President Obama wants us to celebrate Kamehameha Day

The nation's first Hawaii-born president signed a statement Thursday proclaiming June 11, 2010, Kamehameha Day in honor of "King Kamehameha the Great," who unified the Hawaiian Islands under one government

King Kamehameha "united" the islands all right. Using cannons and guns provided to him by white men, he invaded the neighboring islands and slaughtered the people there. I was appalled when visiting Hawaii how Kamehameha's history has been sugar-coated. Everywhere he is presented as some sort of hero. His brutality is excused. I remember one exhibit at a state park where a recorded message told how any commoner caught looking at the King would be instantly killed by the King's guard. But, I was told, that was ok, because that's what Kamehameha thought the gods wanted. Well, ok then!

In his proclamation, Obama refers to Kamehameha as the "Napoleon of the Hawaiian Islands," as if that's a good thing. News flash for the white house: Napoleon not a good guy. Kamehameha, like Napoleon, was a bloodthirsty warmonger.

More from the president:

"It is the story of Native Hawaiians oppressed by crippling disease, aborted treaties, and the eventual conquest of their sovereign kingdom."

In other words, Kamehameha obliterating his foes and establishing his "sovereign kingdom" across the islands was good, as was his brutal Kapu legal system. But the transformation of Hawaii from a brutal dictatorship into a democracy with equal protection under the law was an evil conquest.

Obama's declaration is disgusting.

As a regular watcher of documentary television, such as the Discovery Channel (is there anything else on TV worth watching?) I figure I've known for at least a dozen years that the pyramids in Egypt weren't built by slaves. It was probably decades ago that they found the living-quarters of the builders, which clearly showed them to be free craftsmen and not slaves.

Of course:

Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.

But we don't actually look to films for our facts, do we?

Well, maybe Reuters reporters do:

New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday.

Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.

"These tombs were built beside the king's pyramid, which indicates that these people were not by any means slaves," Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.

"If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king's."

Wow! Alert the media! Especially credulous reporters...of course at the bottom of the story is this:

"The first discovery of workers' tombs in 1990"

You know, it used to be that reporters had beats, and they would at least be slightly familiar with the subject they were reporting on. Apparently, that type of reporting has suffered from budget cuts.

I took my niece to the bookstore on Saturday. As we were heading up the elevator, she started talking about Amelia Earhart. She went into this story of how she and her siblings built a makeshift roller coaster in their yard, and how the other kids were too chicken to ride it, but Amelia jumped right on.

I made a comment that it was amazing how much she knew about minor people in history, and how little she knew about major people in history. You learn about Earhart, I said, because she was a minority, but you don't learn about the founding fathers or American history.

You're right, she said, we don't learn about that stuff.

At school, she's a 4th grader. For the second year in a row their social studies curriculum centers on California history with an emphasis on Native Americans. They don't learn about the Spanish Conquest, Puritans yearning for religious freedom, the Stamp Act, or the Revolution or Constitution. None of the major movements of history.

I've purchased the "Liberty's Kids" series on disk, but I haven't had her watch them yet. I think it's time to start.

Steve Says: Well, I remember when you brought home a grade school textbook that had articles on several Great Americans, including Chief Dan George. Now, I happen to think that Chief Dan George was pretty great (especially in The Outlaw Josey Wales), but mom's opinion was different. Perhaps she didn't think he was at the same level as Washington, Lincoln, King, etc.

Ann says: I think that was my 5th grade textbook, which would have made it from 1978. Imagine how much worse it is 30 years later. The teachers and textbook writers have all grown up in this climate. They've never learned this kind of thing either. It's being completely lost, and is yet another thing you have to teach your kids at home.

[ Pajamas ] According to a recent poll of Berlin youth, only one-third of the city’s 15- to 17-year-old students know who built the Berlin Wall. Almost 14 percent think it was built by the Allies; two percent believe it was built by the United States.

Or in the German:

[ Die Welt ] „Die Berliner Mauer wurde errichtet von ...“ Von allen Berliner Schülern gingen 13,6 Prozent (12,4 Prozent West und 14,3 Prozent Ost) davon aus, dass es die Alliierten waren; 1,9 Prozent (1,6 Prozent West und 2,2 Prozent Ost) nannten die USA; 46 Prozent kreuzten die Sowjetunion an (47,2 Prozent West und 44,8 Prozent Ost); 4,5 Prozent meinten, dass es die Bundesrepublik war (3,9 Prozent West und 5,3 Prozent Ost). Nur 34,9 Prozent gaben die richtige Antwort DDR (34,9 Prozent West und 33,4 Prozent Ost).

Steve Says: Well, at least 80% attribute the wall to the USSR or its puppet state the DDR. Hard to believe these kids were born after the wall was gone!

Victor Davis Hanson wields the paddle quite effectively.

Buchanan's thesis, that WWII was unnecessary and could have been avoided if we had been nicer to Hitler's Germany is laughable. Pat Buchanan continues to be an embarrassment, and often presented as a spokesman for Conservative America. "Paleocon" is generally the term that is used for him. Maybe Pliocene-con would be more fitting.