While the rest of this city concerns itself with more trivial matters, I, for one, am wondering how long it will be until we get nuked. If you haven’t been paying attention to world affairs lately, South Korea has claimed that North Korea torpedoed one of its warships back in March, and now North Korea has cut off all ties with South Korea as the rest of the world, possibly even China, is backing the South Koreans. This isn’t the first time tension has flared…
Texas board adopts new social studies curriculum (AP via Yahoo! News) I didn’t blog about this controversy when it first erupted a couple of months ago because I was trying to sort through some other stuff, but I did mention it to my students at the time, and we talked a bit about it. Like me, the inclusion of Confederate generals and statesmen as “examples of good leaders” seemed to hit my students the hardest, if only because the Confederacy lost. I still wonder if…
Liberal Democrat Relishes Central Role in Race (nytimes.com) I don’t pay as much attention to British politics as I used to about ten years ago. Part of this is because the anglophilia of my teenage years gave way to Japanophilia in the nineties, and even with a British brother-in-law I still don’t have that much interest in things across the pond any longer. Mostly, I admit, I stopped watching when Betty Boothroyd gave up being Speaker, as she alone turned Question Time — the one part…
This coming Tuesday marks the fortieth anniversary of the Kent State shootings, an occasion that should give pause to everyone, not just we Ohioans, to reflect on the nature of our public debate and discourse, and what happens when those in power abuse their privilege. In Ohio, though, this day will be even more significant, as we have primary elections for state offices that day (as well as a couple of state issues to vote on), and for the first time there will be more…
There are times when it is safe to say an event is of historical importance as it is happening. The attacks of 09.11 certainly count as one such instance. President Obama’s election two Novembers ago counts as well. I’m not so convinced that Obama signing the new health care bill into law counts. If it had created a public option, or a single-payer system, or even cut out the intermediaries and let fat-cat CEOs vote directly for our politicians, then sure, they could have brought…