#Books About Dwight D. Eisenhower

[deadpresidents]

Could you recommend a biography of Eisenhower please?

There are so many great books of Eisenhower that I'm going to recommend a few of them:

•Eisenhower by Geoffrey Perret (BOOK | KINDLE) Published in 1999, this is one of the best single-volume biographies of Eisenhower, in my opinion.

•Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) This book is a vast, extensively researched look at all aspects of Eisenhower's fascinating life. It's about as complete of a biography of someone like Eisenhower that could possibly fit in one volume and was published relatively recently (2012).

•Eisenhower, Volume I: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952 by Stephen E. Ambrose (BOOK | KINDLE) •Eisenhower, Volume II: The President by Stephen E. Ambrose (BOOK | KINDLE) This two-volume biography of Eisenhower by legendary historian Stephen E. Ambrose is probably the best-known study of Eisenhower's life. If you're not looking to invest the time that it takes to get through these two big volumes, there is an abridged, single-volume edition of Ambrose's book: Eisenhower: Soldier and President: The Renowned One-Volume Life (BOOK | KINDLE).

•Eisenhower: The White House Years by Jim Newton (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) This is probably the best book focusing solely on Eisenhower's eight years as President. Anyone who wants to know Eisenhower's story almost certainly wants one of the full-fledged biographies covering his military career, but this is a good read for anyone who wants a deep dive on his Presidency.

•Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life With Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969 by David Eisenhower with Julie Nixon Eisenhower (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) Again, this is not a full-fledged biography covering Eisenhower's entire life, but it is a tremendously interesting, intimate, and deeply personal focus on Eisenhower's last years, from the time he left the White House until his death in 1969. What really makes this book different is that it's written by Eisenhower's grandson, David, who spent a lot of time with the former President when he left office and retired to his farm in Gettysburg. David Eisenhower (who is the namesake of Camp David, the Presidential retreat in Maryland) is able to give readers a unique look at this giant of the 20th Century, the former Supreme Allied Commander who helped defeat the Nazis and win World War II before becoming President and is all of those remarkable things but also a grandpa. The book is also notable because it's written with David Eisenhower's wife, who just happens to be the daughter of Eisenhower's Vice President and a future President in his own right, Richard Nixon.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Claire Wang at The Guardian:

Those who failed to produce papers were arrested. More than 400 people were detained and forced on a train back to Mexico, a place many had never been.

It’s a scene many fear will come to pass in president-elect Donald Trump’s second term, especially after he doubled down on a campaign promise to “launch the largest deportation operation” in US history, and confirmed he would use the military to execute hardline immigration policies. But this particular episode happened in 1931, as part of an earlier era of mass deportations that scholars say is reminiscent of what is unfolding today. The La Placita sweep became the first public immigration raid in Los Angeles, and one of the largest in a wave of “repatriation drives” that rolled across the country during the Great Depression. Mexican farm workers, indiscriminately deemed “illegal aliens”, became scapegoats for job shortages and shrinking public benefits. President Herbert Hoover’s provocative slogan, “American jobs for real Americans”, kicked off a spate of local legislation banning employment of anyone of Mexican descent. Police descended on workplaces, parks, hospitals and social clubs, arresting and dumping people across the border in trains and buses.

Nearly 2 million Mexican Americans, more than half US citizens, were deported without due process. Families were torn apart, and many children never again saw their deported parents. Hoover’s Mexican repatriation program is, among mass deportation efforts in the past, most similar to Trump’s stated plans, said Kevin R Johnson, a professor of public interest law and Chicana/o studies at the University of California, Davis, School of Law. [...] Since his first presidential run, Trump has invoked President Dwight D Eisenhower’s mass deportation program as a blueprint for his own agenda. During the second world war, the US and Mexican government enacted the Bracero program that allowed Mexican farm hands to temporarily work in the US. But many growers continued to hire undocumented immigrants because it was cheaper. In 1954, the Eisenhower administration cracked down on undocumented labor by launching “Operation Wetback”, a yearlong series of raids named after a racial epithet for people who illegally crossed the Rio Grande. [...] The politics of deportation have always contained an important “racial dimension”, said Mae Ngai, a historian whose book Impossible Subjects explores how illegal migration became the central issue in US immigration policy.

Trump has deployed racist tropes against various ethnic groups, including Mexicans as drug-dealing “rapists” and Haitians as pet eaters, while lamenting a lack of transplants from “nice”, white-majority countries like Denmark and Switzerland. Last month, sources close to the president told NBC News that he could prioritize deporting undocumented Chinese nationals. “He’s been very clear about going after people of color, people from ‘shithole countries,’” she said, referring to a 2018 remark from Trump about crisis-stricken nations like El Salvador and Haiti. Trump could plausibly deport a million people using military-style raids of the Eisenhower-era, Ngai said, but it is unlikely that he can expel 11 million undocumented immigrants. (According to an estimate by the American Immigration Council, deporting 1 million people a year would cost more than $960bn over a decade.) Still, Ngai said, his rhetoric alone could foment fear and panic in immigrant communities. But Eisenhower’s immigration approach also differed from Trump’s in notable ways, Ngai said. Though the administration did launch flashy raids, it also allowed farm owners to rehire some deportees through the Bracero program, essentially creating a pathway for authorized entry into the US. So far, Ngai said, Trump has hammered down on deportations without providing an option for legal immigration or naturalization. “He doesn’t know the whole story of ‘Operation Wetback’,” she said. Deportations also appear to have harmed the local economy.

