Showing posts with label historical record. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historical record. Show all posts

Monday, August 4, 2025

Smithsonian to restore Trump to impeachment exhibit ‘in the coming weeks’; The Washington Post, August 2, 2025

, The Washington Post; Smithsonian to restore Trump to impeachment exhibit ‘in the coming weeks’

"The placard mentioning Trump was removed from the exhibition, “The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden,” after what the Smithsonian called a “review” of “legacy content.” A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, previously told The Post the placard was removed as part of a content review the Smithsonian undertook following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director."

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Smithsonian to restore Trump to impeachment exhibit ‘in the coming weeks’; Associated Press via The Guardian, August 2, 2025

Associated Press via The Guardian, The Washington Post ; Smithsonian to restore Trump to impeachment exhibit ‘in the coming weeks’

"The Smithsonian will include Donald Trump’s two impeachments in an updated presentation “in the coming weeks” after references to them were removed, the museum said in a statement Saturday.

That statement from the Washington DC museum also denied that the Trump administration pressured the Smithsonian to remove the references to his impeachments during his first presidency...

Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice. In 2019, he was impeached for pushing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden, who would later defeat Trump in the 2020 presidential election. And in 2021, he was impeached for “incitement of insurrection,” a reference to the 6 January 2021 attack aimed at the US Capitol by Trump supporters attempting to halt congressional certification of Biden’s victory over him.

The Democratic majority in the House voted each time for impeachment. The Republican-led Senate each time acquitted Trump."

Friday, August 1, 2025

Building presidential library for John Adams and son in Quincy, Massachusetts is of "national importance," CEO says; CBS News, July 31, 2025

 

"A presidential library for John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams is a step closer to becoming a reality in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Adams was the nation's second president, and his son was the sixth, but there's no presidential library for either of them."

Stacks of Cash; The New Yorker, August 1, 2025

; The New Yorker; Stacks of Cash

"The idea of the Presidential library dates to the late nineteen-thirties, when Roosevelt decided to donate his papers to the federal government and move them to a fireproof building near his family home. According to Anthony Clark, a former congressional staffer who has written a book about Presidential libraries, Roosevelt made room to display memorabilia to the public “almost as an afterthought.” Most Presidential libraries would come to house both the paper trail of a Presidency, for researchers to consult, and also a commemorative museum, which is the bit that most tourists actually visit. Over time, these museums grew more ambitious, and sometimes proved to be of questionable historical value. Richard Nixon’s museum initially presented Watergate as a coup, and accused Woodward and Bernstein of bribery.

Roosevelt was under no legal obligation to make his papers publicly available—but since 1978, thanks to Nixon and Watergate, Presidential records have been considered federal property, and are supposed to be handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration. There has never been a governmental requirement to open an associated museum, but typically these have also been managed by nara. (Nixon’s was unusual in that it was run privately for many years; in 2007, nara took it over and ripped out and replaced the Watergate exhibit.) Before the government gets involved on the museum side, however, the structures must be planned and built using outside funds, making them, in practice, fuzzy mixes of the public and the private. When Presidential libraries are donated to the government, they must also hand over endowments to help defray future maintenance costs.

Barack Obama broke the mold: his Presidential museum, in Chicago, which somehow is still not open, is an entirely private endeavor, run by a foundation; his official records are being digitized and will continue to be supervised by nara. After this effective divorce of library and museum functions was announced, Clark expressed hope about the arrangement. “What were intended to be serious research centers have grown into flashy, partisan temples touting huckster history,” he wrote, in Politico. “Even though they are taxpayer-funded and controlled by a federal agency, the private foundations established by former presidents to build the libraries retain outsize influence.” The Obama model would at least keep the government out of the business of hagiography. Not everyone was supportive, however. Timothy Naftali, who was responsible for overhauling the Nixon facility as its first federal director and who is now a historian at Columbia, has argued that the private nature of Obama’s center is an impediment to nonpartisan public history. “It opens the door,” he said, “to a truly terrible Trump library.”"

