I’m shamelessly copying what Anne Laurie did in a post this morning. But for some reason, this Joan Baez cover of a Woody Guthrie song has been running through my head the past few days, anyway —

The song is about a California plane crash that killed 28 Mexican farmworkers in 1948. The farmworkers were then buried in a mass grave without being identified. More than six decades later, a writer named Tim Z. Hernandez, partly inspired by the song, did a lot of detective work and identified the people in the grave. This week a large gravestone listing the names was placed on the grave, and the song was sung as part of the ceremony.

I’m sure this song was on a Joan Baez album I bought sometime in the 1970s, and I always liked it, but for some reason I never connected it to a real event. Anyway — Woody Guthrie was a great man. Just sayin’.

Here’s another version, with Arlo G. and Emmylou Harris.

It’s been 50 years since the historic voters’ rights march in Washington.

Rep. John Lewis spoke 50 years ago, and he spoke again today.

It’s the 150th anniversary of the resolution of the Vicksburg campaign. I only wish we could round up General Grant and the boys and send them to liberate some other places, like maybe Kansas.

On this date in 1863, in Gettysburg — Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood attacks th Devil’s Den. The 15th and 47th Alabama regiments stormed up Big Round Top, only to be told they had to take Little Round Top. And there they were routed by the 20th Maine, under the command of Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Horrific fighting in the Peach Orchard and the Wheat Field cost many lives, but the day ended with the Confederates having gained little for their trouble.

Be sure to read “The Battle to Gain 200 Seconds” about the sacrifice of 1st Minnesota and “A Regiment Is Sacrificed at Gettysburg” about the 134th New York.

Arrived at Pearly Gates asking, “How’d I do?“

Borked for the ages.

You’ve got to admire a guy who observed the centennial of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn with a “victory dance, sung in Sioux Lakota, titled ‘Custer Died for Your Sins.'”

“McGovern was a die-hard idealist. His electoral loss embittered him, but not for long. He never abandoned his optimism or his faith in humanity. Neither did he give up his devotion to liberalism or what colleagues called his extraordinary sense of decency.” (New York Times obituary)

We should have cloned him when we had the chance.