Welcome!

Although this site has been created primarily for my students, anyone is welcome to visit. In these pages you will find a number of sources of information.

The Online Resources section below has numerous links that are of current interest. For more links to material on just about any topic you're looking for, use the E-Links button above. Linked off of that page are pages containing hundreds of links to sites covering a number of topics.

Visit often ... I update frequently! Hope you enjoy the site!

Quote of the month

"You can't turn the wind, so turn the sail."

-African proverb

Numbers of the month

More than two years after regulators confirmed widespread reports of abusive mortgage practices, the government is making only halting progress in fixing the problem. It’s not only a dilemma for the people caught in the foreclosure noose; it’s also holding back a broader housing recovery & slowing the nation’s economic recovery. The scope of the systemic failure has been widely known for longer than two years, following widespread reports of lax procedures; flawed, inaccurate or missing documentation; and poor communication with borrowers.

Lenders are now barred from foreclosing while a borrower is applying for a loan modification. Bank representatives notarizing documents have to personally review all relevant information. Lenders are required to provide timely information on the status of a loan & give homeowners a single point of contact, among other new rules.

But despite the detailed new procedures & guidelines, lenders have yet to fully comply with the requirements. The NY Attorney General has announced, for example, that his office has documented 339 violations of the new standards in that state alone by two of the nation’s largest lenders, Wells Fargo & Bank of America, since October 2012.

Despite a tentative recovery in the housing market in some parts of the country, some 3 million borrowers are behind in their monthly payments & at risk of foreclosure. The result is a steady trickle of distressed sales that continues to hold back a wider housing market recovery.

Meanwhile, Congress is about to revive a long-simmering debate over whether writing down the balances of government-backed mortgages would keep struggling borrowers in their homes, save taxpayers the cost of a default & stem the impact of future foreclosures on neighboring properties. According to some in Congress, there are millions of people heading toward foreclosure who – but for a principal reduction or interest rate cut – would remain as viable homeowners, paying real estate taxes & not further contributing to the deterioration of other properties in the neighborhood.

NBC News 05/05/13

Then & Now

May is Asian / Pacific American Heritage Month.

