Pat you are right.  It is time to let a lot of this go.  We have the "No Child Left Behind" law that needs fixing so that our teachers can enjoy teaching and our children can enjoy learning again.  Gettting permission to use the "time tunnel" or even a worm hole will not change one iota that led to the wars and conflicts of the last several decades or even centuries.  We have too much at stake now for our children so lets get on with it.  They are hurting and need those of us who are educators to really get in there and help them.  As I have always said "the past is a foreign country".  Jane Steele.

-----Original Message-----
>From: qvarizona <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Nov 15, 2006 6:19 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] The Redemption debate
>
>Pat,
>
>  While I can agree with your identification of the "bottom line",  I must ask:   Vituperation?  Have we been reading the same postings?   I've seen nothing that comes close to verbal abuse or severe censure; to the contrary, I've found it to be a very interesting and learned discussion that helps me see --and understand--  ideas that need to be considered.  The discussion that followed  Ed Ayers' question, is, I think, more interesting than his question  --perhaps because  I'm not at all certain he was asking the right one.
>
>  Joanne
>
>
>Patricia Watkinson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>  The level of vituperation has increased significantly in this erudite
>exchange, says Col. Foghorn Leghorn, and I, for one, regret it.
>I'm also wary of joining the fray, but here goes: I'm an historian of
>Europe, and I am particularly interested in losers...I mean
>irredentists, not jerks. In the recent past, Americans have been
>surprised at the way Serbs, Irish, Palestinians and Jews, to name a few,
>have held on to, even nurtured, grudges and hatreds stemming from
>ancient defeats and betrayals. However, this north/south divide shows
>that Americans are obviously not immune to such viseral responses.
>
>I know the names of all of my Confederate ancestors, which were drummed
>into me on vacation visits to innumberable battlefields. I can even
>point out the trees behind which my great grandfather shot at "Yankees"
>in the Wilderness. As a small child I heard all the family stories of
>life in Reconstruction Virginia, and I say, let it go. The South,
>however noble(?) its officers may have been, was wrong; it got punished;
>it's over. Would you really want to revisit that horrible time? Of
>course poor whites were exploited by rich whites, and probably some
>innocent white lives were lost. It happens all over the world, all the
>time. However, blacks had it worse than whites. That's the bottom
>line! The way "freedmen" were treated in "my" Virginia is, and was,
>shameful and unconscionable. So let's swallow our indignation, folks,
>on both sides.
>
>Take a "cleansing" breath, and let's get back to Ed Ayers' question--who
>are better historians, journalists or academics. I think academics are
>better, because they are trained to take the long view, to always be
>aware of the long-term effects and, more importantly, the connections
>over time and space. This makes us different from people who are
>intrinsically searching for "news." I agree that academic history can
>be mind-numbingly esoteric, but it doesn't have to be. As Nicholas
>Edsall my dissertation director always said, "You have to tell the
>story." And, really, most stories about humans are pretty interesting.
>
>Pat Watkinson
>
>
>Patricia Ferguson Watkinson, Ph.D.
>Archives Research Services
>Library of Virginia
>804-692-3570
>[log in to unmask]
>
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Lillian Jane Steele

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