Donald Trump’s mass deportation proposal hasn’t been the first time the US conducted mass deportations of Mexican-Americans, as it happened during the Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidencies. The deportations were ruinous to economies and were a human rights disaster, and Trump’s plan repeats that but turbocharges it.

[darkmaga-returns]

Trump Should Pattern Presidency After Eisenhower

by Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. | Dec 19, 2024

“God help the Nation when it has a President who doesn’t know as much about the military as I do.” – President Dwight D. Eisenhower speaking to his trusted White House Staff Secretary, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster.

These words are quoted in the book “Ike’s Bluff – President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle To Save The World” by Evan Thomas.

In the same paragraph as the words above are these: “When Defense Secretary Neil McElroy warned him that further cuts would harm national security, Eisenhower acerbically replied, ‘If you go to any military installation in the world where the American flag is flying and tell the commander that Ike says he will give him an extra star for his shoulder if he cuts his budget, there’ll be such a rush to cut costs that you’ll have to get out of the way.’”

President Trump did a good job leading this nation into four years of peace and prosperity during his first term. His next four years may be more difficult considering the challenges we face both at home and abroad.

Trump would do well to pattern his presidency after that of Eisenhower who gave the country eight years of peace and prosperity with the exception of a brief recession for a few months in 1958.

Eisenhower did it even though he had only had a Republican Congress during his first two years. He did it in significant part by being tough enough to issue 181 vetoes (only two of which were overridden), and issuing 484 executive orders.

[jbaileyfansite]

Washington, D.C., 1952. It's the night Dwight D. Eisenhower wins the presidential election in a landslide, a victory credited in part to demagogue Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy. Two men catch each other's eyes from across the celebration party. Hawkins Fuller (Magic Mike's Matt Bomer), a suit-and-tie-clad power player in politics, smirks at Tim Laughlin (Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey), a bespectacled and handsome newcomer on the scene.

There's a flash and now it's weeks later. The two lovers are in the throngs of an intoxicating torrid affair at the time of McCarthy's moral purge of homosexuals from government, the Lavender Scare. There's another flash and Hawk is taking a photo of Tim along the beach, years in the future. Another flash takes us back in time to a hallway on the Hill, where the two gents steal private glances.

This is how time works in Fellow Travelers, Bomer and Bailey's upcoming Showtime miniseries. So it's appropriate that the first teaser trailer, which EW exclusively debuts below, reflects that.

"They aren't flashbacks, really. We're putting the different time frames against each other," executive producer Ron Nyswaner, an Oscar nominee for writing 1993's Philadelphia, tells EW in an interview conducted before the Hollywood writers' strike. "It's about the choices that we make having ramifications that we don't see. It's very bad and we might not see them for 30 years, and they alter our lives in different ways. So you live with the choices that you make. Even though you try to avoid them, they usually show up somewhere."

Fellow Travelers is based on the novel of the same name by author Thomas Mallon, but while the book is what Nyswaner calls a "contained story about the '50s in Washington," the series is more ambitious in its scope.

Described as an epic love story entangled in a political thriller, the limited series tracks Hawk and Tim across four decades, through the Lavender Scare, the Vietnam War protests of the '60s, the disco scene of the '70s, and the AIDS crisis of the '80s.

The show also happens to be sexy as hell! Bomer and Bailey first got attention for these roles after paparazzi captured thirst-trap photos of their shirtless selves in character, splashing around on the Canadian beaches on the show's set. Neither those photos nor the first teaser come anywhere close to what audiences will see of their sexual chemistry.

Nyswaner worked on Ray Donovan and Homeland for Showtime during the 10 years he mulled making this new show, and he sees elements of both in Fellow Travelers.

In the character of Hawk, "There's a bit of a Ray Donovan, an unknowable person who doesn't seem to be able to love," he says. "And in Homeland, which is a thriller… we had a rule, which is if a scene doesn't push a story forward, then there's no reason it should exist." Nyswaner brought that rule to Fellow Travelers. Though, he admits, "It's really hard in our show to take scenes out." When you have Bailey and Bomer getting hot and heavy on screen together, we understand why.

Also starring Allison Williams, Jelani Alladin, and Noah Ricketts, Fellow Travelers will premiere on Paramount+ with Showtime this fall.

[x]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 14, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

You hear sometimes, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, that America has no heroes left.

When I was writing a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, where heroism was pretty thin on the ground, I gave that a lot of thought. And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect, nor doing something spectacular. In fact, it’s just the opposite: it’s regular, flawed human beings choosing to put others before themselves, even at great cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing in around them.

It means sitting down the night before D-Day and writing a letter praising the troops and taking all the blame for the next day’s failure upon yourself, in case things went wrong, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower did.

It means writing in your diary that you “still believe that people are really good at heart,” even while you are hiding in an attic from the men who are soon going to kill you, as Anne Frank did.

It means signing your name to the bottom of the Declaration of Independence in bold print, even though you know you are signing your own death warrant should the British capture you, as John Hancock did.

It means defending your people’s right to practice a religion you don’t share, even though you know you are becoming a dangerously visible target, as Sitting Bull did.

