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[Heritage Lecture #1090 -- Delivered April 24, 2008] ... It is likewise an honor to be here tonight and to speak to you of responsibility, because I'm keenly aware of the fact that in this room tonight we have an entire army of crusaders for freedom. ... I admire you and thank you for the hard work that you do. You and your colleagues do this because you love and are dedicated to the simple idea of human liberty. You see it as your birthright, and you fight on its behalf. You understand that man precedes the state, and that...

To what culture does the concept of “cultural property” belong? Who owns this idea? It has, like much material property in the last 50 years, often changed hands. And in doing so, it has also changed meanings and grown in importance. It now affects the development of museums, alters the nature of international commerce and even seems to subsume traditional notions of property. It was brought to modern prominence in 1954 by Unesco as a way of characterizing the special status of monuments, houses of worship and works of art — objects that suffered “grave damage” in “recent armed conflicts.”...

History and heritage - this mean many things to each person.  It can mean a dry and boring lesson at school that appeared to have no relevance to today's world or it can bring up warm rich memories of being taught the importance of the part and how it has shaped our future.  For me I could never get into social history and the various industrial and agriculture revolution but loved learning about the various Kings and Queens of England.   There was a Queen in fact named Eleanor and there is a famous stone cross in London which marks...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Panhandle legislator wants Florida to issue license tags honoring "Confederate Heritage" -- complete with images of Dixie flags and buttons from Rebel uniforms. "It's a part of our history, whether we like it or not," Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, said in an interview with Local 6 News partner Florida Today. "I appreciate the heritage and the good things that people feel about our past." Motorists could pay $25 for the tag, with proceeds going to education programs run by Sons of Confederate Veterans, graveyard location and maintenance, museum exhibits and other cultural activities. The current...

Subject: Devotional "Heritage" Date: Feb 12, 2008 11:21 AM Deuteronomy 29:29 "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." Many things exist that we do not know nor do we understand. The human mind is very curious about the things that are unknown. Man has gone to the moon, explored distant lands, excavated through countless layers of dirt, and investigated numerous unknowns all for the sake of discovering that which no one knows. This same...

Racial heritage of six former presidents is questionedTuesday, February 05, 2008 By Monica Haynes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Today, as Sen. Barack Obama takes what he hopes will be one more step toward becoming the nation's first black president, the Internet is filled with stories that state such a milestone already has been reached -- several times over. **SNIP** In addition to Jefferson, the books, magazines and newspaper articles found on the Web name five other U.S. presidents who may have had black ancestry, but never publicly acknowledged it: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Despite...

For those of you who don't listen to the Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham shows, they are promoting a program that The Heritage Foundation has put together to remind us of what Reagan said, did and stood for. They have set up a page on their website with videos, audio clips and transcripts of speeches that Ronald Reagan gave during his political career. At a time when we are choosing our next nominee for the Presidency, it is a very good idea if we all step back and review the information Heritage is providing. Click here to go to their...

European transnationalism is a utopian dream, Pierre Manent warns. The European Union’s grand project rests on the belief that nationalism is passé, indeed pernicious. Fascism’s mystic nationalism proved, on this view, that the nation-state impedes the spread of human rights, tolerance, and the rational adjudication of disputes—all essential to global peace. The nation-state should therefore give way to organizations like the E.U.: a transnational, secular institution that can bring about peace and prosperity by practicing what French intellectual Chantal Delsol calls “techno-politics”—a rational approach superior to the atavistic passions and superstitions that fired nationalism. But as the political philosopher Pierre...

In an age of cynicism, nothing is sacred and everything is for sale. Religious artifacts are being auctioned off to private collectors in the United States and Europe, writes Jennifer Green. The trend has some asking, 'If this religious heritage is valuable for the Americans, why not us?' CREDIT: Bruno Schlumberger, the ottawa citizen Ron McDermid is a warden at Gatineau's St. Thomas church. In 1993, thieves stripped the building of its contents, including the church's stained-glass windows. Priests' robes used as paint rags. Magnificent church carvings tossed out for garbage collection. Gold and silver altarware melted down. Chalices for...

We can all benefit from immigration, but the deal is not unconditional - incomers must subscribe to the British 'rules of the game' Now, the challenge for Labour, which we are addressing, is that around the world, it is not the left but the right that's seizing this debate. The conservative argument is simple: shared values, argue the neocons, are best preserved in tradition. And tradition is best pickled in "traditional institutions". So, roll back the state and let what de Tocqueville called "the art of association" flourish. But the right is wrong. Traditional institutions alone are just not enough...

