HANNITY DEMANDS “FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE” WITNESSES BE CALLED

An enraged Duped-by-Russia Hannity practically blew a gasket after the first day of the impeachment hearings. He was so mad steam was shooting forth from his ears and every other opening in his body. He was absolutely furious about the hearings. All the testimony was hearsay. There was no testimony by anyone with first-hand knowledge […]

The Municipal Historian Conference

The next conference in this series of blogs is the annual conference of the Association of Public Historians of New York State (APHNYS) on September 9-11 in Albany. This year marks the centennial of the state legislation requiring every municipality in the state including village, town, city, and county to have a municipal historian. The […]

Acting Presidential: How Long Can He Keep It Up?

The President of the United States has the power to set the agenda. Given that position, the individual holder at any given moment can set in motion actions, ideas, and events which reverberate throughout the nation and the world. The President may act on the basis on well-thought out decisions in collaboration with others. The […]

Does the Broken Window Theory Apply to the President of the United States?

The Broken Window Theory has acquired a certain cachet in American society. It began as an article in 1982 by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. It gained national prominence in the 1990s through its application by the New York City Police Department. With the substantial drop in crime, a phenomenon that continues to […]

Has the Trump Hit the Fan?: The Challenge of Being President in the Real World

Trade wars are easy. Insulting people is fun. Dividing the country is good. WE the People want our President to have the right stuff to go into the arena and emerge victoriously in the real world. How do we know if a person is capable of doing so? One way is to examine previous experiences. […]

Demographics and Local History

Local historical societies and museums, like local schools, local libraries, and, indeed, local communities, depend on there being a sufficient population to survive and thrive. Obviously that is true but what is the situation today? The front-page above-the-fold headline in my paper this Easter Sunday is “Estimates Show Population Loss in NY.” The article amusingly […]

The 25th Amendment: The Failed “Hail Mary” of the Desperate (But 59-41 Senate Vote and 420-0 House Vote)

Every once in a while, the 25th Amendment returns to the national spotlight for a brief moment. It does so because it provides a mechanism for the removal of a president from office in midstream. Instead of having to deal with the vagaries of the voting public or having to wait possibly years to do […]

REDC Funding Cycle Begins: Start Your Cultural Heritage Tourism Proposals

It’s that time of the year again. It is time to start preparing your proposals for the 2018 version of Hunger Games (see REDC: Funding “Hunger Games” Where History Is the Loser). However this time, I suggest the history community try something different. To begin with, as a resident of the Hudson Valley, I received […]

Archaeologists Confirm Ancient Famine: Déjà Vu Joseph All Over Again

On Easter Sunday, April 1, “Faced with Drought, the Pharaohs Tried (and Failed) to Adapt” appeared in the news section of the New York Times (the online version was posted March 30). According to the article, the famine among the Hittites in modern Turkey was so bad, the Queen was forced to reach out to […]

Were the Levites Hyksos? – No! That Would Mean Having to Take the Exodus Seriously as a Secular Event in History

Were the Levites Hyksos? Both the Levites and the Hyksos garner their fair share of attention in their respective disciplines, biblical scholarship for the former and Egyptology for the latter, but never the twain shall met. The association with the Hyksos, the West Semitic warriors from across the river with a 400-year tradition of being […]