On the eve of July 4, 2024, I wanted to share why the following four men were chosen to represent America on a mountainside in South Dakota. Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind the project, selected these four presidents because, from his perspective, they represented the most important events in the history of the United States.
“The preservation of the sacred fire of Liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” — George Washington
“We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self-government.” — Thomas Jefferson
“I leave you hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.” — Abraham Lincoln
“The first requisite of a good citizen in this Republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight – that he shall notbe a mere passenger.” — Theodore Roosevelt
As we celebrate the birth of our nation and its democracy, let us remember the characteristics that Borglum celebrated and use them to select men and women to lead our country who demonstrate them in their words and actions.
He graduated from Connecticut College in 1989 with a B.A. in Government. While in college, Grann received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and conducted research in Mexico, where he began his career as a freelance journalist.
He received a master’s degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1993. At this time, Grann was primarily interested in fiction and hoped to develop a career as a novelist.
In 1994 he was hired as a copy editor at The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper covering the United States Congress. The same year, Grann earned a master’s degree in creative writing from Boston University, where he taught classes in creative writing and fiction. He was named The Hill’s executive editor in 1995. In 1996, Grann became a senior editor at The New Republic. He joined The New Yorker in 2003 as a staff writer. He was a finalist for the Michael Kelly Award in 2005.
In 2009, he received the George Polk Award and Sigma Delta Chi Award for his New Yorker piece “Trial By Fire”, about Cameron Todd Willingham. Another New Yorker investigative article, “The Mark of a Masterpiece”, raised questions about the methods of Peter Paul Biro, who claimed to use fingerprints to help authenticate lost masterpieces. Biro sued Grann and The New Yorker for libel, but the case was summarily dismissed. The article was a finalist for the 2010 National Magazine Award.
The Truthseeker
One thing that stands out about Mr. Grann’s work is his obsession with going the extra mile to uncover the truth. His commitment to risk his health and well-being, please see The Lost City of Z, to find answers is amazing. Even when the story seems to be over, Mr. Grann continues his quest for the truth, please see The Killers of the Flower Moon, and discovers new information.
Mr. Grann is an inspiration to other non-fiction writers. His efforts drive us to continue our research with a passion that may come close to Grann’s crusade. In an age of fake news and AI-generated events, he is Quiotic in his quest.
In the fourth post about our Road Scholar trip, Best of the Pacific Northwest – Exploring Three of Washington’s San Juan Islands, I report about our visit to the Lime Kiln Lighthouse on San Juan Island.
Lime Kiln Lighthouse is located on the west side of San Juan Island. Its name comes from the lime kilns built in the 1860s. For approximately sixty years, the area surrounding the kilns was quarried for limestone and harvested for logs to fuel the fires that transformed the limestone into lime. The resulting lime was used in mortar. <1>
The Lime Kiln Light is located on Lime Kiln Point overlooking Dead Man’s Bay on the western side of San Juan Island. The light guides ships through the Haro Straits and is part of Lime Kiln Point State Park. <1>
The Lime Kiln Light was established in 1914 when acetylene lights were placed on Lime Kiln Point, a name derived from the lime kilns built there in the 1860s. It was the last major lighthouse established in Washington. The light was updated five years later with a 38-foot octagonal concrete tower above the fog signal building. Two keeper’s houses and other structures were also built during this time. A fourth-order Fresnel lens was first exhibited from the new tower on June 30, 1919. The Coast Guard automated the Lime Kiln Lighthouse in August 1962, using photoelectric cells to turn the light on at dusk and off during daylight hours. In 1998, the drum lens was replaced with a modern optic, flashing a white light once every 10 seconds. Sitting on the rocky shoreline at 55 feet, the beacon is visible for 15 nautical or 17 land miles. <2>
This is the third installment of our adventures on the Road Scholar trip, Best of the Pacific Northwest – Exploring Three of Washington’s San Juan Islands. Today’s post deals with our visit to the RoozenGaarde Tulip Gardens as part of the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.
RoozenGaarde is a world renowned spring destination and the biggest of the tulip gardens in Skagit Valley. The fields are planted with tens of millions of bulbs creating endless rows of incredible color while the garden is annually redesigned, and lovingly hand-planted with over one million bulbs – creating spectacular scenes of floral color and creativity! Stunning photo opportunities, hand-picked daily tulip bouquets, and a charming gift shop are sure to delight.
In the second post about our Road Scholar trip, Best of the Pacific Northwest – Exploring Three of Washington’s San Juan Islands, I report about our visit to the Crow Valley School Museum on Orcas Island.
Crow Valley School Museum
Crow Valley School, originally called Pleasant Valley, was built in 1888, one year before the Territory of Washington was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was built on an acre of land donated by settler Peter Frechette. Students from grades one through eight were taught in the school house, which had a capacity of 57 (though most years saw about 27 students in attendance.) In 1893 there were 63 days of school compared with a State minimum of 180 today.
The length of school terms depended on the availability of funds and teachers. Teachers were paid about $50 per month. Some teachers would move from one school district to another, and sometimes their pupils would follow.