Sometimes it just means sitting down, even when you are told to stand up, as Rosa Parks did.

None of those people woke up one morning and said to themselves that they were about to do something heroic. It’s just that, when they had to, they did what was right.

On April 3, 1968, the night before the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white supremacist, he gave a speech in support of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Since 1966, King had tried to broaden the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality into a larger movement for economic justice. He joined the sanitation workers in Memphis, who were on strike after years of bad pay and such dangerous conditions that two men had been crushed to death in garbage compactors.

After his friend Ralph Abernathy introduced him to the crowd, King had something to say about heroes: “As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.”

Dr. King told the audience that, if God had let him choose any era in which to live, he would have chosen the one in which he had landed. “Now, that’s a strange statement to make,” King went on, “because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around…. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” Dr. King said that he felt blessed to live in an era when people had finally woken up and were working together for freedom and economic justice.

He knew he was in danger as he worked for a racially and economically just America. “I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter…because I’ve been to the mountaintop…. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life…. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

People are wrong to say that we have no heroes left.

Just as they have always been, they are all around us, choosing to do the right thing, no matter what.

Wishing you all a day of peace for Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2024.

[Image of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., by Buddy Poland.]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[princesssarisa]

Who was the US president when each Disney Animated Canon movie was released

That video I watched today about who was president when each president was born has stirred up my autistic list-making instinct.

So now I'm applying it to the Disney Animated Canon, just to put each movie in its historical context.

Franklin D. Roosevelt:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Pinocchio

Fantasia

Dumbo

Bambi

Saludos Amigos

The Three Caballeros

Harry S. Truman:

Make Mine Music

Fun and Fancy Free

Melody Time

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Cinderella

Alice in Wonderland

Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Peter Pan

Lady and the Tramp

Sleeping Beauty

John F. Kennedy:

101 Dalmatians

Lyndon B. Johnson:

The Sword in the Stone

The Jungle Book

Richard Nixon:

The Aristocats

Robin Hood

Gerald Ford:

None

Jimmy Carter:

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

The Rescuers

Ronald Reagan:

The Fox and the Hound

The Black Cauldron

The Great Mouse Detective

Oliver and Company

George H.W. Bush:

The Little Mermaid

The Rescuers Down Under

Beauty and the Beast

Aladdin

Bill Clinton

The Lion King

Pocahontas

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Hercules

Mulan

Tarzan

Fantasia 2000

Dinosaur

The Emperor's New Groove

George W. Bush:

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Lilo and Stitch

Treasure Planet

Brother Bear

Home on the Range

Chicken Little

Meet the Robinsons

Bolt

Barack Obama:

The Princess and the Frog

Tangled

Winnie the Pooh

Wreck-It Ralph

Frozen

Big Hero 6

Zootopia

Moana

Donald Trump:

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Frozen II

Joe Biden:

Raya and the Last Dragon

Encanto

Strange World

Wish

Just for the heck of it, I also looked up who was president when each of the six American Disney theme parks opened. As it turns out, each park opened under a different president!

Disneyland opened during Eisenhower's presidency, Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom during Nixon's, EPCOT during Reagan's, Disney MGM Studios (now Disney Hollywood Studios) during Bush Sr.'s, Animal Kingdom during Clinton's, and California Adventure during Bush Jr.'s

[ancientcosmicsecrets]

A True Story Of An Alien Contact

The Venusian Visitor

Imagine this: You are the President of a mighty nation, and one day, you receive a visitor from another planet. He claims he comes in peace and has a message for you and the world. He says he can help you solve your problems and join a galactic community of other civilizations. He also mentions that he has only three years to complete his mission. If you were in this situation, what would you do? This is not a science fiction scenario. It is reportedly what happened in the 1950s when a friendly alien named Valiant Thor visited Earth from Venus. His story is considered one of the most fascinating and controversial cases of alien contact ever recorded. It is also one of the most inspiring and challenging stories ever told.

Who was Valiant Thor?

Valiant Thor (or Val for short) was an extraterrestrial being who claimed to be from Venus, the second planet from the Sun. He looked human, except for having six fingers on each hand and other anatomical differences. He had an IQ of 1200, spoke 100 languages, and had a vast knowledge of science, history, and religion. He came to Earth on March 16, 1957, with a mission: to invite humanity to join the interstellar community and to warn us about the dangers of nuclear weapons. He said he had a message from the High Council, a group of benevolent aliens who watched over our planet and wanted us to evolve and prosper. He also said he had access to advanced technologies that could solve many of our problems, such as disease, poverty, and pollution.

He did not come alone. He had two companions, Jill and Donn, who stayed in his spaceship while he went to meet the authorities. He landed in Alexandria, Virginia, where he was greeted by two police officers who escorted him to the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.

How did he meet the President?

Valiant Thor met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon at the Pentagon. He presented his credentials and proposal, called "The Victor One." It was a document that outlined how Earth could benefit from joining the interstellar community and how we could avoid self-destruction by abandoning nuclear weapons. He also offered to share his knowledge and technology with us, but only if we agreed to use them for peaceful purposes. He gave the President three days to consider his offer and to consult with his advisors. He said he would wait for his answer at the Pentagon, where he was given an apartment as a guest. He also said he would not reveal his presence to the public as he did not want to cause panic or confusion.

