Most of you do not know who John Hope Franklin is.

If you were a black child or young adult of school age in 1954 or ever after, you owe John Hope Franklin, along with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP a debt that can only be paid with your high school diploma or college degree. For it was Franklin whose historical research laid the groundwork for overturning the doctrine of "separate, but equal." The landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown versus Topeka B.O.E. opened the doors to classrooms all over the country, north and south. To drop out of school is to dishonor Mr. Franklin and Mr. Marshall and all of the others who fought for your right to sit in the schoolroom and soak up all of the knowledge your brain can absorb.

"From Slavery to Freedom,"  a masterwork by any measure, is the historical record of a people's journey from the bowels of slave ships to Emancipation. John Hope Franklin, historian, integrated what had been the segregated world of "American History," by adding the rich and complex history of black America to the mix.

The Associated Press writes:

In November, after Barack Obama broke the ultimate racial barrier in American politics, Franklin called his ascension to the White House "one of the most historic moments, if not the most historic moment, in the history of this country."

Obama's achievement fit with Franklin's mission as a historian, to document how blacks lived and served alongside whites from the nation's birth. Black patriots fought at Lexington and Concord, Franklin pointed out in "From Slavery to Freedom," published in 1947. They crossed the Delaware with Washington and explored with Lewis and Clark.

The book sold more than 3.5 million copies and remains required reading in college classrooms. It was based on research Franklin conducted in libraries and archives that didn't allow him to eat lunch or use the bathroom because he was black. 

Before Franklin's book, black kids never knew that their early American ancestors did anything more than work plantations or tinker with peanuts. They would never know the excitement of reading about someone who looked like them doing exciting things like blazing a trail across the wilderness, or mapping a river or seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time. The Revolutionary War was devoid of black patriots. They would not hear of incredible bravery  and resourcefulness and resilience and yes, defiance: escaping slavery by traveling north, following the cryptic signals of patchwork quilts pointing the way to freedom. Before John Hope Franklin, there was no Black History Month, nor Week nor Day. In so many of those classrooms there was no black history at all.

While others sought and still seek to rewrite and revise history -- black history and American history, calling it "Up From History," -- Franklin told the whole story, warts and all, of our collective history.

To learn more about this fascinating and cherished American, vist the tribute to this remarkable man at Duke University. 

 John Hope Franklin died today at age 94.

Rush Limbaugh:

"I hope Obama fails."

"So what is so strange about saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to reconstruct and reform this nation so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?"

Jonah Goldberg:

I hope Obama fails, too!

Rep. Mike Pence:

"You bet, we want those policies to fail. Because, Rick, we know big government, increases in debt, the micromanagement of the economy out of Washington, DC is a policy that will fail."

Rick Santorum:

"Conservatives absolutely want Obama to fail."

Mitt Romney:

"I want liberal policies to fail. I want him to fail in trying to put in place a health care plan that takes away the private sector from health care. I want him to fail in this cap and trade program...

Paul Krugman:

But the real problem with this plan is that it won't work. ...  And no amount of financial hocus-pocus -- for that is what the Geithner plan amounts to -- will change that fact.

[...]

If this plan fails -- as it almost surely will -- ...

All is not lost: the public wants Mr. Obama to succeed ...

[All emphases mine. Please note that Mr. Krugman does not say he wants Mr. Obama to succeed. Just that public wants him to succeed.]

Is it okay when the calls for failure come from the progressive left?

Do we get all bent out of shape only when the catcalls emanate from the right?

Or is forecasting failure -- as both Limbaugh did BEFORE Obama was inaugurated, or Krugman has done BEFORE this latest and earlier policies were officially announced wrong on both counts?

Inquiring minds want to know...

With all of the attention paid to the other three New York Times columnists with things to say about the Obama administration and the bailouts, it is refreshing to read what the fourth had to say on Sunday.

