Anatoly Koryagin

Dr Anatoly Koryagin, 1987

Dr Koryagin's story begins in 1979, when he became a consultant for a private organization to investigate the abuse of psychiatry in the USSR, following the Helsinki accords. During his investigation, Dr Anatoly Koryagin found his "patients" (Soviet dissidents) in a mental hospital to be completely healthy. He published his findings in the British medical journal The Lancet and began speaking out against the use of psychiatric treatment as punishment for political dissidents. He said that Russia had 16 hospitals specifically created to silence these individuals.
In 1981, Dr Koryagin was sentenced to twelve years in prison after documenting the hospitalization and drugging of dissidents within the USSR.  His official crime? Possession of ''foreign magazines'' in his home and writing anti-Soviet articles. According to the New York Times, the Soviet police described him as an ''ideologically unstable person''.  
In 1982, Dr Koryagin was transferred from Camp 37 in Perm (a former gulag) to Chistopol prison in the Tartar republic. Anatoly Koryagin was integral to bringing the treatment of political dissidents in the USSR into the public eye. Not only did he publish articles before his capture, but his time in prison caught the attention of dozens of Western newspapers. While in prison, he held hunger strikes and relayed information through his wife, also a doctor. While being force-fed and drugged (specifically with neuroleptics) Anatoly Koryagin became a symbol of resistance against the Soviet regime and against the oppression of political dissidents. The New York Times quoted his wife after she visited him in September 1983: ''He was like a medusa, so bloated that his neck was wider than his face. It was covered with edemas caused by protein starvation.'' For more than two years after his wife visited, no family members or colleagues were allowed to visit; there was no word if Dr Koryagin was even alive.  Following his release, Dr Koryagin said the following:

''During the last few years we hear of more and more doctors being employed by political powers in repression. Crimes take place that compromise medicine at large. People cannot tell apart those who heal and those who torture. Therefore world medicine is in need of a broad movement to reconfirm ethical standards."

After much protest from the Western world and Human Rights groups, Anatoly Koryagin was released in April of 1987. 
Partially due to Koryagin's work and his imprisonment gaining public attention/concern, the US Helsinki Commission and the State Department launched an investigation into Russia's accused psychiatric abuse. Clinical interviews were conducted with 27 patients and

"the delegation found that there was no clinical basis for the judicial finding of nonimputability in 17 of these cases. In fact the delegation found no evidence of mental disorder of any kind in 14 cases. It is likely that these individuals are representative of many  hundreds of others who were found nonimputable for crimes of political or religious dissent in the Soviet Union, mainly between 1970 and 1990."

Sources
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1983/03/03/the-attack-on-anatoly-koryagin/
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/14/us/psychiatric-abuse-in-soviet-assailed.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-03-26/news/mn-459_1_anatoly-koryagin
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/19/opinion/abroad-at-home-a-question-of-confidence.html

http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/30/1/136.full.pdf

James Donovan and the Bridge of Spies

          In 2015, director Steven Spielberg released a Cold War film entitled, Bridge of Spies. The movie, based off true events, portrays Tom Hanks as James B. Donovan, a lawyer and former Navy commander as well as former General Counsel to the Office of Strategic Services, during his time defending Colonel Rudolph Abel, an accused Soviet spy. Donovan was asked to defend Abel both because of his past experience working for the government and because he had been an associate prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.
          Donovan agreed to defend Abel, believing that it would be a "public service," but also because it would be a testament to the superiority and justness of American democracy and freedom. However, once agreeing to take the case, he received threats and was labeled a "Commie lover." A newscaster even noted that Donovan had the most hated client since the British troops of the Boston Massacre that John Adams defended.
          Donovan worked hard on the case, and despite the evidence being stacked against him, he appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court on the basis that the incriminating evidence had been seized illegally without a warrant. In the Supreme Court hearing, Abel's conviction was upheld by a 5-4 decision.
          Despite losing the case, Donovan's work was not over, his next task being to prevent Abel from receiving the death penalty. While shown in the movie to have taken place during a personal visit to the judge, in reality Donovan argued in court that in the future Colonel Abel could be used as leverage in negotiations. Through this and four other points, Donovan was able to mitigate Abel's sentence to forty- five years in prison.
          Within the next three years, Donovan's hypothetical came true. We all learned in class about the U-2 crisis, in which a U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet airspace and American pilot, Gary Powers, was captured, but we did not learn the specifics of how it was resolved.
          Working unofficially on behalf of the CIA, Donovan acted as a negotiator in East Berlin with the main objective of reaching an agreement for the exchange of Abel for Powers. Secondary to this goal  would be for Donovan to negotiate the release of two American students that were being held captive, Frederic Pryor, being held in East Germany, and Marvin Makinen who was being held by the Soviets in Kiev. 
          The movie never mentions Makinen, but it focuses a lot on the negotiations on Abel for Powers and Pryor. At the end of the negotiations it was agreed that the exchange would take place on the Glienicke Bridge, hence the name Bridge of Spies. At this point the movie moves towards its climax where it shows an intense scene on the bridge as the exchange takes place. Remarkably, Donovan was able to negotiate the trade of Abel for both Powers and Pryor. And even though Makinen was not freed at the time Donovan had opened the door for his release a year later.
          Donovan would go on to achieve further feats including writing a book and negotiating an even larger prisoner exchange, but perhaps that will be left for another time.




Works Cited:
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2016-featured-story-archive/the-negotiator.html

https://news.fordham.edu/fordham-magazine/metadiplomat-the-real-life-story-of-bridge-of-spies-hero-james-b-donovan/

https://www.biography.com/people/rudolf-abel-101415

Gloria Steinem, Playboy Bunny?

Gloria Steinem -
"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."

      Gloria Steinem is an American feminist, and journalist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the1970s. She was among some of the founders Ms Magazine. In 2005, Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women's Media Center, which is an organization that works "to make women visible and powerful in the media". Steinem is still alive today and continues to help in the fight for true equality. Steinem currently travels internationally as a lecturer and is a media spokeswoman on issues of equality.
       In 1963 Steinem went undercover as one of the Playboy bunnies working at a club to write an expose. It was written in the style of diary entries with Steinem writing in daily what had happened to her as a Playboy bunny. During her time as a bunny, she wrote about how she took the alias of Marie Catherine Ochs and worked until she heard another "bunny" say, "He's a real gentleman. He treats you just the same whether you've slept with him or not." In the advertisements for the bunnies, it stated that they would be able to make weekly salaries of around $200-300 which is today equivalent to $1600-2400 a week. However, they ended up being nickeled and dime and were expected to pay themselves for their fake eyelashes and for the upkeep of their outfits. She was even greeted by the guards by them saying, "Here bunny, bunny, bunny!" 