Smithsonian Removes Reference to Trump’s Impeachments, but Says It Will Return; The New York Times, July 31, 2025

, The New York Times; Smithsonian Removes Reference to Trump’s Impeachments, but Says It Will Return


[Kip Currier: Any reasonable, thinking person can see how unacceptable and troubling this is in a democracy, right?]


[Excerpt]

"The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History this month removed a label referring to President Trump’s two impeachments, a move museum officials said was part of a review of the institution’s content for bias.

The temporary label was added in 2021 to an exhibition about the American presidency. The label also included information about the impeachments of former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, as well as about former President Richard M. Nixon, who faced possible impeachment before resigning from office.

Mr. Trump is the only American president to have been impeached twice, in 2019 and again in 2021. He was acquitted both times after facing trials in the Senate.

The removal of the label, which was reported earlier by The Washington Post, came after the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, which governs the institution, recently committed to reviewing its content under pressure from the Trump administration. Mr. Trump has called for a more positive framing of the country’s history in Smithsonian museums, and tried to fire the director of the National Portrait Gallery, accusing her of being political."

Friday, July 25, 2025

NPS Flags Book About George Washington in Trump Crackdown; The Daily Beast, July 25, 2025

, The Daily Beast ; NPS Flags Book About George Washington in Trump Crackdown

"National Park Service employees have flagged several books to remove from their gift shops as part of the Trump administration’s crusade against “corrosive ideology.”

A records review conducted by The Washington Post revealed several book titles that have been earmarked to potentially be pulled from park retail stores, including a Native American picture book by former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland; Nikole Hannah-Jones’s The 1619 Project, about the history of slavery in the United States; and another book that reportedly refers to first President George Washington as “an enslaver.”"

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Trump Told Park Workers to Report Displays That ‘Disparage’ Americans. Here’s What They Flagged.; The New York Times, July 22, 2025

Maxine Joselow and , The New York Times; Trump Told Park Workers to Report Displays That ‘Disparage’ Americans. Here’s What They Flagged.


[Kip Currier: Trump's order directing National Park Service (NPS) staff to flag historical signs that "inappropriately disparage Americans" is contemptible and reads like a dystopian plot point befitting Fahrenheit 451 or 1984. It's also contrary to the advancement of knowledge and rigorous historical inquiry.

As a lifelong aficionado of the stunning diversity of America's national parks, I also find this directive deeply offensive because it seeks to sanitize and censor the complexity of U.S history: solely to satisfy one American's monarchical sense of what is and is not "appropriate". That is inherently un-American.

Thank goodness, then, that a heroic superteam of librarians, historians, and others are mobilizing right now to safeguard records of American history from erasure and expurgation. Until the day that fulsome, tangled, sobering, uplifting historical record -- our individual and collective history and legacy -- can be restored, appreciated, and learned from in all of its imperfectness.]


[Excerpt]

"According to internal documents reviewed by The New York Times, employees of the National Park Service have flagged descriptions and displays at scores of parks and historic sites for review in connection with President Trump’s directive to remove or cover up materials that “inappropriately disparage Americans.”

In an executive order in March, the president instructed the Park Service to review plaques, films and other materials presented to visitors at 433 sites around the country, with the aim of ensuring they emphasize the “progress of the American people” and the “grandeur of the American landscape.”

Employees had until last week to flag materials that could be changed or deleted, and the Trump administration said it would remove all “inappropriate” content by Sept. 17, according to the internal agency documents. The public also has been asked to submit potential changes.

In response, a coalition of librarians, historians and others organized through the University of Minnesota has launched a campaign called “Save Our Signs.” It is asking the public to take photos of existing content at national parks and upload it. The group is using those images to build a public archive before any materials may be altered. So far, it has more than 800 submissions."