Crow Valley School was closed in 1918, after which students attended the consolidated Eastsound School. The building continued to be used as a community meeting place, a church, and a Sunday School. In 1929 the schoolhouse was purchased by “The Willing Workers” women’s club, many of whom were former students, and became The Crow Valley Club. This club made a few changes to the schoolhouse, including an opening to the main room which served as their kitchenette. Using a kerosene stove they held community dinners and entertained in this space.
In 1987 the school house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Shortly later it was painstakingly restored over hundreds of hours by Richard Schneider and Bud McBride, the founders of Crow Valley Pottery.
Crow Valley School is one of the finest examples of an intact one-room schoolhouse in Washington state.
During our recent Road Scholar trip, Best of the Pacific Northwest – Exploring Three of Washington’s San Juan Islands, my wife and I had the opportunity to enjoy the beauty, history, and ideas of San Juan Island, Orcas Island, and Lopez Island. This trip provided many stories which I will share with you over the coming weeks.
Lopez Community Land Trust
Lopez Community Land Trust (LCLT) was incorporated in 1989 when the cost of housing on Lopez Island rose 190% in a single year. LCLT is a 501(c)3 non-profit that builds a diverse, sustainable Lopez Island community through affordable housing, sustainable agriculture, and other dynamic rural development programs. LCLT was formed with the following Purposes:
To acquire and hold land in trust to provide for permanently affordable housing. Homes shall be built and lands shall be used in an environmentally sensitive and socially responsible manner
To provide permanently affordable access to land for such purposes as quality housing, sustainable agriculture and forestry, cottage industries, and co-operatives by forever removing the land from the speculative market.
To develop and exercise responsible and ecological practices, which preserve, protect and enhance the land’s natural attributes.
To serve as a model in land stewardship and community development by providing information, resources, and expertise.
As with any organization, LCTC needs contributions to continue its work. You can learn more about this organization by visiting their website or calling them at 360-468-3723.
Dallas Cothrum’s editorial in the April 14, 2024, Dallas Morning News begins by stating:
There is a crisis in our country that threatens our place as the shining beacon on a hill. America is losing its work ethic and probably the only ones who care are people still reading the newspaper. Many employees are no longer grateful for the opportunity to work, believing it’s the responsibility of the employers to satisfy their needs. Teamwork is a threatened species.
Oh, the ungrateful employee. What a crock. Instead of blaming workers, Cothrum might have spent his time considering the causes.
There is an ethical agreement between employer and employee. Both are supposed to behave honestly and respectfully. That has hardly been the history of labor relations. For example,
The Industrial Revolution produced mass production and factories where children worked long hours in unsafe conditions. It produced the robber barons who cheated their way to fame and fortune on the backs of workers. The workers banded together to form labor unions. The magnates whined to the government which sent in troops to disburse the strikers.
John D. Rockefeller
The bottom line is all that the bosses cared about in the 1800’s. That singular goal remains in place today as MBAs run major companies with the same ruthlessness that the robber barons would be proud of.
Corporations are exporting jobs to Asia and Latin America. Why? To take advantage of the low labor costs and unsupervised working conditions.
The contract between labor and management is broken even in academia. When the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) closed its DEI program under orders from the former Republic now the State of Texas, it promised that no one would lose their jobs. Several months after the initial announcement, the school fired the staff.
Mergers seem to come with layoffs like peanut butter and jelly. No wonder workers don’t trust management. Why should they?
The Pareto principle
It is a statistical fact that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. It was that way 60 years ago when I began my career and it is true today. It even holds for any group effort aka teamwork. Remember the 8th Grade Science Project where you did “all” the work and your four classmates did very little?
While teamwork is lauded, competition is fostered. High performers are kept by managers who don’t want to lose their “ace” who has helped the boss garner bonuses and promotions. How many top performers have heard, “Your chance will come soon.” Right. After you win the lottery.
What is the reward for these great contributors? They are assigned to train new employees, given them more work to do, and help teach and do their new bosses’ jobs.
The gap between executives and workers continues to widen. A local airline boasts millionaires in its executive suite while failing to update five-year-old labor agreements with pilots and flight attendants.
Homeschooling
Cothrum also says that “37% of nonworkers identified family caregiving as the primary reason they are not working.” That’s not a bad thing. Caring for an aged parent or young child is more important than getting a bonus or promotion. Many parents stay home or work from home to educate their children. Moms and dads undertake homeschooling, not because it is easy, but because it is critical in helping their kids learn. Public schools are plagued with overcrowded classrooms, untrained teachers, bullying, and shootings. Students at a Dallas high school refused to return to class because a student had brought a gun to school and shot a classmate. Teachers are leaving the classroom because of little or no support from administrations, frenzied school boards, and state-regulated content and books.
Cothrum and I agree on several points. There must be a “clear relationship between effort and reward” and “employees must be compensated appropriately in both dollars and recognition.” The solution to these issues is clearly in the hands of management and their failure to solve the problem already points to indifference and ignorance.
Allen Mesch 