Steinem as a Playboy "bunny"

          This article, titled, "A Bunny's Tale" appeared in the May and June issues of Show magazine in the same year that Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was published. "A Bunny's Tale" showed Steinem's belief that the sexual revolution would fail if men were the only ones allowed to define it. Steinem showed she could more than hold her own against an opponent with his own media empire since at the time Playboy was reaching a million readers a month, and in 1963, when the article was published, the Playboy Clubs were flourishing. Hefner had in 1962 begun writing monthly essays that insisted he would be "the Emancipation Proclamation of the sexual revolution", however, Steinem was unimpressed. She did not hesitate to treat Hefner's "emancipation" claims as lies. She went after him where he was most vulnerable, showing readers what it was actually like to work at a Playboy Club.
       
Sources:
http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/gloria-steinem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem#Feminist_positions
Playboy Bunny Article
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/26/gloria-steinem-bunny-tale-still-relevant-today

"Ms." Magazine

Feminism in the United States has never been one coherent movement. There have been pushes followed by backlashes followed by pushes followed by silence for decades at a time. The 70s enveloped a time of pushing for rights with the Sexual Revolution.

The Sexual Revolution was not just about gaining rights for women (but that was the main focus of the Women's Liberation Movement was in the 60s), but also about simply becoming more open about sex and issues regarding it. Outcomes of this movement included Title IX, a movement against bras, more porn, and of course the inevitable backlash from conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly. One of the most important upshots of the movement, however, was the magazine entitled Ms.

Ms. helped to shape contemporary feminism as a bold act of independence. Before this, women's magazines were mostly limited to how to save a marriage, raise a child, or what cosmetics to use.

Ms. revolutionized this. Some articles rated presidents based on women's rights. Others explained and advocated for the Equal Rights Amendment. The magazine brought up hidden issues such as domestic violence, criticized objectifying advertising, and performed studies on date rape. They also had a Woman of the Year. All of these stories and studies and articles were brought into the homes of millions of Americans.

Again, there was backlash. They have faced many financial problems due to advertising deficiencies. At one point, they became a nonprofit running from the funds of the Ms. Foundation for Education and Communication. They have switched ownership many times but have survived nonetheless. Today, it runs outside of LA.

According to their website, "Ms. continues to be an award-winning magazine recognized nationally and internationally as the media expert on issues relating to women’s status, women’s rights, and women’s points of view."

Here is a link to their Debut Issue.

http://nymag.com/news/features/ms-magazine-2011-11/
http://msmagazine.com/blog/about/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._(magazine)?oldformat=true

Down With Orange Juice

Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.

So goes the famous line dropped by Anita Bryant in her promotion of Florida’s orange juice. Dubbed the Sunshine State’s official OJ sweetheart, she would go on to be remembered as a prominent anti-LGBTQ activist. In 1977, when Miami-Dade County in South Florida passed a homosexual nondiscrimination act, Bryant and other conservatives became alarmed. In order to combat the ordinance, Bryant immediately began working to gather signatures that supported calling for a special referendum. In order to urge voters to support her, Bryant launched her organization Save Our Children. To her, children were the true victims of homosexuality. After all, as she often so stated, “Gays can’t reproduce, so they have to recruit”.

The LGBTQ community were appalled by Bryant’s campaigning. Some tried to raise money against her. Others went directly for her money: the orange juice. After Bryant succeeded in calling for her special referendum, gay bars across the country began boycotting orange juice from Florida. Activists, such as Harvey Milk, were inspired by Cesar Chavez’s own grape boycott for his labor union and vocally urged people to drop the drink and take up pineapple juice instead. It was the first ever “gaycott”, and was strongest in San Francisco. San Francisco’s own taverns began printing up notices that they would no longer serve orange juice, and even encouraged others to join them in their daily pouring of orange juice out in the street at 11 AM. In a play on Bryant’s own famous line, many wore tees that espoused messages such as “A Day Without Human Rights is Like a Day Without Sunshine”.

And what did Bryant do in response? She faithfully continued in her religious and child-saving ways. Bryant spent the months of the boycott singing with kindergarteners in the background and portrayed herself as a martyr in interviews. On one television show, a gay activist had thrown a pie in her face. Wryly, Bryant remarked, “Well, at least it’s a fruit pie”, using the common idea that “fruity” was a slur for homosexual people. Then she immediately began praying for the activist and for him to reform his lifestyle. Although Bryant faced enormous backlash among the LGBTQ community, she was not without supporters. Jerry Falwell, in agreement with Brant, stated about the community “We’re dealing with a vile and a vicious and a vulgar gang”.

In the end, Milk’s boycott was unsuccessful. The “gaycott” was simply too small to have any real effect nationally, and the ordinance was repealed. Bryant was triumphant, and declared that she would not give up and would go on to defeat all ordinances in all states.  In Miami-Dade County, her activism would have effects that would last for years- it wouldn’t be until 20 years later than there would be a new LGBTQ rights ordinance.

In 1980, Bryant would be fired by the Florida Citrus Commission, and her organization, Save Our Children, seemed to be fired along with her. Bryant’s national fame was permanently destroyed, and gay activists rejoiced and looked towards a brighter future. And while the LGBTQ community continues to break ground on equality everyday, Bryant has still left a damaging legacy. In Florida, gay parents are still banned from applying for adoption despite the thousands of children without a home. In what seems like an attempt to continue her message of saving the children, this ban can be accurately summed up by Joanne Mariner’s statement, “Anita Bryant would be proud”.

Sources

• http://www.myrecipes.com/extracrispy/the-orange-juice-boycott-that-changed-america
• https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/florida-gay-rights-activists-boycott-orange-juice-1977-1980
• http://www.pbs.org/outofthepast/past/p5/1977.html
• http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0804/26/cnr.04.html

https://www.alternet.org/story/17737/anita_bryant%27s_anti-gay_legacy

President Nixon: A Republican In Name Only?

     President Nixon may have ridden into the presidency on a wave of fanatic conservatism and backlash against the rights revolutions going on in the 1960s, but his actual policies proved to be a somewhat confusing mix of conservatism, liberalism, and many areas in between.