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Manzanar teaches about Japanese American incarceration in the US. That’s in jeopardy under Trump; The Guardian, June 26, 2025

 , The Guardian; Manzanar teaches about Japanese American incarceration in the US. That’s in jeopardy under Trump

"Since then, Manzanar, which now has a museum and reconstructed barracks that visitors can walk through, has been transformed into a popular pilgrimage destination for Japanese Americans to remember and teach others about this history. (Manzanar was one of 10 concentration camps where the US government forcibly relocated and held more than 110,000 people of Japanese descent during the second world war.)

But recently, under the direction of the Trump administration, National Park Service (NPS) employees have hung new signs at Manzanar that historians and community advocates say will undermine these public education efforts. The notices encourage visitors to report “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features” via a QR code. The signs, which have been posted at all national parks, monuments and historic sites, were displayed in support of Donald Trump’s executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History...

“Any attempt to constrain or sanitize the stories that are told at Manzanar should concern every American,” said Naomi Ostwald Kawamura, executive director of Densho, an organization that documents the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were held in concentration camps. “I’m incredibly disappointed that this is happening in the United States because museums, monuments and memorials are public spaces where we can explore difficult history, confront our past, engage with what’s uncomfortable and then be able to imagine the future that we want to collectively share.”"

Sunday, June 22, 2025

‘Censorship:’ See the National Park visitor responses after Trump requested help deleting ‘negative’ signage; Government Executive, June 18, 2025

 Eric Katz, Government Executive; ‘Censorship:’ See the National Park visitor responses after Trump requested help deleting ‘negative’ signage

The administration asked for help erasing language on park displays that failed to emphasize American grandeur, but visitors have not identified any examples.


[Kip Currier: Trump 2.0's Interior Department initiative inviting National Park visitors to "snitch" on anything they see at a national park that they think presents America in "negative" or "inappropriate" ways is an affront to the complexities of history.

It's also an affront to us: as free-thinking individuals with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

There are many aspects of America and our history that are exceptional, uplifting, and inspiring. There are also aspects of America and our history that are not. Recognizing that duality does not diminish America or us. It actually strengthens us. It acknowledges that we are imperfect but are always striving to be better and do better.

Moreover, we can handle the grey complexity of parts of our history. We don't need government to sanitize and erase the parts of our history that are messy or which don't depict us at our best or listening to our better angels.

This Government Executive article gives me hope. Hope that more Americans will continue to share their voices and say that we can handle the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of our history. And hope that our government will leave their "HANDS OFF" of our collective history: if more people are willing to speak up.]


[Excerpt]

"The Trump administration recently began posting signs on federal parks and historic sites asking for help from visitors in identifying language that negatively discussed America’s past or present and launched a process for federal agencies to remove, cover or replace flagged materials. 

In the responses submitted by visitors to National Park Service sites, however, which were obtained by Government Executive, no single submission pointed to any such examples. Instead, in the nearly 200 submissions NPS received in the first days since the solicitations were posted, visitors implored the administration not to erase U.S. history and praised agency staff for improving their experiences.  

The new request at NPS and other Interior Department sites followed an executive order from President Trump dubbed “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that called for federal lands to remove information that could “improperly minimize or disparage certain historical figures or events.” That in turn led to an order from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that department staff solicit public feedback to flag “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” The reviews should include exhibits, brochures, films, waysides and signs, the secretary said. 

In instructions to staff also obtained by Government Executive, NPS employees were told to review feedback from visitors weekly but not yet remove any materials. For each comment, staff can either mark it as received but not requiring action, requiring action but not related to the signage issue or flagged for review by NPS leadership in Washington. Parks will receive follow up information in August. 

In the meantime, NPS said, the agency’s Harpers Ferry Center is currently “developing standard protocols and templates to assist with expedited removal, covering, or temporary replacement of any media that does not comply with” Burgum's order. It added a “long-term plan for permanent replacement is also under development for affected media.” 

