A First Draft of History: May 14
1541 - South of present-day Memphis, Tennessee, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River, one of the first European explorers to ever do so. After building flatboats, de Soto and his 400 ragged troops crossed the great river under the cover of night, in order to avoid the armed Native Americans who patrolled the river daily in war canoes. The conquistadors headed into present-day Arkansas, continuing their fruitless two-year-old search for gold and silver in the American wilderness.
Born in the last years of the 15th century, de Soto first came to the New World in 1514. By then, the Spanish had established bases in the Caribbean and on the coasts of the American mainland. A fine horseman and a daring adventurer, de Soto explored Central America and accumulated considerable wealth through the Indian slave trade. In 1532, he joined Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. Pizarro, de Soto, and 167 other Spaniards succeeding in conquering the Inca empire, and de Soto became a rich man. He returned to Spain in 1536 but soon grew restless and jealous of Pizarro and Hernando Cortes, whose fame as conquistadors overshadowed his own. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V presented him an opportunity of rectifying this by making him governor of Cuba with a right to conquer Florida, and thus the North American mainland.
In late May 1539, de Soto landed on the west coast of Florida with 600 troops, servants, and staff, 200 horses, and a pack of bloodhounds. From there, the army set about subduing the natives, seizing any valuables they stumbled upon, spreading all sorts of infectious diseases, and preparing the region for eventual Spanish colonization. Traveling through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, across the Appalachians, and back to Alabama, de Soto failed to find the gold and silver he desired, but he did seize a valuable collection of pearls at Cofitachequi, in present-day Georgia. Decisive conquest eluded the Spaniards, as what would become the United States lacked the large, centralized civilizations of Mexico and Peru.
As was the method of Spanish conquest elsewhere in the Americas, de Soto ill-treated and enslaved the natives he encountered. For the most part, the Indian warriors they met were intimidated by the Spanish horsemen and kept their distance. In October 1540, however, the tables were turned when a confederation of Indians attacked the Spaniards at the fortified Indian town of Mabila, near present-day Mobile, Alabama. All the Indians were killed along with 20 of de Soto's men. Several hundred Spaniards were wounded. In addition, the Indian conscripts they had come to depend on to bear their supplies fled with the baggage.
De Soto could have marched south to reconvene with his ships along the Gulf Coast, but instead he ordered his expedition northwest in search of America's elusive riches. Like most the conquistadors, “dejar” was not in his dictionary. In May 1541, the army reached and crossed the Mississippi River, probably the first Europeans ever to do so. From there, they traveled through present-day Arkansas and Louisiana, still with few material gains to show for their efforts. Turning back to the Mississippi, de Soto died of a fever on its banks on May 21, 1542. In order that Indians would not learn of his death, and thus disprove de Soto's claims of divinity, his men buried his body in the Mississippi River.
The Spaniards, now under the command of Luis de Moscoso, traveled west again, crossing into north Texas before returning to the Mississippi. With nearly half of the original expedition dead, the Spaniards built rafts and traveled down the river to the sea, and then made their way down the Texas coast to New Spain, finally reaching Veracruz, Mexico, in late 1543. Certainly one of the most amazing journeys and feats of endurance in human history.
1568 - The forces of Mary Queen of Scots were defeated by a confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, the regent of her son, King James VI of Scotland, at the Battle of Langside. During the battle, which was fought out in the southern suburbs of Glasgow, a cavalry charge routed Mary's 6,000 Catholic troops. Three days later, Mary escaped to Cumberland, England, where she sought protection from Queen Elizabeth I.
In 1542, while just six days old, Mary ascended to the Scottish throne upon the death of her father, King James V, and she was crowned nine months later. Mary's mother sent her to be raised in the French court, and in 1558 she married the French dauphin, who became King Francis II of France in 1559 and died in 1560. After Francis' death, Mary returned to Scotland to assume her place as the country's monarch. In 1565, she married her English cousin Lord Darnley, which reinforced her claim to the English throne but angered her cousin Queen Elizabeth.
