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Squad Leader (šifre)
Squad Leader Hints: ------ Submitted by: rickHH Always try to end each character's turn with enough action points to kneel. This improves their return fire and makes them more difficult to hit. First move should always involve a scout moving as far forward as possible. They can be used to trigger ambushes, reveal enemy locations plus all the rest of your troops get a shot if the enemy is uncovered. This is a good thing when you have artillery or tanks. Use grenades on enemies inside of buildings, bunkers, or trenches. Don't use smoke grenades until after all your men have fired their shots. That way, you get to maximize your attack and minimize the enemies' options. Tips from the Boss ****************** Submitted by: Onellan Govender E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Kevin Jamieson's Hints + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. Stock up on grenades and throw them in bunkers to see if anyone is home. 2. Missions require 4 or less squads, so with 8 squads to choose from, right-click to swap soldiers from squad to squad and stack the squad(s) you bring into battle with your best soldiers. 3. Check for underground tunnels in enemy bunkers. 4. Be careful with grenades near obstacles where they might bounce back,and on roads where the open terrain increases their area of effect. 5. If possible, clear buildings of enemy soldiers and place snipers on rooftops where they are the most effective. 6. Always try to leave enough Action Points (AP's) to at least kneel (3AP) at the end of a soldier's movement as this increases hit potential for the kneeling soldier, reduces the hit potential for enemies, and often reduces the number of enemies that can fire. 7. Place demo charges at the beginning of an engineer's turn to ensure that they have enough Action Points to move out of range of the explosion. 8. Since the player gets to go first, place soldiers where they can see enemy soldiers during the deployment phase. Use the Quick Enemy Select Bar, located in the top middle of the interface area, to facilitate this. 9. Use a bazooka, artillery fire, mortar fire, or grenades on an enemy vehicles until the fuel line is hit or the vehicle is destroyed. 10. Whenever possible, keeps troops far enough apart to avoid multiple deaths from enemy fire yet close enough to support each other. 11. There is no such thing as "friendly" fire. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Ellie Crawley's Hints + +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. Remember that tanks usually have a secondary weapon or machine gun as well. The machine gun can be fired more often than the main guns and they are particularly effective against soft targets. 2. All squad-based soldiers will have a small graphic just to the left of their AP icon indicating what squad they belong to. Hitting the 'Y' key will show all of the Squad icons. 3. Remember to place soldiers that have enough Action Points to fire in opportunity fire mode. This will allow them to fire at enemies that move into the soldiers line-of-sight during the computer's turn. If done right, opportunity fire can really hamper the enemies' attack. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Corey Navage's Hints + ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. Smoke can be your soldier's best friend in a combat situation. A well-placed smoke grenade can shield your troop movements from enemy eyes. Heavy smoke at one level does not necessary mean heavy smoke at all levels. A smoke cloud that prevents a soldier from being seen while standing may not prevent the same soldier from being seen in a kneeling or prone stance and vice versa. 2. The player can see how the smoke deployed at various levels by cutting the level up and/or down using the 'raise/lower cut away level' tool in the game interface. 3. Soldiers can not see into or out of a smoke cloud. This can make for some interesting 'blind' close-quarter fights. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Jeffrey Tolleson's Hints + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. Be very careful throwing grenades inside or out of buildings; they often don't go where you intended them. 2. When moving in the presence of the enemy, leave enough APs to fall prone or at least to kneel for protection. 3. If you need to advance under heavy enemy fire, try the smoke grenades. And be careful of standing at the edge of the smoke coverage. 4. Try to keep your soldiers within 6 squares of your squad leaders (same colored dot or square above left of your insignia and APs) and platoon leaders. Those extra 6 APs are golden. 5. You can ignore your medics in the single scenarios, but they are valuable for keeping your troops alive from mission to mission in the campaign game. 6. The armored vehicles rule the battlefield. Concentrate on destroying the enemy's and keep yours operational whenever they are present. ++++++++++++++++++++++ + Rex Martin's Hints + ++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. Most small unit tactics in WW2 revolved around the movement-and-fire methods perfected during WW1. In effect, one element of the squad or platoon would provide cover while the other moved; once the moving element was in position, it would provide cover for the rest to move. In Squad Leader this is recreated by the Opportunity Fire command; at the end of any turn, you should have several of your soldiers, with a good line-of- sight (LOS) to a large area, placed on Opportunity Fire at the end of each turn. During the war, the usual rule-of- thumb was that half of the troops should be providing cover while the other half moved during any attack or retreat. By "leap-frogging" the two halves, the tactical commander was always able to react to any unexpected threat. In a static defensive situation, this percentage should be somewhat higher, and it was not unusual for 75% of the force to be on Opportunity Fire, while the rest provided a mobile reserve, moving to plug any holes as casualties occurred. 2. If you are expecting a long-range firefight, take along a sniper ortwo. Put them in a position with long LOS, preferably with some cover between them and the enemy. During your turn, stand and use Aimed Fire, keeping enough AP to again kneel or go prone so that the enemy will not be able to return an aimed shot (any fire the sniper will draw will be a Snap Shot enemy Opportunity Fire). With their excellent marksmanship, a sniper can often pick off an enemy soldier each turn. Snipers want long-range duels; don't allow your snipers to be caught in close (which also means that snipers have little use for grenades). 3. If you face a firefight in close terrain (urban, heavy vegetation, and such), take along more automatic weapons and grenades than the default order-of-battle usually offers. In environments such as Arnhem, you should be looking for a fast-paced, highly mobile and confusing firefight. Lines-of-sight will be short, the enemy will be moving in good cover, and you won't have many opportunities for aimed fire. Urban firefights, especially, were bloody affairs, so expect high casualties and make sure that your critical specialists for the mission have back-ups. 4. Mortars and the heavy MG for the Heavy Weapons squads are of most use in open terrain with long LOS. They are especially useful in defensive actions, and of little or little value if you plan a rapid advance. In the latter case, leave them behind and focus on your Rifle squads. 5. Trucks, at the ranges depicted in Squad Leader, are a liability. They tend to be deathtraps for your troops. Never expose a loaded truck in range of any enemy troops. The half-tracks are slightly better, but even here the standard practice for armored infantry units was to dismount from the vehicles when they engaged in a firefight. Indeed, the half-tracks usually served as a mobile heavy MG that protected the flanks or provided covering fire for the infantry movement. 6. Tanks, on the other hand, in those scenarios where they appear, tend to dominate the immediate area they occupy. In general, it is a waste to use their main guns on infantry targets. The bow MG takes fewer AP to fire (meaning more shots per turn), will do as much damage to a soldier if it hits, and still leaves room for movement in the same turn. Never expose your tanks to enemy infantry without infantry support themselves. The limited range of vision of a tank means that it is vulnerable if the enemy can close in. 7. One of the best uses for your tank is as cover for your soldiers in any attack. If you can keep several of them behind it, not only do they provide close infantry support, but if they stay low (kneeling or going prone every turn) they will avoid most enemy fire. Be warned, though, if the tank goes up, the infantry might suffer the unpleasant effects of the explosion as well. 8. Conversely, if you are facing enemy armor, you will need some sort of long-range anti-tank weapon - a bazooka, PIAT, panzerfaust or panzerschreck. Always take more than one. And if a trooper carrying one goes down, do your best to recover it. Otherwise, taking out an enemy tank at close range is a costly affair. 9. If you are blessed with artillery support, use it frugally. Don't waste it on a single, annoying enemy soldier. Use it much as you do a mortar, to clean out enemy trenches and fortifications and to break up masses of enemy troops that you cannot fire on directly. 10. In summary, the most important principle in tactical combat, as at any other level of military operations, is planning. Read the mission objectives carefully, consider the minimum forces necessary, understand your resources, prepare for contingencies and the unexpected. Succeeding in a campaign game means far more than just taking the best marksmen every time and loading them down with lots of grenades. If war was just a single battle, anyone could be a squad leader. But, to lead a platoon through a major campaign takes planning, understanding and quick thinking. Good luck. +++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Jason Gleason's Hints + +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. On the first turn, save some people with smoke grenades for last. Shoot anyone around you with the majority of your forces, move them into position, and THEN toss the smoke grenades. You'll get the advantages of having had the first attack as well as having the smoke cover. 2. Don't underestimate the value of concussion grenades. They have a radius one square larger than frag grenades. This means that they cover an extra 133%! This is especially effective when throwing over hills where you can't see your targets but know they're out there. 3. Throw grenades liberally. Not only is it cathartic, it also can take out lots of units in bunkers and trenches. When they're all bunched up like that they're just asking for a concussion grenade. 4. Don't underestimate the value of suppressing fire. Don't waste good AP on enemies that have just been pinned down. Only fire on enemies that have just been pinned when all other bad guys are also pinned. 5. Alternate suppressing fire with movement. Spending even turns moving and odd turns shooting works like a charm. Pin down all of the enemy troops and then worry about moving into position. That eliminates the fear of opposing opportunity fire. 6. Flamethrowers are pretty... pretty devastating, that is. 7. Remember that tanks run over enemy units. Remember that enemy tanks run over friendly units. Don't let an enemy tank get within driving distance of your units in smoke cover, because an enemy tank will not hesitate to "accidentally" run over five, six, or seven of your best marksmen. 8. Use hand-to-hand combat in trenches in the cover of smoke. 9. Always, always, always take out radio operators if you have line of sight. If you don't, get it. If you can't, move around a lot. If you see the enemy radio operator call in an artillery strike, move ALL of your units away. 10. Save early, save often. I recommend at the beginning and end of every turn. That way, if something REALLY BAD happens, you're not sunk. 11. Don't bring medics into non-campaign missions. 12. Heavy machine guns on vehicles seem to work well at killing trucks and half-tracks. They deliver vehicle-killing critical hits with surprising frequency. It must have something to do with their rate of fire. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ + Doug Atwell's Hints + ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1. During your turn, always take your sniper's shots first, they may take out an enemy with opportunity fire just waiting for one of your other soldiers to cross his path. 2. Sometimes the closest enemies are not always the easiest to hit, be sure you consider all your targets with the quick enemy selector before firing. 3. Your Radio Operators are your best friends, find them the best possible cover with the farthest line-of-sight. 4. Before opening a door with a trooper, place another trooper behind him so that he can fire with all of his action points. 5. Once victory is achieved in a mission, you don't have to exit right away. A good idea, if you have a surviving medic, is to run around and treat any wounded soldiers so you can use them for your next mission.