So far, NPS is not getting the help it was hoping for from those scanning the QR codes now posted around park sites soliciting assistance in identifying language in violation of Trump and Burgum’s orders. Instead, visitors accused the Trump administration of seeking to erase the nation’s history.

“There shouldn't be signs about history that whitewash and erase the centuries of discrimination against the people who have cared for this land for generations,” a visitor to Indian Dunes National Park said.

A visitor to Independence Hall in Philadelphia called the new signs “censorship dressed up as customer service.” 

“What upset me the most about the museum—more than anything in the actual exhibits—were the signs telling people to report anything they thought was negative about Americans,” the visitor said. “That isn't just frustrating, it's outrageous. It felt like an open invitation to police and attack historians for simply doing their jobs: telling the truth.” 

Several visitors to the Stonewall National Monument in New York lamented changes there the park’s website that removed mention of transgender individuals in the Stonewall Uprising. 

“Put them back,” the visitor said. “Honor them. There would be no Stonewall without trans people.”

A visitor at Yellowstone National Park said the information presented there should challenge people. 

“The executive order to asking for feedback is ****,” the message read. “Parks already do an amazing job telling stories that contain hard truths and everyone is entitled to the truth to make better decisions in our lives. So what if people feel bad?” 

Without factual information, the person added, “everything is just a pretty facade with no real substance.”

At Manzanar National Historical Site, one of the internment camps that held Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans during World War II, a visitor said the site existed to present information about the costly errors in U.S. history. 

“The entire purpose of parks like this one is to learn from the mistakes of the past so we can avoid repeating them,” the visitor said. “Please do not water down the reality of the experience for future visitors.”

A visitor at the Natchez National Historical Park had a similar takeaway. 

“Slavery was a dark time in our history and we need to come to terms with that,” the individual said, “not gloss it over and romanticize the Antebellum South.” 

Only one visitor—at Petersburg National Battlefield, a Civil War site—noted they read signs that “didn’t sit right,” though the individual did not specify any materials that needed changing. Instead, the person requested a “second look” to potentially identify “more balance.” A Grand Canyon National Park visitor said the site should change its signs, but added “signed, Elon,” suggesting the comment was left in jest. 

Many of the comments asked NPS to include more information that highlighted the U.S. government’s discriminatory practices toward Native Americans. A bevy of visitors also asked for increased staffing and complimented the steps existing employees took to improve their experiences. 

Theresa Pierno, president of the National Parks Conservation Association, called the directive requiring park staff to post the new signs with accompanying QR codes “an outrage” that shows the “deep contempt for their work to preserve and tell American stories.”   

“If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes,” Pierno said. “These signs must come down immediately.”

An Interior Department spokesperson said in response to a request for comment that leaks “will not be tolerated.”

“It is a true shame that employees are spending their time leaking to the media instead of doing work for the American people, the spokesperson said. “The same American people who fund their paychecks.”

Trump, in his executive order, said federal lands should display materials that amplify American greatness. 

ark materials should “focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape,” Trump said. 

The Independence Hall visitor suggested that line of thinking would not effect the desired result. 

“Putting up signs like that doesn't protect anyone, [it] just tells visitors that the truth is a problem,” the visitor said. “And I can't think of anything more offensive than that.”"

Saturday, June 21, 2025

How Trump Treats Black History Differently Than Other Parts of America’s Past; The New York Times, June 20, 2025

 , The New York Times; How Trump Treats Black History Differently Than Other Parts of America’s Past

"On the occasion of Juneteenth, a day that commemorates the end of slavery, President Trump took a moment to complain that the national holiday even exists.

“Too many non-working holidays in America,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, just hours after his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, made a point of noting that White House staff had shown up to work.

The president’s decision to snub Juneteenth — a day that has been cherished by generations of Black Americans before it was named a federal holiday in 2021 — is part of a pattern of words and actions by Mr. Trump that minimize, ignore or even erase some of the experiences and history of Black people in the United States. Since taking office in January, he has tried to reframe the country’s past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing that history or at times denying that it happened."