     On one hand, President Nixon knew that he could not lose the Republicans’ support and echoed them in his words and a few of his actions. Like his fierce conservative supporters, Nixon condemned student protesters and called for “law and order.” He even established a program of New Federalism, which gave federal “block grants” to states as they saw fit rather than for a specific federally determined purpose. He also abolished the Office of Economic Opportunity, effectively ending President Johnson’s War on Poverty. In addition, he nominated two staunch segregationists, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court (although they were both rejected by the Senate). It could even be argued that his seemingly liberal Philadelphia Plan, which was an extension of President Johnson’s affirmative action efforts, was a backhanded score for conservatism--the idea was to fight inflation by weakening the power of the building trades unions and keeping workers’ wages low to keep construction prices low; Nixon also calculated that the plan would only benefit Republicans if it caused dissension between blacks and labor unions.

     In contrast, several other points of Nixon’s domestic policy were pretty liberal. Part of this was due to the fact that because he and Kissinger were so focused on foreign policy and diplomatic relations, Nixon had little desire to fight the Democrat-controlled Congress on domestic matters. For example, Nixon accepted and expanded many elements of the Great Society. He created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which sent inspectors to workplaces to ensure health and safety. He also created the National Transportation Safety Board, which instructed car makers on how to make their automobiles safer. Furthermore, Nixon signed congressional measures that expanded the food stamp program and indexed Social Security benefits to inflation (meaning that benefits would increase proportionally to the cost of living). Perhaps most surprisingly, Nixon noticed the disturbing effects of air and water pollution and founded the Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA!) to address these problems. Under his administration, the EPA oversaw programs to combat water and air pollution, cleaned up hazardous wastes, and required environmental impact statements from any project that received federal funding. A few more environment-friendly acts that he signed include the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act.

     While the aforementioned policies were mostly classifiable into one political orientation or the other, there were still some issues on which Nixon sent mixed signals. One of these was the Family Assistance Plan, which Nixon proposed to replace the Aid to Families with Dependent Children plan. Instead of providing welfare to families below a certain threshold income, the Family Assistance Plan proposed a national minimum income. The plan was rejected by both sides of Congress--conservatives saw it as too radical, while liberals argued that the proposed minimum income was nowhere near enough. Nixon also waffled on affirmative action. While his administration proposed the Philadelphia Plan to impose affirmative action quotas on employers, he later condemned the whole plan during his 1972 reelection campaign.

     Based on Nixon’s wide swath of policy views, perhaps it can be seen that President Nixon did not live up to the heroic conservative expectations of his 1968 fans. What do you think Nixon’s motivations were? Did he just not care about political labels, or was he dancing a more intricate political tango? What other presidents in history have campaigned on hardline principles and waffled upon taking office? If this is a recurring trend, why do we bother assigning categorical labels to political views?

Sources:
Give Me Liberty Chapter 26
http://time.com/4696104/environmental-protection-agency-1970-history/

The Curse of Going to Space: Cosmic Junk

2017 marked the 60th anniversary of Sputnik's successful launch into space. But the past successes of space launches have had an unanticipated consequence: space debris.

There are actually two kinds of space debris: natural (like meteoroids) and artificial (ie: man-made). Natural space debris generally orbits around the Sun, while man-made debris orbits around the Earth. The Earth-orbiting, human-made space junk is also referred to as orbital debris.

While it is not something we civilians think about when space travel comes to mind, NASA's chief scientist for orbital debris, Nicholas Johnson, says, “The greatest risk to space missions comes from non-trackable debris.” There are over 500,000 pieces of tracked orbital debris orbiting the Earth at up 17,500 miles per hour, and that is not even including the debris that is too small to track from Earth. According to NASA's website, "Even tiny paint flecks can damage a spacecraft when traveling at these velocities. In fact a number of space shuttle windows have been replaced because of damage caused by material that was analyzed and shown to be paint flecks."

Luckily, no disasters of the proportion of Gravity (starring Sandra Bullock) have taken place. But it's only a matter of time. And once some large piece of debris hits another large orbiting body, that collision will create even more orbital debris. And then that debris will hit other debris, and create more debris, and so on and so forth.

This doomsday scenario is called Kessler Syndrome. As far back as 1978, NASA scientist Donald Kessler predicted that someday there could be such a high density of orbital debris that collisions create only more debris that increase the probability of further collisions. If this threshold is reached, it could doom humans to the Earth forever.

Yet we still dream of the stars. SpaceX just successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket booster, propelling a Tesla into space. And, this company alone is planning to launch 11,943 satellites into space. In the current environment of orbital debris, this may not work out well, but fear not: people are already thinking up solutions.

Aerospace Corporation has created Brane Craft, a blanket-like, metal sheet that is supposed to wrap around space debris and pull it back into the atmosphere to burn up. Another (more exciting) approach proposed by the Air Force Engineering University in China is to blast debris with lasers. Yet another solution, from Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency, suggests using an electrodynamic tether (pictured below). It's basically a magnetic chord that uses electromagnetic force to redirect objects into the atmosphere.



Space junk is a problem for future extraterrestrial travelers, but it is not an unsolvable one. Hopefully, future generations, too, will have the chance to explore space: the final frontier.

Sources:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
https://www.wired.com/story/spacex-wants-to-launch-thousands-of-satellites-what-for/
https://www.space.com/38105-ultrathin-craft-could-destroy-space-junk.html
https://www.space.com/39412-china-satellite-lasers-clean-space-debris.html
https://www.space.com/38984-tiny-space-debris-sensor-to-station.html

Images:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/505020386/japan-sends-long-electric-whip-into-orbit-to-tame-space-junk

SALT

SALT or Strategic Arms Limitations Talks/Treaty was a set of talks that ended up with two treaties agreed upon by both the US and the Soviet Union. During the late 1960s president Johnson proposed a meeting between the two nations due to the development of anti ballistic missile (ABM) defence systems in the Soviet Union. This was an issue because if one nation had the ability to destroy the other nation’s missiles before they hit the ground, the balance established by the idea of mutually assured destruction would be lost. At the end of the first talk, there was a treaty signed by both sides called the anti ballistic missile treaty. This treaty limited the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) the US and the Soviet Union could have. This did not restrict the damage each individual warhead could do, only the number of individual missiles and MIRVs or Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (basicly one missile that splits into many missiles).