In 1567, Darnley was mysteriously killed after an explosion at Kirk o' Field, and Mary's lover, James Hepburn, the earl of Bothwell, was the key suspect. Although Bothwell was acquitted of the charge, his marriage to Mary in the same year enraged the nobility. Following an uprising against the couple, Mary was imprisoned in Loch Leven Castle. On 24 July 1567, she was forced to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, James. In 1568, she escaped from captivity and raised a substantial army but was defeated and fled to England, beseeching her kinswoman, Queen Elizabeth, for asylum. Queen Elizabeth, however, responded by throwing Mary in jail, ostensibly because she had become the focus of various English Catholic and Spanish plots to overthrow her.
In 1586, a plot to murder Elizabeth was uncovered, and Mary was brought to trial, convicted for complicity, and sentenced to death. How exactly she could have been complicit when she had been imprisoned for almost two decades is unclear. Needless to say, her trial was largely for show. On February 8, 1587, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded for treason at Fotheringhay Castle in England, becoming yet another victim of the English Reformation. Her son, King James VI of Scotland, calmly accepted his mother's execution, and upon Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603, he became James I, king of England, Scotland, and Ireland.
I spoke a moment ago about the great de Soto expedition, and this week marks the anniversary of another great voyage of discovery as well:
1804 - One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis, Missouri, on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
Even before the U.S. government concluded purchase negotiations with France, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned his private secretary Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, an army captain, to lead an expedition into what is now the U.S. Northwest. On May 14, the "Corps of Discovery"--featuring approximately 45 men (although only about 33 men would make the full journey)--left St. Louis for the American interior.
The expedition traveled up the Missouri River in a 55-foot long keelboat and two smaller boats. In November, Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian fur trader accompanied by his young Native American wife Sacagawea, joined the expedition as an interpreter. The group wintered in present-day North Dakota before crossing into present-day Montana, where they first saw the Rocky Mountains. On the other side of the Continental Divide, they were met by Sacagawea's tribe, the Shoshone Indians, who sold them horses for their journey down through the Bitterroot Mountains. After passing through the dangerous rapids of the Clearwater and Snake rivers in canoes, the explorers reached the calm of the Columbia River, which led them to the sea. On November 8, 1805, the expedition arrived at the Pacific Ocean, the first European explorers to do so by an overland route from the east. After pausing there for the winter, the explorers began their long journey back to St. Louis.
On September 23, 1806, after almost two and a half years, the expedition returned to the city, bringing back a wealth of information about the largely unexplored region, as well as valuable U.S. claims to Oregon Territory. Among the amazing accomplishments of the expedition was the fact that despite all the dangers they faced, they lost only one man.
1950 - On this day in 1950, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, better known today as L. Ron Hubbard, published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, Hubbard introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system boasting millions of subscribers: Scientology.
Hubbard was already a prolific writer by the time he penned the book that would change his life. Under several pseudonyms in the 1930s, he published a great amount of pulp fiction, particularly in the science fiction and fantasy genres. In late 1949, having returned from serving in the Navy in World War II, Hubbard began publishing articles in the pages of Astounding Science Fiction, a magazine that published works by the likes of Isaac Asimov and Jack Williamson. Out of these grew the text known as Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health.
In Dianetics, Hubbard explained that phenomena known as "engrams" (i.e. memories) were the cause of all psychological pain, which in turn harmed mental and physical health. He went on to claim that people could become "clear," achieving an exquisite state of clarity and mental liberation, by exorcising their engrams to an "auditor," or a listener acting as therapist.
Though scorned by the medical and scientific establishment, over 100,000 copies of Dianetics were sold in the first two years of publication, and Hubbard soon found himself lecturing across the country. He went on to write six more books, and he established the Hubbard Dianetics Research Foundation in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Despite his fast-growing popularity from books and touring, strife within his organization and Hubbard's own personal troubles nearly crippled his success. Several of his research foundations had to be abandoned due to financial troubles and in-fighting. Also, in late 1950, his second wife filed for divorce, accusing Hubbard of kidnapping and abusing their baby.
