It’s March 17th! And You Know What THAT Means…
That’s right….It’s Muckraker Day! You’re all wearing brown, right?
The muckrakers name applied to American journalists, novelists, and critics who in the first decade of the 20th cent. attempted to expose the abuses of business and the corruption in politics. The term derives from the word muckrake used by President Theodore Roosevelt in a speech [on March 17] in 1906, in which he agreed with many of the charges of the muckrakers but asserted that some of their methods were sensational and irresponsible. He compared them to a character from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress who could look no way but downward with a muckrake in his hands and was interested only in raking the filth. Since the 1870s there had been recurrent efforts at reform in government, politics, and business, but it was not until the advent of the national mass-circulation magazines such as McClure’s, Everybody’s, and Collier’s that the muckrakers were provided with sufficient funds for their investigations and with a large enough audience to arouse nationwide concern.
Historians agree that if it had not been for the revelations of the muckrakers the Progressive movement would not have received the popular support needed for effective reform.
So a hat tip to all the muckrakers out there, trudging through the mire and bringing the issues of corruption, hypocrisy, and social ills into the light.
And hopefully, we will all remember that once in a while we need to raise our eyes out of the muck, drop the rake, and have some fun making mudpies …lest we be compared to some guy from Pilgrims’ Progress! (palms on face) Nobody wants THAT.
It is worthy to note that not only did Roosevelt coin the term “muckraker,” but he also was the founder of a political party, born of division in the Republican party, (and named after a critter of which we are all very fond of here at the Mudflats) – The Bull Moose Party!
And you can even celebrate tonight with a brown beer. No artificial color required!
"You called?"
Thank you, AKM for the origin of “Muckraker.” And thanks for the picture of His Mooseness.
Happy Muckraker’s Day to my FAVORITE Muckraker, AKM!
I see Brian is wearing his best brown suit – way to look sharp!
Woo-hoo! Beer! I’m in! What’r we celebrating?
Speaking of muckrakers, where did I read/hear recently that Upton Sinclair meant to rally support for the workers in the meat packing plants, but what the public focused on when he published The Jungle was the nastiness of the meat packing business itself, and lo, food safety awareness was born. (only to die under Republican de-regulation and be reborn again with the peanut scandal)
Keith just mentioned the mention of muckrakers! I’ll drink to that!
B double E double R un, Beer Run!! (sorry, I live in a college town)
Thank you AKM, never can bring myself to eat or drink green stuff, not in a boat, not with a goat, not in a house, not with a mouse, not in a car, not near or far. But brown beer? I can drink that here or there or anywhere!
Cheers!
Paula- it’s only food coloring that makes it green on this one day of the year……..PO even had green put in the fountains at the Whitehouse !! How cool is that ?!?! and further more……..
http://barackobamaismyhomeboy.com/blogs/st-patricks-day-t-shirts-for-obama-fans/
I am wearing BOTH green and brown this evening, AKM! I raise a glass of Guinness to you and to Brian and to my (RIP) sister who was born this day in 1956 (I miss you, Sis!)
Thanks for your persistently diligent and delightful posts on the muck and mudpies of Alaskan politics. You are a nugget of gold in the silt.
A Fat Tire toast to you, AKM, Brian the handsome moose, and all muckrackers everywhere!
And @ Paula:
I can drink a beer in socks,
or sitting on a pile of rocks;
I can drink it under stars,
Or perhaps in many bars-
I drink beer out in the West;
Any beer is fine, but Fat Tire’s best:-)
I can drink beer in my Jeep,
I can drink beer while I sleep,
I can drink it when it’s cold,
Or I can drink it nine days old,
But I can’t drink it with green dye,
Nor can I drink it from through my eye,
I can drink my beer with crackers,
But prefer it with my friends, Muckrackers.
So cheers to you frineds near and far,
I promise I’m not drinking in a car
CO almost native –
you’re a poet
and didn’t know it
I love you Brian, oh yes I do
I love your snowy nose,
It’s true!
I love your soft brown coat,
Horns too!
Oh Brian, I love you!
OT, Mackey made it to White Mountain. 8 hour layover and 77 miles to go!
Ennealogic-
Brian has a babe already,
Furry, brown and in spring, ready.
Sorry ’bout your broken heart,
But Brian knows beer makes YOU fart.
I don’t think that it is an exageration to say that without the “real” press, the ones that seek and speak truth, there would be not freedom.
Prost. And have another for me.
You guys are a bad example. I am supposed to be working later, yet here I am smoking, drinking beer and writing fart poems…and it’s FUN!!!!!!!!!!
Beer makes spelling bad.
I’m a Fat Tire lover, yes, I am;
and green chile’s fine, not beer or ham-
I’ll drink a beer whenever I dine,
But not in cars- that earns a fine!
So I’ll raise my beer and tip my hat:
A toast to fine friends here on the ‘Flats:-)
The O’Bama Whitehouse on St. Patick’s Day 2009
http://www.blinkx.com/video/raw-video-green-fountains-at-the-white-house/iPqs_nohR3cNQaMXEUd6Iw
oops……..St. PatRicks………no S**T on beer and spelling Paula………
Yeah, when beer soaks up the spelling goes to hell, or ferments, or something.
And I am working “later” on “Paticks” day.
Obviously not my most productive moment.
wired differently (18:15:30) :
Woo-hoo! Beer! I’m in! What’r we celebrating?
Speaking of muckrakers, where did I read/hear recently that Upton Sinclair meant to rally support for the workers in the meat packing plants, but what the public focused on when he published The Jungle was the nastiness of the meat packing business itself, and lo, food safety awareness was born.
———————————————————–You’re absolutely correct, wd. ‘The Jungle’ would certainly be worth a read if you can get it. One great Sinclair novel you can get is ‘Oil!”, about the genesis of the US oil industry. Someone made a dreadful movie called There Will be Blood that they claimed was based on it.
Happy Muckrakers’ Day, AKM. I will leave to wired differently to hoist a brown ale for me. Or a Guinness. Or three.
11:55
No work done.
3 beers consumed.
I am off for the night.
Be well.
AKM, thanks for being the “mudraker” and digging out the truth. We all ? Brian too!
Oh I forgot some are calling you the “Alaskan Kos”! I think that’s a compliment since Kos rakes the mud too!
Aw, somebody have a beer for me, too! (I’m a german, english, scottish and irish mutt, but I just don’t like beer. Not no way, not no how.
(Bailey’s, though… Yum! But I don’t have any of that, either. ):
man, that’s one fine lookin’ moose.
aw. I do so love that picture of Brian and his powdered sugar nose.
Cheers!
God bless you AKM! And God bless the Great Ida Tarbell!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell
Yep. McClures’s Magazine put her writing on the front page when women could not even vote. She was THAT good at her craft!!
http://www.history.rochester.edu/fuels/tarbell/MAIN.HTM
One of the best investigative journalists of all time.
Boy could we use her today in this unbelievable mind bending mess!
To Everyone: Happy Muckrakers Day, yesterday!
My muck raking is heating up: http://hammerandafeather.blogspot.com.
I’ve called all the criminals to come and do business in Tennessee, since our laws make it so easy to run Ponzi-type schemes against the tourists and vacation rental property owners.
Brian should come help me leave nuggets [grin].