Let Eleanor Speak for Herself -- Fix the FDR Memorial

Maybe someone would put the acrimoniou­s quote here in the comments? I recall finding out about Eleanor Roosevelt stopping in the "Old Tea Room" in Coram, NY on Long Island across the road from a grassy airfield, she once flew with one of the Tuskegee pilots for over 45 minutes causing some consternat­ion in the press. Old "Tea Rooms" were places people could go if they were in dire straights and find some comfort and perhaps a solution to some problems. This one was next to a small brick (clay from across the road) courthouse­/post office and one of Eleanor's stops on Long Island. From the 18th century it has since burned down. My brother and friends rented it for awhile. Another colleague inventorie­d the various artifacts she received traveling in Central and South America.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Sherman's Southern Sympathies – Comment - NY Times

Abraham Lincoln, though he fought in the Blackhawk War is considered by many historians to be no great military general and had relied on the inexperienced. One thing I read was that Sherman changed the nature of "war" i.e., against property rather than people. One property he did not (perhaps) find, was the large powder mill about 30 miles outside Atlanta, erected from London, England Crystal Palace brochures, by a Hudson River foundry owner, perhaps tired of the contracts that all went to the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York across the river from the US Military Academy. It's where the patented R.P. Parrott rifled cannons were cast (6-pdr to 300-pdr) and figured significantly in range and destruction in the civil war. West Point Foundry is also cited as the first site of a "labor action" in a Federal facility, perhaps "federalized" once the war was declared said to have been run with clandestine iron-workers from Great Britain. It's currently been archaeologically investigated, in part over NIKE missile battery contaminants, i.e., nickel, cadmium, in Foundry Cove next to Constitution Island.

Civil War | The New York Times
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Glock Book Chronicles A History Of America's Gun (PHOTOS)

America's gun might be considered the Beretta pistol, as it's manufactur­ed in Washington­, D.C. The Society for Industrial Archaeolog­y toured its manufactur­ing plant as part of a yearly meeting. It, the Beretta, I thought a good choice for the NYPD the largest in the land, though perhaps "now" rather than "then" when the Glock was selected. The Beretta has interchang­eable calibers, i.e. different size bullets for different situations that might result in less "innocent bystander" injuries and deaths. If a .32 caliber or even .22 used in a subway there would be less chance of ricochet injury and/or penetratio­n and into the innocent or "bullet proof vest" injuries. The other calibers are also available. A sidearm with different interchang­eable barrels is what the modern Glock could/shou­ld also be working on, not plastic weapons undetectab­le to "remote sensing".
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

“Live Free, or Die”

New Hampshire State Legislators: Don't Repeal the Freedom to Marry

Why I signed: I've vacationed a number of years with my friend on Tuftonboro Neck, NH outside historic Wolfeboro. I feel this is a sneaky trick that should stop. Peter Livius, one of the first Supreme Court justices of Canada (and who sued royal Governor Wentworth, the only "governor" survivor of the American Revolution, after, of Nova Scotia) once owned Tuftonboro Neck.

Thank you President Obama via NPCA

Thank you for using the Antiquities Act to proclaim a new national monument at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia! As you know, the Antiquities Act has been used to create monuments at Muir Woods, the Grand Canyon, and the Statute of Liberty. The rich history and natural beauty of Fort Monroe make it a worthy addition to the National Park System.

As an archaeology technician, I've traveled to work in a number of our National Historic Parks, i.e., Allegheny Portage Railroad, Hopewell Village Foundry, Fort McHenry National Shrine, Klondike Historic Park, Skagway, Alaska and the William Floyd Manor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence on Long Island where I grew up. I am glad that we have these resources and would encourage further funding for archeology and interpretation. I also work on other sites, and realize the broken laws outlawing slavery up to and during the US Civil War another part of our history that needs further research.

Because of you, Fort Monroe will be preserved for everyone. Citizens will learn how Fort Monroe initiated the decline of the institution of slavery. They will read about the imprisonment of Jefferson Davis, the nursing of the sick by Harriet Tubman, and the lives of other historical figures who spent time at Fort Monroe. Families will walk along its beautiful beaches and bird watchers will enjoy the view.

The Antiquities Act is a critical tool that can be used to ensure that special places like Fort Monroe are honored and protected for all time. I thank you for this wonderful new monument and ask that you look for other opportunities to use the Antiquities Act to protect other special parts of America.

