A good overview of this event that occurred in Jersey City before the United States was officially entered into World War 1 can be found at the Jersey City Past and Present project. Contemporary newspaper accounts are here. Here is an FBI précis on this devastating sabotage.
Archive for July, 2016
Middle English Works
For those with a appreciation for how English has developed and changed over the years, these Middle English prose and poetry works might be of interest.
Database of Inspector General Reports
Every federal agency has an office of the inspector general (OIG) embedded within it as per the Inspector General Act of 1978. Currently, there are almost 50,000 OIG reports out there; they have all been collected at this site where you can sort by date, agency or key terms. This is an up-to-date enterprise; the latest OIG report here is dated June 30, 2016. So when you hear about OIG reports on the news, odds are it is in this database.
Irish Tales and Poetry
The Irish Texts Society publishes critical, translated editions of classic Irish poetry, tales, and the occasional history; most of these editions, even though some are a century old, are still considered the best of their kind. The first twenty-four volumes are split between here and here.
Full Text of the Missing Chapter in the 9/11 Report
This 28-page document has been kept under wraps for thirteen years. Now you can read it here.
Online Primary Sources for American History: Iowa
This three-volume work – Documentary material relating to the history of Iowa – contains legislative acts as well as texts pertaining to state constitutions and the establishment of local laws when Iowa was a territory and then when it became a state.
College Tuition and Fees Rise 4% in 2015/16
That is one of the findings from Postsecondary Institutions and Price of Attendance in 2015-16; Degrees and Other Awards Conferred: 2014-15; and 12-Month Enrollment: 2014-15: First Look (Preliminary Data) issued by the National Center for Education Statistics. Other findings include: 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees were awarded, and there are many more women in college than men. (Table 3)
Salaries, Perks, and Contracts for NJ State College Presidents
This feature from NJ Spotlight highlights the the various salaries and perks in the contracts of both four-year and two-year public college presidents in New Jersey. This is hard-to-find material and was obtained through numerous FOIA requests. Here is an article that discusses the benefits at length.
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary Now Online for Free
Stedman’s Medical Dictionary is now freely available online; it can be searched via a dialog box or by searching its A-Z index.
The South China Sea Decision
The Permanent Court of Arbitration has issued its “award” concerning China’s encroachment into the South China Sea, a move that was contested by the Philippines. The ruling is a clear rebuke of China’s claims. Rather than read the 500-page verdict, this press release succinctly lays out the decision and its total refutation of China’s claims. Why is this so important? For many reasons: China’s violation of other nations’ maritime rights, its systematic and widespread damage to the local ecologies, the fact that this area contains a great deal of natural gas under the water, almost $5 trillion worth of shipping goes through the disputed area, and China’s militarization of the islands in the sea, some of them actually created by China. Here is China’s response.
For additional information, please look at: China Maritime Studies (U.S. Naval War College); China’s Maritime Disputes and South China Seas Tension (Council of Foreign Relations); What Does the South China Sea Ruling Mean, and What’s Next? (Brookings); South China Sea (U.S. Energy Information Administration); The South China Sea dispute: July 2016 update (UK House of Commons Library); Chinese Land Reclamation in the South ChinaSea: Implications and Policy Options, Maritime Territorial and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Disputes Involving China: Issues for Congress, and Maritime Territorial Disputes in East Asia: Issues for Congress (all CRS); China (International Crisis Group); and Why does China care so much about the South China Sea? Here are 5 reasons (Washington Post).
Major Speeches for Tuesday, July 12, 2016
There were three major speeches yesterday (technically, there were two, the other important event was testimony before a Congressional committee). President Obama delivered a speech at the memorial service for the slain Dallas police officers, Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified before the House Judiciary Committee.
Refugee Laws From Around the World
Refugee Law and Policy in Selected Countries (March 2016) from the Law Library of Congress examines relevant statutes and policies from some twenty-three countries. Links to country-specific laws and regulations are given, and a current bibliography of works is appended as well.
“Nature” Special Online Supplements
The scientific journal Nature makes freely available special issues on selected topics. Of late, these supplements are coming out at least on a monthly basis and touch upon an eclectic array of subjects and disciplines. The latest one as of this writing covers Science in China; an earlier issue dealt gravitational waves. Of particular interest is the “year in review” issues. The 2015: The Year in Science includes, among other entries, vignettes of ten people who mattered in science in 2015, science events of the year, best images of the year, best science books, and a selection of the best and most popular longer reads from this prestigious journal. Well worth the visit.
