Where Were You When Kennedy Was Shot?

As discussed in class, Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 was a watershed moment in American history. Those living would remember this day with clarity--where they were when they heard the news, who told them, what they did afterward--in much the same way our generation recalls September 11, 2001. Many describe feeling a profound sense of loss--for Kennedy's family, for the nation, and for the dream that was snuffed out. Indeed, Kennedy's assassination foreshadowed the darker days to come. As put by J.G. Ballard: "The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: The Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam..."

For extra credit, interview someone who was alive on November 22, 1963. Ask them the question: "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" Provide a summary paragraph of your interview (the who, what, why, where, when & how) and post it as your comment.

To think about: "Is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of
human rights? The right to live out our lives without fear of devastation.
The right to breathe air as nature provided it? The right of future generations to a healthy existence?"
-JFK, 1963

Addison Bragg, The Billings Gazette & Memorial Day Column

As a kid, what I most wanted to be was a journalist. There was just something glamorous and admirable about writing for your hometown paper, meeting deadlines, and seeing your name in print. In fact, my love of words and writing led me to Missoula, MT to pursue a degree in print journalism. They have an outstanding journalism school, one of the best in the nation. As most students do, I changed my major a few times, but never have I forsaken my love for writing. Some of the most notable people in American history have been journalists--Edward Murrow, Walter Winchell, Dan Rathers, Nelly Bly, Ida Tarbell, and Katie Couric. One that you may be less familiar with was Addison Bragg.

Addison Bragg was the first local columnist that I can remember from childhood. He worked as a newsman for the Billings Gazette for 30 years, and maintained a weekly column called "Bragg About Billings" for many years after that. He wrote about everyday events and extraordinary happenings. As a veteran, he often wrote poignant columns regarding military service. Addison Bragg died last Monday, May 18, 2009. What follows is a reprint of a Memorial Day column that merits another look.

Holiday belongs to those who wore the uniform

Back where I did part of my growing up they called it Decoration Day.

It was a small town in Ohio, too small a town, in fact, to have its own Soldiers Monument--but there never came a last Monday in May in North Lewisburg that those who lived there didn't remember what the day was all about.

I remember those past Memorial Days and remember what they stood for and why we kept them and once more I hear the distant rifle volleys followed by the haunting sound of a bugler playing "Taps."

The flags were always out in that little town on this special day, all the way from the fire bell tower atop City Hall and the homes along quiet streets to the evergreens on a hill a half-mile east where tiny flags were stirred by the wind as it blew softly across the graves of the military dead.

We weren't all that far removed in time from when Memorial Day began.

Many of those former soldiers or sailors who turned out to mark the holiday in that small town were less than a decade away from the war in France.

And, the way it happens sometimes in small towns, some were even looked upon as heroes.

But the greatest respect was shown to the white-haired old men who on that day of the year walked, some still leaning on their canes, around town wearing blue coats with brass buttons. One or two wore strange headgear, much resembling the cap worn by the soldier on the Soldiers Monument at the county seat.

But that was then and this is now when Memorial Day has come to be for those who are remembered and those who do the remembering and there's nothing wrong with that.

And much has happened since the first observance soon after the war's end when women in a southern town still occupied by Union troops decorated the graves of soldiers from both sides who were buried there.

Then in the 1880s it was made "official" by the Grand Army of the Republic, and much later an act of Congress made it the holiday as we celebrate it today.

But no matter what the change in attitude or custom, the basic reason for the day should be remembered.

It's important to realize Memorial Day belongs not only to those who fell in battle but to all who once wore our country's uniform and, having served, came home to live long, happy and fulfilled lives. It is for them, too, that ceremonies are held, honors accorded and tributes paid.

The flags, the flowers, the reunions, the memories all give meaning to a day which has come to be one of the most important of the year. This is as it should be for, as some wise man asked, how can we know where we are going if we have not the will and wisdom to look back at where we have been.

Memorial Day gives us a chance, at least once a year, to do just that.

And as for those whose memory we pause momentarily on this one day, the poet Lawrence Binyon, in his verse "To The Fallen," expressed it well:

"They shall not grow old
As we who are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We shall remember them."

Editor's note: This column was originally printed in The Billings Gazette on May 26, 2003.

For extra credit, please write notes of thanks and gratitude to those you know who presently serve or who have served in the past. Then, direct them to this blog so that they can read the comments.

As an example:

To: Zeb and Eric Fettig
My heartfelt thanks go out to both of you for having served (and serving) this country so honorably. Without those willing to protect the freedoms we hold dear, they would undoubtedly disappear. As stated on the Korean War monument in DC, "Freedom isn't free!"

Space Race: Cold War Front

The History Channel offers a quick review of the Space Race (plus it's set to a great song--Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf). To view, copy the link below, and paste in your browser bar.

http://www.history.com/video.do?name=militaryhistory&bcpid=1681730307&bclid=1683773340&bctid=1336642215

For extra credit, list 3 observations and/or questions you have on the topic. If you need more material to work with, visit this link, The SpaceSite.com. Be sure to click on "muttnick" above, as it is a link to a cnn article.

Comprehension Check: Cold War Concepts and Poetry

Try your hand at Diamante poetry and review Cold War concepts at the same time :-) Simply choose one of the concepts from the wordle above and write a poem using the format shared below from

Guidelines For Writing Diamante Poetry

When you write your poem, follow this outline making it into a diamond shape.