What did he do at the Pentagon?

Valiant Thor stayed at the Pentagon for three years, from 1957 to 1960. He met with many government officials, military leaders, scientists, and religious figures during that time. He also traveled around the country and visited various places of interest. He was friendly, charming, and respectful to everyone he met. He also demonstrated some of his abilities, such as telepathy, levitation, and healing.

He tried to persuade the people in power to accept his offer and to change their ways. He warned them that if they continued to pursue nuclear weapons, they would face dire consequences. He also told them that other alien races were not as friendly as him and might pose a threat to Earth. He said he was here to help us, not harm us. He also made friends among the humans who believed in and supported him. One of them was Frank E. Stranges, a Christian evangelist who wrote a book about him called "Stranger at the Pentagon." Stranges claimed to have met Val personally and written his book based on his conversations.

Why did he leave?

Unfortunately, the President and his advisors rejected Valiant Thor's offer. They feared that accepting his help would undermine their authority and their economy. They also doubted his motives and his credibility. They thought he might be a spy or a trickster. They decided to keep him at the Pentagon as a guest but not a partner.

Valiant Thor was disappointed but not surprised by their decision. He knew that humans were not ready for his message and his gifts. He respected their free will and did not force them to change their minds. He completed his mission on March 16, 1960, exactly three years after he arrived. He said goodbye to his friends and left the Pentagon. He rejoined his companions in his spaceship and departed from Earth. He said he would return someday when we became more mature and open-minded.

The story of Valiant Thor is fascinating and inspiring, but is it true? There is no conclusive evidence that proves or disproves his existence. The only source of information is Frank E. Stranges, who claimed to have met him personally and written his book based on his conversations with him.

Whether you believe in Valiant Thor or not, you can still learn something from his story. He represents a peaceful, harmonious world where humans and aliens can coexist. He also represents a challenge to our beliefs and values, where we must question our assumptions and actions. He also represents hope for a better future, where we can overcome our fears and conflicts and join the interstellar community.

[nerdby]

Ok, so I know that making pretentious posts about pop culture is kinda my thing, but I wanted to keep this thought to myself. Cause contrary to popular belief, I don't enjoy being pretentious. Like I don't like that I'm a know-it-all, but when I was a kid I usually only got positive attention from my teachers for being smart cause my parents were assholes and now here we are.

So in the Barbie movie Ken develops an obsession with horses before going back to Barbieland to overthrow the matriarchy and enact a 1950s-esque patriarchal society where all the Barbies were Stepford Wives. The reasoning behind this is because Westerns and cowboys were insanely popular in the US in the 1950s. That's also the same era in which President Dwight D. Eisenhower encountered the founder of The International Christian Leadership Abraham Vereide and decided to turn the US into a Christofascist police state with absolute bullshit like The Lavender Scare and Cointelpro. Though Vereide was kind of a puppy dog compared to his successor, Doug Coe.

These also coincided with a coup against the Iranian government that was carried by the US and UK governments. This coup toppled the Iranian government and in turn led to the 1970s Islamic Revolution which allowed extremist groups like Al Qaeda to rise to power.

If you want to read about these things, I recommend these books--

Also worth looking into is Abbie Hoffman's work as he literally dedicated his life to uncovering the existence of Cointelpro.

There are probably other people I could mention like Malcolm X -- his autobiography is phenomenal, by the way. I have a much longer list on my Goodreads TBR and if I ever figure out how to share that list on my cellphone I will. Bezos seems to have disabled that on the Android app, though that might just be my phone. I traded my iPhone in for a free phone to save money and the one they gave me is not exactly fancy. Currently saving up, so I can get a better model to transfer to the sim card to.

But that's what up with Ken and horses. It's just a reference to 1950s bullshit -- AKA John Wayne.

[usafphantom2]

First U-2 pilot recalls when the only U-2 pilot to fly over Moscow nearly died and crashed into Red Square after he almost bit his poison cyanide pill in half

Vito felt his throat go dry as he approached Moscow for the first time—who could blame him? So, he fished in his pocket for a cough drop and grabbed the cyanide pill instead and popped it into his mouth.

The US Air Force (USAF) jointly managed U-2 development, testing and missions with the CIA from the start. Pilots for overflights of the USSR, though, were civilians working for the CIA. President Dwight D. Eisenhower believed sending military pilots over the USSR would be perceived as an act of war, so USAF Reserve fighter pilots voluntarily quit the service and went to work as CIA pilots. Officially, they were Lockheed test pilots.

The first U-2 flight over the USSR took place on July 4, 1956, and it brought back photos of Leningrad’s shipyards. Several more flights followed, and the photos they produced helped the US conclude that there was no “bomber gap” or “missile gap” in favor of the Soviets, as many feared. Eventually the CIA flew 24 U-2 missions over the USSR, and numerous flights over other communist nations.

