of U.S. Marines deposed Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of Hawaii. One year later, the Republic of Hawaii was established as a U.S. protectorate with Hawaiian-born Sanford B. Dole as president. Many in Congress opposed the formal annexation of Hawaii, and it was not until 1898, following the use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the Spanish-American War, that Hawaii's strategic importance became evident and formal annexation was approved. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory. During World War II, Hawaii became firmly ensconced in the American national identity following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
          In March 1959, the U.S. government approved statehood for Hawaii, and in June the Hawaiian people voted by a wide majority to accept admittance into the United States. Two months later, Hawaii officially became the 50th state

This Day in History 8/20/12

          Lyle and Erik Menendez shoot their parents, Jose and Kitty, to death in the den of the family's Beverly Hills, California, home. They then drove up to Mulholland Drive, where they dumped their shotguns before continuing to a local movie theater to buy tickets as an alibi. When the pair returned home, Lyle called 911 and cried, "Somebody killed my parents!" The Menendez murders became a national sensation when the new television network, Court TV, broadcast the trial in 1993.
          Although the Menendez brothers were not immediately suspected, Erik couldn't take the guilt and confessed his involvement to his psychotherapist, Dr. L. Jerome Oziel. Ignoring his own ethical responsibilities, Dr. Oziel taped the sessions with his new patient in an apparent attempt to impress his mistress. But the woman ended up going to the police with her information and, in March 1990, Lyle, 22, and Erik, 19, were arrested.
          For the next three years, a legal battle was fought over the admissibility of Dr. Oziel's tapes. Finally, the California Supreme Court ruled that the tapes could be played. When the trial began in the summer of 1993, the Menendez brothers put on a spirited defense. In compelling testimony lasting over a month, they emotionally described years of sexual abuse by Jose and Kitty Menendez. They insisted that they had shot their parents in self-defense because they believed that Jose would kill them rather than have the abuse be exposed.
          The first two juries (one for each brother) deadlocked, and a mistrial had to be called. For the most part, the lack of a conviction was considered a travesty. At the retrial, which began in October 1995, the judge was much more restrictive in allowing the defense attorneys to focus on the alleged sexual abuse. In March 1996, both Lyle and Erik were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
          Lyle Menendez married his pen-pal girlfriend, Anna Eriksson, in a telephone conference call from jail on July 2, 1996, the day he was sentenced, but the marriage didn't last; Eriksson found out that Menendez began corresponding with another woman. A few years later, Erik married Tammi Ruth Saccoman.

This Day in History 8/17/12

          The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 years of struggle by woman suffragists. Its two sections read simply: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" and "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
          America's woman suffrage movement was founded in the mid 19th century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements. In July 1848, 200 woman suffragists, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss women's rights. After approving measures asserting the right of women to educational and employment opportunities, they passed a resolution that declared "it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." For proclaiming a woman's right to vote, the Seneca Falls Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women's rights withdrew their support. However, the resolution marked the beginning of the woman suffrage movement in America.
          The first national women's rights convention was held in 1850 and then repeated annually, providing an important focus for the growing woman suffrage movement. In the Reconstruction era, the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted, granting African American men the right to vote, but Congress declined to expand enfranchisement into the sphere of gender. In 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to push for a woman suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Another organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, was formed in the same year to work through the state legislatures. In 1890, these two groups were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. That year, Wyoming became the first state to grant women the right to vote.
          By the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in American society was changing drastically: Women were working more, receiving a better education, bearing fewer children, and three more states (Colorado, Utah, and Idaho) had yielded to the demand for female enfranchisement. In 1916, the National Woman's Party (formed in 1913 at the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage) decided to adopt a more radical approach to woman suffrage. Instead of questionnaires and lobbying, its members picketed the White House, marched, and staged acts of civil disobedience.
          In 1917, America entered World War I, and women aided the war effort in various capacities, which helped to break down most of the remaining opposition to woman suffrage. By 1918, women had acquired equal suffrage with men in 15 states, and both the Democratic and Republican parties openly endorsed female enfranchisement.
          In January 1918, the woman suffrage amendment passed the House of Representatives with the necessary two-thirds majority vote. In June 1919, it was approved by the Senate sent to the states for ratification. Campaigns were waged by suffragists around the country to secure ratification, and on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment. On August 26, it was formally adopted into the Constitution by proclamation of Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.

