Think Tank Type. Imbiber of ideas & smokey scotches. Observer of baseball & the arts. Fellow & Editor @YorktownInst | @IWF | @TheCSDProject |
Washington, DC
Joined October 2011
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Rebecca Burgess retweeted
Still going strong after more than a century.
@USBR's oldest operating hydropower facility began generating electricity at Idaho’s Minidoka Dam in 1909. Today, its two powerhouses can generate 28 megawatts of electricity.
117 years later, that’s dam impressive.
ALT A historic hydroelectric power plant beside a flowing river under a cloudy sky.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
“We the People” sounds even better with a view.
Tomorrow is Constitution Day, marking the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia on Sept. 17, 1787.
In honor of the day, entrance fees will be waived at all Interior sites that normally charge an entrance fee.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
For the first time in history, the National Archives Museum will display all seven pages of George Washington’s Annotated Copy of a Draft of the U.S. Constitution in celebration of Constitution Day.
📍National Archives Museum, Washington, DC
🕑September 14 - September 27, 2026
ALT Promotional flyer for the National Archives Museum Constitution Day display, George Washington’s Annotated Copy of a Draft of the U.S. Constitution. From September 14 - September 27, 2026.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
After the 9/11 attacks, hundreds of search‑and‑rescue dogs were deployed to Ground Zero alongside human first responders. These dogs were highly trained to locate survivors in disaster zones, and many had spent years practicing scenarios where their searches ended in successful “finds.”
But at Ground Zero, the reality was devastating: day after day, the dogs found only deceased victims. Their handlers began noticing troubling changes, dogs growing visibly sad, confused, and even reluctant to continue searching. For animals conditioned to believe every search should end in saving someone, the constant absence of survivors felt like failure.
Handlers quickly realized the emotional toll was becoming dangerous. Rescue dogs rely heavily on morale, praise, and a sense of accomplishment to stay motivated and focused. Without those positive outcomes, some dogs began showing signs of depression: lowered tails, reduced appetite, and decreased enthusiasm for work. To protect their mental well‑being, handlers started staging mock rescues.
They would hide fellow rescuers in accessible spots so the dogs could “find” a living person, receive praise, and regain confidence. These staged successes weren’t just kindness—they were essential to keeping the dogs effective in an environment filled with trauma.
This practice became a quiet but powerful example of the bond between handlers and their dogs. Even in one of the darkest moments in modern history, rescuers recognized that emotional care mattered, not just for humans, but for the animals who worked beside them. The staged finds helped maintain morale, restored the dogs’ sense of purpose, and allowed them to continue contributing to the recovery effort.
One of the most remembered dogs at Ground Zero was Bretagne, a golden retriever from Texas who worked tirelessly through smoke, twisted steel, and unstable debris. Her handler later recalled how Bretagne would gently nudge exhausted firefighters, offering comfort before returning to the rubble to search again.
She wasn’t just looking for survivors, she became a source of emotional support for the human crews, sensing when someone needed a moment of connection. Years later, when Bretagne returned to New York for her 16th birthday, firefighters lined the street to salute her, honoring not just her work but the quiet compassion she brought to one of the darkest sites in American history.
#archaeohistories
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
I’ll never forget watching President Bush walk out to the mound at Yankee Stadium and throw a strike.
@GeorgeWill once said, “Baseball suits the character of this democratic nation.” In the days after 9/11, we needed baseball. 🇺🇸⚾️
Looking forward to “When America Took the Field.” This one will bring back a lot of memories.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
The doctor who delivered Dolly Parton in a one-room Tennessee cabin in 1946 was paid with a sack of cornmeal. Her father farmed other people's land and could not read or write. Eighty years later, the reading program she built in his name has mailed more than 300 million books.