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BORDEAUX, France — It tastes like rose petals. It smells like a campfire. It glistens with a burnt-orange hue. What is it? A 5,000-euro bottle of Petrus Pomerol wine that spent a year in space.
Researchers in Bordeaux are analyzing a dozen bottles of the precious liquid — along with 320 snippets of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grapevines — that returned to Earth in January after a sojourn aboard the International Space Station.
They announced their preliminary impressions Wednesday — mainly, that weightlessness didn't ruin the wine and it seemed to energize the vines.
Organizers say it's part of a longer-term effort to make plants on Earth more resilient to climate change and disease by exposing them to new stresses, and to better understand the aging process, fermentation and bubbles in wine.
At a one-of-a-kind tasting this month, 12 connoisseurs sampled one of the space-traveled wines, blindly tasting it alongside a bottle from the same vintage that had stayed in a cellar.
A special pressurized device delicately uncorked the bottles at the Institute for Wine and Vine Research in Bordeaux. The tasters solemnly sniffed, stared and eventually, sipped.
"I have tears in my eyes," Nicolas Gaume, CEO and co-founder of the company that arranged the experiment, Space Cargo Unlimited, told The Associated Press.
Alcohol and glass are normally prohibited on the International Space Station, so each bottle was packed inside a special steel cylinder during the journey.
At a news conference Wednesday, Gaume said the experiment focused on studying the lack of gravity — which "creates tremendous stress on any living species" — on the wine and vines.
"We are only at the beginning," he said, calling the preliminary results "encouraging."
Jane Anson, a wine expert and writer with the wine publication Decanter, said the wine that remained on Earth tasted "a little younger than the one that had been to space."
Chemical and biological analysis of the wine's aging process could allow scientists to find a way to artificially age fine vintages, said Dr. Michael Lebert, a biologist at Germany's Friedrich-Alexander-University who was consulted on the project.
The vine snippets — known as canes in the grape-growing world — not only survived the journey but also grew faster than vines on Earth, despite limited light and water.
Once the researchers determine why, Lebert said that could help scientists develop sturdier vines on Earth — and pave the way for grape-growing and wine-making in space.
Christophe Chateau of the Bordeaux Wine-Makers' Council welcomed the research as "a good thing for the industry," but predicted it would take a decade or more to lead to practical applications. Chateau, who was not involved in the project, described ongoing efforts to adjust grape choices and techniques to adapt to ever-warmer temperatures.
"The wine of Bordeaux is a wine that gets its singularity from its history but also from its innovations," he told The AP. "And we should never stop innovating."
Private investors helped fund the project, which the researchers hope to continue on further space missions. The cost wasn't disclosed.
For the average earthling, the main question is: What does cosmic wine taste like?
"For me, the difference between the space and earth wine … it wasn't easy to define," said Franck Dubourdieu, a Bordeaux-based agronomist and oenologist, an expert in the study of wine and wine-making.
Researchers said each of the 12 panelists had an individual reaction. Some observed "burnt-orange reflections." Others evoked aromas of cured leather or a campfire.
"The one that had remained on Earth, for me, was still a bit more closed, a bit more tannic, a bit younger. And the one that had been up into space, the tannins had softened, the side of more floral aromatics came out," Anson said.
But whether the vintage was space-flying or earthbound, she said, "They were both beautiful."

subset: commoncrawl


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The Buggy Brolly is a fantastic new design that has revolutionised mummys' world. Created by Catherine Duffy and marketed by Rob McAlister Ltd, the Buggy Brolly is a new pram parasol for your kids, now available worldwide. There are many, many umbrellas designed to keep your child nice and dry – but only one Buggy Brolly … designed to keep Mum and Dad dry. Pushing the pushchair, laden with bags of shopping – why should you get soaked, simply because you've run out of hands? This wonderful creation attaches to your Buggy, Pushchair or Pram and is deployable at the touch of the button, should you need it.
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Adopted by the founding convention in Regina, Saskatchewan, July, 1933.
The CCF is a federation of organizations whose purpose is the establishment in Canada of a Co-operative Commonwealth in which the principle regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs and not the making of profits.
WE AIM TO REPLACE the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man's normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.
The new social order at which we aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed out by a system of regimentation. Nor shall we interfere with cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. What we seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every citizen.
This social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action, through the election of a government inspired by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and supported by a majority of the people. We do not believe in change by violence. We consider that both the old parties in Canada are the instruments of capitalist interests and cannot serve as agents of social reconstruction, and that whatever the superficial differences between them, they are bound to carry on government in accordance with the dictates of the big business interests who finance them. The CCF aims at political power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination of our political life. It is a democratic movement, a federation of farmer, labour and socialist organizations, financed by its own members and seeking to achieve its ends solely by constitutional methods. It appeals for support to all who believe that the time has come for a far-reaching reconstruction of our economic and political institutions and who are willing to work together for the carrying out of the following policies:
1. Planning
The establishment of a planned, socialized economic order, in order to make possible the most efficient development of the national resources and the most equitable distribution of the national income.
The first step in this direction will be setting up of a National Planning Commission consisting of a small body of economists, engineers and statisticians assisted by an appropriate technical staff.
The task of the Commission will be to plan for the production, distribution and exchange of all goods and services necessary to the efficient functioning of the economy; to co-ordinate the activities of the socialized industries; to provide for a satisfactory balance between the producing and consuming power; and to carry on continuous research into all branches of the national economy in order to acquire the detailed information necessary to efficient planning.
The Commission will be responsible to the Cabinet and will work in co-operation with the Managing Boards of the Socialized Industries.
It is now certain that in every industrial country some form of planning will replace the disintegrating capitalist system. The C.C.F. will provide that in Canada the planning shall be done, not by a small group of capitalist magnates in their own interests, but by public servants acting in the public interest and responsible to the people as a whole.
2. Socialization Of Finance
Socialization of all financial machinery–banking currency, credit, and insurance, to make possible the effective control of currency, credit and prices, and the supplying of new productive equipment for socially desirable purposes
Planning by itself will be of little use if the public authority has not the power to carry its plans into effect. Such power will require the control of finance and of all those vital industries and services, which, if they remain in private hands, can be used to thwart or corrupt the will of the public authority. Control of finance is the first step in the control of the whole economy. The chartered banks must be socialized and removed from the control of private profit-seeking interests; and the national banking system thus established must have at its head a Central Bank to control the flow of credit and the general price level, and to regulate foreign exchange operations. A National Investment Board must also be set up, working in co-operation with the socialized banking system to mobilize and direct the unused surpluses of production for socially desired purposes as determined by the Planning Commission.
Insurance Companies, which provide one of the main channels for the investment of individual savings and which, under their present competitive organization, charge needlessly high premiums for the social services that they render, must also be socialized.
3. Social Ownership
Socialization (Dominion, Provincial or Municipal) of transportation, communications, electric power and all other industries and services essential to social planning, and their operation under the general direction of the Planning Commission by competent managements freed from day to day political interference.
Public utilities must be operated for the public benefit and, not for the private profit of a small group of owners or financial manipulators. Our natural resources must be developed by the same methods. Such a programme means the continuance and extension of the public ownership enterprises in which most governments in Canada have already gone some distance. Only by such public ownership, operated on a planned economy, can our main industries be saved from the wasteful competition of the ruinous overdevelopment and over-capitalization which are the inevitable outcome of capitalism. Only in a regime of public ownership and operation will the full benefits accruing from centralized control and mass production be passed on to the consuming public.
Transportation, communications and electric power must come first in a list of industries to be socialized. Others, such as mining, pulp and paper and the distribution of milk, bread, coal and gasoline, in which exploitation, waste, or financial malpractices are particularly prominent must next be brought under social ownership and operation.
In restoring to the community its natural resources and in taking over industrial enterprises from private into public control we do not propose any policy of outright confiscation. What we desire is the most stable and equitable transition to the Cooperative Commonwealth. It is impossible to decide the policies to be followed in particular cases in an uncertain future, but we insist upon certain broad principles. The welfare of the community must take supremacy over the claims of private wealth. In times of war, human life has been conscripted. Should economic circumstances call for it, conscription of wealth would be more justifiable. We recognize the need for compensation in the case of individuals and institutions which must receive adequate maintenance during the transitional period before the planned economy becomes fully operative. But a CCF government will not play the role of rescuing bankrupt private concerns for the benefit of promoters and of stock and bond holders. It will not pile up a deadweight burden of unremunerative debt which represents claims upon the public treasury of a functionless owner class.