 

Chicago’s Shootings Didn’t Happen In a Movie Theater, But It’s Still the World’s Deadliest City

Aug 14, 2012 4:56 PM
By: Cord Jefferson
          Two months before alleged killer James Holmes stormed a Colorado movie theater, murdering 12 and injuring dozens more, police and politicians in a different place were trying to squelch the tremors from their own mass killing. It was in Chicago, over Memorial Day weekend, when police responded to more than 40 shooting victims in about 72 hours. Ten of those victims were shot dead, including four teenage children. Alas, despite the fact that more people died that weekend than in both the August 5 Sikh killings and yesterday's College Station shootings combined, there will be no flags at half-staff for those 10 Chicagoans. It's likely you didn't even know those people were dead, just like most of your friends and family. In a summer of now three much-lamented shootings with multiple victims, Chicago's murdered are the forgotten ones.

          Because people in the media like to compare and contrast things in order to add perspective, there are now dozens of ways to look at Chicago's murder rate: In May, it was up 49 percent from last year. For a time, more Chicagoans were getting killed than soldiers in Afghanistan, a literal war zone. It's worse than New York, a city three times its size. And trumping them all: It's the worst murder rate out of every so-called "Alpha" city in the entire world, a grouping that includes even historically rough locales like Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Los Angeles, and New York.

          Some people, especially the police, like to blame the violence on gangs, but Berkley law professor Franklin Zimring told the Daily Beast last month that saying Chicago violence is mostly gang-related is "both helpful and extremely mysterious." "Because there is no sense that Chicago has a gang profile which is vastly different from that of Los Angeles, and yet [the murder rate in] Los Angeles has continued [to be] low," he said.

          I emailed Chicago Tribune crime reporter Peter Nickeas to ask him how the lack of attention given to Chicago's violence makes him feel. President Obama, I pointed out, had visited Aurora and made calls to the Oak Creek temple members just after the respective shootings. But his last visit to Chicago, on a weekend in which seven people were killed and 35 wounded by gun violence, was for a wedding and a round of golf. Here's what Nickeas wrote:

          I love my job. It matters. I don't see any other reporters, most nights, at the crime scenes I visit. I don't see anyone else standing next to crying family members or cops who are desensitized to it because it happens every shift, like clock work, across the city. Someone has to put these shootings into context, and make people realize that the nightly stories are more than box scores, even if we can't get out to a crime scene to illustrate it that night.
          Everytime someone gets shot, someone in the neighborhood has to hear the gunfire, kids in the neighborhood see the police and hear the screaming relatives, they have to find out what happens as word trickles out into the community. So, that needs to be covered. I do what I can, and I'm proud of my organization's coverage. My editors give me wide leeway to go out and chase these stories overnight and I'm thankful for that.
          Overall, the general lack of media coverage of Chicago violence bothers me. I wish more people paid attention. I feel like people just say "oh well, that's Chicago," with its 450 or so homicides a year. No other big city in the country would tolerate this. New York City is three times the size and is on pace for about 400 homicides this year. Chicago is looking at a real possibility of passing 500, if trends in both cities hold.
          Regarding the presidential visit - I don't know why there's no visit. You'd have to ask his PR shop, I can't speak for him. I would note that if he visited after every weekend where 30+ people were shot, he'd be here every summer weekend, it seems.
          I absolutely am not comparing the shootings in Aurora or Milwaukee recently to Chicago violence - they are two totally different things. I think part of the media coverage in those two places is that it was unexpected, it's a crazy outburst of violence by a single offender targeting people who have no reason to be targeted.
          I think people here are numb to it. There are parts of the city where it's normal to hear gunfire. I've heard gunfire standing next to crime scenes and waited for someone in the neighborhood to call it in, only to hear silence on my portable scanner. I've listened to the scanner and heard cops calling in gunfire while they're guarding a crime scene from earlier in the night, only to hear the dispatchers keep saying "no tickets yet," (which means nobody's called 911 to report shots fired calls).
          The reality is, Chicago was clocking 800+ murders 10 years ago and was down to about 440 last year, might be more than that this year (we're up about 30% year over year at this point, though the Superintendent has noted, the rate of the increase is decreasing. We were up 60% at one point this spring. I think we're at 320 or 330 this year compared to maybe 250 or 260 last year). A lot of the shootings here are gang related, and a lot of times the people shot are mutual combatants. It's a matter of people settling scores with each other, often times, and not someone walking into a random crowded place and shooting.
          So what I try to do is show that the violence ripples out, even when it's confined to gang members and the people shooting hit only their targets. Nobody lives in a vacuum. The only thing we can do is keep visiting crime scenes, talking to families, talking to neighbors, talking to cops, and piecing together stories that show what the violence does to the city.

