National Parks

Nobel Peace Prize Recipients Past - Teddy Roosevelt

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(Teddy Roosevelt - aside from National Parks, also attributed to coining the phrases: Speak Softly and Carry A Big Stick and Good To The Last Drop)

Continuing with the other Nobel Peace Prize recipient who was also a sitting President, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (1901, assuming office on the assassination of William McKinley - 1908) received his prize in 1906.

During the election of 1912 he ran as a third party candidate of the Bull Moose Party, losing to Woodrow Wilson (the other Nobel recipient).

Here is a campaign speech he recorded during the 1912 campaign.

Teddy Roosevelt: “The other day in a speech at Sioux Falls, Mister Wilson stated his position when he said the history of government, the history of liberty was the history of the limitation of governmental power. This is true as an academic stigma of history in the past. It is not true as a statement affecting the present.”



The Word - Symbol-Minded

From The Colbert Report:

The cross has nothing to do with Christianity -- it's just the normal symbol of the resting place of the dead.


Maddow: Ken Burns on America's Best Idea

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(h/t Heather at VideoCafe)

Big thanks to Shoq for tipping me off to this segment.

It's hard to cogitate when you're immersed in the cesspool that passes for political debate nowadays that this country has actually seen worse days than this. Our economy has been worse, unemployment was higher and journalism was just as yellow.

But as documentarian Ken Burns points out, we also had a president who was willing to invest in our country, to invest in American "shovel-ready" jobs and put them to work developing our beautiful national park system. And as a result, we all share in the beauty of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon as well as the historical significance of sites Monroe Elementary and Manzanar, which do not necessarily reflect a time where America is at its best.

Burns does a great job of smacking down the GOP's completely nonsensical cries of "Socialism!" and reminds us of how tragic it would be if those in Washington had been so similarly cowed during Roosevelt's day, instead of understanding that the creation of the National Parks system brought Americans together, made these areas accessible and available to every American, thereby democratizing our very best idea.