Thursday, December 5, 2013

The positive message in the television show introduction


The television show is Little House on the Prairie.  Original episodes ran from 1974-1983.  The linked website describes the show as "The life and adventures of the Ingalls family in the 19th century American West."  There was a real Ingalls family in the 19th century American West, and one of the daughters, named Laura Ingalls, wrote books about her family after she had married a man named Almanzo Wilder.  This is a link to her biography on the Biography website.  This is a link to her biography on the Little House website.  This is a link to her books on Amazon.

This video shows the introduction to one episode of the show.  You will see all five members of the Ingalls family and the names of the actors who play them.

Starting at 23 seconds, watch the three children run down a hill.

The youngest child is the last one to go down the hill.

Watch her:
  1. fall down

  2. get back up

  3. keep walking

The person who was holding the camera when the children ran down the hill could have put the camera down when he saw the youngest child fall down, but he did not do that.

I think that he (or she) knew that most young children have the ability to pick themselves up when they fall.

I also think that he (or she) had met all of the young actresses who had been hired to play the Ingalls children and that all of them, even the youngest, had demonstrated a minimum amount of physical skill when walking on a variety of surfaces, including the small hills in the area where the television show was filmed.

As a result of the cameraman's decision to let the youngest child fall and pick herself up so that she could keep walking, every episode of the show taught a whole generation of Americans that they, too, could fall down, pick themselves up, and keep walking without anyone's help.

I'm proud of that cameraman.

This is a link to the nominations and the awards that this television show received.  The nominations include a Golden Globe nomination for the Best TV Series in the drama category.  The awards include two consecutive People's Choice awards for Favorite Television Dramatic Program in 1978 and 1979.


Political correctness produces historical inaccuracy

This section was added June 25, 2018.

Part of the American Library Association has become a historically inaccurate association because they are now a politically correct association.  In every country, some of the actions taken by historical figures becomes embarassing to the current generation.  Many people want to preserve history so that other people, especially young people, can learn from it.

Erasing history in 2017

Watch a mob of people, without any authority from their town government, destroy a statue in a public park.

The fact that they don't have any authority to do this makes it a lawless act by a mob, equivalent to the very actions that they accuse Confederate soldiers of committing.

Watch the mob act just like a mob after the statue comes down.  Some people will celebrate the destruction of town property by jumping up and down on it, kicking it, and waving their arms in the air.

Future generations will complain that these people destroyed their ability to learn the truth about the actions of the real people who inspired the creation of those statues.  Their history lessons will therefore be inaccurate and their educational standards will suffer.


Laura Ingalls in the 1930s and the 1940s

This is the synopsis of the biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder on the Biography Channel.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867, near Pepin, Wisconsin.  From 1882–1885 she was a teacher in South Dakota. She married Almanzo Wilder in 1885.  In 1932, she published Little House in the Big Woods, the first of her "Little House" books.  Wilder finished the last book in 1943. On February 10, 1957, she died at age 90, on her farm in Mansfield, Missouri.
The popular television show whose introduction is in the first video on this page is based on Laura's books.

These books are part history and part fiction because she wrote the books at the same time that she had those experiences.  The books include the slang words and the grammar that she heard and used at that time in history.


Ernest Hemingway in the early 20th century

This is the synopsis of the biography of Ernest Hemingway on the Biography Channel.
Born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero (now in Oak Park), Illinois, Ernest Hemingway served in World War I and worked in journalism before publishing his story collection In Our Time.  He was renowned for novels like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, which won the 1953 Pulitzer.  In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize.  He committed suicide on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho.

This is the summary of a short story called 50 Thousand, from a website called Book Rags.
Jack is an older boxer who has had a successful career.  He spends a few weeks on a health farm getting into shape for an important match against Walcott.  Jack misses his family and regrets having spent so much time away from them during his career.  Jack bets against himself in this match, hoping to make money on a match he is sure he will lose.  He rents a hotel room to stay in after the fight because he does not want his family to see how badly he is beaten.  He goes against Walcott for more than eleven rounds and gets beaten badly.  At the end of the match, he hits Walcott below the belt and loses the match.