Marty Knutson the first pilot selected to fly the U-2 recalls in Ben Rich’s book “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed:”

First U-2 pilot recalls when the only U-2 pilot to fly over Moscow nearly died and crashed into Red Square after he almost bit his poison cyanide pill in half

Carmine Vito

‘I was the first pilot selected to fly in the U-2 program and made the third flight over the Soviet Union on the morning of July 8, 1956. I was a twenty-six-year-old with a thousand hours of fighter time. Now here I was flying over Russia in a fragile little airplane with a wingspan as long as the Brooklyn Bridge—and below I could see three hundred miles in every direction. This was enemy territory, big time. In those days especially, I had a very basic attitude about the Soviet Union —man, it was an evil empire, a forbidding, alien place and I sure as hell didn’t want to crash-land in the middle of it. I had to pinch myself that I was actually flying over the Soviet Union.

‘I began the day by eating a high-protein breakfast, steak and eggs, then put on the bulky pressure suit and the heavy helmet and had to lie down in a contour chair for two hours before taking off and breathe pure oxygen. The object was to purge the nitrogen out of my system to avoid getting the bends if I had to come down quick from altitude.

‘I knew from being briefed by the two other guys who flew these missions ahead of me to expect a lot of Soviet air activity. They tracked me from the minute I took off, which was an unpleasant surprise. We thought we would be invisible to their radar at such heights. No dice. Through my drift sight I saw fifteen Russian MiGs following me from about fifteen thousand feet below.

‘The day before, Carmine Vito had followed the railroad tracks right into Moscow and actually saw two MiGs collide and crash while attempting to climb to his altitude.

‘Vito had a close call. The ground crew had put his poison cyanide pill in the wrong pocket. We were issued the pill in case of capture and torture and all that good stuff, but given the option whether to use it or not.

U-2 print

This print is available in multiple sizes from AircraftProfilePrints.com. U-2S Dragon Lady “Senior Span”, 9th RW, 99th RS, 80-329

‘But Carmine didn’t know the cyanide was in the right breast pocket of his coveralls when he dropped in a fistful of lemon-flavored cough drops. The cyanide pill was supposed to be in an inside pocket. Vito felt his throat go dry as he approached Moscow for the first time—who could blame him? So, he fished in his pocket for a cough drop and grabbed the cyanide pill instead and popped it into his mouth.

‘He started to suck on it. Luckily, he realized his mistake in a split second and spit it out in horror before it could take effect. Had he bit down he would have died instantly and crashed right into Red Square. Just imagine the international uproar!

‘I kept my cyanide pill in an inside pocket and prayed that I would not have an engine flameout.’

@Habubrats71 via Twitter

[bohemian-rhapsody-in-blue]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I realize it’s sort of connected to this chart:

This was a chart that puts into visual terms a system used by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower to decide what to prioritize and do when, and is supposed to help increase one’s productivity. I think Stephen Covey also used it in that Seven Habits of Highly Effective People book that my school was obsessed with for some reason. You can put Tasks You Need/Want To Do into each box, depending on how urgent and important you deem them, and then that will—y’know, in theory—help you decide what order to do them in.

Tim Urban of Wait But Why (he also has some bullshit “enlightened centrist” and Elon Musk-fanboy opinions I don’t agree with, but I love his series of popular posts and TED Talk about procrastination) suggests in this post that procrastinators’ matrices tend to look more like this:

We tend to live in Quadrants 3 and 4, avoiding Quadrant 1 until it’s absolutely necessary and we’re sent into a panicked frenzy of productivity. But the trick to this is, if you think “oh, clearly what I’m doing to procrastinate is my passion, so I’ll pursue that instead,” it turns from a fun, desirable Q3 or Q4 task into an undesirable Q1 one. It might be the exact same task, or similar, but now it’s urgent and a responsibility and people expect things of you and that’s scary…so now you’re avoiding the task you used to love!

OP seems to have experienced this with art, where it started as a Q4 task (doodling in class, to avoid the Q1 task of learning about Henry VIII) or Q3 task (updating their webcomic on a regular schedule) to a Q1 task when they made it their career. I’ve gone through it with writing: fanfic or random cracked-out stories I write just for myself? Fun! I wanna! My senior thesis, which is literally the same thing, writing short stories? Oh no, now it’s an assignment, and that’s to be avoided.

And like OP said, this means procrastinators are rarely just sitting idle, and they are getting stuff done! Even if it’s not urgent stuff, or stuff that looks important to you right now, it is stuff that is getting done. Of course, what this Q3 or Q4 stuff is can range from “mindlessly scrolling through Instagram” to “working on a successful webcomic and letting your creativity flow.” The other day, I found some free Latin textbooks online and found that I was doing the exercises in them as a means of procrastination—I was literally teaching myself a dead language instead of doing the psych homework I was supposed to be doing. My brain is broken. (Of course, if I actually took a Latin class, I’d probably start procrastinating on doing the exercises for THAT too…)

I don’t know what the conclusion is here—doing a Q1 job I hate to save mental energy for Q3/Q4 stuff I love? I don’t want to never try and seek credit, payment, etc. for things I love to do for fear that they’ll become Q1 things and I’ll start hating them. I don’t know, I’m only a college undergrad here. But I thought OP brought up a very good point that I’ve actually been using for a whole as a framework to look at my procrastination, and I thought I’d provide an alternate visualization that’s helped me too.

i feel like i had a massive breakthrough with understanding in hindsight how adhd has affected my relationship with art, and i sat there for about an hour just like

[deadpresidents]