The management of publicly owned enterprises will be vested in boards who will be appointed for their competence in the industry and will conduct each particular enterprise on efficient economic lines. The machinery of management may well vary from industry to industry, but the rigidity of Civil Service rules should be avoided and likewise the evils of the patronage system as exemplified in so many departments of the Government today.
Workers in these public industries must be free to organize in trade unions and must be given the right to participate in the management of the industry.
4. Agriculture
Security of tenure for the farmer upon his farm on conditions to be laid down by individual provinces; insurance against unavoidable crop failure; removal of the tariff burden from the operations of agriculture; encouragement of producers' and consumers' cooperatives; the restoration and maintenance of an equitable relationship between prices of agricultural products and those of other commodities and services; and improving the efficiency of export trade in farm products.
The security of tenure for the farmer upon his farm which is imperilled by the present disastrous situation of the whole industry, together with adequate social insurance, ought to be guaranteed under equitable conditions.
The prosperity of agriculture, the greatest Canadian industry, depends upon a rising volume of purchasing power of the masses in Canada for all farm goods consumed at home, and upon the maintenance of large scale exports of the stable commodities at satisfactory prices or equitable commodity exchange.
The intense depression in agriculture today is a consequence of the general world crisis caused by the normal workings of the capitalistic system resulting in: (1) Economic nationalism expressing itself in tariff barriers and other restrictions of world trade; (2) The decreased purchasing power of unemployed and under-employed workers and of the Canadian people in general; (3) The exploitation of both primary producers and consumers by monopolistic corporations who absorb a great proportion of the selling price of farm products. (This last is true, for example, of the distribution of milk and dairy products, the packing industry, and milling.)
The immediate cause of agricultural depression is the catastrophic fall in the world prices of foodstuffs as compared with other prices, this fall being due in large measure to the deflation of currency and credit. To counteract the worst effect of this, the internal price level should be raised so that the farmers' purchasing power may be restored.
We propose therefore:
- The improvement of the position of the farmer by the increase of the purchasing power made possible by the social control of the financial system. This control must be directed towards the increase of employment as laid down elsewhere and towards raising the prices of farm commodities by appropriate credit and foreign policies.
- Whilst the family farm is the accepted basis for agricultural production in Canada the position of the farmer may be much improved by: (a) The extension of consumers' cooperatives for the purchase of farm supplies and domestic requirements; and (b) The extension of cooperative institutions for the processing and marketing of farm products.
- Both of the foregoing to have suitable state encouragement and assistance.
- The adoption of a planned system of agricultural development based upon scientific soil surveys directed towards better land utilization, and a scientific policy of agricultural development for the whole of Canada.
- The substitution for the present system of foreign trade, of a system of import boards to improve the efficiency of overseas marketing, to control prices, and to integrate the foreign trade policy with the requirements of the national economic plan.
5. External Trade
The regulation in accordance with the National plan of external trade through import and export boards
Canada is dependent on external sources of supply for many of her essential requirements of raw materials and manufactured products. These she can obtain only by large exports of the goods she is best fitted to produce. The strangling of our export trade by insane protectionist policies must be brought to an end. But the old controversies between free traders and protectionists are now largely obsolete. In a world of nationally organized economies Canada must organize the buying and selling of her main imports and exports under public boards, and take steps to regulate the flow of less important commodities by a system of licenses. By so doing she will be enabled to make the best trade agreements possible with foreign countries, put a stop to the exploitation of both primary producer and ultimate consumer, make possible the coordination of internal processing, transportation and marketing of farm products, and facilitate the establishment of stable prices for such export commodities.
6. Co-operative Institutions
The encouragement by the public authority of both producers' and consumers' cooperative institutions
In agriculture, as already mentioned, the primary producer can receive a larger net revenue through cooperative organization of purchases and marketing. Similarly in retail distribution of staple commodities such as milk, there is room for development both of public municipal operation and of consumers' cooperatives, and such cooperative organization can be extended into wholesale distribution and into manufacturing. Cooperative enterprises should be assisted by the state through appropriate legislation and through the provision of adequate credit facilities.
7. Labour Code
A National Labour Code to secure for the worker maximum income and leisure, insurance covering accident, old age, and unemployment, freedom of association and effective participation in the management of his industry or profession
The spectre of poverty and insecurity which still haunts every worker, though technological developments have made possible a high standard of living for everyone, is a disgrace which must be removed from our civilization. The community must organize its resources to effect progressive reduction of the hours of work in accordance with technological development and to provide a constantly rising standard of life to everyone who is willing to work. A labour code must be developed which will include state regulation of all wages, equal reward and equal opportunity of advancement for equal services, irrespective of sex; measures to guarantee the right to work or the right to maintenance through stabilization of employment and through unemployment insurance; social insurance to protect workers and their families against the hazards of sickness, death, industrial accident and old age; limitation of hours of work and protection of health and safety in industry. Both wages and insurance benefits should be varied in accordance with family needs.
In addition workers must be guaranteed the undisputed right to freedom of association, and should be encouraged and assisted by the state to organize themselves in trade unions. By means of collective agreements and participation in works councils, the workers can achieve fair working rules and share in the control of industry and profession; and their organizations will be indispensable elements in a system of genuine industrial democracy.
The labour code should be uniform throughout the country. But the achievement of this end is difficult so long as jurisdiction over labour legislation under the B.N.A. Act is mainly in the hands of the provinces. It is urgently necessary, therefore, that the B.N.A. Act be amended to make such a national labour code possible.
8. Socialized Health Services Publicly organized health, hospital and medical services
With the advance of medical science the maintenance of a healthy population has become a function for which every civilized community should undertake responsibility. Health services should be made at least as freely available as are educational services today. But under a system which is still mainly one of private enterprise the costs of proper medical care, such as the wealthier members of society can easily afford, are at present prohibitive for great masses of the people. A properly organized system of public health services including medical and dental care, which would stress the prevention rather than the cure of illness should be extended to all our people in both rural and urban areas. This is an enterprise in which Dominion, Provincial and Municipal authorities, as well as the medical and dental professions can cooperate.
9. B.N.A. Act
The amendment of the Canadian Constitution, without infringing upon racial or religious minority rights or upon legitimate provincial claims to autonomy, so as to give the Dominion Government adequate powers to deal effectively with urgent economic problems which are essentially national in scope; the abolition of the Canadian Senate
We propose that the necessary amendments to the B.N.A. Act shall be obtained as speedily as required, safeguards being inserted to ensure that the existing rights of racial and religious minorities shall not be changed without their own consent. What is chiefly needed today is the placing in the hands of the national government of more power to control national economic development. In a rapidly changing economic environment our political constitution must be reasonably flexible. The present division of powers between Dominion and Provinces reflects the conditions of a pioneer, mainly agricultural, community in 1867. Our constitution must be brought into line with the increasing industrialization of the country and the consequent centralization of economic and financial power–which has taken place in the last two generations. The principle laid down in the Quebec Resolution of the Fathers of Confederation should be applied to the conditions of 1933, that "there be a general government charged with matters of common interest to the whole country and local governments for each of the provinces charged with the control of local matters to their respective sections".
The Canadian Senate, which was originally created to protect provincial rights, but has failed even in this function, has developed into a bulwark of capitalist interests, as is illustrated by the large number of company directorships held by its aged members. In its peculiar composition of a fixed number of members appointed for life it is one of the most reactionary assemblies in the civilized world. It is a standing obstacle to all progressive legislation, and the only permanently satisfactory method of dealing with the constitutional difficulties it creates is to abolish it.
10. External Relations
A Foreign Policy designed to obtain international economic cooperation and to promote disarmament and world peace
Canada has a vital interest in world peace. We propose, therefore, to do everything in our power to advance the idea of international cooperation as represented by the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization. We would extend our diplomatic machinery for keeping in touch with the main centres of world interest. But we believe that genuine international cooperation is incompatible with the capitalist regime which is in force in most countries, and that strenuous efforts are needed to rescue the League from its present condition of being mainly a League of capitalist Great Powers. We stand resolutely against all participation in imperialist wars. Within the British Commonwealth, Canada must maintain her autonomy as a completely self-governing nation. We must resist all attempts to build up a new economic British Empire in place of the old political one, since such attempts readily lend themselves to the purposes of capitalist exploitation and may easily lead to further world wars. Canada must refuse to be entangled in any more wars fought to make the world safe for capitalism.
11. Taxation And Public Finance
A new taxation policy designed not only to raise public revenues but also to lessen the glaring inequalities of income and to provide funds for social services and the socialization of industry; the cessation of the debt-creating system of Public Finance
In the type of economy that we envisage, the need for taxation, as we now understand it, will have largely disappeared. It will nevertheless be essential during the, transition period, to use the taxing powers, along with the other methods proposed elsewhere, as a means of providing for the socialization of industry, and for extending the benefits of increased Social Services.