The Economics Equation By Salena Zito It's the economy, stupid -- again. Americans are more worried about their pocketbooks than the war in Iraq or Iran's nuclear program, suggests a recent poll by the New Democratic Network. "The economy is the sleeper issue in the American electorate," says network head Simon Rosenberg. William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation, agrees: "If there is enough evidence of weakening, then economic questions will be more prominent than they would otherwise have been."

Pacific Research Institute scholars Lance Izumi, Vicki Murray, and Rachel Chaney offer an alarming wake-up call for parents in their new book Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice. The authors tell a troubling story about the quality of public schools in California's middle class communities. Too many students at these schools are not grade-level proficient in English. Too many of these students are not grade-level proficient in math. And too many of these students are not ready for college-level work. The authors argue the solution is to create more competition in public education...

We are all rockers now. National Review publishes its own chart of the Fifty Greatest Conservative Rock Songs, notwithstanding that most of the honorees are horrified to find themselves on such a hit parade. The National Review countdown of the All-Time Hot 100 Conservative Gangsta Rap Tracks can’t be far away. Even right-wingers want to get with the beat and no-one wants to look like the wallflower who can’t get a chick to dance with him. To argue against rock and roll is now as quaintly irrelevant as arguing for the divine right of kings. It was twen- ty years...

"[T]he right of acquiring and possessing property and having it protected, is one of the natural inherent and unalienable rights of man."[1] A few years ago, one noted political reformer applauded the "demise of property as a formal constitutional limit." A new view of the right to property had, in this author's opinion, begun to replace the old constitutional formalism of the inviolable and sacred right to property. Indeed, this new conception of property "requires incursions on traditional property rights. What once defined the limits to governmental power becomes the prime subject of affirmative governmental action."[2] The object or purpose...

9/25/2007 - COLUMBUS, Ohio (AFPN) -- Ohio officials honored the Air Force when the lieutenant governor proclaimed Sept. 24 to 30 as Air Force Heritage Week in a ceremony held Sept. 24 at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base. Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher thanked Ohio's men and women currently serving in the Air Force, and extended his appreciation to all who serve or have served in the military to protect the nation. "Often when I attend similar events, I begin by saying what a privilege it is to be here today. But as I stand with the people who defend our...

8/9/2007 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- Airmen serving with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing here got a chance to meet with a man who shared some heritage with them July 31. On his sixth visit to Balad Air Base in recent years, Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, the son of a Tuskegee Airman, arrived with a number of purposes. As the commander of the Joint Contracting Command Iraq/Afghanistan, the general traveled from his office in Baghdad to visit with two of his largest customers -- the 332nd AEW with the largest single-runway airfield after Heathrow International Airport in...

Remember the American soldier's who defend our great nation. A article recently appeared in a Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper about Wary Clyburn, a Black Confederate, who will be remembered on August, 26, 2007 during a reunion of his descendants in Monroe, North Carolina. August 10th, will also mark the 102nd anniversary of the death of a Black Confederate, Amos Rucker, of Atlanta, Ga. Black Confederates, why haven't we heard more about them? "I don't want to call it a conspiracy to ignore the role of the Blacks, both above and below the Mason-Dixon Line, but it was definitely a tendency...

Many Americans from the north like to scoff that our southern brethren are still fighting the Civil War, treating them as if they are unaware that the war was over nearly 150 years ago. It has been so often repeated that southerners are still "Confederate" that the stereotype of the southerner looking to the past instead of the future is secure in northerner's minds. Would that it were true that all southerners are so fond of their history because it appears that even one of the most famous Confederate cemeteries in the Confederacy's very own capitol is being forgotten, uncared...

My post here is inspired by this one Heritage- Londonistan by Melanie Phillips In addition to that great lecture by Melanie, Heritage's Website also provides many other lectures that are instrumental in viewing to understand the dire global situation and give insight into the Jihad. (See Mary Hebeck's lecture to get into the mind of the Jihadis.. I put her last but that's only cuz these are all outstanding lecutres) The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslimshttp://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev050906a.cfmSpeaker(s): Dr. Andrew G. Bostom Author of The Legacy of Jihad and Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Renal...

Compromise is incessantly praised, and has produced the proposed immigration legislation. But compromise is the mother of complexity, which, regarding immigration, virtually guarantees — as the public understands — weak enforcement and noncompliance. Although the compromise was announced the day the Census Bureau reported that there now are 100 million nonwhites in America, Americans are skeptical about the legislation, but not because they have suddenly succumbed to nativism. Rather, the public has slowly come to the conclusion that the government cannot be trusted to mean what it says about immigration. In 1986, when there probably were 3 million to 5...