She wrote "I Will Always Love You" on the same afternoon she wrote "Jolene," as a goodbye to Porter Wagoner, and released it in 1974. Elvis wanted it. The night before the session, Colonel Tom Parker called and said Presley would only record it if they got half the publishing, meaning half of everything the song ever earned. She had been in Nashville ten years by then. She said no, and cried all night. Whitney Houston cut her version in 1992, held number one for fourteen weeks, and Forbes later put Parton's royalties from it near $10 million. She put some of that money into an office complex in Nashville and called the place the house that Whitney built.
Dollywood opened in Pigeon Forge in 1986 because she wanted paychecks in the county she came from. Around 4,000 people work there now. Three million visitors come every year. The University of Tennessee put its economic impact at $1.8 billion, and it is the largest employer in Sevier County. Since 2022 the company has paid tuition, fees, and books in full for every worker from their first day, seasonal hires included.
Wildfires tore through those mountains in November 2016, killing fourteen people and destroying more than 2,400 buildings. Her foundation was handing out money within 48 hours. Every family that lost a home got $1,000 a month for six months, regardless of income. The final check was $5,000. Total delivered: $8.9 million.
In April 2020 she sent $1 million to Vanderbilt for coronavirus research. When Moderna's vaccine results ran in the New England Journal of Medicine that November, her fund appeared in the footnotes.
Carl Dean, her husband of nearly sixty years, died in March 2025. The note she wrote to fans afterward ended with the same five words she wrote for Porter Wagoner back in 1974. She died in Nashville today. Her family asked that instead of flowers, people give to the Imagination Library, which still mails 3.4 million books a month to children who will never get to meet her.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
National Park Week is here!
From Aug. 22-30, celebrate America's landscapes and history at more than 400 @NatlParkService (NPS) sites. And mark your calendar: Aug. 25 is the NPS's 110th birthday and a fee-free day!
Get out there and find your park.
Photo at Great Smoky Mountains NP by Rita Pignato
ALT Sunlight beams piercing through clouds over a layered mountain range at sunset.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting the denial of the right to vote on the basis of sex. The Library holds the records and library collection of the National Woman’s Party, which was instrumental in getting the legislation passed. 🧵
ALT Photograph of Alison Turnbull Hopkins with banner, "Mr. President How long must women wait for liberty," picketing for suffrage outside White House gate. January 30, 1917. Photograph published in "The Suffragist."
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
Absolutely brilliant from @second_sailing
“As far back as Plato’s irascible character Meno, would-be teachers have been confronting the problem that students must want to learn before learning is possible. For many decades, higher education has relied on a workaround to this problem — tying access to good jobs to success in school. In some cases, a desire for money and prestige leads to real, if incidental, learning. But large language models have broken this arrangement by making it possible for students to skip straight to an effortless A without doing any meaningful learning. Technology has exposed the limits of our mercenary approach to education.”
Or as Plato’s Socrates puts it in Republic: “Nothing taught by force stays in the soul.”
To Save Higher Ed, Professors Need to Get a Little Weird nytimes.com/2026/08/17/opini…
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
All eyes on Siena!
Today, Sunday 16 August 2026, the Palio di Siena (Palio of the Assumption) is run in Piazza del Campo
7:00 PM Italian time
Tuscany, Italy 🇮🇹⚜️
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
It isn't a bear. And it isn't a grass. It's beargrass.
Beargrass is actually a member of the lily family. From June through July, and sometimes into August at higher elevations, its white blooms brighten Glacier National Park's mountain landscapes.
Photo by Jaclyn Burdsall
ALT Field of white wildflowers stretches across a green valley surrounded by towering snow-capped mountains under a cloudy sky.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
When, oh when, will the authorities in Moscow ever get around to installing window guards?
🇷🇺🧐Today, former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov died after falling from a window at the age of 73. Once considered one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies and even a potential successor, Ivanov held several of Russia's most powerful positions, including Defense Minister, Security Council Secretary, and Kremlin Chief of Staff. The Kremlin confirmed his death.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
Being that VS is so focused on fighting online disinformation online, let's review the "record 250 days".