At present capitalist governments in Canada raise a large proportion of their revenues from such levies as customs duties and sales taxes, the main burden of which falls upon the masses. In place of such taxes upon articles of general consumption, we propose a drastic extension of income, corporation and inheritance taxes, steeply graduated according to ability to pay. Full publicity must be given to income tax payments and our tax collection system must be brought up to the English standard of efficiency.
We also believe in the necessity for an immediate revision of the basis of Dominion and Provincial sources of revenues, so as to produce a coordinated and equitable system of taxation throughout Canada.
An inevitable effect of the capitalist system is the debt creating character of public financing. All public debts have enormously increased, and the fixed interest charges paid thereon now amount to the largest single item of so-called uncontrollable public expenditures. The CCF proposes that in future no public financing shall be permitted which facilitates the perpetuation of the parasitic interest-receiving class; that capital shall be provided through the medium of the National Investment Board and free from perpetual interest charges.
We propose that all Public Works, as directed by the Planning Commission, shall be financed by the issuance of credit, as suggested, based upon the National Wealth of Canada.
12. Freedom
Freedom of speech and assembly for all; repeal of Section 98 of the Criminal Code; amendment of the Immigration Act to prevent the present inhuman policy of deportation; equal treatment before the law of all residents of Canada irrespective of race, nationality or religious or political beliefs
In recent years, Canada has seen an alarming growth of Fascist tendencies among all governmental authorities. The most elementary rights of freedom of speech and assembly have been arbitrarily denied to workers and to all whose political and social views do not meet with the approval of those in power. The lawless and brutal conduct of the police in certain centres in preventing public meetings and in dealing with political prisoners must cease. Section 98 of the Criminal Code which has been used as a weapon of political oppression by a panic-stricken capitalist government, must be wiped off the statute book and those who have been imprisoned under it must be released. An end must be put to the inhuman practice of deporting immigrants who were brought to this country by immigration propaganda and now, through no fault of their own, find themselves victims of an executive department against whom there is no appeal to the courts of the land. We stand for full economic, political and religious liberty for all.
13. Social Justice
The establishment of a commission composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, socially minded jurists and social workers, to deal with all matters pertaining to crime and punishment and the general administration of law, in order to humanize the law and to bring it into harmony with the needs of the people
While the removal of economic inequality will do much to overcome the most glaring injustices in the treatment of those who come into conflict with the law, our present archaic system must be changed and brought into accordance with a modern concept of human relationships. The new system must not be based as is the present one, upon vengeance and fear, but upon an understanding of human behaviour. For this reason its planning and control cannot be left in the hands of those steeped in the outworn legal tradition; and therefore it is proposed that there shall be established a national commission composed of psychiatrists, psychologists, socially minded jurists and social workers whose duty it shall be to devise a system of prevention and correction consistent with other features of the new social order.
14. An Emergency Programme
The assumption by the Dominion Government of direct responsibility for dealing with the present critical unemployment situation and for tendering suitable work or adequate maintenance; the adoption of measures to relieve the extremity of the crisis such as a programme of public spending on housing, and other enterprises that will increase the real wealth of Canada, to be financed by the issue of credit based on the national wealth
The extent of unemployment and the widespread suffering which it has caused, creates a situation with which provincial and municipal governments have long been unable to cope and forces upon the Dominion government direct responsibility for dealing with the crisis as the only authority with financial resources adequate to meet the situation. Unemployed workers must be secured in the tenure of their homes, and the scale and methods of relief, at present altogether inadequate, must be such as to preserve decent human standards of living.
It is recognized that even after a Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Government has come into power, a certain period of time must elapse before the planned economy can be fully worked out. During this brief transitional period, we propose to provide work and purchasing power to those now unemployed by a far-reaching programme of public expenditure on housing, slum clearance, hospitals, libraries, schools, community halls, parks, recreational projects, reforestation, rural electrification, the elimination of grade crossings, and other similar projects in both town and country. This programme, which would be financed by the issuance of credit based on the national wealth, would serve the double purpose of creating employment and meeting recognized social needs. Any steps which the government takes, under this emergency programme, which may assist private business, must include guarantees of adequate wages and reasonable hours of work, and must be designed to further the advance towards the complete Cooperative Commonwealth.
Emergency measures, however, are of only temporary value, for the present depression is a sign of the mortal sickness of the whole capitalist system, and this sickness cannot be cured by the application of salves. These leave untouched the cancer which is eating at the heart of our society, namely, the economic system in which our natural resources and our principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated for the private profit of a small proportion of our population.
No C.C.F. Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and Put into operation the full programme of socialized planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Cooperative Commonwealth.


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Professor: Limit regulation on creating new life forms
LAWRENCE — When the first widespread computer virus was born, government didn't shut down all computer science research. Similarly, now that synthetic biology, a field of science that uses standardized pieces of DNA to build new life forms, medications, industrial processes and biological systems, is growing rapidly, it should not be overregulated at the cost of future innovations, a University of Kansas law professor says.
Andrew Torrance, professor of law and Docking Faculty Scholar, has co-authored a new study on synthetic biology, intellectual property and the standards that govern the field with Linda Kahl of the BioBricks Foundation, the leading synthetic biology institution. It has been published in the Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal, and it is based on a 2012 study Torrance was commissioned by the National Academies to prepare.
Synthetic biology is being used to design new medications to fight malaria, is developing radically new technologies such as a television in which yeast cells genetically engineered to bioluminesce act as the television's pixels, produce biological computers and create living organisms from raw organic chemicals. Yet there is also concern that this "dual use" technology could be used with malicious intent to design new forms of disease pathogens or that there could be accidents.
"From its founding the synthetic biology community has been concerned about ensuring safety, health and ethical practices," said Torrance, who holds a doctorate in biology from Harvard. "The community has explicitly committed itself to uses of the technology that benefit humanity and avoidance of uses that could endanger public safety, especially those with nefarious purposes."
In the study, Torrance and Kahl examine all of the proposed standards that have been proposed to regulate synthetic biology, including standards regarding structure, function and description of genetic components, data sharing, biosecurity and law. In fact, several years ago the BioBricks Foundation asked Torrance to contribute to the early drafting of a sort of "legal constitution" for synthetic biology, called the BioBricks Public Agreement, intended to ensure the safe and beneficial invention and use of standard biological parts.
Torrance and Kahl also consider the effects that intellectual property rights may have on encouraging or discouraging research in the burgeoning field. Like other areas of biotechnology, there is no federal statute specifically designed to govern synthetic biology. Instead, an influential regulation called the Coordinated Framework assigns agencies such as the FDA, EPA and USDA with shared responsibility for ensuring safe practices. One unique factor of synthetic biology is the degree to which its research community has engaged in careful self-regulation to keep the field open, democratic and safe, Torrance said. As the science progresses and the methods and raw materials of synthetic biology become ever more available, practicable and attractive to citizen biologists in the general public, Torrance expects that trend continuing.
"I see synthetic biology becoming further democratized — something that almost anyone with a modest biological background can become involved in," Torrance said. "Just as software programming became a common and widespread skill in which millions of people now participate, programming DNA, designing new biological machines and constructing novel organisms is rapidly leaving the confines of professional laboratories and entering the home laboratories of citizen biotinkerers."
However, as more people get involved in a field that builds new organisms and puts together building blocks of DNA, there is understandably a concern for accidents or misuse. The field has been very open in its dealings, even regularly working cooperatively with FBI agents specifically assigned to monitor the field. The field uses an open science ethos, arguing that its knowledge should be available to all, and that the more people who take part, the broader the knowledge base that can be built, and more potential there is both for beneficial discoveries and for detecting and preventing malicious uses.
There is also debate as to whether the field is a threat to traditional drug development companies and whether the ability to patent DNA can effectively prevent people outside of large corporations and major university research labs to take part. There are yet to be good answers to those questions, such as whether a fear of being sued will stifle innovation by individuals in the field, as the science is still only about a decade old. Torrance suggests that answers will come as evidence accumulates and legal conflicts multiply.
While there has yet to be an overwhelming push by policymakers or the public to write new laws or create new standards governing the field, the potential for accidents such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl may exist.
"It is too early to know precisely what roles law will play in the development of synthetic biology and its innovations," Torrance said. "However, since law will certainly influence the evolution of synthetic biology, it is vital to think carefully and strategically about constructive roles law should play in ensuring beneficial innovation, biosafety and sound ethical practices.
"As the field of synthetic biology explodes there will be an increasing number of success stories, but along with these, there will almost certainly be accidents, ethical breaches and malicious misuses. It is vitally important to create a legal framework that fosters the benefits of this technology while vigilantly guarding against bad behavior. It is exceedingly difficult to develop any new technology if you're not willing to take some risks. The only way to eliminate risk entirely is to eliminate innovation. Wise laws can help assure that the great promise of synthetic biology is achieved at minimal risk."


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...yeah, yeah...just like slavery did!
Its not like mainstream political journalists (I'm looking at you, Candy Crowley of CNN) are going to actually question a candidate who signed the vow/pledge in its original form about the ting they signed.
I'd like to suggest Bachmann, Santorum, and Michael Medved's rancid-ass bodies be donated to medical research.
What's that, you say? They're still alive? Details, baby, details. (wink)
Holy crap, that is offensive as hell. Seriously??
Being white, there are "dog-whistle" issues that I sincerely am not aware of. And I cringe and apologize when I learn I've used one. But this?? This is inexcusable. How can anyone actually think this "statistic" is true?