The second SALT treaty was proposed in 1972. The main purpose of this treaty was to limit the manufacturing of technologically advanced nuclear missiles. This treaty banned the creation of new nuclear warhead delivery systems. The treaty was signed by both sides in 1979, but was not ratified by the US senate because of the Soviet-Afghan war. Because of the United State’s refusal to ratify the treaty, the Soviet legislature also did not ratify the treaty. However, both sides adhered to the rules set forth by the treaty until 1985 when the treaty expired and was not renewed.

Agreeing to the terms at the negotiation table is one thing, but actually following the terms is another. This is why the two nations had a disagreement as to how one country verifies that the other country is following the rules of the treaty. They ended up agreeing on using National Technical Means (NTM). This was the first time the term NTM was used. It meant some kind of telemetry such as photoreconocence satellite systems to check and make sure both nations were following the rules of the treaty.

Sources:

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/salt

http://www.coldwar.org/articles/70s/saltiandii.asp

Agent Orange

Operation Ranch Hand was a herbicidal warfare program launched by the United States during the Vietnam War to defoliate large sections of forests that the Vietcong had used for cover. The herbicide, Agent Orange, destroyed thousands of square miles of land but also affected millions of people, both American and Vietnamese.

Herbicides are generally used in small amounts in clearing land for agriculture or removing weeds, but in Vietnam, over 20 million gallons of it was used to destroy plants that the enemy used for concealment. Helicopters were used to spray the chemical over 4.5 million acres of land.

Herbicides are known to cause severe defects in those who are exposed, and this was no exception. Agent Orange was the most potent of the many used in Vietnam, as its active ingredients caused trees to lose their leaves. It also contained a toxic byproduct, TCDD, a type of dioxin and carcinogen. TCDD is a persistent chemical compound that can last for years in the environment, accumulating in the fatty tissue of fish, birds, and other animals. Millions were exposed to this chemical via foods such as fish, poultry, and others.

As veterans returned home from Vietnam, their families and others in the US started reporting skin irritations, birth defects in children, and various different cancers in higher rates. It was found that these afflictions were connected to the exposure of Agent Orange in Vietnam since the chemical was known to cause defects in those exposed. Lawsuits were filed on behalf of the millions of veterans affected until the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to pay $240 million in compensation. However, this didn't prevent over 400,000 from being killed due to the herbicide and millions suffering from illnesses derived from Agent Orange. The Vietnamese also filed lawsuits for compensation, but the US has yet to compensate them since doing so would mean admitting the war crimes done in Vietnam.

Source: http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/agent-orange
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/herbicide.htm

Music of the Anti-War Movement

"All we are saying is give peace a chance"

This lyric, repeated eight times throughout John Lennon's hit song, "Give Peace a Chance," made clear the desires of the America anti-war movement during the 1970s. The song reached 14th on the Billboard Hot 100, demonstrating its reach and influence throughout the US. (add more context here)

"Give Peace a Chance," Lennon's first hit solo song after leaving the Beatles, was one of many hit songs that criticized the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. The era saw a number of songs released by prominent music artists including John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. Songs like "Imagine," "Blowing in the Wind," and "Born in the USA" all shared one message: the war in Vietnam wasn't worth fighting for. Anti-war concerts were held across the nation, most notably in Carnegie Hall. Artists entertained crowds of thousands by performing hit protest songs and declaring that the "war is over."

















While the music was all in support of ending the war, they differed in terms of content. "Imagine" by John Lennon placed an emphasis not only on ending the war but also on maintaining world peace. He emphasized world peace by urging his audience to "imagine" a world without religion, countries, or other possessions. "Blowin in the Wind" by Bob Dylan was actually written not as a protest song (Dylan himself stated that he didn't write protest songs) but later became one of the most famous anti-war songs of the era. "Bring 'em Home" by Pete Seeger had a clear message: to bring the American soldiers home.

These songs went on to rank highly on national and global charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the Songs of the Century, and numerous global charts. They offer a unique perspective into the sentiment surrounding the 1960s: through a musician's perspective.

Sources:
http://vietnamfulldisclosure.org/index.php/10-top-anti-warprotest-songs-about-the-vietnam-war/
http://peacehistory-usfp.org/protest-music-vietnam-war/
https://www.cfr.org/blog/twenty-best-vietnam-protest-songs

The Flower Children

The term "hippie" conjures the image of young individuals with hair long and unkempt, peace signs, tie-dye shirts and vest ornated with flowered patches. While these categorizations are true to a certain extent, the category of "Flower child" is synonymous with the word hippie with its origins in our very own San Francisco.

The word "Flower child" was given because the participants would themselves be covered in fake and real flowers whether it be their head or clothing and pass out flowers to passersby, promoting an idea of peace and to bring the world together. The slogan "Flower power" may be one that we are more familiar with but was created from the Flower children to promote love and peace and oppose the Vietnam War.

The idea of using flowers for peace is not a completely original concept; Allen Ginsberg, a poet, and counterculture leader wrote an essay called "Demonstration or Spectacle as Example, As Communication or How to Make a March/Spectacle" that highlighted the use of flower power. In the essay, a prominent line explains "change war psychology and surpass, go over, the habit-image-reaction of fear/violence". College students at UC Berkeley felt the most impacted by Ginsberg's words and reacted to it, setting off a chain that would spread steadily. Ginsberg mentions flower power briefly: "Masses of flowers -- a visual spectacle -- especially concentrated in the front lines" which insinuated that people hand bouquets to their opposition consisting of policemen, the press, Hells Angels and the general public.

Flower power was central to California, the hippies of Haight Ashbury here in San Francisco the poster child for what we consider to be hippies but the movement steadily started o spread such as New York City and Chicago. Social activist Abbot Hoffman organized the Flower Brigade that honored the fallen and fighting in Vietnam. Protestors carried signs with encouragements such as "LOVE" or "PEACE", handing out flowers to passersby. The result was violent and the parade was broken after the participants were started to become beaten.

The flower children and flower power are still very central to American history and American life. Their core values remain the same with a focus on peace, love and universal freedom from fear. The tactics relate very much to notable civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior but their impact was great to some extent by instilling awareness and understanding in the American public.

Sources:
https://people.howstuffworks.com/flower-power1.htm
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/allen-ginsberg-about-allen-ginsberg/613/
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2015/07/22/flower-children-of-san-francisco-18-photos-of-haight-street-hippies-san-francisco-in-1967/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Flower-Children-2101574
https://1965book.com/2014/11/05/november-19-the-berkeley-barb-publishes-allen-ginsbergs-essay-demonstration-or-spectacle-as-example-as-communication-or-how-to-make-a-marchspectacle-which-extols-the-use-of-flowers-in-pro/

"You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant--except an Alice"

Last Thanksgiving, after eating way too much turkey and gravy, I was sitting in my living room with a bunch of 60-year-olds. One of them said, "Oh! We should listen to Alice's Restaurant." He said that it was a Thanksgiving tradition to listen to the song, and if it wasn't our tradition, it should be. He pulled out his phone and started playing it.

