I haven't looked seriously at high-school curricula in a long time, but back when I was a student – and, indeed, when I was a teacher in a high-quality Massachusetts school – few history classes made it to World War II.  Even today I remain appalled that when, near the end of the 1972 school year, I mentioned to a fellow teacher that I was into the postwar era, she timidly inquired, "About World War II; we did win, didn't we?"  Read More 

Last week, I wrote about some thoughts I had while watching the January 6 invasion of the US Capitol.  This week, I'm going to begin with the C-Span coverage of the debate on the only president to be impeached twice – by a majority vote of our representatives.  Every House member who wished to speak was given a designated amount of time by the floor leader of their party, usually thirty seconds.  The Republican in this position was former Ohio football coach Jim Jordan.  He repeatedly passed when it was the R's turn to speak, apparently because he didn't have anyone lined up to take the microphone.  When he eventually got that done, the most notable smart-aleck was Florida's Brian Mast.  Read More 

As Hubby used to say of political meetings, "Everything that needs to be said has been said, but not everyone has said it."  That's how I feel about the crisis of January 6, 2021, a date that will live in infamy.  Great quantities of ink and even more pixels have covered it – and yet there are a few things I want to say that I hope aren't too repetitive.  Because I never watch television during daytime, it was the internet that alerted me to what was going on in Washington.  I turned on the TV and watched into the next morning, making notes on a handy scrap of newspaper that soon became too small.  Read More 

I'm just back from DC, or more properly the area around DC.  In normal holiday times, Hubby and I could meet our daughter when her work day at the Justice Department ended and then enjoy downtown Washington's Christmas attractions – the lights on Pennsylvania Avenue, tea at the Willard Hotel, or the holiday flower arrangements at the National Botanical Garden.  But Hubby is gone and the times aren't normal, so I didn't set foot in the district this year.  I did check the web to see Melania's White House decor, and it wasn't as disastrous as last year's devil-red trees.  I'm grateful, though, that she won't get another chance. Read More 

For most of us, at least most women, the New Year means cleaning.  We take down decorations, throw out wrapping paper, and discard other celebratory debris.  I won't have that problem this year, as the 2020 deaths of my husband, brother, and sister caused me to evade Christmas.  But I have been cleaning, especially dealing with Hubby's thousands of books.  During the more than a half-century that we were married, I never knew him to throw out one, and his father built unique bookcases for them.  Dad Weatherford was a carpenter as well as a Methodist minister, and he created a long wall for Hubby's study that nonetheless eventually overflowed with books. Read More 

For the first time in my life, I'm trying to ignore it.  With the loss of my husband, a brother, and a sister this year, I just can't do what I ordinarily do.  Therefore, I hope you perhaps you, too, might want a change from the Holly and Jolly, and I'm going to write the column I would have written were it an ordinary week.  LaGaceta wants it early, so some things may have changed by the time you get this, and I trust that you will understand if that turns out to be true.  With Trump running the government by tweet, you know how quickly news can be outdated.  But hang in:  I'm going to end this with a cheerful tale from the past that I've been intending to tell for a while.  I hope it makes you smile. Read More 

Two days before the Electoral College met, the fascists who call themselves the Proud Boys finally got around to doing what they had threatened to do much earlier and marched on Pennsylvania Avenue – while 1600's Current Occupant was up in New York.  Bad planning, that.  It was much, much smaller than past marches on Washington, and no one paid a lot of attention -- least of all the Electors who were intent on doing their civic duty back in state capitols.  Read More 

I couldn't be more thrilled with President-Elect Biden's economic team.  It's what I've been waiting for all of my life.  As a not-really aside, I want to tell you that I got the highest grade in an introductory economics class of 55, 50 of whom were young men.  The professor took the opportunity to shame the guys, greatly embarrassing me in those pre-feminist days.  As women have risen in the field, I've sometimes regretted that I didn't swim against the tide and become one of these pioneers, but I don't regret it for very long.  Making it as a female historian was hard enough, and in economics, I would have been miserable most of the time.  Hubby was similar in leaving math and physics for lower-paid philosophy, and these decisions were basic to more than a half-century of happiness. Read More 

Maybe you read the article from the New York Times speculating on what Ivanka, Jared, and their buds are going to do when they exit Washington.  I was struck by one paragraph that quoted a guy who was described as "a short-lived Trump campaign adviser." He said, "I'm moving to Florida next year for taxes and lifestyle."  Read More 

Is over, but not really.  It won't ever be for me, as it was the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend last year that Hubby fell, never to recover.  He wouldn't want me to wallow in that, though, so I shall wallow in other non-personal thoughts about Thanksgivings.  I've written about the history of this holiday before, but reminders of its various versions never hurt. Read More