Don't answer that. Because it makes me sick to know that some people DO think it's true.
This is disgusting. I've definitely heard about this from the blogosphere, but has any major news organization covered it? CNN, MSNBC, New York Times...anybody?
Sadly, I would not be surprised if the answer was "no."
Anybody who signs this should just be booted from office immediately. This whole uber-conservative backlash is getting old; they can go away now.
A bell cannot be unrung and any candidate who signed to the original pledge is unsuitable since that is the foolishness they will use to lead.
Yes. Well done Shark-fu.
That pledge is a pile of hot, runny garbage, and I hope they run with it when they have their debates. You know - actually explain it in public! GEESH!
Great post, Shark!
Yeah, this pledge is one of the most offensive political things I've come across in a contemporary democracy. And I'm not even "black", but pink. You guys must be outraged, rightly so. Then, of course, there is the lesser type of slavery, wage-slavery. Oh yes, but you are free not to work for peanuts, as long as you don't mind starving. You are free not to participate, as long as you don't mind there not being an alternative. Is that freedom?
Sometimes one has to wonder whether we are living in Superman's bizarro world.
When supposed serious people can not see the disconnect between reality and fantasy, the dumbing of America is complete.
Infotainment has become the major currency of our discourse.
Sad for us all.
Guess whaat the folk at Booker Rising are saying about it? THEY APPROVE OF IT! What's worst Whites or Blacks longing for the days of slavery?
And you know what else it tells me, it tells anybody who signed this AND then says they didn't know the slavery reference was included is either:
A) A first classless liar and/or
B)An idiot who signs anything that's put in front of them WITHOUT first reading it.
and if that's the case...we've got enough liars in house now, we don't need any more thank you.
And I'll be damned if we need another stupid person who will sign whatever is put in front of them because it contains the words family, God, tax breaks and values.
When the new world racists (formerly known as the GOP and Tea Party) can get educated enough to understand the difference between Party Ideology and the Bill of Rights, tell them to give me a call.
Until then, they can take their so-called "new" value agenda (which is really the same old values agenda but it doesn't include the names of any GOP who have recently run amok) and they can......you know what I'm saying?
Always a pleasure, Sistah. Your blog goes great w/ my first Cup.
yeah? the kids were raised by their slave mothers and rapist white slave master fathers. these people are so sick that it is unbelievable. did you know jefferson did not free any of his slaves i his entire lifetime? this man wrote the decalration of independence and had slaves. talk about being of two minds. these folks who wish to continue having a slave society for that is what they really want at heart are insane!
This white European woman has never read anything more stupid than that quote about African-American families in her life.
And I've read a lot of stupid from different parts of the world... but alas, human stupidity knows no bounds, so there is always something to surprise me.
If you haven't read it yet, may I suggest A Handmaids Tail by Margaret Atwood. It is horror at its best. We are headed right there.
"Oh and divorce…Lawd knows they want to make it harder to get divorce because misery, incompatibility, or violence are no reason to end a marriage when marriage is all about a woman being able to survive."
Oooohhh they hate that. Rave on
So many of you have shared condolences and support after the death of my beloved brother Bill from COVID-19. I wish I could thank you indiv...


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Everywhere there is talk of crisis in the nation's schools and of uncertainty over the fate of public education. Of a few things, however, we can be sure. We can be certain that teacher education will be one part of the resulting mix, as nearly two million K–12 teachers will be hired into the school systems over the next decade. We can also be confident that historical studies will inevitably be a part of future social studies curricular configurations. But what depth of historical understanding will social studies teachers possess, and how will history be taught in the twenty-first century? More to the point, what can professional historians—as university and college faculty, graduate students, or public historians—do about it? In the aftermath of the national history standards debacle of 1994–95, it behooves the organized historical community to consider seriously both its responsibilities and its capacities vis-à-vis the vexing issues of K–12 education and the professional community of history schoolteachers. As vice president of the AHA's teaching division, I want briefly to lay out a little of what I have learned over the past few months, offer a few modest suggestions, and issue a call for help.
Cause for Concern
There are two good reasons why we as historians should care about the schools: they need us and we need them. It should be obvious that the state of history education in the schools—both as a function of larger problems afflicting public education and the peculiar status of social studies professionalism—is cause for concern. Even in an arena in which a majority of the country's teachers majored in education rather than an academic subject, the field of history fares the worst. Government figures indicate that only 40 percent of history teachers have a bachelor's degree in the subject, and an equal percentage have had less than a college minor in the field. The situation still gives rise to the old joke that half the history teachers in the nation have the same first name: "Coach." Moreover, partly for egalitarian reasons and partly out of intellectual disdain, secondary schools that systematically set aside special resources for an accelerated track in English, math, and science seldom do so for history/social studies. Teaching materials at the secondary level are also lamentable. A recent survey of high school texts in the New York Review of Books, for example, scores the dumbing-down of content in the crucial text selection states of Texas and California under the twin influences of right-wing fundamentalist and professional-multicultural interest groups.
Anyone who has a child or a friend in the schools also appreciates the enormous morale problem confronting the social studies professional. Besides woefully inadequate salaries and the daily stress of inheriting all of society's problems in microcosm, the teacher—often pinned between conflicting demands of parents, the principal, and state-mandated curricula—has little time for intellectual nourishment and easily forgets why she or he went into this blessed line of work in the first place.
The history profession has an obvious stake in the schools' crisis. The university not only inherits the schools' "products" but also is chiefly responsible for providing and training the childrens' teachers. If we care about a historically informed citizenry—and, after all, this is our principal claim to a defensible social function—then surely the schools have a claim on our professional attention. Moreover, both intellectually and professionally, there are issues deriving from the schools that immediately affect higher-education institutions. In many states, for example, current plans for enhanced teacher credentialing open the possibility for a whole new track of masters and in-service teacher candidates in graduate courses in U.S. and world history. For both the most lofty and self-interested reasons, then, we ought to be actively involved in teacher education as well as local and state school curricula. But where do we stand in relation to this responsibility?
Mixed Legacy
As a profession largely enveloped within an academic culture, we first have to acknowledge current limits on our knowledge, freedom of action, and influence in the schools. As is clear from a recent survey conducted by the AHA's Teaching Division (about which I will have more to say below), most college and university history departments have no direct or sustained contact with teachers or public schools as history-teaching institutions. Indeed, it is probably fair to say (with a few, singular exceptions) that the more prestigious and research-oriented the university department, the less relation it has with the school-teaching community.
To be sure, there is a level of school-related advocacy in which the profession has been recurrently engaged. Beginning with the "new historians" of the 1890s, commissions of university professionals pushed hard for a national history curriculum based on " and "scientific" standards. In the 1920s and 1930s, progressive historians supported initiatives of the National Council for the Social Studies, at once advocating close links between history and social sciences and asserting history's preeminence as the "crown" of the social studies' curriculum. Again, in the 1950s and 1960s, the AHA's Service Center for Teachers of History was designed to bridge the gap between college/university historians and their counterparts in the schools. Each year the AHA set aside funds from its operating budget to sponsor two dozen conferences, arranged by the Service Center with school systems around the country, as a conduit to promote contacts and mutual efforts at the local level.
Although cutbacks in federal funding limited the capacity for grassroots service programs, the 1980s—as Gary B. Nash, Charlotte Crabtree, and Ross E. Dunn neatly document in History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the American Past (1998)—nevertheless witnessed a new round of collaborative initiatives, including establishment of the History Teaching Alliance (1980), National History Day (1980), the World History Association (1982), and the OAH's Magazine of History. The most momentous moves of the era, however, came from on high with the movement for national standards in history education. Beginning with the report of the Bradley Commission of 1987, invigorated by President George Bush's call for National Education Goals in 1989 (including then-ardent support from National Endowment for the Humanities chair Lynne Cheney), and crowned by President Clinton's Goals 2000: Educate America Act (1994), the profession threw all its official weight behind the National History Standards Project, officially seated at UCLA's National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS). Seeking to connect the "new" and "global" histories of post-1960 scholarship with the continuing need for a national and world history narrative, by fall 1994 the NCHS was readying an elaborate set of documents for initial public response. What they were not prepared for was the full-scale politicization of the proposed history standards at the very moment of the "Gingrich Revolution" in the Congress.
As most readers know, we are now living not so much in a "post-standards" world of education but rather in a "post-national standards" world. While individual states rush in an often helter-skelter way to create new forms of student and teacher accountability and testing procedures, neither they nor the federal government choose to follow through on the original commitment of the Bush administration for a "renaissance in education." The idea of a nationwide renewal of history education in the schools as engineered by designated representatives of the scholarly profession has proven at best to be no more than a noble dream.
Ongoing Collaboratives and Local Bases for Renewal
If we as historians still intend to influence the public schools after the standards fight, we must ask if there is more than one way to skin a cat. So long as the federal government remains an unwilling or incapable ally, logic suggests that we look to our base and particularly to active collaboration between university faculty (as well as public history scholars) and neighboring schoolteachers for the seeds of renewal and expansion of the professional historical community. The teaching division's recent survey of history departments offers evidence that a distinguished minority of our colleagues are indeed forging some imaginative new links for their institutions and new roles for themselves as professionals.
