Happy Birthday FDR!

One of the most gifted presidents to ever run the Oval Office, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, turns 130 today. After defeating Herbert Hoover, FDR became the 32nd President of the United States. During his first term in office, the United States was at the worst point of the Great Depression. With a quarter of the workforce unemployed, rising food prices, declining industrial production and over two million Americans homeless FDR had the daunting task of bringing the US afloat again. Roosevelt’s “first 100 days” came with a “new deal” for the American people. The series of economic programs focused on the relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy to pre depression levels and the reformation of the financial system to prevent a repeated depression.

Nevertheless, the United States slowly pulled out of the great depression solidifying FDR’s landslide re-election where he continued his recovery program during his second term in office. During this time Europe and Asia were on the verge of war as Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia while Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia and Japan invaded China. FDR however, promised his soldiers "you boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war."

World War II, however, would break out before the end of FDR’s second term. Roosevelt’s third term would be dominated by this event and the preparation for a possible conflict began by upgrading and training the Armed Forces. The United States would become the “Arsenal of Democracy” until the attacks on Pearl Harbor where war was finally declared against the Axis Powers.

The “Big Three”: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, Commanded the Allied forces in the European, African and Pacific theaters. The Allied Forces secured victories over the Battle of Midway, Britain, Stalingrad and El Alamein resulting in the impending victory for the Allies.

Unfortunately, less than a month before the fall of Germany, President Roosevelt passed. During his years in office FDR suffered from high blood pressure, systemic atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure. His death was met with grief around the world. FDR led his country out of its greatest economic collapse and victory in the greatest war in modern history. Franklin Delano Roosevelt will forever be remembered as one of our nation’s best and brightest. Happy birthday bro.

Want to learn more about FDR, try FDR AND THE NEW DEAL FOR BEGINNERS.

PIPA...SOPA...DRAMA

When Internet heavy weights such as Wikipedia, Reddit, Google start censoring themselves, they are representing the millions of online users in this nation.

The internet is one of the most robust and prominent job creators this nation has at the moment. It has been the back bone of revolutions in Syria, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and many more by enabling communication with everyday people like ourselves around the world. Congress, however, has proposed a couple of bills that could jeopardize the very existence of the internet as we know it.  The bills are a proposition to protect the entertainment industry from rampant copyright infringements that can be found in every corner if the internet. The bills are called Protect-IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act or PIPA and SOPA for short.

Here is a breakdown on how these two bills will operate. Corporations want to have the ability to shut down and remove illicit sites where consumers download and share movies, music, video games and software without paying for them. Most of these sites, however, are based out of the jurisdiction of the United States. Protect-IP will combat this problem by giving government the authorization to have US based internet service providers to block access to infringing domain names. They may also have the option to sue websites that have links to these sites. That means search engines, blogs and directories can all be target by these corporations. The bill also gives the government the ability to cut off funds to infringing websites by cancelling the accounts of US based payment services and advertisers.

The bill however has been loosely written that it can be a threat to the existence of every website on the internet. The ability to sue any website that a corporation feels is not filtering the illicit sites well enough can mean the end to websites such as Tumbler, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, heck even For Beginners! The bill would give government a powerful tool to hinder freedoms granted under the Constitution and protected by our servicemen and women alike.

The internet as it is today is a medium where people and cultures can connect for the greater good of humanity. Having the government meddle with this structure for the sakes of a few extra songs downloaded on Itunes or for boost sales on a ridiculously overpriced movie ticket. This needs to stop. Already we are seeing a glimpse of what could happen if such a bill is passed.  Just a week ago the owner/creator of a popular file sharing site TVShack could be extradited to the US so he can be tried for copyright infringement. If he is found guilty he can face five to ten years in federal prison for simply providing links to other websites that hosted pirated content.  

But when all hope is lost the common man and woman can rise up to save the day. How you may ask? By calling up, E-mailing, Twittering or leaving a Facebook message on your representative’s page and express how you feel about the proposed bill. Here in Connecticut, both Sen. Liberman (I) and Sen. Blumenthal (D) are both co-sponsors of this bill. These senators have also received hefty amounts of money to fund their campaigns. Sen. Blumenthal received $154,066 from the entertainment industry while Sen. Lieberman received $4,800. It’s a no brainer why they would be in favor of this legislation. But being the freedom loving American that I am have already contacted my senators regarding this bill and demanded they reconsider their support for the bill.  They’ll get as far as we let them folks.

Jeffrey Lewis For Beginners

Jeffrey Lewis. Singer, songwriter and avid illustrator he has become something of a local celebrity in the New York Anti-Folk scene, a genre that takes the depth of politically charged 1960’s folk music and subverts it.   With a downbeat self-deprecating humor, an off-kilter singing style, a mixture of acoustic and 'punk' songs which feature themes of everyday occurrences and feelings Jeffrey Lewis has managed to stay on top of his industry while many others failed as he was starting out. 

“I realized that you didn’t really need anything but a tape recorder to make an album, If you had songs you felt strongly enough about, you could just put them on tape, and hopefully people would like them.”

While performing, he would introduce to his audience rhythmic historical tales of communism, nations and historical figures, a long highlight of his show. Jeffrey Lewis’s illustrations have come to light to mainstream audiences. His works have been commissioned by the History Channel and has contributed to Measure for Measure, a blog about songwriting on the New York Times.

Jeffrey Lewis will also be illustrating our up and coming book, Gender and Sexuality For Beginners. We hope to keep working with you Mr. Lewis and congratulations on your continued success.  

Happy would-be 40th Birthday Space Shuttle program

On January 5, 1972 then President Richard Nixon announced the full scale development of the Space Shuttle Program.  “ I have decided today” he went on to say, “ That the United States should proceed at once with the development of an entirely new type of space transportation system designed to help transform the space frontier of the 1970's into familiar territory, easily accessible for human endeavor in the 1980's and '90's.” Seven years later the first fully functional orbiter, Columbia, was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center. 

Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and finally Endeavour have all captured the imagination of the American public. With 135 flights under its belt, the Shuttle Program pushed America’s technological prowess to a whole new level far outpacing rival nations. Without NASA and the Shuttle Program we would have never had the delight of Astronaut Ice Cream, 50% of the Bill Nye the Science Guy episodes and the childhood dreams of billions of children, including mine (and yours! C’mon don’t lie!), around the world. 

 To learn more about the exploration of space read Astronomy For Beginners.