By 1953, however, Hubbard was able to rebound from the widespread condemnation beginning to be heaped upon him, and introduced Scientology. Scientology expanded on Dianetics by bringing Hubbard's popular version of psychotherapy into the realm of philosophy, and ultimately, religion. In only a few years, Hubbard found himself at the helm of a movement that captured the popular imagination. As Scientology grew in the 1960s, several national governments became suspicious of Hubbard, accusing him of quackery and brainwashing his followers. Nonetheless, Hubbard built his religion into a multi-million dollar movement that continues to have a considerable presence in the public eye, due in part to its high profile in Hollywood.
International News:
Remember that UN-brokered truce between rebels and government forces in Syria? Yeah…well…that’s not really working too well. Twin suicide car bombs exploded outside a military intelligence building and killed 55 people in Damascus Thursday, tossing mangled bodies in the street in the deadliest attack against a regime target since the Syrian uprising began 14 months ago.
The bombings fueled fears of a rising Islamic militant element among the forces seeking to oust President Bashar Assad and dealt a further blow to international efforts to end the bloodshed.
The first car bomb went off on a key six-lane highway during the morning rush hour, knocking down a security wall outside the government building and drawing people to the scene, witnesses said. A much larger blast soon followed, shaking the neighborhood, setting dozens of cars ablaze and sending up a gray mushroom cloud visible around the capital.
The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police and security services, said 55 people were killed and more than 370 were wounded. Officials said suicide bombers detonated explosives weighing more than 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds).
World powers seeking to halt Syria's unrest condemned the attack and urged all sides to adhere to a cease-fire brokered by U.N. and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
The Obama administration condemned the attack and expressed concern that al-Qaida may be increasingly taking advantage of the country's prolonged instability. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that U.S. intelligence indicates "an al-Qaida presence in Syria," but said the extent of its activity was unclear. The blast was the largest and most deadly yet in a series of bombings targeting state security buildings since last December. Most of these have been in Aleppo and Damascus, Syria's two largest cities, which have generally stood by Assad since the popular uprising against his rule broke out in March 2011.
Syria's U.N. ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, told the Security Council that a second bombing in Aleppo on Thursday also killed civilians and damaged property.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five intelligence officers were killed when a bomb targeted their car in Aleppo. It was unclear if this was the same event.
A leader of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella group of anti-regime militias throughout the country, condemned the Damascus attack and denied the group was involved. Capt. Ammar al-Wawi accused the government of staging the attack to turn the world against the uprising. Some in the opposition blamed the Assad regime for the attack, accusing it of trying to discredit the rebellion.
The scope and mystery of the bombing raised fears that Syria's unrest is transforming from an Arab Spring-inspired call for change into a bloody Iraq-style insurgency.
The attack was the fifth to hit Damascus since December 2011, when a car bomb killed 44 people outside an intelligence compound.
On Jan. 6, an explosion at a Damascus intersection killed 25 people, many of them police. Two car bombs on March 17 killed at least 27 people, also near intelligence and security buildings. On April 27, an explosion killed nine security officers. Syrian officials said all were suicide attacks.
And there was still more violence across Syria this week. Rebels fought the army in northern Syria on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported fighting in Idlib province, on Syria's northern border with Turkey and a hotspot of the 14-month-old revolt against Assad's rule. Opposition activists reported shelling by security forces in Idlib and central Homs province, which have seen some of the fiercest fighting during of the anti-Assad uprising. The Observatory said at least two Idlib residents were killed as security forces raided villages close to the clashes or fired mortar bombs from military checkpoints. Elsewhere in Idlib, four soldiers were killed and least seven were wounded when rebels attacked a convoy of armored personnel carriers, the Observatory said.
Meanwhile, opposition leaders abroad flew to Rome to try to strengthen their fractured Syrian National Council (SNC), which is seeking international help in the struggle against Assad. Political jockeying within the SNC has prevented it from gaining full international endorsement. Executive members told Reuters they may choose a new president or restructure the council in a bid to garner broader support.
And there was big news from one of Syria’s neighbors as well. In Israel this week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national-unity government. This move was shocking because just hours earlier, the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, was expediting a bill to call early elections in September, elections which Netanyahu seemed poised to win.
