james_nicoll ([info]james_nicoll) wrote,
@ 2008-05-01 15:34:00
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Context is for the weak
Even I know the difference between Stephen Douglas and Frederick Douglass.

Somewhere a Fox news editor's history teacher is weeping.

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[info]autopope
2008-05-01 07:40 pm UTC (link)
*Blinks* ... Who?

-- C. (Victim of a British history education, for what it's worth.)

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[info]davidwilford
2008-05-01 07:47 pm UTC (link)
These two men ran for President of the United States of America in 1860, having previously contested for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois in 1858:



Any questions?

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[info]paraleipsis
2008-05-01 07:50 pm UTC (link)
HAHAHAHAHA

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[info]shsilver
2008-05-01 08:18 pm UTC (link)
I didn't think those 1858 Illinois Democrats were that forward thinking!

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[info]movingfinger
2008-05-01 08:28 pm UTC (link)
Frederick Douglass was handsome. My. My.

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[info]machineplay
2008-05-01 10:34 pm UTC (link)
That was my first thought. DAMN. And, I looked him up, so now I know who he is!

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[info]elynne
2008-05-02 02:48 am UTC (link)
Agreed - though I have a fondness for that eyebrow thing Lincoln has going on. Spock eyebrow ftw!

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[info]xiphias
2008-05-02 04:48 am UTC (link)
I am convinced that that is one of the reasons he was so THREATENING to the anti-abolitionists. The whole narrative of "Dem Black Men Gonna Come And Have Sex Wit' Our White Wimmins" thing was a deep fear, I think, and Fredrick Douglass was threatening since, well, you gotta figure that there were quite a few White Wimmins who might not have objected.

He was also, of course, smart, well-educated, well-spoken, a witty conversationalist, and passionate.

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[info]heron61
2008-05-01 09:09 pm UTC (link)
This is a spoof, right? They didn't actually use that image?! If this is true, then that state of education in the US is far more sad and pathetic than I had imagined. Wow...

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[info]aisb23
2008-05-01 09:45 pm UTC (link)
I am afraid they actually did use that image.

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[info]bibliofile
2008-05-02 05:31 am UTC (link)
Cool!

(We must take our amusements where we find them.)

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[info]tekalynn
2008-05-02 12:34 am UTC (link)
Oh gawd, they (Fox) DIDN'T. Did they?!

What am I saying, this is Fox. *headdesk*

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[info]ladyholmwood
2008-05-02 03:28 am UTC (link)
that is fucking hilarious!

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-05-01 07:50 pm UTC (link)
Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858


Mind you, the odds are pretty good that I first heard about them from a SCTV sketch or some other source of equal solemnity.

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[info]autopope
2008-05-01 09:03 pm UTC (link)
Right. The school history syllabus I was subjected to was much more obsessed with the Schleswig-Holstein Question (and Answers Thereto), probably because of its more immediate historical impact, and I will confess to not having subsequently studied 19th century US history.

But who's the other Douglas guy, this Stephen?

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[info]argonel
2008-05-01 09:11 pm UTC (link)
I agree, who is this Stephen Douglas? As an american should I even care?

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[info]tekalynn
2008-05-02 12:38 am UTC (link)
Stephen A. Douglas: prominent mid-nineteenth century politician, today almost exclusively remembered for being the "Douglas" of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

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[info]davidwilford
2008-05-01 09:18 pm UTC (link)
Stephen Douglas was a Democratic politician from Illinois who during the 1850s for a time was considered the man most likely to be elected President in 1860 - except for the problem of his party falling apart along sectional lines over the issue of slavery. For all of his political skills (which were considerable), Douglas couldn't preserve the status quo of a half-slave, half-free nation, and Lincoln's prediction that it couldn't exist as such was proved to be right in the bitter end.

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[info]matgb
2008-05-02 03:44 pm UTC (link)
Stephen covered above, Fred was a freed slave and activist who did a lot of "look, we don't eat people" style campaigning in the north. Top bloke.

If you're interested in learning a bit more, can I recommend one of my favourite books? Dead good on covering all the bases, even the clost liberal-socialist nature of some of the early Republican party (esp Lincoln).

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[info]mjlayman
2008-05-02 10:10 pm UTC (link)
And we have The Frederick Douglas House Historic Site here in DC. It has a lot of his stuff and explains about what he did. There was a recent foofooraw because historians finally found out what color the house was painted when he lived there, and painted it that, and the neighbors don't like it.

