History is Comedy

By at 12:14 pm Friday, Oct 16

I was traveling this week, which, in these days of the abomination that is HLN*, means I spend my hotel mornings watching random non-news cable networks. This time, the choice was HBO Comedy, which is how I ended up watching a great classroom-themed, comedic retelling of American history featuring Robert Wuhl.

I caught a couple of incorrect details here and there, but in general Wuhl was on track and worth watching...if only for his take on the ascendancy of Franklin Pierce and his (in my opinion) pretty insightful overarching lessons:

1) Our understanding of history is "based on a true story"

and

2) "We'll get through it" makes a pretty good philosophy from which to approach American politics.

UPDATE: I should note that there's swearing in these videos. So, play audio with caution in respect to bosses, small children and your own proclivities.

*CNN's "Talk Soup"-ish replacement for the Headline News channel is so horrible, I'm not even going to link to it.

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Maggie Koerth-Baker

I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.

Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.

Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum

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