My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Tracking in-process legislation, especially at the Federal level, can be a bit difficult, but GovTrack.us has made it easier by listing bills in chronological order, Trending Bills in the news, and those bills of most interest to their users. 

Too often we don’t know what a bill is proposing unless we read the text itself. Sure, the text can be a bit dense and legalize, as is to be expected, but it is still the primary source for understanding the bill. You can’t know how people are spinning a bill to their own ends unless you know what the bill contains.

You can also set alerts on bills so that you get notified when new bills are introduced, changes are made, new laws are passed, and additional legislative activity. Let the information come to you instead of having to go seek it out.

One more great feature is the ability to see who voted Aye/Nay on every single bill. Is your representative supporting your wishes or voting against them. You may not know without checking their votes and voting record.

As always, an informed citizenry is a good citizenry!

So, just what is “civics” anyway?

Civics is defined as: the study or science of the privileges and obligations of citizens.

Civic education is the study of the theoretical, political and practical aspects of citizenship, as well as its rights and duties. It includes the study of civil law and civil code, and the study of government with attention to the role of citizens―as opposed to external factors―in the operation and oversight of government. — League of Women Voters of Delaware.

In order to have the government we want, we need to both understand and engage in civics activities in our local communities. I am dedicated to doing better in 2021. How about you? 

I have been going down the rabbit hole of archives lately and came across this Sanborn Fire Insurance Map last updated in 1955.

It is always fun to see what has changed and, in some cases, what has remained the same.

Direct link to map books at the Library of Congress

Take a century-old “grand tour” of the world in these historical travel images. This set is just a teaser from the stunning Photochrom Prints Collection. This collection features, in color, Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Asia and the South Pacific as they appeared in the 1890s and early 1900s. Browse more content that is free to use and reuse.

Cities grow, adapt and change, like all living things. The Library’s map collections show this in all sorts of unexpected ways, offering a vision of days gone by, of what “normal” once looked like.  We present you with some fascinating glimpses of the cities of yesteryear in this edition of the Library’s Free to Use and Reuse sets of copyright-free images.

The good news about these, if you haven’t seen them before, is that they are yours for the taking — print them out, blow them up into huge posters, use them for laptop screensavers. It’s your choice. In the past few months, we’ve highlighted classic movie theaters, genealogy, maps of discovery and exploration and so on, but there are lots more.

Read Free to Use and Reuse: Maps of Cities via Library of Congress Blog

An interesting link found among my daily reading