HERBERT HOOVER •An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover by Richard Norton Smith (BOOK) •Herbert Hoover: A Biography by Eugene Lyons (BOOK) •Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency by Charles Rappleye (BOOK | KINDLE) •Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times by Kenneth Whyte (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT •Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship by Jon Meacham (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Traitor To His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black (BOOK | KINDLE) •Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

HARRY S. TRUMAN •Truman by David McCullough (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year That Transformed America by David Pietrusza (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman by Merle Miller (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman by Harry S. Truman, Edited by Robert H. Ferrell (BOOK) •Harry S. Truman by Margaret Truman (BOOK)

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER •Eisenhower by Geoffrey Perret (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Eisenhower, Volume I: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952 by Stephen E. Ambrose (BOOK | KINDLE) •Eisenhower, Volume II: The President by Stephen E. Ambrose (BOOK | KINDLE) •The Supreme Commander: The War Years of Dwight D. Eisenhower by Stephen E. Ambrose (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Eisenhower in War and Peace by Jean Edward Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

JOHN F. KENNEDY •An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (BOOK | KINDLE) •Incomparable Grace: JFK in the Presidency by Mark K. Updegrove (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 by Fredrik Logevall (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

[misfitwashere]

August 9, 2024 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 10

When President Joe Biden announced that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on July 21—less than three weeks ago—the horizon for the 2024 presidential election suddenly shortened from years to about three months. That shift apparently flummoxed the Republicans, who briefly talked about suing to make sure that Biden, rather than Harris, was at the head of the Democratic ticket, even though the Democrats had not yet held their convention and Biden had not officially become the nominee when he stepped out of contention. Lately, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested that Biden might suddenly, somehow, change his mind and upend the whole new ticket, although Biden himself has been strong in his public support for Harris and her vice-presidential running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, and Democrats held a roll-call vote nominating Harris for the presidency.

The idea that presidential campaigns should drag on for years is a relatively new one. For well over a century, political conventions were dramatic affairs where political leaders hashed out who they thought was their party’s best standard-bearer, a process that almost always involved quiet deals and strategic conversations. Sometimes the outcome was pretty clear ahead of time, but there were often surprises. Famously, for example, Ohio representative James A. Garfield went to the 1880 Republican convention expecting to marshal votes for Ohio senator John Sherman—General William Tecumseh Sherman’s brother—only to find himself walking away with the nomination himself. 

As recently as 1952, the outcome of the Republican National Convention was not clear beforehand. Most observers thought the nomination would go to Ohio senator Robert Taft, the son of President William Howard Taft, but after a tremendous battle—including at least one fist fight—the nomination went to war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower, who challenged Taft because of the senator's opposition to the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Taft supporters took that loss hard: Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. drove Eisenhower’s victory, prompting right-wing Republicans’ enduring hatred of what they called the “eastern establishment.” 

The 1960 presidential election ushered in a new era in politics. While Eisenhower had turned to advertising executives to help him appeal to voters, it was 1960 Democratic nominee Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy who was the first presidential candidate to turn to a public opinion pollster, Louis Harris, to help him adjust his message and his policies to polls. 

Political campaigns were modernizing from the inside to win elections, but as important in the long run was Theodore H. White’s best selling account of the campaign, The Making of the President 1960. White was a successful reporter, novelist, and nonfiction writer who, finding himself flush from a movie deal and out of work when Collier’s magazine went under, decided to follow the inside story of the 1960 presidential campaign. “I want to get at the real guts of the process of making an American president—what the mechanics, the mystique, the style, the pressures are with which an American who hopes to be our President must contend,” White wrote to Senator Estes Kefauver (D-TN). 

White set out to follow the campaigns of the many primary candidates that year: Democrats Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, and John F. Kennedy and Republicans Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller. 

Before White’s book, political journalism picked up when politicians announced their candidacy, and focused on candidates’ public statements and position papers. White’s portrait welcomed ordinary people backstage to hear politicians reading crowds, fretting over their prospects, and adjusting their campaigns according to expert advice. In heroic, novelistic style, White told the tale of the struggle that lifted Kennedy to victory as the other candidates fell away, and his book spent 20 weeks at the top of the bestseller lists and won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.

White’s book emphasized the long process of building a successful presidential race and the many advisors who made such building possible. In the modern world a presidential campaign lasted far longer than the few months after a convention. In his intimate portrait of that process, White radically transformed political journalism. As historian John E. Miller noted, journalists who had previously covered the public face of a candidacy “now sought to capture in minute detail the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the candidates and their strategy boards and to probe beneath the surface events of political campaigns to ascertain where the ‘real action’ lay.” 

For journalists, seeing the inside story of politics as a sort of business meant leaving behind the idea that political ideology mattered in presidential elections, a position that political scientists were also abandoning in 1960. It also meant getting that inside story by preserving the candidates’ goodwill, something we now call access journalism. Other journalists leapt to follow the trail White blazed, and by 1973 the pack of presidential journalists had become a story in its own right. White told journalist Timothy Crouse that he had come to regret that his new approach to presidential contests had turned presidential campaigns into a circus.

Over time, presidential campaigns began to use that circus as part of their own story, spinning polls, rallies, and press coverage to convince voters that their candidate was winning. But now the 2024 election seems to be challenging the habit of seeing a presidential campaign as a long, heroic sifting of advice and application of tactics, as well as the perceived need for access to campaign principals.