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[info]redknight
2008-05-06 02:08 pm UTC (link)

"Page Not Found I'm sorry that page could not be found, but you may want to try the NPS homepage here http://www.nps.gov."

Apparently the neighbors hated it so much that they even got the web page taken down! :-)

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[info]mjlayman
2008-05-06 08:35 pm UTC (link)
I clicked on the link and it worked for me. Maybe you should try again.

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[info]redknight
2008-05-07 12:59 am UTC (link)

It's much happier (working) now.

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-01 08:19 pm UTC (link)
Dude. Douglass loved Scotland, and the Scots loved him. His last name is even taken from "The Lady in the Lake".

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-01 08:22 pm UTC (link)
Of, not In. Though Chandler mashed with Scott would be interesting.

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[info]davidwilford
2008-05-01 07:43 pm UTC (link)
Why? It's not the teacher's fault that a news organization can't be bothered to hire editors who know much about history.

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[info]colliemommie
2008-05-01 07:49 pm UTC (link)
*snork*

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[info]roseembolism
2008-05-01 07:58 pm UTC (link)
Well, there's a LOT of history out there.

Seriously, I had to explain to my wife a joke involving comparing the Stonewall Riots and Stonewall Jackson. She confused Stonewall Jackson with Andrew Jackson. And this is a woman who is highly intelligent, and knows her history fairly well (though she concentrates more on mythology and the culture of pre-industrial Europe)

What was that saying Gharlane of Eddore had? "It's not your fault you believe that, you're a victim of the American educational system"?

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[info]davidwilford
2008-05-01 08:01 pm UTC (link)
In this case I'm more inclined to believe that some future news editor skipped class the day the Lincoln-Douglas debates were covered.

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[info]roseembolism
2008-05-01 09:19 pm UTC (link)
Or some intern was asked to grab a picture off of google.

If it's Fox News, be happy that they didn't have a picture of Kirk Douglas.

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[info]tekalynn
2008-05-02 12:39 am UTC (link)
Win.

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[info]amberite
2008-05-04 08:15 am UTC (link)
Or Douglas Adams!

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-05-01 08:02 pm UTC (link)
I will admit I've confused Lake Agassiz with Lake Missoula.

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[info]james_nicoll
2008-05-01 08:10 pm UTC (link)
And it took me forever to understand that rivers can be long lived but lakes often are not.

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[info]movingfinger
2008-05-01 08:46 pm UTC (link)
I get the post-glaciation lakes mixed up. I consider this partly a failing of the people who named them and partly a failure of my own knowledge of geography. And since they don't exist any more, as such, contemporary knowledge doesn't help much, does it... Nonetheless, if they'd called Agassiz "Lake Manitoba" or similar, it would be a lot clearer.

Louis Agassiz was kind of a creep, anyway. A Cambridge, Mass., school that had been named after him was recently renamed, because of his (now Wrong-Wrong-Wrong, then acceptable) racist beliefs.

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[info]agrumer
2008-05-02 01:41 am UTC (link)
I've confused Lerner and Loewe with Leopold and Loeb.

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[info]bibliofile
2008-05-02 05:33 am UTC (link)
Not quite the same, are they. Though I'm sure someone's already done a musical about the latter two.

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[info]carloshasanax
2008-05-01 08:00 pm UTC (link)
I like the Civil War that implies. "More In Sorrow Than In Anger" versus "You Rebels Probably Aren't Going To Survive This (And My Heart Bleeds For You)."

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[info]jhetley
2008-05-01 08:54 pm UTC (link)
News editors (Fox or otherwise) assume their audience is as ignorant as they are...with reason.

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[info]supergee
2008-05-01 10:41 pm UTC (link)
It's Obama's fault. He forces them to think about black people the way some women force men to think about T&A.

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[info]mrteufel
2008-05-02 07:24 am UTC (link)
Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit, but after watching the video, it seems plausible to me that they were joking.

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[info]heron61
2008-05-02 10:32 am UTC (link)
As a side-thought before bed (and after far too much editing of material about sentient dinosaurs), it occurs to me that creating an image of a black politician losing to the most famous and widely respected Republican President is likely not an accident caused by poor history skills, but a deliberate political act based on the (likely correct) assumption that most viewers won't know that it's a complete fabrication. it seems far too useful and image to be an accident.

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No fact-checkers, no morgue, nothing.
[info]florbigoo
2008-05-02 02:39 pm UTC (link)
Proof that Fox News is not a news gathering organization.

Do they do any original reporting at all?

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