________
______ ______
______ _____ _____
______ ______ _____ _____
______ _____ _____
______ _____
_______

Structure:
Line 1: topic (noun)
Line 2: two adjectives that vividly describe line 1
Line 3: three gerunds (verbs ending with ing) describing line 1
Line 7: topic (noun) that contrasts/opposes line 1
Line 6: two adjectives that vividly describe line 7
Line 5: three gerunds (verbs ending with ing) describing line 7
Line 4: four words (two related to line 1, two related to line 7) arranged concurrently or alternating

For an example, Ms. Fettig made one for fun! I used alliteration--just because I like it and I can (can you?) :)

Berlin Blockade
Rash, ruthless
Calculating, cunning, crafty
Arrogant, ad hoc, absurd, auspicious
Courageous, cunning, chivalrous
Risky, resolute
Berlin Airlift

Gazette Opinion: Education vs. Incarceration

Story available at http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/05/11/opinion/gazette/20-gazetteopinion.txt

Gazette Opinion: To cut long-term prison costs, take care of kids

By The Gazette Staff - May 11, 2009
"The adult offender population is the driving force in all the Department of Corrections does." So begins a section of the DOC's biennial report recently delivered to the 2009 Legislature. And that quote explains why Gazette readers last week saw headlines that said:

"Consultant proposes big prison for Billings" and "State panel backs 920 new prison beds for Montana."

The DOC manages about 2,600 offenders in prisons and an additional 10,400 in drug treatment, pre-release centers and on probation or parole. Those offender numbers are tracked daily as the department continually works to predict what they will be next month, next year and beyond. Gov. Brian Schweitzer directed the department to take a long-range look at demand for offender supervision and incarceration. The 2007 Legislature appropriated $250,000 for a study.

It was conducted over the past year by a national consultant who recently delivered a 176-page report that, among many other things, assumed an average prison population growth rate of 3.9 percent annually and recommended building a prison in Billings with 1,800 cells to handle a projected growth in the offender population over the next 16 years.

As Eve Franklin, a former state legislator and now Schweitzer's corrections policy adviser. pointed out, a consultant's report isn't public policy. "There are no prison beds in the biennial budget," Franklin told The Gazette.

But a majority of the members of the governor's Corrections Advisory Council, a panel that Franklin recently joined, did vote last week in Billings to recommend four future prison projects:

• Up to 116 beds for housing Level 1 and 2 sex offenders, which constitute the offenders judged to be at lower risk of reoffending than the Level 3 offenders.

• A 152-bed facility to treat inmates who are seriously ill, including those with mental illnesses.

• Adding 512 minimum- or medium-security cells for men - if the projections of 3.9 percent annual growth in the offender population continue through 2015.

• Building an additional women's prison in Billings with 250 beds.

Lt. Gov. John Bohlinger, who chairs the Corrections Advisory Council, said his highest priority among the four recommendations is a facility for Level 1 and 2 sex offenders. Schweitzer's biennial budget proposal delivered in October included adding that capacity, but as revenue projections plummeted, the governor pared the sex offender space from his proposed budget. Bohlinger said the $350 million lawmakers put in House Bill 2 for DOC is $32 million less than the governor's original October budget request.

Moving toward treatment
The long-term prison-need projections are all the more shocking because we've heard that Montana's prison population was actually declining slightly while the U.S. prison population continues to grow. In fact, the number of men and women imprisoned in Montana dropped in the fiscal year ended last June 30. The male population declined 4 percent while the female population dropped 21 percent. Moving inmates into new addiction treatment programs helped reduce the incarceration numbers, according to Bob Anez, DOC spokesman in Helena. The state has seen a two-year decline in the rate at which offenders return to correctional institutions.

The total number of all offenders in custody or supervision grew from 10,354 in 2004 to 12,860 in 2008, according DOC. Fewer of them were locked up because prison is being used less for nonviolent and nonsexual offenders than it was five years ago. The department set a goal of managing 80 percent of offenders outside prisons and is "on target" with that goal, Anez said.

Is Montana going to add prison cells?

Not in the next two years, and maybe not as many as the consultant recommended by 2025.

Invest in education
"I'd rather invest money in our education system," Bohlinger said when The Gazette phoned to talk about the corrections study. "If we put our arms around 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds, if we have preschools and expanded kindergarten and these children learn appropriate behavior at an early age, if we invest in education, the expanded need for human services and prisons will diminish."

Bohlinger is far from alone in that view. Research by Federal Reserve economists has demonstrated that quality early childhood services increase the probability that children will graduate from high school, stay out of prison and stay off welfare. If we want to avoid building the megaprison the consultant sketched out, we'd better put sufficient resources into graduating youths from high school and college with the skills to compete in the job market.

Building a 1,800-bed prison in Billings?

Outrageous!

Ignoring the long-term consequences of child neglect, poverty and school dropouts?

Even more outrageous!

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Students, what are your thoughts???????? If you held the purse-strings for the state of Montana, would you invest in education or prisons and why?

The Results Are In!

Juniors, thank you for sharing your opinions with me, and helping me to work through the kinks of SMS text/on-line polling!

After the votes were in, I took a screen-shot and will post the results below. Polls everywhere is a cool web 2.0 tool that is EASY to use. I do hope that some of you will consider making a poll covering class content. Just come in before school or during your lunch with the question you'd like to pose to your peers, and possible responses. I'll guide you through the process of creating the poll and posting it to YOUR BLOG. It should only take about 10 minutes :-)

Period 0 results

Period 2 results

Period 3 results

Period 4 results

Period 5 results

New Polling Tool & Helping Out Ms. Fettig

Hi students! Ms. Fettig is taking a class on integrating tech tools successfully into the classroom. Right now, I am exploring Web 2.0 tools--on polling and surveying. I've posted my first poll here and would appreciate your response so that I may see how it works and gauge its effectiveness.

This one is just for fun (and to help me out), not for extra credit. I am interested in seeing your opinions now that we have completed our survey of this segment in American history.

Thanks for indulging me (and helping my learning)! You may vote below on-line OR via text message (see below).

Create your own sms poll at Poll Everywhere