Sunday, June 15, 2025

National Parks Are Told to Delete Content That ‘Disparages Americans’; The New York Times, June 13, 2025

, The New York Times; National Parks Are Told to Delete Content That ‘Disparages Americans’


[Kip Currier: These Interior Department directives of the Trump administration are censorious and should not be normalized in a democracy.

Historical facts and accounts are communal and collective in nature. Historical narratives and chronicles are not the property of an administration to cherry-pick, deselect, deny, clean up, and cover up. Yes, history is interpretative in nature. But history belongs collectively to all of us, not the administrative government in charge at a particular time: the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of history.

Sanitization and censorship of history is what totalitarian and autocratic states do. It's what the current Russian regime has done in whitewashing and rehabilitating the reputation of Stalin and Soviet Russia by closing down museums that present facts the Putin government does not approve of. It's what the present one-party state in China has done in squelching any mention of the Tiananmen Square student-led protests of 1989. It's also what Donald Trump has done in referring to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as a "day of love" and calling the insurrectionists "hostages". And it's what the Pentagon has wreaked in purging historical figures from its websites and removing books from its academy and military base libraries.

George Orwell's 1984 (published in 1949, four years after the Allied nations' defeat of the fascist Axis powers in 1945) warns us where this kind of state-sanctioned censorship can lead. A 2024 Smithsonian article ("What Does George Orwell's '1984' Mean in 2024?") on the 75th anniversary of the book identifies its most important themes as:

"the denial of objective truth, which we see everywhere about us, every war that’s currently taking place anywhere in the world and in quite a lot of domestic political situations, too; the manipulation of language … and the use of words to bamboozle people; and the rise of the surveillance society. … That to me, is the definition of the adjective ‘Orwellian’ in the 21st century.”

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-does-george-orwells-1984-mean-in-2024-180984468/

1984 describes the fictional Oceania totalitarian super-state's so-called Ministry of Truth: a department and policy approach that rewrites and represses history. It spreads propaganda. It inverts truth: 

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.



 

Will more teachers and faculty members, historians, university and college administrators and boards, librarians, museum curators, archivists, and other U.S. citizens speak out against this administration's autocratic sanitization and suppression of history?]


[Excerpt]

"The Interior Department plans to remove or cover up all “inappropriate content” at national parks and sites by Sept. 17 and is asking the park visitors to report any “negative” information about past or living Americans, according to internal documents.

It’s a move that historians worry could lead to the erasure of history involving gay and transgender figures, civil rights struggles and other subjects deemed improper by the Trump administration.

Staff at the National Park Service, which is part of the Interior Department, were instructed to post QR codes and signs at all 433 national parks, monuments and historic sites by Friday asking visitors to flag anything they think should be changed, from a plaque to a park ranger’s tour to a film at a visitor’s center.

Leaders at the park service would then review concerns about anything that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times),” according to slides presented this week at a meeting with park superintendents. By Sept. 17, “all inappropriate content” would be removed or covered, according to the presentation."

Thursday, June 12, 2025

National Park signage encourages the public to help erase negative stories at its sites; NPR, June 10, 2025

 , NPR; National Park signage encourages the public to help erase negative stories at its sites

"The Department of the Interior is requiring the National Park Service (NPS) to post signage at all sites across the country by June 13, asking visitors to offer feedback on any information that they feel portrays American history and landscapes in a negative light.

The June 9 memo sent to regional directors by National Park Service comptroller Jessica Bowron and leaked to NPR states the instructions come in response to President Trump's March "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" executive order and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum's follow-up order last month requesting its implementation. Trump's original order included a clause ordering Burgum to remove content from sites that "inappropriately disparages Americans past or living and instead focuses on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.""

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

In Challenge to Trump, Smithsonian Says It Controls Personnel Decisions; The New York Times, June 9, 2025

Robin Pogrebin Graham Bowley and , The New York Times; In Challenge to Trump, Smithsonian Says It Controls Personnel Decisions

 "In a challenge to President Trump, the Smithsonian said on Monday that it retained the power over personnel decisions, a statement that came in the wake of the president’s announcement that he was firing Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery.