	05/01/1898 - Commodore George Dewey gave the command, "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley," as an American naval force destroyed a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.
	05/01/1931 - New York City dedicated the 102-story Empire State building.
	05/01/1948 - The People's Democratic Republic of Korea was proclaimed.
	05/01/1960 - The Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
	05/01/1971 - Amtrak went into service.
	05/01/2013 - May Day
	05/01/2013 - Law Day
	05/01/2013 - Loyalty Day (signed into law by George Bush in 2002)
	05/01/2013 - Beltane (Northern Hemisphere) & Samhain (Southern Hemisphere) - Wicca, Celtic
	05/02/1519 - Leonardo Da Vinci died in France.
	05/02/1670 - England's King Charles II chartered the Hudson Bay Company.
	05/02/1863 - Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s men accidentally wounded him at Chancellorsville VA. He died eight days later.
	05/02/1936 - Peter and the Wolf, by Sergei Prokofiev, had its world premier in Moscow.
	05/02/2011 - US special forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad Pakistan.
	05/02/2013 - Brothers & Sisters Day
	05/02/2013 - National Day of Prayer
	05/02/2013 - Twelfth day of Ridvan - Baha'i
	05/03/1802 - Washington DC was incorporated as a city.
	05/03/1921 - West Virginia imposed the 1^st state sales tax. Wouldn't you love that distinction?
	05/03/1979 - Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher became Britain's 1^st female Prime Minister.
	05/03/2003 - President George W. Bush told reporters it was a matter of when - not if - weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq.
	05/04/1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on present-day Manhattan Island.
	05/04/1904 - The US began building the Panama Canal.
	05/04/1961 - A group of Freedom Riders left Washington for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation in interstate buses and bus terminals.
	05/04/1970 - Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.
	05/05/1816 - O Solitude, John Keats' 1^st published poem, appeared in The Examiner.
	05/05/1862 - Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeated French troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla.
	05/05/1925 - Tennessee authorities arrested John Scopes for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
	05/05/2013 - Cinco de Mayo
	05/06/1935 - The Works Progress Administration began operation.
	05/06/1962 - In the 1^st test of its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan Allen fired a Polaris missile armed with a nuclear warhead that detonated above the Pacific Ocean.
	05/06/2001 - Pope John Paul II, during his visit to Syria, became the 1^st pope to enter a mosque as he called for brotherhood between Christians and Muslims.
	05/07/1847 - The American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.
	05/07/1939 - Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
	05/07/1945 - Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims, France.
	05/08/1541 - Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River.
	05/08/1886 - Atlanta pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invented the flavor syrup for Coca-Cola.
	05/08/1945 - President Truman announced in a radio address that WWII had ended in Europe.
	05/08/1973 - Militant American Indians who'd held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for ten weeks surrendered.
	05/08/2013 - International Red Cross Day
	05/08/2013 - V-E Day, commemorating the Allies' defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII.
	05/09/1960 - The FDA approved a pill, Enovid, as safe for birth control use.
	05/09/1961 - FCC Chairman Newton Minow condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland" in a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
	05/09/2013 - Ascension Day
	05/10/1775 - Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys captured the British fortress at Ticonderoga NY.
	05/10/1869 - A golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah marking the completion of the 1^st transcontinental railroad in the US.
	05/10/1924 - J. Edgar Hoover became FBI director.
	05/11/1946 - The 1^st CARE packages arrived in Europe.
	05/11/1949 - The UN admitted Israel as the 59th member.
	05/11/1973 - Citing government misconduct, Judge William Byrne dismissed charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers.
	05/11/1981 - Reggae artist Bob Marley died.
	05/12/1949 - The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.
	05/12/1978 - The Commerce Department said it would no longer give only female names to hurricanes.
	05/12/2013 - Mother’s Day
	05/12/2013 - Mangers pour divers loas - Voudon
	05/13/1607 - The English colony at Jamestown VA was settled.
	05/13/1918 - The 1^st US airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced.
	05/13/1958 - Rocks thrown by anti-US demonstrators in Caracas Venezuela battered Vice President Nixon's limousine.
	05/13/1981 - A Turkish assailant shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square.
	05/13/2013 - Akshaya Tritiya/ Akha Teej - Hinduism
	05/14/1804 - Lewis and Clark's expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory left St. Louis.
	05/14/1904 - The 1^st Olympic Games held in the US opened in St. Louis.
	05/14/1942 - The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps was established.
	05/14/1948 - The independent state of Israel was proclaimed in Tel Aviv.
	05/14/1955 - Representatives from eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed the Warsaw Pact in Poland.
	05/14/1973 - The US launched Skylab One, its 1^st manned space station.
	05/14/2013 - Shavout (Pentecost) begins at sunset - Judaism
	05/15/1602 - English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovered Cape Cod.
	05/15/1918 - US airmail began service between Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
	05/15/1940 - Nylon stockings went on general sale for the 1^st time in the US.
	05/15/1972 - George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed while campaigning in Laurel MD for the Democratic presidential nomination.
	05/15/2013 - Peace Officer Memorial Day
	05/16/1868 - The Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its 1^st ballot on one of eleven articles.
	05/16/1929 - The 1^st Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The movie Wings won for Best Production. Emil Jannings won the award for Best Actor. Janet Gaynor won the award for Best Actress.
	05/16/1975 - Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the 1^st woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
	05/16/1991 - Queen Elizabeth II became the 1^st British monarch to address the US Congress.
	05/17/1792 - Brokers, meeting under a tree located on what is now Wall Street, founded the NY Stock Exchange.
	05/17/1875 - The 1^st Kentucky Derby ran ... the winner was Aristides.
	05/17/1946 - President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.
	05/17/1948 - The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.
	05/17/1954 - The Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that racially segregated public schools are inherently unequal.
	05/17/1973 - The Senate opened its hearings into the Watergate scandal.
	05/17/2013 - Endangered Species Day
	05/17/2013 - Birthday of Buddha (Visakha Puja/Buddha Day) - Buddhism
	05/18/1980 - Mount St. Helens in Washington exploded.
	05/18/2013 - Armed Forces Day
	05/18/2013 - Manger pour Gran'n Aloumandia - Voudon
	05/19/1921 - Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
	05/19/1958 - The US and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command.
	05/19/1967 - The Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the US and Britain banning nuclear weapons from outer space.
	05/19/2013 - Malcolm X Day
	05/19/2013 - Pentecost
	05/20/1927 - Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island aboard the Spirit of St. Louis.
	05/20/1961 - A white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery.
	05/20/1969 - Following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, US & South Vietnamese forces captured Hamburger Hill.
	05/20/2013 - Simbi Blanc - Voudon
	05/21/1832 - The 1^st Democratic National Convention got under way in Baltimore.
	05/21/1881 - Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
	05/21/1991 - A suicide bomber assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during national elections.
	05/22/1761 - The 1^st life insurance policy in the US was issued in Philadelphia.
	05/22/1947 - The US Congress enacted the Truman Doctrine and appropriated military and economic aid for Greece and Turkey.
	05/23/1430 - The Burgundians captured Joan of Arc and sold her to the English.
	05/23/1934 - In an ambush in Bienville Parish LA, police shot & killed bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
	05/23/2013 - Birth of Abdul-Baha & Declaration of the Bab - Baha'i
	05/24/1830 - The 1^st passenger railroad in the US began service between Baltimore and Elliott's Mills MD.
	05/24/1844 - Samuel FB Morse transmitted the message, "What hath God wrought!" from Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened America's 1^st telegraph line.
	05/24/1883 - The Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, opened to traffic.
	05/24/1962 - Astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the earth as he flew aboard Aurora 7.
	05/25/1787 - The Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia after enough delegates had shown up for a quorum.
	05/25/1961 - President Kennedy asked the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
	05/25/1963 - The Organization of African Unity began in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
	05/26/1521 - The Edict of Worms banned Martin Luther because of his religious beliefs and writings.
	05/26/1805 - Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned king of Italy.
	05/26/1978 - The 1^st legal casino in the eastern US opened in Atlantic City.
	05/27/1647 - The 1^strecorded American execution of a ‘witch’ took place in Massachusetts.
	05/27/1933 - Walt Disney's The Three Little Pigs was released.
	05/27/1937 - The Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County opened to the public.
	05/27/2013 - Memorial Day
	05/28/1863 - The 1^st black regiment from the North left Boston to fight in the Civil War.
	05/28/1892 - The Sierra Club organized in San Francisco.
	05/29/1943 - Norman Rockwell's portrait of Rosie the Riveter appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
	05/29/1992 - The Texas Lottery began operation with the scratch-off game Lone Star Millions.
	05/29/2013 - Ascension of Baha'u'llah - Baha'i
	05/30/1431 - Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
	05/30/1539 - Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto landed in Florida.
	05/30/1922 - Chief Justice William Howard Taft dedicated the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.
	05/30/1971 - The American space probe Mariner 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida on a journey to Mars.
	05/31/1819 - Poet Walt Whitman was born in West Hill NY.
	05/31/1913 - The 17^th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of US senators, took effect.
	05/31/1961 - South Africa became an independent republic.
	05/31/1977 - The trans-Alaska oil pipeline began operation after three years in the making.