Lori Mitrick is the wife of a doctor and a practicing Catholic. Back in the 1980's her involvement in a crisis pregnancy service of her church was known in the community. She was the kind of person you might consider to be a candidate in an election. But what launched her political career was not the pro-life issue, but opposition to a shopping mall near her wooded and seculuded neighborhood in the suburbs of York, Pennsylvania. Around 20 years ago the York Galleria Mall was constructed amid her persistent and vocal opposition to the plan. Her leadership in opposing the...

April 6 is National Tartan Day. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, an act banning highland dress was repealed in England. After thirty-six years of repression, however, Highland Dress never again returned to dominance in Scotland. Scottish culture and heritage took a blow from which it still hasn't entirely recovered. As an American of Scottish descent, I'm thankful for the resurgence in Scottish culture in US over the past decade or so. Highland Games, Festivals, Robbie Burns dinners, etc. have been growing at a phenomenal rate. To top it all off, kilt wearing has become more popular. Yet, I find...

This is a video of a 48-minute speech plus Q&A at Heritage Foundation by Evan Sayet, a former liberal. Very insightful in explaining the leftist mindset today.

State Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) has proposed a splendid way to recognize Georgia's contributions to American history during a pivotal period in time. He wants to establish a permanent Confederate History and Heritage Month. What better manner to encourage tourism related to the Civil War and to demonstrate how far Georgia has come since then? Perhaps Confederate History and Heritage Month, proposed to be observed in April by Georgia, could spotlight such Civil War era items as ads for slaves. Mullis' proposal, Senate Bill 283, sailed through the Senate Rules Committee last week. If adopted by the General Assembly and...

Misguided motives for politically correct education have cut a deadly swath through public school textbooks, resulting in less and less information about the Founders. The heroism and virtuous character of Washington, in particular, are seldom discussed. Children start developing personal heroes at age five and six. Our kindergarten and first grade students study George Washington for most of the month of February, with gratifying results. Temporarily at least, we persuade them to give up Spiderman and Superman and adopt George as their role model and hero of the month. (Even though George didn’t fly, he did have a cape.) They...

Western policymakers need to "undertake a systematic study" of Islamic theology and law before they can understand the goals and motives of terrorists who are working to subjugate or convert non-Muslim populations, a scholar on Islam told a gathering in Washington on Tuesday. It would be a mistake to assume that Islam has been "hijacked," argued Robert Spencer, the author of a recent book on the prophet of Islam, Mohammed. Terrorists and extremists targeting American interests today are making use of the actual text in the Koran and the teachings of their prophet, he said.... "It is untrue that jihadists...

Today, I attended a lecture at the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation by Robert Spencer, author of various books on the threat of radical Islam. His lecture lasted for about 40 minutes. As I've noticed on his website, Jihad Watch, in his columns, and in a recent interview with Brian Lamb on CSPAN, Mr. Spencer is very knowledgeable on Islamic theology, history, and radical groups. I truly enjoyed his discussion. (If you want to watch it, go to The Truth About Muhammad. It is available in streaming video, streaming mp3, and downloadable mp3.) The lecture itself went on without incident....

Spain digs for its once-hidden Jewish heritage By Renwick McLean / The New York TimesPublished: November 5, 2006 TOLEDO, Spain: Spain has sometimes been slow to recognize its own treasures. Miguel de Cervantes was slipping into obscurity after his death until he was rescued by foreign literary experts. El Greco's paintings were pulled from oblivion by the French. The Muslim palace of Alhambra had fallen into neglect before the American author Washington Irving and others wrote about it in the 1800s. Now, more than 500 years after expelling its Jews and moving to hide if not eradicate all traces of...

The idea of taking a DNA test first came to me in August, after I read a Time magazine article entitled "Diving into the Gene Pool." The author, Carolina A. Miranda describes herself as an "olive-skinned Latina," but a DNA analysis test uncovered connections to places likesuch as Poland and Mozambique. Intrigued, I decided to order my own analysis kit from DNA Tribes, a company that promised to trace my ancestry back to ancient times. I didn't expect my experience to be anything like Miranda's. For starters, I was fairly certain of my ethnic heritage: Irish on my mother's side,...

POLITICS: VIRGINIA -- Rocked by charges of racial insensitivity, U.S. Sen. George Allen said Tuesday that he was "slow to appreciate" the meaning of symbols like the Confederate flag in the black community. The Republican senator from Virginia, who sported a Confederate pin as a high school student and hung a Confederate flag in his home as a young lawyer, said he had not understood how the flag is "for black Americans an emblem of hate and terror, an emblem of intolerance and intimidation." < snip >There are also indications that Allen's macaca stumble has damaged his standing as a...

