These photographs are truly amazing. So is the newsreel! (frame
22) It's been 75 years......
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Saturday, October 26, 2013
A Rose For A Crown
AN UNFORGETTABLE HEROINE,
A KING MISUNDERSTOOD BY HISTORY,
A LOVE STORY THAT HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD
Well, that’s what the blurb said. And some thirty plus female reviewers on a
historical novel web site mostly agreed.
Apparently, of late, I’ve been reading the book equivalents of “chick
flicks.” I can live with that….
I just finished A Rose for the Crown, by Anne Easter Smith. She take to task the Tudor
Dynasty’s well known hack Shakespeare, who is
roundly rebutted for trashing Richard The Thirds reputation. Seen
through the eyes of the woman who was the mother of his illegitimate children,
a woman who loved him for who he really was, he comes off as not such a bad
fellow As the mistress, Kate Haute, moves from her peasant roots to the luxurious
palaces of England, a remarkable story
ensues.
The bare bones of this novel is historically accurate but
our heroine is fictional because though the King had three illegitimate children, history is doesn’t tell us who their mother
was. Thus Katherine Haute is fictional, but the world she lives in is not. The
story is set in the time of the War of the Roses. As any good story the reader is drawn into
interactions of the main characters and the time and place they lived in. For
my part I found the tale quite fascinating. Another book quite well done on
this era is is Sharon Kay Penman’s Sunne in Splendour. Actually,
I think I may have become addicted to it….
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Who Is It?
You were born in a small town in what was then the Austrian
Empire, now part of Croatia. You are a brilliant inventor, physicist,
mechanical and electrical engineer. You are well aware of your own genius, and
you are driven to do whatever it takes to realize your dreams. You will
redefine the term "mad scientist"; your home country will honor you
and an exciting high-end consumer product will be named after you 150 years
after your birth. WHO ARE YOU?
You are Nikola Tesla, founder of the Tesla Electric Company.
You will go on to patent a brushless alternating current induction motor based
on a rotating magnetic field principle. The invention will attract the
attention of the Westinghouse company, and your investors will sell it to them
for $60,000 in cash and stock and generous royalties. Westinghouse will also
hire you as an independent consultant at their Pittsburgh laboratories.
You will go on to do groundbreaking work on atmospheric
electricity, telegraphy and new types of engines including a steam-powered
device dubbed "Tesla’s oscillator." Some of your wilder theories,
coupled with your personal behaviors, will lead to your being categorized as a
"mad scientist"—but in 1931 you will appear on the cover of Time
Magazine.
In 2003, sixty years
after your death, a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs will set out to prove
that "electric vehicles can be awesome." They will name their company
Tesla Motors in your honor.
And for 2014 The Tesla Model S........
And for 2014 The Tesla Model S........
Monday, October 14, 2013
Top Ten Historical Fiction
Historical fiction are novels that re-create a period or event in history and often use historical figures as some of its characters. To be deemed historical, a novel must have been written at least fifty years after the events described.
Most of us read fiction for pleasure, but some of us gravitate especially to works about the past. People have enjoyed historical fiction since 800 BC when Homer wrote about the Trojan War in the Iliad. The worlds to which historical fiction carries us may seem utterly different from our own - but they really existed. A deep understanding of the past can help us understand our own time and our own motivations better. And by blending history and fiction, a novel lets us do more than simply read history: it lets us participate in the hopes, fears, passions, mistakes and triumphs of the people who lived it. It’s not history as such but a great writer. who has done meticulous research, can truly bring the past alive.
The following listed books are some of my favorite novels of historical fiction. I’ve read them all, some more than once.
Most of us read fiction for pleasure, but some of us gravitate especially to works about the past. People have enjoyed historical fiction since 800 BC when Homer wrote about the Trojan War in the Iliad. The worlds to which historical fiction carries us may seem utterly different from our own - but they really existed. A deep understanding of the past can help us understand our own time and our own motivations better. And by blending history and fiction, a novel lets us do more than simply read history: it lets us participate in the hopes, fears, passions, mistakes and triumphs of the people who lived it. It’s not history as such but a great writer. who has done meticulous research, can truly bring the past alive.
The following listed books are some of my favorite novels of historical fiction. I’ve read them all, some more than once.
Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas
Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman in the Henry
II & Eleanor of Aquitaine series
Now what are some of your favorites?
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Schooling In The Black Hills
In the gorgeous Black Hills of South Dakota we recently ran across a school as they used to be. Readin. Written and Rithmatic. Take a look....
Saturday, October 5, 2013
A Passion To Teach. Fifty-Eight Years of Humorous, Weird, and Engaging Tales
Author Richard Kowles is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in
Biology at Saint Mary s University Minnesota in Winona, MN. He has taught for
the past fifty-eight years at various levels, initially at the high school
level and then at the University. Gaining his PhD. he carried on his career
both in the research laboratory and the classroom. Clear he loved both but he was most
passionate about teaching. Incidentally,
he and I were colleagues for a few years teaching high school in small town
Minnesota.
“A Passion to Teach: Fifty-Eight Years of
Humorous, Weird, & Engaging Tales” is both a great memoir of growing up in tough
circumstances and succeeding but also a warm and engaging and full of
funny stories of learning to teach and being great at it. “It’s been a wonderful career,” he said. “The
students have kept me young and on my toes.”
I think what most appealed to me about this book was the fun
that Kowles obviously had teaching. There was a passion there to help students
learn and joy satisfaction when they did.
I know I enjoyed my work till the day I retired or as Kowles
put “If you can’t have fun, maybe you should look somewhere else.” If you or someone you know is interested in
looking at a teaching career from the inside out or just plain a fun read, this
might be the book for you.
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