Now you may ask: why should we care about the maneuverings of Israeli politicians? Well, in this case we should care because some observers speculate that Netanyahu wanted a national-unity government in case the Israelis decide that it’s necessary to attack Iran. By creating the largest political coalition in nearly three decades, Netanyahu may be establishing the political premise for a preemptive strike on Iran, should it come to that. The new government commands an astonishing 94 Knesset seats out of 120, described by one Israeli columnist as a “hundred tons of solid concrete.” Netanyahu forfeited September elections that would have given him four more years in power. He chose instead to form a national coalition that guarantees 18 months of stability — 18 months during which, if Iran moves ahead with its nuclear weapons program, Israel may feel compelled to react.
I’ve said that I don’t think the Israelis will attack Iran, not because they lack the spine for it and not because the Iranian threat is not that serious, but rather because I think they realize they don’t have the capacity to damage the Iranian nuclear program to a degree that would justify the inevitable costs of such an attack. Still, it’s clear that the Israelis are keeping all their options open.
National News:
Big political news this week from the Hoosier state, where Richard Lugar, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was defeated Tuesday as Indiana Republicans chose state Treasurer Richard Mourdock over Lugar as the party's nominee.
With 76 percent of precincts reporting, Mourdock received 60 percent to 40 percent for Lugar in the Hoosier state's Senate primary, marking a huge win for tea party supporters and conservatives across the country.
Mourdock will now face off against Rep. Joe Donnelly-- who ran unopposed in Tuesday's Democratic party. Conservatives had long targeted Lugar for defeat, arguing he represented a Republican establishment in Congress that has acquiesced to the Democratic party. They singled out Lugar's votes for the bailouts, in support of the president's stimulus and votes to confirm U.S. Supreme Court nominees Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
And in other national news, President Obama announced this week that he supports same-sex marriage. The president had long declined to take a position on the issue, saying his views were “evolving.” Of course that was a bit disingenuous – it’s long been known that he supports gay marriage; in fact, the question wasn’t whether he would come out in favor of it, but rather when. In fact, the president was really just waiting for a politically opportune moment to make that public. This week may not have been that moment, but the president’s hand was forced by the some very high-profile endorsements of gay marriage by members of his administration. So, he finally came out and said what we’ve all known for a long time. It was hardly an earth-shattering announcement, though – the president said that he, personally, thinks gay people should be allowed to marry, but (and this is the key point) the issue should be left up to the states.
The president’s sycophants in the media were quick to pronounce this statement courageous and historic, which is a bit mystifying. After all, he got pushed into it, and he hardly called for a new nation-wide policy. When I think of courageous undertakings, I think of the Lewis and Clark expedition, but, to each his own. As for it being historic, admittedly Obama was the first president to endorse gay marriage, but the issue hasn’t been around that long. Should we fault James Madison, Ulysses S. Grant, or William McKinley for remaining silent on gay marriage, when the very idea had never occurred to anyone at their time? That’s like saying that Obama, or whoever, made history by being the first president to ride a Segway Scooter.
Anyway, however you view this announcement, it’s worked out well for the president at least in the short term – the day after making the announcement he jetted out to LA where he brought in $15 million at a Hollywood fundraiser.
State News:
There’s a whole heap of state news to get to this week. Let’s start with a story casting a dark shadow over our state’s flagship university, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You may recall that several months ago there was a scandal regarding the UNC football team. I know it’s shocking to think of a scandal surrounding college football – we’ve all lost our innocence – but there it is. The scandal involved players dealing with agents and lots of other things, but one of the allegations was that many of these student-athletes weren’t really doing much studying. The allegations prompted a nine-month internal investigation into the Department of African and Afro-American Studies at the University, the department in which many football players took courses. The results of the investigation were released this week, and they revealed unauthorized grades, forged signatures and other irregularities. The report’s authors expressed their “acute dismay” at their findings, and noted, “… the unprofessional or unethical actions noted in this report risk damaging the professional reputations of the faculty in the Department of African and Afro-American Studies as a whole.”
