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Making Masks for the Pandemic

I took vacation time this past week, which may seem like a strange time to take a vacation, what with a pandemic and all, but my brother was planning to visit this week and I had the time off scheduled. While he couldn’t be here for a visit, I still needed to take the vacation time or I’d lose it. Plus, given the recent stress of shutting down a museum and learning to work from…

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history ideas pragmatic historian thought fodder

Ah! That’s Where MK Ultra Comes From!

I’ve been listening to Muse‘s album “The Resistance” (along with several of the group’s other albums), which seems incredibly relevant to today though it was released in 2009. Artists have their fingers on the pulse of society’s trends and movements such that they appear to be prescient. It’s worth a listen to in its entirety (of course I would say that!), but I want to point out a specific song on the album. Track number…

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history ideas pragmatic historian

When Business Learned from Nonprofits

My good friend and museum colleague David Grabitske is back again with another erudite blog post. This one stems from the oft-recommended notion that nonprofits should operate more like businesses. We have discussed the topic many times and I have been contrary about it for years. In fact, I wrote about it back in 2011 on my blog, The Woo Woo Teacup Journal. David, however, has set about finding proof that businesses have learned something…

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Tarot for Enlightenment

Happy Easter! Given the pandemic and the necessary stay-at-home order we are under, this is not a normal Easter. On a typical Easter, we would be getting together with family to eat a nice dinner and socialize. It would also be somewhat warmer. Instead, we are all in our individual homes doing homely (in the British sense of the word) things and it’s around freezing in Minnesota, with snow in the metro. I am writing…

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observations pragmatic historian

The COVID-19 Map That’s Bugging Me

As we settle into the stay-at-home routine necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a map I have been obsessively checking every day. It’s a map of the State of Minnesota that is part of the MN Department of Health’s Situation Update for Coronavirus Disease 2019. It shows the number of positive cases by county of residence. Here are the maps that I have taken screenshots of since March 31, 2020.   I live in…

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