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is a rambling 18 and a half minute long song about a Thanksgiving misadventure of Arlo Guthrie. The song is a very humorous account of how Guthrie visited his friend Alice for Thanksgiving (she had a restaurant, but that is largely irrelevant to the story). 

Alice lived in a decommissioned church, and she had a lot of trash sitting in her house. Guthrie, being the good friend that he is, decided to take Alice's trash to the local dump. Guthrie put all the trash in his VW microbus (an iconic symbol of the 60s) and drove to the dump. Unfortunately, the dump was closed for Thanksgiving, so instead, Guthrie dumped the trash down a hill. Then, he came back to Alice's and had thanksgiving dinner.

The next day, Guthrie received a call from chief of police William "Obie" Obanhein. Guthrie admitted to dumping the trash and went down to the police station, where he was immediately arrested. Because the town he was in was very small, this littering crime was the biggest crime they'd had in years, so the cops used all the cop equipment they had, including "twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles / And arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each / One was." Alice then bailed Guthrie out of jail, and they had another Thanksgiving dinner.

Guthrie then went to court, where the police proudly displayed their "twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles / And arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each / One was." Unfortunately, the judge was blind, so the "twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles / And arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each / One was" were obsolete. Guthrie was fined $50 and that was the end of that.

At this point in the song, Guthrie says, "but that's not / What I came to tell you about / [I] Came to talk about the draft." Of course. 

Guthrie tells how he was drafted for the Vietnam war, and he went to get his physical examination (or as he says, to "get injected, inspected, detected, infected, / Neglected and selected"). The song starts becoming tangibly anti-war at this point; Guthrie says that he wanted to convince the psychiatrist he was not mentally fit to serve, so he started jumping up and down and screaming, "KILL!" Guthrie then says that the sergeant came and told him, "You're our boy."

It goes on, and it turns out in the end that the only reason Guthrie wasn't actually selected for service was because he was a criminal: his littering fine was a crime on his record.

The song ends with Guthrie encouraging listeners to protest against the draft and the war. The particular form of protest he suggests is reciting some of the chorus of "Alice's Restaurant Massacree."  He says, "walk into / The shrink wherever you are, just walk in say 'Shrink, You can get

Anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.' And walk out."

Here we finally get to the political heart of the song, as Guthrie says, 

"if... just one person does it they may think he's really sick and

They won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony

... they won't take either of them

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in

Singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an

Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said

Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and

Walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement."

"Alice's Restaurant Massacree" is not even really a song. It's mostly a monologue, an anti-war narrative told by Arlo Guthrie and punctuated by a chorus of "You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant." But at last Thanksgiving, I sat between a group of Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians, all of whom were singing along happily to the song. Even though the music of the 60s counterculture was created to serve the purpose of the counterculture, good music is enjoyed by everyone. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Restaurant_Massacree

https://genius.com/Arlo-guthrie-alices-restaurant-massacree-lyrics 

Camelot: The Myth of JFK

When most Americans think of JFK, they see the image of a courageous, noble leader who fought righteously for the good of all Americans. But he did have flaws: Kennedy further entangled the US in the Vietnam war (now widely regarded as a bad move), and he had extra-marital affairs, which are contrary to the perfect family man image that he is remembered for. However, none of these flaws seem to tarnish Kennedy's sparkling reputation, and this is in large part to the myth of Camelot.

Jackie Kennedy was a shrewd woman, and she wanted to make sure that her late husband was remembered for all of his greatness and none of his flaws. So, shortly after her husband's death, she had an interview with journalist Theodore White in which she introduced the idea of Camelot.

At the time, there was a fairly popular Broadway musical called Camelot. In the musical, King Arthur was portrayed as a peacemaker trying to stop the world from falling into war. Jackie Kennedy seized on this image and tried to equate this to John Kennedy. In the interview with White, Jackie Kennedy said that John Kennedy was a huge fan of the musical and liked the last lines of the song called "Camelot," too. The lines are: “Don’t ever let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was Camelot.”

As the American public grieved, they quickly latched onto this nostalgic myth about Kennedy's presidency. Jackie Kennedy did a very good job of immortalizing her husband as a peacemaker trying to keep the world from destructive war, even if that wasn't totally true. This myth is so powerful that, even today, Kennedy's term is remembered as a nostalgic and passionate one.

Sources:
https://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/THWPP-059-009.aspx
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-jackie-kennedy-invented-the-camelot-legend-after-jfks-death
http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/john-f-kennedy#section_6

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Malraux_Dinner_-_President_and_First_Lady%2C_Mme._Malraux%2C_and_Isaac_Stern%2C_11_May_1962.jpg

Pig for President?

If people think Kanye 2020 is a joke, they would get a laugh out of the 1968 election when the Youth International party nominated a pig for president.

Pigasus was a 145lb domestic pig who was the nominee of the "Yippies"(Youth International Party) during the 68' election owned by Yippie Phil Ochs.The pig's name was a double entendre on Pegasus and the famous saying "when pigs fly" to further mock the election. The campaign pledge of the Yippies was "They nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the people eat him". The invention of Pigasus was the "brainchild" of activists Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.

Pigasus's candidacy was announced during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  Accompanied by Yippies with posters and being escorted in a station wagon, Pigasus the Immortal took his nomination rally through the streets of Chicago. The Yippies even demanded he be considered a legitimate candidate as Jerry Rubin said "We want to give you a chance to talk to our candidate and to restate our demand the Pigasus be given Secret Service protection and be brought to the White House for his foreign policy briefing." However Pigasus's campaign trail was short lived as during the process of Jerry Rubin reading the "acceptance speech" for pegasus's official nomination, Pigasus as well as Rubin, Ochs and a few other Yippies were arrested! Arrested for disorderly conduct, the yippies were charged but eventually posted bail of $25, and while the yippies were released, the whereabouts of Pigasus remain unknown.

Eight years later the Yippies nominated another candidate for president Nobody.