The internal investigation began in September 2011 following published reports that claimed plagiarism and other discrepancies on a course paper written by former Tar Heels football player Michael McAdoo. The paper, submitted to professor Julius Nyang’oro, was revealed to be largely reproduced from other sources.
According to the report, which covered courses from the start of the summer session in 2007 to the end of the summer session in 2011, 43 taught by professor Nyang’oro "were either aberrant or were taught irregularly." Those courses showed that work was assigned and grades issued, but there was little contact between professor and students. Two other classes led by Nyang’oro may have been taught irregularly.
Between 2007 and 2009, grades for 59 students in nine courses were submitted to the registrar with forged signatures of professors who said they never taught the course. During that same span, “several faculty members” stated that there were unauthorized grade changes and they were not aware of who authorized the adjustments.
Long-time African and Afro-American Studies administrator Debbie Crowder retired in the fall of 2009. Nyang’oro, who had held the position of department chair in the African and Afro-American Studies program, resigned from that position in August. According to the report, Nyang’oro will retire effective July 1. So, he’s basically getting away scot-free.
More than 50 courses in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s department of African and Afro-American studies featured no-show professors, unauthorized grade changes, and other examples of academic fraud from 2007 to 2011, according to the internal investigation. The evidence of fraud was most common in summer courses taught by Nyang’oro.
So, that’s a big black eye, not only for the African and Afro-American Studies department, but for the entire university.
And speaking of reputations damaged or destroyed through gross misconduct…
Prosecutors wrapped up their case against former Senator John Edwards this week. They finished up in style, compelling Edwards and the entire court to watch video of a 2008 television interview in which Edwards lied repeatedly about his affair, his baby and money paid to his mistress.
U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles gave the jury Friday off to address various defense motions, including a request that she dismiss the case because the government failed to prove any crime. Not surprisingly, she shot that request down pretty quickly. Any defense testimony in the case will begin today. It's unclear whether Edwards will testify in his defense.
Prosecutors have spent 14 days and used 23 witnesses to lay out the scheme to route money from donors through intermediaries to Edwards confidante Andrew Young for the mistress’s support, and basically to keep her quiet.
Earlier Thursday, one of Edwards' top advisers testified that Edwards was angling for a position in the administration of his two rivals as his own campaign crumbled in the Iowa cornfields. Leo Hindery, who runs a private equity firm in New York, was the economic policy adviser to Edwards during his 2008 campaign. Edwards had worked Iowa for more than a year, Hindery said, and the entire campaign was built around him winning the caucuses there and carrying that momentum into other primaries.
When Edwards finished second to Barack Obama in Iowa, he immediately asked Hindery to reach out to Obama’s campaign to suggest Edwards as a potential vice presidential candidate. The Obama campaign rebuffed the entreaty, Hindery said, and as Edwards’ losses mounted in subsequent primaries, the campaign continued to work through back channels to get him considered as attorney general.
Edwards reached out to Hilary Clinton’s campaign, as well, for a position, Hindery said. Edwards' ultimate goal was a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Hindery said, and he was willing to endorse whichever candidate gave him the best shot at it. And if the thought of John Edwards on the Supreme Court doesn’t make your blood run cold, you’re made of sterner stuff than I.
And lastly in state news this week – in the biggest news of the week was that we had ourselves an election on Tuesday. There were lots of candidates and issues on the ballot, but of course there was one that commanded the vast majority of attention. So, in case you somehow haven’t heard, here’s the big news from the election - the Republican candidate for NC Auditor will be Debra Goldman! Boy, that was a thrilling primary.
Of course there were other issues at stake as well. Former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory easily won the Republican nomination for governor with over 83% of the vote. On the Democratic side it was much closer with Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton defeating Bob Etheridge 46% to 38%. So, it’s going to be McCrory vs. Dalton in the race to replace current governor Bev Perdue.
And lastly, as a result of the election, we now have a new amendment to our state constitution. The amendment specifies that a marriage between a man and woman will be the only type of union recognized in our state. North Carolina already outlawed gay marriage, but the constitutional amendment makes it more difficult for politicians to ever change the law.