Collaborative projects for history teachers tend to separate into two groups. First there are the departments formally engaged in degree-granting programs for pre-service (that is, education students) or in-service (mainly MA or MAT candidates) teachers. Such programs deserve greater attention than can be afforded here, but clearly there is considerable diversity and innovation among them. At Illinois State University, California State University at Long Beach, and Pennsylvania's West Chester University, for example, history department faculty take charge of required social studies methods courses and supervise student teachers in the field. By contrast, the University of Illinois at Chicago for 25 years has hosted an MAT or a "teaching track MA" program (with all classes beginning after 4 p.m.) based on the principle that teachers should master the same content courses as prospective doctoral candidates. Meanwhile, Michigan State University, ranked by some polls as the nation's top graduate program for secondary education, offers an uncommon pairing of history and pedagogical faculty in its courses for prospective secondary-school social studies teachers.
Community of Inquiry and Professional Development
The other approach, perhaps more feasible for most institutions, involves projects of professional or "staff" development, based on voluntary connections between subject matter teachers and disciplinary scholars. Writing in the American Educational Research Journal (summer 1993), education theorist Peter Seixas identifies the "community of inquiry" as a critical yet too often absent component of historical understanding. "[Teachers'] distance from the academic community makes them tend to see historical knowledge as being created by others. To the extent that they receive history as inert, opaque information, it is not surprising that they reproduce those presentations when they turn to face the students in the classroom." In Seixas's view, moreover, the potential for community between teachers and scholars holds benefits not only for the former but the latter by focusing on the problem of "conveying knowledge beyond their own community."
At least three ongoing programs of professional development seem notably to address Seixas's aim of creating a community of inquiry between professors and teachers of history:
- The Marathon County (Wisconsin) History Teaching Alliance, founded in 1986, offers summer institutes as well as yearlong seminars in selected topical areas for teachers. Emphasizing the latest scholarly content and interpretations over methodological training—and drawing on both scholars and public figures from both inside and outside the state—the alliance facilitates an extraordinary disciplinary conversation.
- The California History-Social Science Project, the most ambitious collaborative program in the country (and as a result under recurrent political threat of loss of funding), since 1991 has brought K-12 teachers to college campuses and college faculty to school classrooms at selected sites across the state. Combining history, geography, and other social sciences in a joint endeavor, participating teachers enjoy a rare opportunity for research as well as lesson planning in close contact with disciplinary scholars.
- The Project for Historical Education at the University of North Carolina, established in 1991, regularly sponsors workshop sessions for teacher renewal credit on topics chosen by a joint faculty/teacher/graduate student steering committee. These five-hour, document-based sessions—attracting 30 to 60 participants to the Chapel Hill campus on four Saturdays each academic year plus an appearance at the social studies teachers annual state conference—have created a loyal network of participants and offered a sounding board for some of the most dedicated educators across the state.
Challenge and Appeal to AHA Members
With so much riding on what President Jimmy Carter would likely call the current "malaise days" of the public schools–and with university faculty constantly challenged to defend their distinctive social role and professional reward system–there is no better time than now to extend the bounds of the professional circles of historians to include history and social studies teachers. Indeed, can we really afford to treat history in the schools and higher education as separate worlds? I have offered above just a sample of current ideas and programs percolating among our members. My own view is that no history department—however decorated with good scholars and teachers—is truly distinguished in a professional sense if it does not in some way take up the larger challenge of public citizenship.
The AHA's Teaching Division seeks to build on current projects in various ways. At next year's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., we shall sponsor two new teaching workshops (or microcosms of classroom process), which we hope will attract area schoolteachers as well as college faculty and graduate student participants. We are also initiating a new prize procedure—"certificates of distinction"–for high school history textbooks that take seriously the educational standards of the profession. In the future we plan to organize special meeting sessions and grant projects to push a partnership agenda. Through all such measures we hope to improve the climate for collaborative work. In these efforts the teaching division relies on the National History Education Network, a clearinghouse and advocate for history teaching programs, directed by Loretta Lobes at Carnegie Mellon University. But clearly, we are still standing at the water's edge of effective collaborative work. We welcome a broader discussion of these issues. We look to our members (and fellow teachers) to teach by example and show us the way. I invite departments and historical organizations with any ongoing teacher education or K–12 oriented project to send me a brief description of the project and appropriate contact information.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Attribution must provide author name, article title, Perspectives on History, date of publication, and a link to this page. This license applies only to the article, not to text or images used here by permission.


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President Obama travels to Mooresville, North Carolina today. He'll highlight the town's middle school and its focus on technology and digital learning. It's part of what the White House is calling the president's Middle Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour. Jobs and education are big issues for younger voters, one of the most sought after demographics for both parties.
NPR's Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: It's not easy being a young person in today's economy. The unemployment rate for college graduates is over 25 percent, and for high school graduates it's even worse.
Peter Levine is the director of CIRCLE, a non-partisan research center that studies young people as citizens.
PETER LEVINE: About half of young people go to college today and about half do not, and actually only about a quarter really make it through to a four year degree. And even that group is having a lot of trouble getting jobs, or at least getting the jobs they expected to get.
LIASSON: Not surprisingly, more young people are postponing marriage, family and homeownership, the kinds of commitments that historically have characterized voters open to the Republican message. And, says Peter Levine, recently young voters have been voting for Democrats.
LEVINE: Democrats have the upper hand. They won the youth vote in the last two presidential elections and young people seem basically supportive of them.
LIASSON: This week, the College Republican National Committee took the first step toward changing that by taking a survey of voters under 30 to find out why they don't vote Republican. CRNC Chair Alex Smith announced the report on the group's website.
ALEX SMITH: As leader of over 250,000 college Republicans, I'm committed to showing my peers and younger voters just what the Republican Party has to offer.
LIASSON: One task for Republicans is changing the tone on issues like gay marriage, contraception and immigration. But Kirsten Soltis Anderson, the Republican pollster who conducted the survey, found something else that surprised her.
KIRSTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: The conventional wisdom is that it's social issues that are standing in the way. Our research actually found that's not necessarily the case. The real problem is the economy. There's a sense that Republicans aren't necessarily the party that is going to help you move up the ladder but that they're the party that's going to be great for you once you make it to the top of the ladder. And for many young voters who are just starting off in life, they have a lot of student loan debt, they're struggling to get a job because youth unemployment is so high - they're wondering what the Republican Party's solutions are to those problems.
LIASSON: But while the Republican Party regroups and struggles to come up with an agenda to meet these concerns, the Democrats are busy pressing their advantage. This week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began running ads aimed at young voters with student debt. Emily Bittner is a spokesperson for the DCCC.
EMILY BITTNER: We wanted to talk to students directly, and so we reached out to newspapers that are still publishing over the summer on college campuses and published print and online ads asking why their congressmen want students to pay more, which is a consequence of what House Republicans would do when it comes to student loans.
LIASSON: The irony here is that President Obama, while he has an agenda aimed at young people's needs - the student loan rate cap, investments in education, a hike in the minimum wage - hasn't been able to pass it. But what Anderson found in the GOP's survey is that young voters tend to give the president the benefit of the doubt.
ANDERSON: The number one word that came up in our responses was the word trying. They felt like he was putting up some sort of an effort. It's a relatively low bar for Republicans to overcome, but they do need to have that agenda that is focused on sort of day-to-day pocketbook issues that matter to young people in order for them to begin winning a greater share of the youth vote.
LIASSON: If they don't, says Anderson, the GOP will cease to be a viable party in the future.
ANDERSON: Once you voted for a party a couple of times, it becomes habit forming. And when you go to the ballot box for the rest of your life, you'll be slightly more inclined to repeat that behavior and cast a ballot for that same party. It's a massive issue because it's not just about the elections in the next two to four years; it's about the sustainability of the Republican Party long term over the next few decades.
LIASSON: It's an existential problem for the GOP, but Peter Levine thinks Republicans have an opening because young people, despite their pro-Democratic bias, are ambivalent about the basic premise of the Obama presidency, that the federal government can help improve their lives.
LEVINE: They're quite uncertain and trying to figure out how to interpret the last five years. Was it five years of recovery or was it five years of sputtering insufficient recovery? So, it's debatable, and I think they're having the debate.
LIASSON: In the upcoming election cycles, young voters will have that debate without Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, and that might help level the playing field a bit for Republicans, if they can come up with policies that speak to young voters' economic concerns. Mara Liasson, NPR News, the White House. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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My Gulf of Mexico
When I heard about the oil, I drove straight to the Gulf.
It was less than 24 hours after the explosion, and I was confused about the news. Detached, at first, as if this were a tsunami in the South Pacific. Then shocked, mistrustful, angry and scared. I did not understand. The Gulf of Mexico, news reports intimated, was a dead man walking. I drove to the Sloppy Pelican restaurant and bar and stood on the deck outside, staring at the Gulf waters through swirly Blind Pass, a tiny inlet separating St. Pete Beach from Treasure Island, off the Pinellas coast. Everything seemed fine. Still, a looping slide show kept flashing Gulf memories and characters through my mind—my first childhood visit, years of sunsets, Conquistadores, Johnny Cash and a boat builder I once knew named Shorty.
Net shack at sunset, Cedar Key.
In the name of heaven, respect your boat and respect your water!" Shorty proclaimed, staring first at me and then at the western sky.