Fun fact:  "Many years later, The New York Times obituaries for Dennis Dalrymple, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin all highlighted the nomination of Pigasus for President during the Democratic Convention of 1968 as an extraordinary moment in political theater." (Wiki)


Bib:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_(politics)
http://www.porkopolis.org/2008/pigasus/

Gloria Steinem- "a women without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"

Feminist, Journalist, Social and  Political Activist, and Editor ,Gloria Steinem was a quintessential part in the women's liberation movement of the 60's and 70s.

Born in 1934 in Ohio, Steinem grew up in a divorced family. Her father Leo Steinem was a traveling antiques salesman while her mother, who Steinem lived with, battled the effects of a subtle mental illness. When Steinem mother was unable to take and hold a job to support the family, Gloria "concluded that her mother's inability to hold on to a job was evidence of general hostility towards working women". Thus starting her on a path to fight for what she believed were political and social injustices for women.

While in her journalism career Gloria made major contributions such as the co-founding the Ms magazine as well as assisting in the founding of the New York Magazine Steinem's career began as a freelance writer in Esquire magazine. Her career as a journalist however, took of in 1963 after she published an article called "A Bunny's Tail" in Huntington Hartfords Show magazine.



The article was an undercover piece she had written exposing the truth of how employees were treated in Hugh Hefner's New York Playboy Lounge. She specifically targeted the sexual mistreatment of the girls which "skirted the edge of the law".When I read her published article in the magazine Steinem gave an in detail day by day journal of her experience.  The security and men for example would call things like "here bunny bunny" and Gloria also mentioned how girls as young as 18 were allowed to work as bunnies. While the expose was a hit, for a short time after Steinem was unable to land other assignments as she had blown her cover.

Six years later Gloria wrote another hard hitting article this time as the cover of New York Magazine; a magazine she had played a role in founding. This piece was on in which she covered an abortion speak out taking place in Greenwich New York. Having had an abortion herself at the age of 22, Steinem was particularly invested in this project and later went on to say she "didn't begin her life as an active feminist until that day".

While Gloria's journalism career was extremely successful as she further went on to write articles for Cosmopolitan and Time Magazine  as well as co-founding the Ms magazine , she was probably most well known for her role as a feminist and an activist. During her lifetime thus far she has had many notable contributions including the founding of many organizations. Some of her these include founding the Women's Action Alliance, the Women's Political Caucus, p the Voters for Choice- "a pro choice political action committee for twenty five years"- the Ms. Foundation for Women "a national multiracial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls" and on top of it all, was the founder of "Take Our Daughter to Work Day"  the first national day devoted to girls. And all of that only scratches the surface of her contributions.

To this day she still travels the world as a media spokesperson on the issues of gender inequality. Looking back on her today its hard to imagine where women would be without the contributions of empowering role models like Gloria Steinem.


Bib:

Link to her article "A Bunny's Tale"
http://sites.dlib.nyu.edu/undercover/sites/dlib.nyu.edu.undercover/files/documents/uploads/editors/Show-A%20Bunny%27s%20Tale-Part%20Two-June%201963.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem#Early_life

http://www.gloriasteinem.com/about/

http://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/gloria-steinem

The Resolute Desk

Let's talk about a desk. This desk is no ordinary desk. In fact, this desk was built from a British Arctic exploration ship, the HMS Resolute. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria and was gifted to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. The desk has been used by almost every President except Johnson, Nixon, and Ford at various locations of the White House. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt, he ordered a modesty panel to be fitted in order to conceal his leg braces. However, he never got to see the panel installed as he died in 1945. The panel installed actually had the old presidential seal with the eagle's head aimed right towards arrows of war instead of the left as we see it today aimed at olive branches. It was President Truman who enacted Executive Order 9646 which altered the presidential flag and seal symbolizing the United States' turn towards peace opposed to war.

The desk was first used in the Oval Office by John F. Kennedy and the only time it was removed was after his assassination. The desk went on a traveling exhibition for the Kennedy Presidential Library. From there, it went to the Smithsonian for display. Later, in 1977 Jimmy Carter brought the desk back to the White House and it has remained there ever since. The desk became known under the Kennedy administration after the famous photo of JFK Jr. playing in the FDR panel was taken. 

The Resolute Desk was used by President Barack Obama and is currently being used by President Donald Trump. In terms of decorations, Trump decided to use the desk because of its historical significance. He also decided to hang a portrait of Andrew Jackson because he felt "his campaign and [Trump's] campaign tended to mirror each other" (McGregor).

The Resolute Desk has clearly undergone more than a century of history in the United States and stands to be a symbol of power for the President. Many great Presidents have used the Resolute Desk, and more to come hope to add to that list of great Presidents. 

_____________________________________

Fun fact: President Obama was photographed with his feet up on the Resolute Desk. Many Americans were actually outraged that he had committed such an act upon such a historical piece of furniture which in my opinion is ridiculous considering it was literally his desk.

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/photos/treasures-of-the-white-house-resolute-desk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk

http://www.whitehousemuseum.org/furnishings/resolute-desk.htm

https://www.snopes.com/history/american/turnhead.asp
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/05/06/trump-loves-his-new-desk-in-the-oval-office-but-it-also-has-its-downsides/?utm_term=.ecf7a1a85bc2

The Kennedy Curse

As you might know, both John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated during the 60s. However, what you might not know is that the Kennedy family experienced a series of tragedies that Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of JFK felt might just have been a curse that hung over all of the Kennedy's.

The following tragedies occurred to the Kennedy family:

• Joseph Kennedy Jr., the older brother of JFK, was killed in his bomber aircraft during World War II. 
• August 12th, 1944
• JFK's sister, Kathleen Cavendish dies in a plane crash on a trip to France. 
• May 13th, 1948
• Patrick Bouvier Kennedy dies of infant respiratory distress syndrome dying only two days after his premature birth. Patrick is actually buried beside his father at Arlington National Cemetary.  
• August 9th, 1963
• JFK himself is assassinated in an open convertible on a trip to Dallas Texas. Millions of Americans were heartbroken. 
• November 22nd, 1963 
• Robert F Kennedy is assassinated just after winning the California Democratic primary. The gunman who shot him was Sirhan Sirhan who remains in jail in California to this day. 
• June 5th, 1968
• Known as the Chappaquiddick incident, Ted Kennedy accidentally drove his car off a bridge.
• July 18th, 1969
• David Kennedy, the fourth son of Robert F Kennedy dies of a cocaine overdose, painkillers, and anti-psychotic medicine. 
• April 25th, 1984
• Michael Kennedy, the sixth son of Robert F Kennedy is killed in a skiing accident 
• December 31st, 1997
• John F Kennedy Jr., the son of JFK dies while flying his airplane. He allegedly became disoriented before crashing into the ocean.
• July 16th, 1999
• Kara Kennedy, the eldest daughter of Ted Kennedy dies of a heart attack at age 51 while exercising. She apparently had lung cancer nine years earlier but recovered after they removed her right lung. 
• September 16th, 2011

Clearly, the Kennedy family has had their fair share of misfortune. In fact, Senator Ted Kennedy was the only one of four Kennedy brothers to die from natural causes, though his life was still undoubtedly filled with scandal and tragedy. Though, considering how large the Kennedy family was, such tragedies were no surprise. Though the following list has become known as the Kennedy curse. 