May you and family have a wonderful holiday and as they say, good luck in the new year.

- National Parks Conservation Association Thank you letter

Call me Ishmael… or responsible

In the article published Sunday 12/18/2011 City history, locked away: The short, unhappy life of New York Unearthed – (New York Daily News) a small museum is described which I once had a small part in at another archaeology firm which also once had an office and worked in NYC archaeology. I was asked to draw up a map as I did on other projects, of the changing outline of the island of Manhattan, the “island of hills” that has become flatter due to war, economics and planning. I had at the outset some doubt as to the rest of the small museum as it involved other consultants working on a use of an elevator as an exhibit place for slides of the past.

I finally did visit the museum at the time working in the transfer of Governors Island to the City of New York, initially offered by then President Clinton for a symbolic payment of $1 if a good use for the facilities could be found. I was working a short week for a consultant to another archaeology firm and a backhoe was required for a few test trenches that were needed to further explore questions in the geology and archaeology of the island’s landform. At one time it was discussed that the collections cited in this wonderfully complete article could be stored and exhibited on Governors Island, but alas, some members in Congress wanted $1/2 billion for it and various city agencies have yet to decide its long range plans, while apparently one would hope its upkeep is not languishing, built as it were from manufacturing no longer operating in the City.
 
Having therefore beat around the “nutting island” I would like to offer this: the museum was not handicap accessible from what I saw. There was a staircase down to its exhibits and the elevator was used as another feature instead of its intended use. My “guestimate” therefore is that I would not be surprised that like some of the “deals” made nearby for the World Trade Center, it was not up to code. Given the small space however, it was thought one could not have the elevator opening into it, the traffic would not “work”. One would hope someday, given the return of passenger cruise ships perhaps that a space could be finally created on Governors Island or in the historic Seaport district.

It’s Almost-Presidents’ Day!

The article fails to mention that, way back then, 44 Presidents ago, the President and Vice President could be from different parties and the Constitution amended created, along with the Electoral College, which actually elects the President, the single party rule of the Executive branch. Some states have since changed their "all for one" party candidate Electoral College votes to a more equal distribution of those important votes, as states have rights to. Choose the multiple choice answer for who elects the President "the people" and you'll get that question wrong on a prior US citizen test. Let's not forget that Mr. Nader is the oldest candidate to ever seek that office.
New York Times 12/13/2011 “Campaign Stops”

Indefinite Detention Bill No Longer Faces Veto Threat From White House (UPDATE)

Makes it legal for the former Commandant of West Point Military Academy, Robert E. Lee, to capture and hold John Brown and his outfit for trial I guess. Maybe it wasn't then. After all Harper's Ferry was where the Federally authorized arsenal, by President George Washington­, was making hundreds of those fancy new percussion cap Harper's Ferry rifles and he was there, which was reason enough for some to start shooting. Later the arsenal burned and today is covered in the numerous flood sediments of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, Harper's Ferry is where they join. On this day, 220 years ago, in 1791, the US passed the "Bill of Rights" and as long as militias are guaranteed the right to bear arms, we might actually need such an Executive law someday again?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Augustine Herman’s Map of Virginia and Maryland - 1673

…because sometimes archaeologists are the last to know. He had a house, gardens and a warehouse in New Amsterdam (New York City). An ambassador (“The Czech” Augustine Heerman to the Dutch) he is sometimes attributed the introduction of tobacco to the Dutch. His warehouse location, reputedly between "Bridge" and "Pearl" and "Whitehall" and "Broad" streets, was excavated in the 1980s prior to a large building going up.

Unpublished comment to: Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates : NY Times

Religion protects families. Families are about kinship. Social anthropology studies the different kinship structures that different people have, i.e. "uncle" or "aunt" may mean something different within different societies and may be quite different from culture to culture in comparison. I once attended a CUNY grad lecture on the preference for "cross-cousin marriage" in nomadic peoples of the deserts. There your preferred though not necessarily ones mate, would be "a child of one's mother's brother or father's sister" which the speaker thought was a way of keeping widely separated people together when marriages were proposed. Recent data has shown that "cousin" marriages are also very fertile producing many children. Perhaps religion attempts to provide a "survival of the fittest" society in its proscription and divorce, i.e., three witnesses required for infidelity grounds in Islamic law in the Philippines. These ideas and culture have to be understood further as not a threat to our ways and means to ends.

Beyond Guantánamo, a Web of Prisons for Terrorism Inmates - NYTimes.com