| Return to Top |

online resource LINKS

o Check out TODAY'S FRONT PAGES. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800 newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.

o Whether or not you noticed, the earth's population passed 7 billion last Halloween. You might enjoy NPR's wonderful video, VISUALIZING HOW A POPULATION GROWS TO 7 BILLION.

o Check out the St. Louis Fed's presentation THE FINANCIAL CRISIS: WHAT HAPPENED?. The original video is no longer available but you can view the power point presentation.

o Want to take a survey but not sure how many responses to collect? This survey calculator gives you the number for any given population size and desired confidence level. A reverse calculator lets you enter characteristics of an existing survey and gives the confidence interval (±X%) to apply to the results. The Survey System site, sponsored by a survey software company, also gives clear explanations of statistical significance, survey design and related concepts. Also check out 20 Questions a Journalist (and you, too!) Should Ask About Poll Results .

o PBS's 30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed over the years. Start with the infamous Daisy ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link next to Daisy.

o Check out Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies (although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to discover your own political philosophy.

o Law Library of Congress: North Korea - Collection of links to websites on North Korea government, politics, and law. Includes legal guides, country studies, and links to constitutions and branches of government (where available).

o Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea - Background, articles, and opinion pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."

o State of the Union (SOTU) - The site uses an interactive timeline to provide a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of SOTU addresses." The "Appendices" section describes the statistical methods used. Also includes the full text of addresses.

o Small Town Papers - This site provides access to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout the United States. "Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication." The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos, and advertisements), which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access to the archives requires free registration.

o This website "serves as a centralized location to learn about the Congressional Research Service and search for CRS reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress." ("CRS Reports do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.") Features a searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports, other collections of CRS reports, and a FAQ about CRS.

o Stem Cell Research - See the official NIH resource for stem cell research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of the stem cell issue .

o Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2004 - This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted.

o Government Product Recalls

o Homeland Security Knowledgebase

o   If you're worried about retirement, try some of the following sites:
        IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans
        Social Security Retirement Planner
        Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money

o Keeping the Shi'ites Straight - Based on the opinion that "no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority," this article provides a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, and other figures.

o This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of Black inventors from the United States. Some entries include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988. Does not include bibliographic information.

o Annenberg Political Fact Check - This site describes itself as "a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 'consumer advocate' for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in US politics." The site provides original articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in "TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases." Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

o White House Tapes: The President Calling - "Three of America's most compelling presidents -- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon -- bugged their White House offices and tapped their telephones. In this documentary project, American Radio Works eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each man used one-on-one politics to shape history." Includes audio, a transcript of the documentary and background information on each president and the tapes.

o The Government Performance Project: The Way We Tax: A 50-State Report - This report from Congressional Quarterly analyzes "the tax structures and tax management of the 50 states" and evaluates "the way each state raises its revenues." It includes an overview of major sources of state revenue (sales taxes, personal income taxes, property taxes and corporate taxes) and features a description of the tax structure for each state. Also provides related reports back to 1999.

o First Amendment Library - Provides info on Supreme Court First Amendment jurisprudence, including rulings, arguments, briefs, historical material, commentary and press coverage.

| Return to Top |

SPOTLIGHTS

Community Activities

If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,

use this Community link or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at dramyglenn@earthlink.net.

This work by DR. AMY S. GLENN is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

Based on a work at www.amyglenn.com