Halfway finished with hammering together the final shrimp trawler of his calling, Shorty the boat builder stopped and shook a knobby forefinger at the edge of the world, past the brackish bayous of Tarpon Springs, above and beyond the frothing Gulf of Mexico, where a deep blue-black storm was gathering force. The barometer dropped abruptly and a brisk electric shiver colded our spines, sending the old man's trio of yelping mutts scurrying to shelter among the planes and lathes and ropes and rats and routers Shorty hoarded all over Sarris Boat Yard.
It was 1978, and John T. "Shorty" Hordeski was almost gone. Barnacled, weathered and bent, his fingers grabbed the handle of a saw even when no saw was in his hand. Shorty would cross the bar, as seamen say, a week after he combed his hair, brushed his beard, donned his white suit, had one last drunk and launched this final ship. The old man of the sea is long, long gone, but, oh, still very much around.
He stared out to the Gulf, unblinking, rock still. "If you sink out there, you ain't gonna walk, you're goin' down to Davy Jones. That's why my ghost walks every boat I build, keepin' the planks down and the hinges tight. Respect your water." Respect your water. Those words, that warning, reverberates in my mind today.
Perhaps Shorty's deck-walking ghost could fill us in on exactly how the Gulf of Mexico began. All we know is something majorly geologic happened 250 million years ago.
It was the Permian age, last period of the Paleozoic, an era infamous for its final epochal outcome: the largest extinction in planet history and the forever rending asunder of the huge continent Pangea. Some scientists say a mammoth underground methane bubble exploded poison into the atmosphere; others say it was cosmic impact: a gigantic meteor whamming into earth where the Gulf is now. Whatever, something blew Africa across the Atlantic, made separate continents of North and South America, created the Gulf and global-warmed the hell out of earth, destroying more than 96 percent of all life on the planet.
Impact crater or burst gas bubble, the Gulf of Mexico is the largest Gulf in the world, one of the 10 largest bodies of water on earth, one of the legendary Seven Seas, a broad, shallow-rimmed, kidney-shaped 615,000-square-mile Mediterranean-style basin filled with 643 quadrillion gallons of water, mostly saltwater from mother Atlantic Ocean blended with 280 trillion gallons of freshwater that annually drains from 23 major river systems covering 2.5 million square miles of the continental United States, Mexico, the Yucatan peninsula and Northwest Cuba. The Atlantic Ocean's Caribbean Sea enters the Gulf through the Yucatan Strait, circulates as the Loop Current, and exits through the Straits of Florida, forming the warm, swift Gulf Stream, which follows the eastern coastlines of the U.S. and Newfoundland, crosses the Atlantic Ocean, then splits into two streams, one streaming to Northern Europe and the other to West Africa, influencing the climates of the entire hemisphere. Modern times have seen the addition of a 7,000-square-mile "Dead Zone" caused by Mississippi River fertilizer runoffs and regular outbreaks of red tide brought on by Lake Okeechobee freshwater Gulf releases via Florida's Caloosahatchee River.
The first time I saw the Gulf of Mexico was July of 1966, when our family crammed into the old '58 Ford station wagon and drove west from Cocoa until we hit the other side. We kids jumped from the
car and ran to the water, across the wide expanse of St. Pete Beach,
and were stunned to find a flat, melancholy scene. No crashing waves and undertows and reefs like the mighty Atlantic. No surfers.
Not even any lifeguards. "This is a lake," I told my father, in disgust, even though I had never really seen a lake bigger than the pond behind our house. "It's dirt, no beach. You can't even drive on it."
Sometime in the 1540s, this body of water was named by either Spanish conquistadores or cartographers, whose maps referred to the area as Seno Mexicano or Golfo de Nueva España, or Golfo de México. Out on the Redneck Riviera, lately, they have taken to calling it the "Gulf of America."
Each summer, the Gulf of Mexico pumps warm-watered muscle into plodding storms that can become hurricanes of raging destruction. Since 1900, Gulf hurricanes have killed more than 9,000 people and caused more than $30 billion in damages. Tidal waves from the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history (Sept. 8, 1900) destroyed Galveston, Texas, killing 6,000. Decades later the weathermen put names on the storms. Gulf history is marked by first names; you know them: Audrey (1950); Carla, Hilda, Betsy, Beulah, Camille (1960s); Celia, Eloise, Gladys and Frederic (1970s); Allen, Alicia, Elena and Gilbert (1980s); and, in the 2000s: Andrew, Charley, Jeanne, Dennis, Wilma, Ivan, Ike, Gustav and Katrina, the most costly natural disaster ever to strike the United States.
In childhood, beach air smelled of the suntan oil my mother splashed on our faces, backs and arms, mixed with the chemical tincture of tar ball we always put to our noses and sniffed after peeling one off our feet. Our beach was the 1950s brown shell-sand Fort Lauderdale Beach, somewhere near the old Elbo Room beach bar, where my dad would leap up in mid-sandcastle and run across two-lane A1A to grab a beer. Down the road was the Yankee Clipper, a giant hotel in the shape of a ship! This was all we ever knew of the beach: a 15-minute trip in a '58 Ford Station wagon filled with kids and coolers to a wild and balmy bathing suit world where we avidly explored tidal debris, bug-eyed fish carcasses and sand-coated clumps of gooey red-black tar—from the cruise ships and tankers swarming nearby Port Everglades, my mother told us. At home, she kept a jar of brownish-yellow liquid on the front step of our house. We used an old rag to rub the tar stains off our fingers and feet and noses before we dared traipse onto the terrazzo floors inside, all giddy from turpentine and beach.
The edge of the Gulf of Mexico is Apalachicola oysters, Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, spring break in Panama City, Pensacola's blindingly white sugary sand, mysterious mangrove bayous, immense Mother Nature fish nurseries, the muddy Mississippi, jazz and blues, Cajuns, desperadoes waiting for the go-fast boat, cheese grits, fresh grouper, lavish South Padre Island hotels, Galveston Island's 10-mile seawall, Port Arthur, Matagorda, Beaumont and dozens of historic fishing villages down yonder the Texas Gulf Coast, oil derrick cities and their scummy water in the northwest Gulf, Ten Thousand Islands of pristine fishing grounds on the southeast Gulf shores, Dixie love-it-or-leave-it. It is also the garish splendor of Cancun, the deserted old beaches along the road through Veracruz, Tabasco and Campeche and the old tobacco plantations of Cuba's mountainous Northwest Coast. It's giant squid and sturgeon, manatees, sea turtles and whale sharks, legendary waterman Ray McMillan, with all his nets and rods and coolers, driving the Viking 65 miles offshore from Chokoloskee, burials at sea, ghost ships, starfish, crab traps, bleached white nets in the noonday sun.
Okee-Lahj-chee is what the Seminole Indians called the Gulf, which means "water—can't see the other side." Each year a hemispheric-scale phenomenon inspires millions of land birds—including nearly all the migratory species of the eastern United States—to migrate, sometimes in large, broad armadas of 2 million individuals, across the western Gulf coastal plains. Most of the world's monarch butterflies leave their homelands in Maine and Canada for winter roosts in Mexico's mountain fir trees, using the Gulf as a guide, finally honing in on the smells of the previous year's corpses.
Beginning in 1962, country music legends Ezra J. "Pop" Carter and "Mother" Maybelle Carter maintained a clapboard house near the Pithlachascotee River in Port Richey. In 1968, Johnny Cash married their daughter, June, and began to hang out there.
In his Cash: An Autobiography, he eloquently described the scene: "Here you have the tide, the meeting of freshwater with salt, the seabirds and marsh birds and land birds. The weather cooks up its sudden subtropical tempests out over the horizon or, on the landward side, takes the whole afternoon to build one of those immense, imposing fortresses of thunderheads, and then, as afternoon begins its long transition to evening, turns the whole towering edifice purple-gray and brings it all tumbling and crashing down on you, transforming everything into wind and water. . . It always makes me marvel: at the sheer scale, power, beauty, and complexity of God's creation, at the simplicity and strength of my human root in nature."
From his personal barstool, Floyd Brown's bony, freckled hand clutches a coffee cup of whiskey like a gavel and court comes to order at Leebo's Rock Bottom Bar. It's early evening in Everglades City, and the Milky Way is twinkling bright over the Gulf's Ten Thousand Islands to the west. Time for a story. "Tell us about the monkey," a voice implores, jonesing to hear about the old drug runner who took his pet monkey on smuggling trips through the Gulf mangroves. "'Hat monkey was see-mart. He watched ever' thing 'hat ole boy did and learnt how to drive the boat!" says Floyd, whose Gulf Coast Cracker vernacular recalls his late uncle, Totch—smuggler, alligator hunter, country-Western singer, parade grand marshal—a frontier legend in these parts.
The old man's words paint an enthralling picture. Hot-chased by federal agents, the old smuggler ditched his boat on the mangroves, jumped out and disappeared. When federal agents approached, " 'hat monkey grabbed the wheel and took off with a boatload a pot," says Floyd, describing a wild chase around and around the island that lasted " a good 'our . . .till he damn run outa gas." Coughing and laughter shake the rafters of the old bar. Floyd delivers the kicker: "You won't fine that bust in t' files!"
Slowly fading away, ancient Gulf mariners somehow still survive on the houseboats, johnboats, dinghies, barstools and tree-shaded folding chairs paradise hasn't yet grabbed. Their windswept shacks, ravaged docks and drying laundry line the mangrove coasts, here and there, everywhere Gulf waters touch land.