“All personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of the secretary, with oversight by the board,” said a statement from the Smithsonian, which oversees that museum and 20 others, as well as libraries, research centers and the National Zoo. “Lonnie G. Bunch, the secretary, has the support of the Board of Regents in his authority and management of the Smithsonian.”

The statement came hours after the Board of Regents, including Vice President JD Vance, discussed the president’s announcement at a quarterly meeting...

The fight over Ms. Sajet’s tenure has further complicated matters for Mr. Bunch, who was already under pressure to navigate a recognition of presidential power while defending the institution’s autonomy. Created by Congress as a trust to be administered by the board and the secretary, the institution receives two-thirds of its $1 billion in annual funding from the federal government.

The Smithsonian’s silence after Mr. Trump’s announcement about Ms. Sajet, the first woman to lead the National Portrait Gallery, appeared to signal a reluctance to challenge the president. But the board on Monday reacted in a way that, if not a complete statement of support for Ms. Sajet, was a clear effort by the institution to reassert its autonomy."

Monday, June 9, 2025

The Smithsonian faces an existential crisis. The world is watching.; The Washington Post; June 4, 2025

 , The Washington Post; The Smithsonian faces an existential crisis. The world is watching.

"The Smithsonian has a long and sadly craven history of caving to critics, including making changes to exhibitions after pressure from activists and members of Congress. Former Smithsonian secretary G. Wayne Clough censored an NPG exhibition of portraiture featuring LGBT people in 2010, after pressure from conservative Christian activists. Clough forced museum curators to remove a single video, by the gay artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz, which actually made the exhibition more popular when it traveled to Brooklyn and Tacoma, Washington.

The precedent for that intrusion on editorial independence had been established at least since 1995, when the National Air and Space Museum censored an exhibition about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb. The Enola Gay controversy, which centered on some veterans’ opposition to an evenhanded curatorial discussion of why the bomb was dropped and whether it was necessary, damaged the institution, but it also helped foster widespread and lasting resistance to censorship and content meddling throughout the organization.

But those examples were mere brush fires compared with the destruction that would follow a new precedent, the right of the president of the United States to dictate hiring and content. Trump’s ongoing efforts to assert control over the performing arts, museum sector and the larger American historical narrative have been audacious and destructive. Subscriptions sales at the Kennedy Center are down some 36 percent from last year, and community arts and humanities groups around the country are suffering from the loss of small but essential grants from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services."

Friday, May 23, 2025

The future of history: Trump could leave less documentation behind than any previous US president; Associated Press, May 18, 2025

Will Weissert , Associated Press; The future of history: Trump could leave less documentation behind than any previous US president


[Kip Currier: Every information center (e.g. libraries, archives, museums) and cultural heritage and higher education institution should think hard about the questions raised in this article. Like this glaring one the reporter raises:

"How will experts and their fellow Americans understand what went on during Trump’s term when those charged with setting aside the artifacts documenting history refuse to do so?"]


[Excerpt]

"For generations, official American documents have been meticulously preserved and protected, from the era of quills and parchment to boxes of paper to the cloud, safeguarding snapshots of the government and the nation for posterity. 

Now, the Trump administration is scrubbing thousands of government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable. 

It has sought to expand the executive branch’s power to shield from public view the government-slashing efforts of Elon Musk’s team and other key administration initiatives. Officials have used apps such as Signal that can auto-delete messages containing sensitive information rather than retaining them for recordkeeping. And they have shaken up the National Archives leadership and even ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution.

To historians and archivists, it points to the possibility that Trump’s presidency will leave less for the nation’s historical record than nearly any before it and that what is authorized for public release will be sanitized and edited to reinforce a carefully sculpted image the president wants projected, even if the facts don’t back that up.