          For his part, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has responded to the killings with his unique brand of tough love, saying that he doesn't really care if gang members kill each other, just as long as they do it away from children and other innocents. "Take your stuff away to the alley," he told a press conference in early July. "Don't touch the children of the city of Chicago. Don't get near them." In Emanuel's words is the tacit understanding that it's not kids committing these crimes—at least not very small ones. It's young men committing these crimes, and the vast majority of those young men are black (though blacks make up only 33 percent of Chicago's population, they're 78 percent of the murder victims).

          Wherever and why-ever and whomever is doing these shootings, it's been interesting to juxtapose them with the recent spate of mass killings that has America rapt. Chicago is on track to have 504 homicide victims by year's end, or about twenty-five times more than the casualties in the Aurora, Oak Creek, and College Station shootings combined.

          To be sure, there is a problem of false equivalency here in that tragedy befalling people in one fell swoop—as it did in Aurora and Oak Creek—is jarring in a way that a consistent barrage of little tragedies is not. It's the difference between a home being flooded and a home suffering a steady leak in the ceiling. But that doesn't explain away why we as a nation care less when it's Chicagoans dying in their neighborhoods instead of Batman fans in a movie theater.

          New pieces in the New Yorker and the New York Observer have pointed out the differences in how people have treated the Aurora shooting versus the Sikh temple shooting. The Observer's Hunter Walker noted that some Oak Creek Sikhs are disappointed Obama hasn't yet paid them a visit. In the New Yorker, political science professor Naunihal Singh wrote, "Unlike Aurora, which prompted nationwide mourning, Oak Creek has had such a limited impact that a number of people walking by the New York City vigil for the dead on Wednesday were confused, some never having heard of the killings in the first place."

          When a hospital is overwhelmed with people in need of care, they perform triage to decide which patients to see first. Those hemorrhaging blood and on the verge of death take precedent, and those with headaches are told to wait. Society institutes triage, too, though it's mostly unspoken. Tragedies like the Aurora shooting get months and years of press, and Americans of all stripes cry together over the preciousness and loss of life. After that, tragedies like the Sikh shooting and the College Station shooting get political statements, and maybe some people wonder what went wrong. But as Naunihal Singh lamented, there simply isn't the same level of interest as there is other times, perhaps because the victims were less in number or of an esoteric religion. Then, after all of those, comes Chicago, and the 100 or so people mowed down by gunfire there every few months.

          Maybe if everyone killed annually by guns in Chicago was executed at the same time on Wrigley Field, the world might decide to pay attention. Life, for whatever reason, seems to be valued more when a lot of it is snatched away unfairly all at once. Also possible, and far more chilling, is that maybe people don't think it's so unfair for young black people to get killed in Chicago's ghettoes.

          This post has been updated to note that, for a time, more citizens were killed in Chicago than U.S. soldiers were killed Afghanistan, though the murder rate wasn't higher.

Points of View: Don’t ban social media from schools

By Steve Nicholls, Special to CNN

          The New York Education Department recently stated that in the first 11 months of 2011 there were 69 cases where teachers were accused of inappropriate conduct with students on Facebook. Some were fired as a result, and there is a growing trend by schools across the country to put a ban on social media.