On Sunday afternoon at Old Union Cemetery in southern White County, over 180 people gathered to pay a debt owed nearly 80 years. The group included members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Sons of Confederate Veterans, family and friends, all there to memorialize the service of Pvt. Henry Henderson, a black Confederate soldier. Henderson was born in 1849 in Davidson County, NC. He was 11 years old when he entered service with the Confederate States of America as a cook and servant to Colonel William F. Henderson, a medical doctor. Records show Henry was wounded during his service,...

The group Sons of Confederate Veterans met at Orlando's Lake Eola Park to show off their proposed personalized tag late Friday morning. They said it's simply a matter of time before the plate becomes one of the many you can purchase as a specialty license plate. The group said the plate honors Florida's heritage by showing all five flags of the confederate army, including their battle flag. But it's a heritage some say simply represents hate. Standing below the memorial for confederate soldiers, a small but vocal group made their point Friday. They want Floridians to learn that the Civil...

The battle between heritage and hate is erupting again. A state appeals court now says a Confederate heritage group can sue the state over removal of controversial memorial plaques in the Texas Supreme Court. As long as the plaques that barely mention the Confederacy hang in the Texas Supreme Court, Terry Ayers says the state is slighting his and others' ancestors who fought in the Civil War. "I want to take my grandchildren down to the supreme court and show them, 'Look, your great, great grandfather, this building was dedicated to him.' Of course it's personal," Ayers said. The Texas...

Surgery as practiced by the ancients leaves long heritageResearchers find that medical treatments still in use today date from antiquity By Penny Bouloutza - Kathimerini Medical practitioners in antiquity left a wealth of knowledge for doctors of the future: the main principles of the diagnosis of disease and the treatment of injuries have been known since the time of Hippocrates. Stefanos Geroulanos, professor of surgery at Zurich University and director of the intensive-care unit at the Onassis Cardiology Center, said that the first operations were performed in the Neolithic period. “Dozens of skulls have been found with holes drilled in...

WASHINGTON, June 23, 2006 — It's not unusual for hit TV shows to attract fans and draw crowds at fan conventions…. such as for ABC's "Lost," or CBS's "CSI." But in Washington today, there was a fan convention that was a tad unusual. At the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center, the Heritage Foundation hosted a forum on the hit FOX-TV show "24" that can only be described as adulatory. Though the panel featured homeland security experts, the co-creators of "24" and three of the show's stars to purportedly discuss "'24' and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does...

"24" and America’s Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction, or Does it Matter? Friday, June 23, 2006 Watch Archived Video

Ahmadinejad's simply stalling for time so Iran can finish building its nuclear weapons program. Frighteningly, they're quickly closing in on their goal, and the international community isn't doing much to interfere. In March the U.N. Security Council urged Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities and fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But the IAEA admitted on April 28 that Iran has ignored that warning. In fact, the Iranian government has repeatedly violated the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and has made clear that it intends to keep on doing so until it has the bomb. When faced with the...

WASHINGTON -- Back in the 2004 presidential primaries, when Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, suggested that Democrats should be competing for the votes of young men with Confederate flags on their pickups, politicians from both parties rushed to accuse him of repeating a vile Southern stereotype: the redneck with antiquated views on race. < SNIP >''Howard Dean knows about as much about the South as a hog knows about Sunday," quipped Georgia Senator Zell Miller, the conservative Democrat who supported President Bush. ''Sure, we drive pickups, but on the back of those pickups, you see a lot of American...

MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. Some parents are asking for answers after their children sang a popular marching song of the Confederacy during a Civil War history lesson. At least five black students sang, along with other fifth-graders, the lyrics of "The Bonnie Blue Flag" at the closing of last Friday's program at The Highlands School in Mountain Brook. The 1861 song was written in honor of the blue flag with the white star that Mississippi flew over the state Capitol upon seceding from the Union. Some are the lyrics are --quote-- "We are a band of brothers and native to the...

Rebel and Yankee troops began taking up arms against each other 145 years ago this month. A few weeks into the war, citizens gathered in Athens to cheer and weep as the new Hobbs' Corps boarded a train bound for Richmond, Va. A newspaper reported that the corps sought prayers "for the safety of our company from the dangers of the field, and the temptations of the camp, and for the speedy and complete triumph of the cause of the South." Most of those prayer requests went unanswered, it seems. Maj. Thomas Hobbs, an active Methodist, died in the war....