The Kennedy family has been prominent in politics for decades now. In fact, one Kennedy has held federal elective office every year between 1943-2011. Today, a whole new generation of Kennedy's exist. Some as authors, all the way to actors. Let's just hope they don't face the same tragedies their ancestors faced. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/26/kennedy-curse-senator-ted-death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_family

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9271425/Timeline-the-Kennedy-Curse.html

The Mattachine Society

"Homosexuals are different... but... we believe they have the right to be.  We believe
 that the civil rights and human dignity of homosexuals are as precious as
those of any other citizen... we believe that the homosexual has the right
to live, work, and participate in a free society."

      The Mattachine Society is one of the earliest LGBT organizations founded in the United States. Founded in 1950, Harry Hay (one of the key people in the society) and some other Los Angeles men came together to help improve the rights of gay men (not yet women).
    The idea of creating a gay activist group first came to Harry Hay's mind in 1948. Hay spoke with other gay men at a party about forming a gay support organization for him called "Bachelors for Wallace". Wallace was Henry A. Wallace the founder of the Progressive Party. Hay received a very positive response and as a result, wrote the organizing principles that night, wrote a document he referred to as "The Call". However, the men who had been interested forming the group were much less enthusiastic after reading what Hay had come up with.

Harry Hay

           Over the next two years, Hay improved on his ideas, finally coming up with the idea for an international order that would serve as "a service and welfare organization devoted to the protection and improvement of Society's Androgynous Minority". He planned to call this organization "Bachelors Anonymous". In 1950 Hay met Rudi Gernreich and the two became partners. Hay showed Gernreich "The Call" (the document he had written). Gernreich declared the document "the most dangerous thing he had ever read", and then became a big financial supporter of the group, except he did not lend his name to it (instead went by the initial "R"). Finally, on November 11, 1950, Hay, along with Gernreich and other friends, held the first meeting of the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles, under the name Society of Fools. Later on, in April of 1951, the group changed its name to Mattachine Society, a name suggested by Gruber and chosen by Hay, after Medieval French secret societies of masked men who, through their anonymity, were empowered to criticize ruling monarchs with impunity.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattachine_Society
https://complicatingqueertheory.wordpress.com/a-queer-ethnography-of-counter-culture-in-the-20th-century/mattachine-society/

How the War Influenced Amusement Parks

Disneyland on Opening Day, 1955

Disneyland is one of the theme parks that watched many historical events pass by. Before its opening in 1955, the planning of Disneyland was affected due to wars and the economic state. Many problems of pre-existing parks factored into Walt's plans. However, due to past mistakes and situations of these parks, Walt was able to create one of the oldest and loved theme park in the world.

A popular roller coaster in an amusement park located in Denver, Colorado

The economic state of these amusement parks was terrible. The parks were often in danger of falling during the Great Depression. Anyone could enter the parks due to its free entries, and they did not make as much money. By the end of the Great Depression, the number of amusement parks in the U.S. fell from 2000 to 245. Safety of the guests was not guaranteed as gangs roamed around the parks.

An amusement park during WWII.

The situation became worse after WWII.

Some war veterans would take their families on family trips across the country rather than visit local amusement parks. Furthermore, racial segregation made it impossible for minorities to visit. Many parks emphasized the "no coloreds allowed" signs. This was another major reason why so many parks closed at this time. However, as more veterans returned home to their families, family time slowly shifted back to amusement parks.

Children at amusement parks

With the baby boom lasting for about 2 decades, many families sought for their children's entertainment. Gradually, families came back to amusement parks and companies used this as an advantage.

Many kiddie coasters, which were smaller and slower than roller coasters, were created. This allowed not only adults, but small children to have fun in amusement parks. Followed the second roller coaster boom which is the outcome of one of our favorite entertainments.

Disneyland is one example of an amusement park that was influenced by WWII. It's interesting that the creators took these factors: safety, entertainment, and most importantly, the audience, into consideration even at a hard time for this business. Don't forget about the hidden history of these amusement parks the next time you make a visit to one!


http://disneydose.com/disneyland-history/#axzz570eutIP6
https://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/coasters/history/early_1900/depression.shtml

The Women Who Helped Achieve the Impossible

The Space Race was a period that balanced political competition alongside technological advancements between the nations, America and the Soviet Union. After the launching of Sputnik, America was determined to catch up and on February 20, 1963, they completed NASA's Friendship 7 Mission, launching John Glenn who became the first American to orbit the earth. While momentous, not much attention is given to the African Americans who greatly contributed to NASA's achievement, especially the three African American engineers who made it possible: Dorothy Vaughan, Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson.

A movie called "Hidden Figures" was produced and released in 2016 that chronicled three women's journey towards NASA. It highlights the adversity they faced not just based off of their race but also their gender, demonstrating how they were able to break down barriers to achieve the impossible in science and in social aspects of America.

Dorothy Vaughan was NASA's first African American supervisor who unfortunately passed away in 2008. In 1949, she was promoted to lead a group at NASA becoming NASA's first black supervisor and one of the only female supervisors. She was credited as charismatic, commanding and assertive which made her ideal to lead people or the "human computers", the women who help calculate and run through the math behind NASA's missions. Vaughan's intelligence was demonstrated in numerous ways. She received a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Wilberforce University and engineer's even admitted to valuing her work and requesting her specifically to work on their projects.