          This raises a question: Is prohibiting social media in schools the right way to protect children?

          In my view, if the answer is yes then that would mean that as technology grows, schools are forbidden to grow with it, and that would somewhat be of a contradiction to what a school is supposed to be in the first place.

          I believe it is critical that social media is allowed in schools as it presents a world of opportunities that far outweigh the risks if it is implemented safely and properly. Social media has become far too integrated into daily life on a global basis; failing to incorporate it into schools would do our children a disservice.

          Think of how far the space has grown in just a few years (remember Myspace?) and imagine where it will be by the time your child is out of college. Trying to ban social media will simply not work. Just ask certain autocratic countries that have tried in vain. The question at the core of the issue is: Why ban it?

          Concerned parents may point to the potential dangers and risks. What about inappropriate interaction with teachers? Or scams from online predators? Even adults fall prey to human emotion and post things they would love to have back. Why put my 10-year-old in that position?

          My answer is to first acknowledge that these concerns are warranted and the threats are real. That being said, while the risks of social media are very serious, the biggest risk of all is not to embrace it. Bad people exist in all walks of life, and while we must protect against them, we must not let them hinder progress. For example, if a pedophile is found near a school playground, would you homeschool your child? I think in most instances the answer would be no.
          The fact that the risks associated with social media are real is exactly the reason why it is important to make it part of school teaching. What better place is there to educate our youth about these potential risks so they can avoid them in the “real world?” Ignoring them will not make them go away.

          As discussed in my book, Social Media in Business, I have helped implement social media across a variety of business sectors, and the core principles apply to schools, too. The key is to put a strong social media policy in place that identifies the potential risks and mitigates them so you can enjoy all the benefits social media has to offer. In the fast-changing digital world, there is not a “one size fits all” formula, but by adhering to certain principles and putting certain safeguards in place, schools can implement a safe and effective policy that will protect the school, the children and the teachers while maximizing learning.

          I believe there are 10 important principles to consider that will help implement a safe and effective social media policy in schools:

          1.  Bring in experts: Working with both a legal team and social media experts is a good way to ensure the crafting of a solid social media policy, one that takes into account the benefits, risks and fast-changing landscape.

          2.  Make a clear written policy: The policy needs to plainly inform teachers, students and parents about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior and list the consequences of inappropriate behavior. The policy can be written and reinforced verbally and signed by all to confirm their understanding of every aspect of it.

          3. Highlight past transgressions: The best way to connect with people is to humanize the issue. Schools could talk about previous cases of misconduct which led to firing of teachers and expulsions of students.

          4. Strive for accountability: Remind teachers and students that they will be held accountable for everything they write on social media sites.

          5. Create a classroom page: Teachers could consider establishing a separate classroom Facebook fan page that is safe and secure. By doing so, you are creating a safe environment to facilitate an online community full of learning.

          6. Report inappropriate behavior immediately: If somebody writes or does something inappropriate through social media, reporting it immediately is very important. The good news with social media is that there will be electronic proof, and this avoids the typical “he said, she said” scenario found in many schools.

          7. Remind students of proper use: On school time, social networking sites need to be used for learning activities and not leisure activities such as video gaming.

          8. Assess policy vs. reality: Just because a policy is written does not mean it will be followed. Many “unwritten” rules will take shape, and the school needs to be vigilant and continuously reshape policy to match what is happening “on the ground.”

          9. Involve parents and the community: Involving parents and the community is also important as this allows them to “police” proper conduct and keep a watchful eye.

          10. Bring the risks to light: Children will use social media outside the classroom, thus the classroom is the perfect place to teach them about risks. Just as teachers tell children not to get in a stranger’s car, talking about the dangers of online predators can be incorporated into school learning and prepare them for life outside school.

          I think the topic of social media in schools is worthy of great debate, but ultimately, it is in our children’s and our nation’s best interest to embrace its use as it will only become more of a core form of communication as we move further into the 21st century.

Editor’s note: Steve Nicholls is the author of Social Media in Business. He is a social media strategist hired by business executives to teach them how to implement a winning social media strategy into their organization. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Steve Nicholls.

What do you think?