This year, 2006, is the 50th Anniversary of Walt Disney Picture's classic "The Great Locomotive Chase" starring Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter. This movie was made during the golden age of Hollywood when films were still made for the entire family. When it comes to locomotives many of us are children at heart. Don't you love a good story about the bygone era of passenger trains that once were America's fastest way to travel? America's most famous locomotive "The General" is now home at the Kennesaw, Georgia Civil War Museum. Kennesaw, Georgia is is just 45 miles from Atlanta. Located...

It used to be that only open-borders activists said it. Now the entire political leadership of the United States is saying it. President Bush is saying it. Sen. Specter is saying it. Even Sen. Bill "enforcement-only" Frist is saying it: "We are a nation of immigrants built upon the rule of law." Of course, that cute little addition about "rule of law" is nothing but boob bait for the Bubbas (a category of persons that, in the minds of our leaders, seems to constitute about three-quarters of the country); our leaders have as much intention to enforce the immigration laws...

What else should we ban from public view other than the Confederate battle flag? Should we ban the Stars and Stripes? After all, it flew from the fantail of slave-carrying ships owned in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Old Glory is the official flag not only of the United States, but also of the Ku Klux Klan. Look at photos of the largest Klan march in history, in Washington in 1925. The only flag you see the Klansmen carrying is the United States flag. Not a single one of them is carrying the Confederate battle flag....

Many southern states and their political subdivisions, including Texas and Grimes County, recognize April as Confederate History and Heritage Month. The war had many causes, including slavery and tariffs. In March 1861, the U.S. Senate passed the Morrill Tariff, which immediately raised the average tariff rate from about 15 percent to 37.5 percent, but with a greatly expanded list of covered items. Soon thereafter, a second tariff increased the average rate to 47.06 percent. President Lincoln hinted very strongly in his first inaugural address a military invasion was possible if the tripled tariff was not collected. At that time the...

A Lesson in Data and Analysis for the New York Timesby Michael J. New, Ph.D. WebMemo #1009 Yesterday, The New York Times published a front-page article, “Scant Drop in Abortion Rates if Parents are Told,” that reported the newspaper’s conclusion that recently-enacted parental involvement laws have not reduced the incidence of abortion among teens.[1] On its surface, the newspaper’s statistical analysis appears convincing, but a closer look at its data and methodology call its conclusions into question. The article’s reporters tracked the percentage of pregnancies among girls under age 18 that end in abortion before and after the passage of...

In the long run, the battle to make America safer is part of a larger cause—the battle to make the free world safer and, indeed, to make the whole world freer. Victory will come only if representative government prevails, because freedom is the one force strong enough to stop tyranny and terror. In our modern day and age, America appears to have forgotten the guiding principles that have led her thus far. Getting America Right offers not a revolutionary, novel solution, but an answer that is as old as America herself—a conservative one...

A questionnaire attached to Jesse "Tobe" Blankenship's 1877 request for a Civil War pension asked why he, a Lawrence County man, fought for the Union. "My father was threatened to be hung by a Southern officer — do not know his name," he answered. A mountain man with eight sons, Hudson Blankenship was neutral on the Civil War. At the time, it was the equivalent of declaring himself a Unionist. His refusal to become an informant for the Confederate Army nearly cost him his life. The threat inflamed teenaged Tobe Blankenship, said Moulton's Gladys Blankenship LuAllen, Tobe Blankenship's great-granddaughter. "It...

Charles Darwin's former home in Bromley, south-east London, has been nominated as a World Heritage Site. Down House at Downe was Darwin's home for 40 years and where he developed his revolutionary theory of evolution. The property also includes the scientist's experimental garden where he studied plants and animals. Announcing the UK's 2006 nomination, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said: "Darwin was one of the greatest scientists of the modern age." 'Scientific discovery' Darwin moved to Down House in 1842 following his epic round-the-world trip in the 1830s, which included a visit to the Galapagos islands. Darwin completed some of his...

FORT WORTH, Texas - After two decades collecting Civil War treasures, Texas oilman Ray Richey finally reached a turning point. "Either build a third storage building or a museum," said Richey, 50. "Or I could quit collecting, which was not an option." Richey went with the museum, an expansive building just a short walk from his office on the western outskirts of Fort Worth. But the Texas Civil War Museum, which opened to the public Wednesday, is more than just his huge stockpile. Richey partnered with the United Daughters of the Confederacy, whose Texas collection was displayed in Austin from...

More than 100 students, faculty and community members - about 20 of them protesters - attended controversial academic and activist Ward Churchill’s lecture in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. last night, both to listen and, for some, to attempt debate. Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder,...some questioned his credentials, viewpoints, and claim to Native American heritage. Advocates “any means possible” ... “Any means” can include the use of violence, ... “Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” in which he referred to victims of the 9/11 attacks on the...