This is part of the book, copied from page 9 of the web page for this short story on the website for the Atlantic Magazine, which published this short story.
After breakfast, Jack called up his wife on the long distance.  He was in the booth telephoning.

"That's the first time he's called her up since he's out here," Hogan said

"He writes her every day."

"Sure," Hogan says.  "A letter only costs two cents."

Hogan said good-bye to us, and Bruce, the nigger rubber, drove us down to the train in the cart.
There are many words and phrases that are used in this book that are historically accurate and thus valuable to someone who studies history.  For example, in order to call his wife, Jack stood inside a telephone booth and placed a long-distance phone call using the telephone that was inside the booth.

The postage for a letter was only two cents.

A rubber was a man who massaged a boxer before a fight to help him prepare for the fight.  Ernest Hemingway's extra description of Bruce, the "rubber", was a word that was commonly used when this Nobel Prize author wrote this book.


Maintaining historical accuracy

The words and phrases that people used when they wrote books in any country are part of the history of that country.  Ernest Hemingway didn't mention a cell phone in this story because they hadn't been invented yet.  If someone else changes the story to include a cell phone, they are making the story inaccurate and reducing its' value as a historical document.  If someone changes the story by changing the description of Bruce, they are also trying to change history and reducing the value of the literary product that was written by a great writer, someone who earned a Nobel Prize in Literature.  The people who destroyed the statue of the Confederate soldier are destroying history and reducing the value of the statues and documents that remain, because they will not include as much information about Confederate soldiers.


Erasing history in 2018

The American Library Association has reduced the value of an award that they give to the author of children's books by refusing to name the award for Laura Ingalls, a young woman who wrote children's books that many parents have read to many children.

Link to their announcement on their own website.

These are the first three paragraphs of a June 25, 2018 Los Angeles Times story.  The link in the third paragraph was in their story.
The Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, a significant achievement award in children’s literature presented by a division of the American Library Assn., will be renamed because of the author’s "stereotypical attitudes" toward Native Americans and African Americans.

The Assn. for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Assn., voted Saturday that the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, named for the author of "Little House on the Prairie," will now be known as the Children's Literature Legacy Award.

The group explained the decision in a statement on its website: "This decision was made in consideration of the fact that Wilder’s legacy, as represented by her body of work, includes expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC’s core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness."

These are the sixth, seventh, and eighth paragraphs of a C.N.N. story published the same day. The links in the seventh paragraph were in their story.
Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prarie" books are a staple of countless American childhoods.  The tales are so ingrained in the traditions of children's literature that it may be easy to forget or overlook that Wilder, who wrote the books in the 1930s and 40s, depicts Native Americans as inhuman and inconsequential.

An adult re-read reveals several characters, including Wilder's mother, saying things like "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," as well as romanticizing themes of American supremacy and manifest destiny.

While her father, as portrayed in the books, takes a more nuanced approach to Native Americans in some places, he also described one Indian as "no common trash" because "that was French he spoke."
Indians were described that way by many people at that time.  That is historically accurate.  Don't change history, and don't tell people today what to call them.  The wish to control what people say and write is fascism.

There is an immense benefit to remembering and preserving history.



Earnest Hemingway didn't write about cell phones because they didn't exist when he was alive.  When she was writing her books, Laura Ingalls didn't use the term "native Americans" because that term didn't exist when she was alive.  She used the word "indians", and she expressed the views that she had towards them, which is protected free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution.



You have a right to read.

Don't let the American Library Association take any book away from you.

Read Laura's books to your children and explain to them that her descriptions of people and places was the way that many people described those people and places when she was alive.

When you say that to them, your children will be smarter.  This is the first sentence of the C.N.N. story that is quoted above.

"Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prarie" books are a staple of countless American childhoods."



The American Library Association has a lack of confidence in the ability of the American people to understand American history.

The descriptions of people and places can change over time.

The wish to censor what people read never changes.


I criticize the American Library Association for their substitution of their 21st century values for the views and values of Laura Ingalls Wilder at the time that she wrote her books.

The descriptions of people and places can change over time.

The wish to censor what people read never changes.

Because I criticize the American Library Association, they do not rule over me.

I am a free man because I can and do say that the American Library Association should restore the name of their award so that it honors Laura Ingalls Wilder.