Ansel Adams’ Photos of Western National Parks
In a project that was interrupted by World War II and never completed, Ansel Adams had been commissioned by the National Parks Service to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior building in Washington, D.C. While the work remains uncompleted, his pictures, over two hundred of them, are available for perusal.
Online Primary Sources for American History: Political Conventions
As both the Democratic and Republican conventions are meeting shortly, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to direct your gaze to previous proceedings, as well as provide some top-rate secondary sources as well. And, yes, there are/were other parties’ convention, but we are concentrating on these two. Where else can you find a speaker being showered with “…numerous bouquets from the ladies’ gallery” (1852 Democratic Convention, p.49) or find a true example of authentic legislative mumbo-jumbo as recorded at the 1864 Republican Convention (p.10+).
PRIMARY SOURCES
Because the various conventions did not employ uniform titles, you will find the “proceedings” listed by that term as well as “official proceedings” or “official report of the proceedings”. Be that as it may, you can find the convention proceedings for the Democrats here; the Republican convention proceedings are here. You will notice that in both instances the result lists are not in order; a simple “find on this page” using the year of the convention will yield results. Another place to find similar information, but arranged chronologically is here for Democrats, here for Republicans.
Democratic Party platforms (1840-2012) and the Republican Party platforms (1856-2012) can be found here. (Definition of “platform“.)
SECONDARY SOURCES
Democratic National Political Conventions, 1832-2008 (from the Library of Congress) is a succinct yet very informative chronological synopsis of these meetings; there is also the Republican National Political Conventions, 1856-2008 from the same reputable source. The Smithsonian Magazine published The Top 10 Political Conventions That Mattered the Most. The History of Political Conventions is available from C-SPAN. The ever-reliable Congressional Research Service has issued several relevant reports: The Presidential Nominating Process and the National Party Conventions 2016: Frequently Asked Questions; Funding of Presidential Nominating Conventions: An Overview; and Contested Presidential Nominating Conventions: Brief Background and Questions. A fascinating read is How To Cover Political Conventions, a presentation hosted by the State Department. And much information can be gleaned from Presidential Campaigns & Elections.
The Chilcot Report
You can read the executive summary of the 12-volume work called the Report of the Iraq Inquiry, and find that Great Britain entered the Iraq conflict based on faulty intelligence.
How Do You Use Your Time?
How much time do you spend reading? Or engaged in a leisure activity? How many of us telecommute? And in what sectors is telecommuting more prevalent? Do men work longer hours than women? These and many other questions are answered in the 2015 American Time Use Survey that concerns itself with four major areas: worklife; household activities; leisure activities; and household childcare. Issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this report is supplemented with very detailed data tables. For example, table 11 reveals that men on average spend .31 hours of reading during weekend days; women come in at .38 hours. Obviously, they did not include us in the survey; we would have skewed it upwards!
EdTech Reports – June 2016
TechTrends 2020 (STM); The NMC Horizon Report > 2016 Museum Edition; Internet Trends 2016; and Net Data Directory (Harvard, dozens of sites with Internet data).
Online Primary Sources for American History: Letters To and From American Revolutionary Generals
Here is one of many lists we found of American generals during the Revolutionary War; we chose this one because it was not plagued with ads and pop-ups. Trying to find letters written by these individuals, or letters mentioning them, or letters received by them is a time-consuming and at times fruitless process. However, using the Founders Online site, you can retrieve thousands of missives, all transcribed and processed using the latest editorial methods and tools at hand. While this site is indeed about preserving and disseminating the letters of six Founding Fathers, embedded within its offerings are letters from and to such worthies as Nathanael Greene, Israel Putnam, Joseph Reed, Henry Knox, Horatio Gates, Daniel Morgan, and others. Note well that most of these writings revolve around the Revolutionary War so you will not find much written after the 1780s; this is NOT the place to find all their letters, but it does offer a substantial number contemporaneous with that mighty struggle – the first Brexit if you will. For example, typing in “Nathanael Greene” (and use the quotation marks) in the dialog box will retrieve in total 1325 letters: 343 authored by Greene, 258 received by Greene, and the rest mentioning him in the text of the letters. Of this number, 1152 are generated during the period of the American Revolution. This same pattern is repeated with any of the aforementioned names as well. So while not inclusive, this site does provide this bonus feature of revealing valuable documents written by others than the Founding Fathers.
Congressman Frank J. Guarini Library Blog 