How will experts and their fellow Americans understand what went on during Trump’s term when those charged with setting aside the artifacts documenting history refuse to do so?"

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate-change-related webpages; The Associated Press via Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, May 14, 2025

Melina Walling, The Associated Press via Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University; Facing lawsuit, USDA says it will restore climate-change-related webpages

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture has agreed to restore climate-change-related webpages to its websites after it was sued over the deletions in February.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group, argued that the deletions violated rules around citizens’ access to government information.

The USDA’s reversal comes ahead of a scheduled May 21 hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the agency’s actions in federal court in New York.

The department had removed resources on its websites related to climate-smart farming, conservation practices, rural clean-energy projects and access to federal loans related to those areas after President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration."

Monday, May 5, 2025

What the puck? The Seattle Kraken have 2 staff librarians; KUOW, May 1, 2025

Katie Campbell , KUOW; What the puck? The Seattle Kraken have 2 staff librarians

"To say Gina Rome and Ashley Hufford have their dream job would be a little misleading — it wasn't a job they knew they could dream of before they had it. 

They're librarians for the Seattle Kraken. More officially speaking, Rome is the team's digital asset librarian, and Hufford is the digital asset manager. Both have master's degrees in library sciences...

That's why some professional sports teams have hired professional librarians to manage their digital media. And it's not just hockey. Recent Super Bowl champions the Philadelphia Eagles have a digital asset librarian, too. That's because librarians have the skills to arrange, archive, and access the team's assets in a more methodical way than your average marketing specialist, media editor, or, yeah, a pile of hard drives.

They're not just managing the assets. They're also sorting through them to pick the best of the best for any given need."

Saturday, April 19, 2025

Trump turns a COVID information website into a promotion page for the lab leak theory; THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 18, 2025

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS; Trump turns a COVID information website into a promotion page for the lab leak theory

[Kip Currier: Click on covid.gov webpage and assess for yourself the accuracy and judgment of placing "a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words “lab” and “leak” under a White House heading", adjacent to the words "The True Origins of Covid-19".

Many of the purported claims on this webpage constitute disinformation and propaganda that lack conclusive empirical scientific evidence.

The cherry-picked information about Dr. Anthony Fauci is intentionally misleading. Former Pres. Joe Biden pardoned Fauci on January 20, 2025 because of fears that the incoming Trump 2.0 administration would pursue baseless legal actions against him. The photo of Fauci used on the revamped covid.gov webpage by the current Trump administration depicts Fauci "face-palming". The face-palming picture is placed directly next to Biden's pardon of Fauci, implying that Fauci is face-palming because of shame about the pardon. In truth, Fauci famously face-palmed nearly 5 years earlier, on March 20, 2020, during a live Covid-19 briefing with Donald Trump. As The Independent reported

A leading expert assisting Donald Trump’s administration in its response to the coronavirus pandemic appeared to face palm during an extraordinary press briefing at the White House as the president lambasted “the Deep State Department”. 

Video of the moment showed Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, seemingly reacting to Mr Trump’s bizarre rant in real-time, standing just behind the president as he spoke about his administration’s latest efforts to slow the spread of the virus. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronavirus-trump-briefing-dr-anthony-fauci-face-palm-a9416111.html

Watch video evidence -- available on many platforms representing diverse political perspectives -- and evaluate the face-palming for yourself.]


[Excerpt]

"A federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for COVID-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak.

The covid.gov website shows a photo of President Donald Trump walking between the words “lab” and “leak” under a White House heading. It mentions that Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus first began spreading, is home to a research lab with a history of conducting virus research with “inadequate biosafety levels.”

The web page also accuses Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of pushing a “preferred narrative” that COVID-19 originated in nature.

The origins of COVID have never been proven. Scientists are unsure whether the virus jumped from an animal, as many other viruses have, or came from a laboratory accident. A U.S. intelligence analysis released in 2023 said there is insufficient evidence to prove either theory."