Yesterday, apparently chafing as the Harris-Walz campaign turns out huge crowds, Trump called reporters to his company’s Florida property, Mar-a-Lago. Those determined not to miss any twist of the campaign—and who had enough advance notice to make it to Florida—listened to him serve up his usual banquet of lies: that doctors and mothers are murdering babies after they’re born; everyone wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, no one died on January 6, 2021; he loves autocrats and they love him; and so on. The journalists there did not ask him about the recent bombshell report suggesting that Egypt poured $10 million into his 2016 campaign.

But, as conservative writer Tom Nichols of The Atlantic noted, Trump appears nonetheless to have gone entirely off the rails. He claimed that the crowd he drew on January 6 was bigger than those who gathered in 1963 to hear the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his famous I Have a Dream speech, and he told the entirely fabricated story of surviving an emergency landing in a helicopter with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. As Nichols put it, “The Republican nominee, the man who could return to office and regain the sole authority to use American nuclear weapons, is a serial liar and can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Donald Trump is not well. He is not stable. There’s something deeply wrong with him.”

But the media appears to be sliding away from Trump: today he angrily insisted he could prove that the dangerous helicopter trip actually occurred, leading New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman to note that “Mr. Trump has a history of claiming he will provide evidence to back up his claims but ultimately not doing so.” When asked to produce the flight records he claimed to have, Trump “responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice.”

In contrast, as presidential candidates, first Biden and now Harris have not appeared to bother with access journalism or courting established media. Instead, they have recalled an earlier time by turning directly to voters through social media and by articulating clear policies that support their dedication to the larger project of American democracy.

Yesterday, after journalists had begun to complain that they did not have enough access to Harris, she came to them directly on the tarmac at the Detroit airport and asked, “What’cha got?” All but one of their questions were about Trump and his comments; the one question that was not about Trump came when a journalist asked when Harris would sit down for an interview. 

— 

[jdgo51]

Prayer is Essential

Today's inspiration comes from:

If My People

by Jack Countryman

Editor’s note: According to our sister site BibleGateway.com, there was a significant increase in searches in 2020 about what the Bible says about politics. Here we are in another very important year politically. Two of the key topics people searched for: praying for government, and obeying government authority. Two of the most popular verses: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1-2) and “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1). It is a great privilege to press into prayer for the world, for our nation, for our leaders in government, for our leaders in communities and churches! Let us pray not just today, but every day. We hope you find If My People a useful guide for how to pray for our nation. Here’s more from Jack Countryman…

"'In today’s world we are seeking hope as we reckon with a global pandemic, racial injustice, and an economic crisis that is unparalleled in our time. Many of the hardships are being wrapped into our daily challenges.

Today, more than ever, prayer is an essential element in our lives. We should turn to God for direction and the choices He wishes us to make for our nation.

There is tremendous power in prayer.

Since our nation’s first days, God’s greatest movements are fashioned and sustained by prayer. From the signing of our earliest documents to our triumphs over darkness, to the spiritual awakening that sustained our faith and resolve over the centuries. Throughout Scripture and our history as a nation, persistence, prevailing, intentional, and never-ending prayer has always brought the presence of God. Prayer is a wonderful power placed by the Almighty God into the hands of His saints. When we humbly seek His face in prayer, He is moved to act on our behalf and accomplish His desire for us. When we seek God in prayer for our leaders, we impact the very direction our nation will take.

This 40-day prayer journey (If My People) is designed to help quicken your prayers, to encourage you to seek God’s will for our future, and ask Him to continually intercede on behalf of our nation. Prayerfully seek His face every day, believe that your prayers make a difference, and claim all victory that is and is to come. For there is tremendous power in prayer. We should recognize that freedom is never free. Throughout the history of our country, men and women were called to make great sacrifices and give their time and sometimes their very lives so we can enjoy freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With every challenge we have faced, we have risen to defend the nation we cherish. We find ourselves at the crossroads of determining the direction of our country’s future and the role of Christianity in our nation. The devoted prayers of all citizens will impact the future direction of our beloved country. Our prayer is that this book will draw you closer to our Heavenly Father as you commit yourself to pray for our country. Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, “Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed — else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

Our God who never sleeps will hear our prayers 24/7

God desires that this great nation will turn to Him, read His Word, pray and obey His commands for the good of our country. Throughout history, God has faithfully led us through trials, wars, economic crises and social issues coming to boil. Every time He has seen us through and blessed our land with more than we deserve. Let us all seek the Lord in prayer for His direction and for our blessed land. The Bible encourages us to call upon the Lord in every situation in our lives and by extension in our land.

Our God who never sleeps will hear our prayers 24/7.

So, it seems right that the one duty of every Christ-following person blessed to live in this country is to pray for the nation. The One we call to has promised to listen.

When we stand together as one nation under God willing to defend the rights that have been granted to us, we will be blessed. The freedom we enjoy comes with the responsibility of each citizen to defend that freedom. God can also use His people in this land to share His love and offer encouragement to neighbors. May His Spirit be our guide as we move forward as His people and as Americans who should guard our land.

Praising God should be an everyday occurrence in this great country we call home. We are blessed with the freedom to live as we wish, vote as we choose, worship where we want, and express our opinion without fear of retribution. These are the privileges we should not take for granted. May God be our guide as we plan for the future and prayerfully exercise our right to vote."'