During President Obama's term, in 2011-12 USS Bataan (LHD 5) and her ARG was deployed 322 days during the Libyan debacle. Then in 2014, she was deployed for 266 days. Also during Obama's Presidency, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) deployed for about 316 days between 2012 and 2013, and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75): Deployed for 271 days between 2013 and 2014.
Our Navy's standard deployment is ~180 days, and much longer if needed.
As for suicide, not unusual for a carrier's deployment, and not all that different from the general population. I won't do your work for you, but use AI to tell you the expected number of suicides you would expect in a population of 5,000 men between 18 and 40 with an average age of 24 over a six month period.
Executive Summary: 1. That also happens to be the number of suicides we had on my last carrier deployment. The guy got a "Dear John" letter and responded by running off the back of the ship aft of AIMD while we were going 30+ knots at night.
If you want to attack the Trump administration and Hegseth, find something more grounded in fact than this argle-bargle.
Better yet, take that energy and put it towards something productive: ask for Congress to fund a larger Navy.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
All the feels 🥹
Kody Clemens and his dad, Roger, reenact that iconic scene. #MLBatFieldOfDreams
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
Now on view!
This is the first early Ptolemaic fragment of the Odyssey ever discovered. It dates to the beginning of the Hellenistic period, after Alexander the Great, when the Great Library at Alexandria was built and began gathering works of Greek literature.
See this fragment on view in Gallery 162.
___
📜 “Papyrus fragment with lines from Homer's Odyssey,” ca. 285–250 BCE. Miscellaneous-Papyrus.
Rebecca Burgess retweeted
It is with profound sorrow that we bid farewell to Jeanne Gibson, our beloved Rosie the Riveter, has passed away today, July 29, 2026, at the remarkable age of 100. With her passing, we don't simply mourn the loss of a beloved friend, we honor the life of an American hero whose courage, dedication, and unwavering spirit helped shape history, and will continue to inspire generations to come.📷📷
At just 18 years old, Jeanne left her home in Minnesota in the summer of 1944 and answered her nation's call, becoming a welder at Todd Pacific Shipyards in Seattle. With determination and grit, she helped build destroyers that strengthened the Allied war effort during World War II. She later continued her service with the Army Transportation Corps in Juneau, Alaska, embodying the resilience and patriotism of the Greatest Generation.
Yet Jeanne's legacy extended far beyond the war. She earned her Ph.D., dedicated three decades to teaching, earned her private pilot license, and spent the rest of her life proving that courage, determination, and purpose know no age.
In 2024, Jeanne and her fellow Rosies were collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, one of our nation's highest civilian honors, recognizing the extraordinary women whose sacrifices and determination helped secure victory during World War II.
To all of us at Pacific Historic Parks, Jeanne was far more than a Rosie, she was family. She traveled to Hawaiʻi time and again to share her remarkable story with visitors, inspire local students, and ensure that the sacrifices of the Home Front would never be forgotten. Her radiant smile, generous heart, and boundless enthusiasm touched every life she encountered.
She had a special gift for encouraging young girls, reminding them that no dream was too big and no obstacle too great. Through her words and her example, she inspired generations to believe in themselves and pursue lives of courage, service, and purpose.
Jeanne remained a tireless advocate for preserving the legacy of the Rosies, volunteering at Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park on "Rosie Fridays" and ensuring the stories of the women who helped win the war would continue to inspire future generations.
In one of life's poignant moments, just days before her passing, Jeanne was celebrated with a Wall of Honor banner at the park she loved so dearly and recognized during a San Jose Earthquakes halftime ceremony honoring Bay Area heroes. It was a fitting tribute to a woman whose life was defined by selfless service, quiet strength, and extraordinary grace.
Though Jeanne has taken her final flight, her legacy will never fade. It lives on in every story she shared, every young person she inspired, every life she touched, and in the enduring example of courage she leaves behind.
Our hearts are with Jeanne's family, her fellow Rosies, and all who were blessed to know and love her.
Rest in peace, Jeanne Gibson.
Thank you for answering the call when your country needed you most. Thank you for showing generations what courage looks like. We will remember you always