Katherine Johnson was a mathematician who is best known for calculating the trajectories for the Friendship 7 mission but her intelligence extends much more. Johnson is still alive today and in 2015, then president Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her distinguished thirty-three-year career at Langley Research. Johnson also worked on the Apollo missions and Space shuttle programs. Johnson was one of the three black students to help integrate West Virginia's graduate schools, receiving Bachelors in Mathematics and French at West Virginia State. At the age of ten, she became a high school freshman and at the age of eighteen, she attended college, graduating with some of the highest honors in her youth. Johnson eventually left graduate school in order to start her own family and in 1952, a relative told her about available positions at Langley Laboratory She spent the next four years analyzing data from flight tests and plane crashes. Johnson is of the age ninety-nine but has expressed her concern for today's youth becoming too fixated and reliant on the internet, refusing to exercise their brain to learn.


Mary Jackson was the only black female aeronautical engineer in her area in the 1950s after she overcame multiple obstacles that people put in front of her to prevent her from reaching her position. She died in 2005 and really took the title "human computer' to hear, becoming NASA's first black female engineer. She earned a dual bachelor in Math and Physician Science from Hampton Institute and joined NASA in 1951 after her of opportunities for her.


These three women were instrumental towards not just science but also towards women's roles and Civil Rights. While they are seldom spoken of, they provide great change and became great role models for youth nationwide.

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/2016/12/16/505569187/hidden-figures-no-more-meet-the-black-women-who-helped-send-america-to-space

https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography

https://www.nasa.gov/content/dorothy-vaughan-biography

https://www.nasa.gov/content/mary-jackson-biography

https://www.biography.com/people/mary-winston-jackson-120616

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/22/hidden-figures-mathematician-katherine-johnson-nasa-facility-open

Robert F. Kennedy

The younger brother of John F Kennedy, Robert, better known as Bobby was born in Massachusetts, the seventh of nine children. During World War II, he served in the Navy before returning to Harvard to finish his degree in government. He then continued on to earn his degree in law at the University of Virginia Law School. In fact, just out of law school, Bobby actually became an advisor to Joseph McCarthy in 1953. He eventually resigned from the position less than a year after. He felt that McCarthy's tactics were immoral and unjust.
Kennedy was an extremely educated man and he eventually became known as the Attorney General under his older brother, John F. Kennedy. Bobby's appointment into government sparked outrage in the minds of many Americans. This was outright nepotism. It was six years after JFK appointed Bobby that the Federal Anti Nepotism Statute was enacted. The law was nicknamed the "Bobby Kennedy Law". During Bobby's appointment, he played a central role in organized crime as well as civil rights. He was also JFK's closest advisor. While Attorney General, Kennedy constantly fought for civil rights both with his brother and his brother's successor: Lyndon B. Johnson. Bobby also played an important role in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After his brother's assassination, Bobby remained Attorney General until 1964 when he resigned and decided he wanted to represent New York in the Senate. Kennedy won and took office in January of 1965. It wasn't long before Kennedy decided to run for president in the 1968 election. While Kennedy was not the Democratic hopeful, he wasn't far behind and he certainly had a chance. Unfortunately, it was on June 5th, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot. He died the next day at only 42 years old. He was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant who remains in prison to this day. He is 72 years old.
Clearly, the Kennedy family was one of misfortune. However, it is without a doubt that both John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy will be remembered by hundreds of thousands of Americans for a very long time.

https://www.biography.com/people/robert-kennedy-9363052
http://www.history.com/topics/robert-f-kennedy

The Goldwater Rule

In recent years, the mental stability of Donald Trump has been a major point of debate among Americans. Yet despite all the buzz around the issue, there has been heavy lack of comment from mental health professionals. The reason for lack of comment, the Goldwater Rule, originated in the 1964 election.

In the Presidential Election of 1964, Republican candidate Barry Goldwater helped lead a

resurgence of conservatism across America, running on a platform against big government. Because of his then-contrarian ideas, Goldwater's mental health was frequently called into question.

These attacks came from multiple news outlets. Magazines such as Good Housekeeping and Paegant both alleged that Goldwater's family had claimed he suffered severe burnout in the 1930s. These claims were only fueled by Goldwater's apparent willingness to go to nuclear war with Russia. His open belief that NATO commanders should have more freedom to use nuclear weapons, as well as comments such as the US should "lob one into the men's room in the Kremlin" were often used as evidence to support the claims of Goldwater's mental instability.

Despite all these allegations, the straw that broke the camel's back came in 1964, just one month before election night, Fact magazine published an article with the headline "1,189 Psychiatrists say Goldwater is Psychologically Unfit to be President!" In it, a survey was conducted with over 2,000 psychiatrists, most of which assessed that Goldwater was mentally unfit for the oval office. Some of the most notable assessments by the psychiatrists called him "emotionally unstable", "grossly psychotic", and a "mass murderer".

After his opponent, President Johnson, defeated Goldwater in a landslide victory, Goldwater sued Fact magazine for libel, claiming that he never consulted a psychiatrist, and eventually won the case in 1968.

The magazine was received harsh criticism from the American Psychiatric Association, which denounced the survey, deeming it illegitimate. In addition to criticizing the article, the APA took pre-emptive measures against future incidents like what happened to Goldwater by passing the Goldwater rule in 1973, which forbade Psychiatrists from diagnosing public figures without having an in-person examination, and exists to this day.

Sources:
http://time.com/4875093/donald-trump-goldwater-rule-history/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/impromptu-man/201608/the-real-story-behind-the-goldwater-rule

The Dogs of the Space Race

This is Laika, the first living creature in space. She went to space on Sputnik 2, on November 3rd, 1957. She died that same day of panic and heat exhaustion. However, the world was told she had survived for a week, and then died painlessly. Most other dogs survived. Stray dogs from the streets of Moscow were chosen because dogs are easy to train and can form bonds with their human trainers.



These are Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to survive a trip to space! They were sent to space in 1960 and survived. They were afraid and started barking, but medical data showed that they were pretty calm and they were happy once they landed. Also fun fact: Strelka gave birth to puppies and one of them was given to John F. Kennedy and named Pushinka. The FBI had to screen the dog for surveillance bugs. When Pushinka had a litter of puppies, two of them, (who were nicknamed Pupniks) were given to children that had asked Jackie Kennedy if they could look after her dogs. After JFK was assassinated, Pushinka was given to a gardener at the White House and had another litter of puppies. Pushinka wasn't just a cute dog; she was a symbol of peace and lowering tensions between Russia and the US.

This is a photo of Pushinka at the White House. Her name literally translates to Fluffy in Russian. Pushinka was very high-strung and eventually, she stopped playing with the Kennedy children as she was raised in a science lab and then had to adjust to life in the White House, which is understandably quite different and challenging.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24837199

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20171027-the-stray-dogs-that-paved-the-way-to-the-stars