Written for Devotionals Daily by Jack Countryman, author of If My People.

[tryingtobecoollikeyou]

The class is just called "Home Ec" but it's a mix of life skills and how to blend in with the non-magic users. It covers everything from credit scores and balancing a check book to baking a cake without magic to pop culture to sex ed and some of the basic sciences and maths. You take this class every year, the subject material increasing in difficulty and skill as the students age up.

IT IS REQUIRED AND YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO PASS TO GRADUATE. Students have been held up because they didn't pass.

Now, there have been a few students whose cakes looked like the one from Sleeping Beauty and that's fine. But you will fail if you can't make an edible meal without magic that's not cup noodles. You won't fail for not knowing who Dwight D Eisenhower is, but there will be a list of notable people and you have to be able to write a short two to three sentence blurb about at least 60% of them.

And you have to know the conversion rate of Magecoin to Rupee. No one knows why it's Rupee specifically, not even the teacher.

You teach at a magic school, but you do not teach any magic. In fact, you are not even a mage. Yet your classes are among the few that every student has to take, no matter what kind of magic they are studying.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.14 (after 1900)

1900 – Hawaii becomes a United States territory. 1900 – The second German Naval Law calls for the Imperial German Navy to be doubled in size, resulting in an Anglo-German naval arms race. 1907 – The National Association for Women's Suffrage succeeds in getting Norwegian women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. 1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown depart from St. John's, Newfoundland on the first nonstop transatlantic flight. 1926 – Brazil leaves the League of Nations. 1937 – Pennsylvania becomes the first (and only) state of the United States to celebrate Flag Day officially as a state holiday. 1937 – U.S. House of Representatives passes the Marihuana Tax Act. 1940 – World War II: The German occupation of Paris begins. 1940 – The Soviet Union presents an ultimatum to Lithuania resulting in Lithuanian loss of independence. 1940 – Seven hundred and twenty-eight Polish political prisoners from Tarnów become the first inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. 1941 – June deportation: the first major wave of Soviet mass deportations and murder of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, begins. 1944 – World War II: After several failed attempts, the British Army abandons Operation Perch, its plan to capture the German-occupied town of Caen. 1945 – World War II: Filipino troops of the Philippine Commonwealth Army liberate the captured in Ilocos Sur and start the Battle of Bessang Pass in Northern Luzon. 1949 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey, rides a V-2 rocket to an altitude of 134 km (83 mi), thereby becoming the first mammal and first monkey in space. 1950 – An Air France Douglas DC-4 crashes near Bahrain International Airport, killing 40 people. This came two days after another Air France DC-4 crashed in the same location. 1951 – UNIVAC I is dedicated by the U.S. Census Bureau. 1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a bill into law that places the words "under God" into the United States Pledge of Allegiance. 1955 – Chile becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty. 1959 – Disneyland Monorail System, the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere, opens to the public in Anaheim, California. 1962 – The European Space Research Organisation is established in Paris – later becoming the European Space Agency. 1966 – The Vatican announces the abolition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("index of prohibited books"), which was originally instituted in 1557. 1967 – Mariner program: Mariner 5 is launched towards Venus. 1972 – Japan Airlines Flight 471 crashes on approach to Palam International Airport (now Indira Gandhi International Airport) in New Delhi, India, killing 82 of the 87 people on board and four more people on the ground. 1982 – Falklands War: Argentine forces in the capital Stanley conditionally surrender to British forces. 1985 – Five member nations of the European Economic Community sign the Schengen Agreement establishing a free travel zone with no border controls. 1986 – The Mindbender derails and kills three riders at the Fantasyland (known today as Galaxyland) indoor amusement park at West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta. 1994 – The 1994 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot occurs after the New York Rangers defeat the Vancouver Canucks to win the Stanley Cup, causing an estimated C$1.1 million, leading to 200 arrests and injuries. 2002 – Near-Earth asteroid 2002 MN misses the Earth by 75,000 miles (121,000 km), about one-third of the distance between the Earth and the Moon. 2014 – A Ukraine military Ilyushin Il-76 airlifter is shot down, killing all 49 people on board. 2017 – A fire in a high-rise apartment building in North Kensington, London, UK, leaves 72 people dead and another 74 injured. 2017 – US Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, and three others, are shot and wounded while practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The mental stress and burden which this form of government imposes has been particularly well recognized in a little book about which I have spoken on several occasions. It is "The True Believer," by Eric Hoffer; you might find it of interest. In it, he points out that dictatorial systems make one contribution to their people which leads them to tend to support such systems—freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions. But while this responsibility is a taxing one to a free people it is their great strength as well—from millions of individual free minds come new ideas, new adjustments to emerging problems, and tremendous vigor, vitality and progress. One of my own major aims and efforts has been to assist in every way open to me in giving our people a better understanding of the great issues that face our country today—some of them indeed issues of life and death. Through being better informed, they can best gain greater assurance regarding our nation’s situation and participate in establishing policies and programs which they think to be sound and right. The quest for certainty is at best, however, a long and arduous one. While complete success will always elude us, still it is a quest which is vital to self-government and to our way of life as free men. —Dwight D Eisenhower, letter to Robert J Biggs, Feb 10, 1959

[Robert Scott Horton]