Whig Hill

Today in class: this is a series now, apparently

So we're talking about how revolutionary were the first years of the French Revolution.

Student 1: It was, people were being killed already

Me: That in itself does not make it revolutionary. Swine flu has killed people (I know, bad analogy) but it's not revolutionary.

Student 1: Well, you can't be too careful. [Whereupon he reaches down and pulls up a bottle of clorox disinfectant spray]. I cleaned this desk before I sat down.

Me: Bwwwaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....gasp, wipe tears... AAAAAAAAAAhahahahahahhahahhah

today in class, con't.

8:00 class

Them: Uh, we didn't read and we don't feel like talking or even pretending this morning

Me: (Fully expressing my displeasure) Fine. This class is over. See you Wednesday.

9:00 class

Them: We read the chapter and can't wait to get started talking about the French Revolution

Me: I love you guys sooooooo much

In class today

Me: Mary Wollstonecraft... well, on her backpacking trip through Europe, she got involved in a number of, um, scandalous situations. She uh, well, uh...

Student 1: She was a freak?

Me: uh, yeah.

Student 2: Uh oh, Student 1 going to go home and read now

Me: Daaaaaaaaaaaamn

This is almost a cliche, but what the hell

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	Yo-Yo Ma - Cello Suite No.1, 1. Prelude
	Found at skreemr.com

Some musical notes

Man. Start brushing your hair and people tend to notice. Hmmmmm.

Anyhow, this has been a rough couple of months because I haven’t been able to get new music for the iPod and most of the good old music was on the hard drive from the old computer. But a couple of sub slots down at the station and I’ve been able to replentish with some new stuff. And I finally got off my lazy ass and moved the old music over, so things are mos def looking up.

Just have to say these things:

Otis Gibbs: Wow, where have you been all my life?

William Elliot Whitmore: Alright, let’s give this a try, but I’m still not sure about you.

(weewerks) is 6!: Holy Hell, who knew Canada had such an alt-country sound embedded in an indie label. I thought this was going to be filler, but it's a keeper.

The Hotdamns: Ok, I can work with this.

And welcome back to the iPod Steve, Cooley, Lefty, and Malcolm.

	Otis Gibbs - Caroline
	Found at skreemr.com

Bel Air

I’m up in Virginia for the weekend, visiting my mom. Hi mom. Anyway, not four miles from where I grew up stands Bel Air, a brick home built in 1740, probably on top of an earlier structure built in the 1670s. You’d think, because of the whole history thing, that I’d have actually been there before. But I hadn’t. It is in private hands and when I was younger it was way off in the woods with an inconspicuous access path. I read about it in a local historic structure survey. Long story short—Lizzie and I went there today. It is still occupied and the yard looks like it was landscaped in the eighteenth century and basically kept the same since. I realized the property is well posted with no trespassing signs so we didn’t linger. It is no longer back in the woods. Prince William County’s ubiquitous high-density housing tracts now abut the property and there is a historical marker out in front of all those no trespassing signs.

Well, this story is not too exciting. Interesting to me, though. Here is a link.

Quick thoughts on Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the "end" of the Civil War

So today is April 9, the anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses Grant at Appomattox and the end of the Civil War. Yay! and whatnot.

Of course we Derm-ites know better. We know that the last major Confederate surrender took place at James Bennett’s place, on the Hillsboro Road in Orange County. (And several minor ones took place after that.) This happened, eventually, on April 26, 1865, two weeks after Lee’s abdication. But the Appomattox surrender is universally recognized as the end of the war. As usual, "poor Carolina" gets no respect.

There are good reasons for this: the Army of Northern Virginia was the Confederacy’s premier army and Lee it’s premier general. The surrender itself has all the narrative checkpoints—pride, honor, grief—that can be wrapped into an easily retold one-day package that lends itself to Lost Cause memorialization. And it has Virginia behind it. Virginia is the self-proclaimed center of the Civil War universe.

That’s all fine, I guess. But I think the Bennett Place surrender is far more emblematic of the end of the Civil War. You see, it’s complicated. Johnston and Sherman had to meet more than once. Their officers didn’t sit around admiring each others' wartime valor—they nearly broke out in fistfights as they waited. The obtuse specter of (necessary) politics butted in. Lincoln’s assassination hung over the events. Even though they ended up adopting the Appomattox surrender terms, the entire affair ended in discomfort and uncertainty.

Everyone should know that the war did not end at Appomattox. In fact, it may be reasonably argued that the war solved nothing and the fighting—actual violence and killing—evolved and continued into the 1870s. By then it was primarily southern whites terrorizing and murdering southern blacks, and the politics were far more vicious than anything the 1850s had seen. It was still warfare. There is no comfortable end to the Civil War and the tidiness of Appomattox obscures that fact. Bennett Place is a better harbinger of the troubling years to come.

p.s.: Bennett Place at Endangered Durham

p.p.s. Looks like the N.C. Historic Sites webpages have been redesigned and updated. Finally.

Don't get any better than the Country Gentlemen doing Fox on the Run