While Krugman, Dowd and Rich joined the "nattering nabobs of negativism" whining about all of the things Obama is doing wrong, followed closely on the heels by media bobbleheads,  who today pronounced laughter also off limits for the President -- see the complete list of Presidential no-nos at the end of the blog and add your own -- and the bloggerazzi, that delightful echo chamber of yum snarky goodness where if Krugman said it, by God or some guy named Larry, Darryl or Daryl, it must be true. In that crowded atmosphere is the Oracle of Things Kind of Reasonable, Thomas L. Friedman.

An Indian businessman he knows has encountered him on the streets of Manhattan and says Americans are behaving like an "immature democracy." Friedman suggests we all know what the businessman means:

We're in a once-a-century financial crisis, and yet we've actually descended into politics worse than usual. There don't seem to be any adults at the top -- nobody acting larger than the moment, nobody being impelled by anything deeper than the last news cycle. Instead, Congress is slapping together punitive tax laws overnight like some Banana Republic, our president is getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian, and the opposition party is behaving as if its only priority is to deflate President Obama's popularity.

Read more »

The Unknown Pundit writes:

A leisurely read through today's "influential news and blogs," including TPM reveals the "cool kids" are all bashing Tim Geithner. Taking their cue from Paul Krugman, among others, the cool kids -- based on the "leaked" version of the plan -- have all decided it sucks eggs. DK, JMM and the "front pagers" say, "it's bad really, bad... everybody says so... except for this guy who just says 'it's not so bad.'" 

The complaints all seem to be he's doing too much or too little, not saying what he's doing or saying too much, creating panic or not making us panic enough, promising to spend too much or too little. not revealing what he knew when or revealing too much or what he knew when, blaming Chris Dodd or not blaming Chris Dodd, offering a plan with too little detail or too much detail, working too fast or too slow, working on the TARP when he needs to be working on the banks when he needs to be working on credit flow when he needs to be working on the mortgage crisis when he should be working on the budget when he needs to be working on the TARP when he needs to be working on AIG when he needs to be giving speeches to reassure the nation when he needs to stop giving speeches because he's making everybody panic when he needs to be filling the vacancies at Treasury when he needs to be doing all of the work himself instead of delegating it to his subordinates which he doesn't have because he isn't hiring the people to do the job when he needs to be on TV telling people what he doing when he's not on TV.

You're supposed to be angry and outraged that AIG execs (and folks from other companies, too) took big fat bonuses at the end of 2008. You're supposed to be mad because "it's our money!" But please don't let anyone remind you that these guys were taking big fat obscene bonuses in 2007 and 2006 and 2005 and 2004 and right on back to whenever the heck taking big fat obscene bonuses started. Please don't be mad that they took these big fat bonuses before, even though they were taking your money back then. You know, back when you called it "investing" in AIG or "the market" or "my hedge fund" or "my stock portfolio," or whatever it was that you called it then (before "ponzi scheme" came back into vogue.) These guys (and gals) were taking your money then. You remember when all those companies were merging and acquiring and splitting and IPOing and merging and acquiring and going public and then going private and then going public again? All those big fat bonuses? Your money.

I'm not a "cool kid." I'm not a Nobel prize-winning academic economist. I'm not politician nor a pundit. I just think all of these really "smart people" might want to www.zip_it.com (not a real web address) for a while... I don't know, maybe until the end of the year, perhaps, and give these folks a chance to work the problem without all twitter chitter twaddle chatter from the cheap seats in the peanut gallery.

If Krugman and his posse have so much to offer, please ride those high horses you're all mounted on down to DC and volunteer your expertise to the Treasury department. Offer to fill-in until hired hands can be hired to come in and clean this mess up. Hell, go to AIG and offer your smarts to Ed Liddy, he could use some morally indignant, self-righteous employees to help him clean that Tidy-Bowl. Got a truck? Great, follow around a few sheriffs deputies in your town and help the folks being foreclosed by putting their belongings from the street into truck and help them move or  find a secure place for their now homeless belongings. Know so much about the economy? Help your unemployed neighbors find jobs by rewriting their resumes or carpooling them one day a week so they can save a little gas money. Donate to a food bank. Stop complaining and do something to help.  

Or you can hang around the water cooler and complain with the other cool kids.

-- U.P.

P.S.: Did I mention I got an offer to do a column in the Mulvane PennySaver! Stoked!!!