These men and women, their ancestors and their stories, are the most colorful seamen in the world, connections to a way of life dating from colonial centuries when European flags began to shape our early America. They are the living character of the Gulf of Mexico, where the commercial/recreational fishing and smuggling (drugs, contraband, aliens, etc.) industries walk hand-in-hand, unmatched in quality, quantity and legend anywhere else.
In 1497, Spanish explorer Amerigo Vespucci was first to explore the Gulf, following the coast of Central America and returning to the Atlantic Ocean via the Straits of Florida. He was followed by Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, whose discovery of the Yucatan in 1517 was marked by murderous fights with the local Mayans—the first European encounter with an advanced civilization in the Americas. DeSoto, Cortez, Narvaez—they all came through here; thus began centuries of exploration and exploitation searching for gold, fountains of youth and saving the souls of—or exterminating—the native Indians, particularly the Calusa of Florida, the Houma of Louisiana, the Arawak of Cuba and the Aztecs and Mayans of Mexico. It began the era of pirates and privateers and warfare with the governments in power. At various times, French, Spanish, British, Confederate and Union flags have all flown over the Gulf of Mexico.
The 400-year pirate era finally wore out when a frustrated Spain sold the Florida Territories to the U.S. in 1821 and pirate Jose Gaspar died. Retired, after capturing more than 400 ships, Gaspar, legend says, could not resist one last caper. The 1821 battle with a disguised USS Enterprise ended when Gaspar chose suicide, shouting, "Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy's."
Today, the Coast Guard patrols a 42-million-square-mile regional "Transit Zone" that includes the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. This is where modern-day pirates—smugglers—pass through on their way from South America to the U.S. mainland. Cocaine, methamphetamines, pain pills, guns—you name it—are often welded expertly into boats that dock at the Port of New Orleans, fourth busiest port in the U.S., where each year up to 100,000 barges move in and out. It's a modern smuggler's dream.
From ancient Spanish galleons to Nazi U-boats to go-fast boats of today, the floor of the Gulf coast is littered with shipwrecks, many unexplored, the great majority sent to Davy Jones while doing something wrong. None of those lost were built by Shorty.
In the name of heaven, respect your water. Shorty's plaintive cry resounds across the shining sea. From the first evening after the oil spill for years to come, Shorty's ghosts will be chanting that mantra. Deep and warm like the trade winds beyond the laughing gulls, you'll hear it in the staccato crashing of diving pelicans, in the seeping gurgles of fiddler crab's holes, in the silent, hopeful leap of a silver dolphin. In the name of heaven, respect your water.
Tonight, here on the dock of the Sloppy Pelican, nothing seems to have changed. The same little kingfisher I've seen before is balancing on the dock rope and pecking killifish from the water with swift jabs of his telescoping neck. The tide is racing through the pass, swirling the bait fish, while a wild choreography of seabirds jet-bombs the water, ignoring the tourists and their chintzy handouts on the seawalls. The early evening breeze is whipping through the Pass and enhancing the energy of the sunset, its beams of inferno frozen over a now-faded turquoise and mauve-yellow sky. Ignoring the ever-present condos and sound of a Harley somewhere, I gaze out on what I believe is one of the most beautiful scenes in the world.
This is my Gulf of Mexico. Everyone who lives along the edge of the Gulf, from Cuba all the way around the kidney to the tip of the 'Glades, knows what I mean.
I cannot believe or imagine that this beauty will not endure for centuries of history and characters to come.
At the Sloppy Pelican—a former smuggler's hangout—I strum my bass guitar every Thursday night and sing about Florida. On this night, less than 24 hours after the sea floor's jugular first ruptured black blood into the Gulf, a few nervous souls are swearing chemical smells are already in the air. "Those lousy bastards," they grieve, "have they ruined our Gulf of Mexico?" Then, suddenly, it's time for me to come in on the chorus from Pat Barmore's buoyant ode to the Gulf, Johnny After June:
And when the west wind blows
The Gulf of Mexico
Rises and falls like a sigh
And in the harbor lights' glow
At the end of the road
I still find reason to believe.
Peter B. Gallagher was a 2010 recipient of Fellow Man and Mother Earth Award, presented by the Stetson Kennedy Foundation in recognition of his environmental and civil rights reporting.
An eighth-generation Floridian, Carlton Ward Jr. is a founding member of the International League of Conservation Photographers and founded the Legacy Institute for Nature & Culture in 2004 to promote Florida conservation through media and art. He produces stories for Smithsonian, Audubon, National Wildlife and other magazines and is the author of two books, The Edge of Africa and Florida Cowboys: Keepers of the Last Frontier. See more of his work and purchase his fine art photography at CarltonWard.com.
Oil Spill by the Numbers
rank of the spill among the world's accidental marine oil spills
million barrels spilled
$23 billion
cost to tourism
gallons per day spilled, per BP's initial estimate
gallons per day actually spilled
square miles covered by the spill
34.7 million
gallons of oil-water mixture recovered
1.84 million
gallons of dispersant applied
controlled burns
square miles of federal water in the Gulf closed to fishing as of Oct. 5
miles of shoreline with moderate to heavy oil impacts
miles of Gulf Coast shoreline with light to trace impacts
percent of potential visitors who believe Sarasota was affected by the oil spill
Less than 1
percent chance of spilled oil landing on Sarasota beaches
Sources: The London Independent, Unified Command for the Deepwater BP Oil Spill, Sarasota Convention and Visitors Bureau, NOAA
Gulf Science
Ongoing research at our own Mote Marine Laboratory.
Coral Reefs
Mote's coral research—supported by sales of Protect Our Reefs license plates—examines the microscopic plants and animals that make up Florida's coral reefs, feeding and breeding grounds for many coastal animals. Much of this research focuses on antibiotic bacteria that may help save Florida corals from extinction. Mote.org/4reef
Fisheries Enhancement
Working with officials and anglers, Mote gathers DNA samples for tracking and analyzing local fish populations. At an aquaculture research farm 17 miles offshore, Mote grows marine and freshwater species for boosting wild populations and developing sustainable, cost-efficient fish farming. Mote.org/caviar, Mote.org/fisheries
Dolphin Research
The world's longest-running study of a single dolphin population (Sarasota Bay's, which numbers 160 right now), this 40-year partnership between Mote and the Chicago Zoological Society is led by Dr. Randall Wells and has uncovered a world of secrets about dolphins, from their social to sexual behavior. Mote.org/dolphin
An early morning surfer on Anna Maria Island heads for storm-whipped waters.
Sea Turtle Conservation
More than 200 volunteers walk 15,000 hours annually (the largest citizen conservation effort in the state) to help protect sea turtles during nesting season. Through 70-plus satellite tags, Mote is also learning more about the travel habits of endangered sea turtles and finding new ways to protect them. Mote.org/seaturtles
Shark Research
Mote's 135,000-gallon shark habitat is the perfect setting for researching the feeding habits and learning capacities of sharks, as well as sharks' heightened immunity to cancer—research that may lead to new cancer therapies. Scientists also study large coastal sharks and ways to rebuild populations depleted by over-fishing. Mote.org/sharks
Manatee Research
With only 5,000 remaining in the wild, manatees are one of Florida's most threatened species. Mote uses genetic research and surveys to learn more about manatees' senses of hearing, vision and touch, and to protect known manatee habitats from human-related threats. Mote.org/manatees
Center for Ecotoxicology
Since 1962, Mote has been studying red tide, using underwater robots to document the populations of organisms that cause the Florida phenomenon. In 2006 Mote started a twice-daily Beach Condition Report about red tide and other beach conditions. Mote.org/redtide
A sailboat on Tampa Bay approaches the Gulf; casting a net in the shallows.
Newborn chicks, like these little skimmers, grow up all along our beaches. Inset: A least tern protects her young.
Maternity Ward By John McCarthy
Our Gulf beaches nurture both rare and thriving species.
Loggerhead turtles come from all over the Gulf (and the Caribbean, too) to lay their eggs on Sarasota's beaches. Vigorous protection and monitoring attempt to up the formidable odds each egg faces: out of tens of thousands laid here, only a few will make it to adulthood. This was a good year, with 2,858 nests on local beaches.
Green turtles vanished from local beaches decades ago, over-harvested by Key West and Cuban fisheries. The main ingredient in green turtle soup, this species is now listed as endangered. But in the 1990s, they began to reappear on Sarasota beaches; this summer a record 35 nests were documented.
Because snowy plovers lay their eggs in a shallow scrape in the sand, their nests are exceptionally vulnerable. Beachgoers, pets and natural predators can all disturb the nests and birds. Volunteer "chick checkers" from the Sarasota Audubon Society reported seven fledged plovers this nesting season, several more than in recent years.
Least terns' graceful feathers were prized for decorating Victorian ladies' hats, resulting in severe population decline. Lately, rather than competing with humans for open beaches, this threatened species has adapted to nesting on flat gravel rooftops. In 2010, a single nest was reported on Siesta Key, while the roof of the T. Mabry Carlton water treatment plant supported 100 nests.
Ghost crabs are another species dependent on the Gulf shoreline to reproduce. This ever-present beach species lives in tunnels under the sandy beach but must lay its eggs in the water. Well known as a predator of hatchling sea turtles, the crabs themselves are food for beachfront wading birds.


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