The amendment also means that a handful of North Carolina municipalities that extended benefits to the domestic partners of their employees will no longer be able to do so, since marriage is now the only valid legal partnership in the state. It was a contentious issue, to say the least, but once the pundits and columnists were done and the people got a chance to have their say the outcome wasn’t close at all.
In fact, the amendment passed by an absolute landslide, with 61% of the voters in favor, and only 39% opposed. That translates to about 1.3 million people in favor, 800,000 opposed. In some respects, it wasn’t even that close. Out of the 100 counties in NC, only 7 had a majority vote against the amendment - that’s right, 7 (it might have been 8 – Dare county was very evenly divided). The outliers were Buncombe, Watauga, Orange, Durham, Chatham, Wake, Mecklenburg. That would seem to point to an urban/rural divide, but of course there were lots of urban counties were a majority voted for the amendment – Guilford, Forsyth, Gaston, New Hanover, Pitt, etc. And I should add that even in Wake and Mecklenburg county the vote was close.
Still, there were some stark contrasts (and here I’m giving you the sort of in-depth analysis you don’t get anywhere else). Take, for example, one of the few counties to vote against the amendment – Watauga county in the northwestern corner of the state. Watauga, home to the city of Boone, was 51% against the amendment. In contrast, here’s how the neighboring counties voted – Avery was 81% for, Caldwell was the same, Wilkes county was 83% for, and Ashe was 77% for. Overall, the county most staunchly opposed to the amendment was, not surprisingly, Orange county, where 79% voted against (and they’re organizing lynch mobs to hunt down the other 21%). The counties most strongly in favor of the amendment were Graham and Robeson, where 89% and 86% respectively voted in favor. In our corner of the state Hyde county was 65% in favor while Carteret was 81% in favor.
Statewide, voter turnout was around 34%. That may not seem like much, but it’s actually high relative to comparable elections in the past. Turnout was slightly higher here in Hyde County, where about 40% of those eligible got out to vote.
I know there are very strong feelings on both sides of this debate, but I feel unconstrained in talking about it because, frankly, I didn’t have a horse in the race. As I’ve stated repeatedly, I am absolutely opposed to democracy, so it’s nonsensical to ask whether I agree or disagree with the results of an election – I disagree with the very idea of voting, regardless of the results.
So, here on my thoughts on this issue, from my completely unbiased perspective. First, it’s worth noting that supporters of gay marriage out-raised and out-advertised their opponents in the lead up to the vote. The anti-amendment coalition raised more than $2 million. The pro-amendment crowd, called Vote for Marriage NC, raised just over $1 million. Still, despite this huge financial edge, the anti-amendment folks got trounced. Now there’s been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among those opposed to the amendment, and the popular line is that the amendment only passed because people didn’t understand it, or because they’re old, poor, uneducated, bigoted, religious hillbillies. The problem is that there’s absolutely no evidence to support this view. There were polls taken before the vote, but those are notoriously unreliable, and there was no exit polling at all, so we don’t know who voted for the amendment or why. It’s also useful to set this vote in a national context.
There’s been some venting in the blogosphere from disappointed people talking about how ashamed they are to be from North Carolina, but this overlooks to fact that North Carolina’s decision to ban same-sex marriage came after voters in 31 other states have passed similar laws or constitutional amendments. And it’s not just Bible-belt states: those 31 other states range from Maine all the way to California. Polls may show that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, but in every state where voters have had a say, again, in every state, the voters have said no to gay marriage. In fact, the few states that have recognized gay marriage or civil unions have done so only via judicial fiat. So, where does that leave us? Clearly the pro-gay marriage side needs to do a better job articulating its case, and it would probably be a good idea if supporters of gay marriage spent some time trying to understand their opponents’ viewpoint. Or, they can just bask in their own sense of self-righteousness and moral superiority.
Andrew Stern is, among other things, an historian, an Ocracoke resident, and a board member at Ocracoke’s community radio station, WOVV 90.1FM where you can hear his weekly broadcast of “A First Draft of History” every Monday morning at 9am.
