design history ideas pragmatic historian time

A Thought Experiment on Flag Day

Today is Flag Day in the United States. I thought it was Father’s Day, but that’s next weekend. My days are all messed up with working from home because they just run into one another. I can see why holidays are so important for marking time. I don’t typically pay much attention to Flag Day, but as circumstance would have it, I was thinking about the U.S. flag a couple of days ago. Here was…

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action history ideas pragmatic historian

C-19 Window Symbols for COVID-19 Victims

I have seen the sentiment expressed multiple times online that the weeks we have lived in 2020 feel like years as the serious events of the year, including the pandemic, innumerable political events, and the death of George Floyd with the resulting worldwide protests, pile up on us. We barely have time to process major news related to any particular event when another hits and it’s all we can do to hang on for the…

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history pragmatic historian reading thought fodder

Reading to Understand the Roots of Racism in the U.S.

I set a goal of reading at least 3 history books this year. The first one I picked up was recommended to me by a friend: “White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America.” by Nancy Isenberg. Little did I know how incredibly relevant the book would be in terms of current events in Minnesota when I started reading this at the beginning of May. The killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black…

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