Departments

;

Cliopatria

  • Dec 25, 2005

    Max Kampelman falsely takes the credit for the Gorbachev/Sakharov meeting

    by Cliopatria

    Stephen F. Cohen writes: American officials have a longstanding habit of attributing positive developments in Russia to the United States, which contributes to the ill-informed impression that Russians cannot reform their country without our guidance. A small but telling example appeared in The Weekly Standard (September 26) in a letter from Max Kampelman, US ambassador for nuclear arms negotiations in the Reagan Administration. Kampelman claims to have arranged the first meeting between the gre
  • Dec 25, 2005

    UMass-Boston

    by Cliopatria

    A frightening story from today's Globe about a UMass-Boston professor who was followed home by a student and then repeatedly stabbed by him after a dispute over his grade.
  • Dec 25, 2005

    More Notables

    by Cliopatria

    I'm an evangelical Christian, you understand, but I admire a well placed blow at the tawdry commercial and cultural triumphalism of my fellow religionists at Christmas season. Such is Christopher Hitchens,"Bah, Humbug, The Horrors of December in a One Party State," Slate, 20 December. I've just returned from an 11:00 p.m. service with my family and will be in church again tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. The bloody tree hasn't fallen over y
  • Dec 24, 2005

    New World

    by Cliopatria

    Terrence Malick may not care much for people, but he never met a tree he didn't like. "The New World" is a story told in a pantomime of camera angles, in extended long shots of geese flying in formations of tiny dots, in lingering meditations on the way the sun has a tendency to twinkle through leafy tree branches. Occasionally, in this inspired-by-history tale set in early 17th century Virginia, a human being drifts by, often with uncombed hair and covered in dirt and boils. (Jamestow
  • Dec 24, 2005

    A Holiday Debate

    by Cliopatria

    Over on H-World, a vigorous debate is raging regarding whether or not Christianity should be considered a"Western" Religion.

    Clearly, grades have been submitted and the participants have already completed their shopping.
  • Dec 23, 2005

    Murray Polner: FBI Files

    by Cliopatria

    To the Editor,

    Re "FBI Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show" (Dec. 20, 2005), I propose that those who ordered the surveillance of environmental, animal rights groups and the Catholic Worker, be immediately suspended and ordered to spend a year's community service feeding the poor and clothing the homeless as Catholic Worker houses do around the nation.

    Sincerely,

    Murray Polner
  • Dec 23, 2005

    Has Thomas Friedman Fallen for the Columbus Myth?

    by Cliopatria

    By Rick Shenkman

    Mr. Shenkman is the editor of HNN and the author of several books about the myths of history, including, Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History.

    Thomas Friedman, the NYT columnist, is selling his newest book with a clever title: The World Is Flat. A summary of his argument was featured in the NYT Magazine on April 2, 2005.

    In the article he reiterates one

  • Dec 22, 2005

    The Patriot Act Wasn't Given Real Scrutiny

    by Cliopatria

    [The writer is a professor at New York Law School.]

    Rudolph W. Giuliani says that the USA Patriot Act was passed "after six weeks of intense scrutiny and debate." This is historical revisionism.

    This measure was rushed through Congress so quickly that most members had no idea of the details embedded in it. Great changes in security procedures were put through without considered debate, in frantic reaction to the worst terrorist attack in American history.
  • Dec 22, 2005

    Hearts and Mind Department

    by Cliopatria

    Ahistoricality kindly drew my attention to a recent poll on attitudes towards US, Usama b. Laden and Terrorism in Pakistan in the wake of the October Earthquake undertaken by Terror Free Tomorrow. The poll was conducted over November 14-28, 2005 and has a error margin of 2.6%. It has a significant data pool [1450 adults].
  • Dec 22, 2005

    the good kind of quarrel

    by Cliopatria

    Or mostly, anyway. You can now read a .pdf essay in which Thomas Frank responds to Larry Bartels's critique of What's the Matter with Kansas. (For links to Bartels and summaries of Bartels and various elements of the WMK debate, see the introductory sentence here.)

    Frank argues Bartels's definition of class at some length. He concludes by saying that if Bartels's paper
  • Dec 22, 2005

    Workload Breakdown

    by Cliopatria

    Today's IHE has an interesting story on the workload breakdown between teaching, research, and service--broken down further by type of institution and discipline.

    The report seems to have assembled its data based on faculty members' self-reporting, leading to some odd figures. (I find it hard to believe that natural science professors at doctoral institutions spend almost twice as much time on teaching as they do on research.) I w

  • Dec 22, 2005

    A Christmas letter

    by Cliopatria

    Recently, I received on a private listserve a message from a contributor, citing what purported to be a column from a newspaper in Tampa, in which the author complains about "immigrants" violating the rights of Americans by insisting that people respect their cultures by not saying "Merry Christmas" to them. I have discovered that there are many reprints of it at various places on the web. Since there is no actual name or date attached, I do wonder whether the whole thing is
  • Dec 22, 2005

    Things Noted Here and There

    by Cliopatria

    History bloggers who want to meetup at the AHA convention will gather in front of the Marriott hotel registration desk at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday 7 January. In order to make reservations for breakfast, we need for you to let Another Damned Medievalist know that you plan to join us. We'll be found easily enough. What other group in Philadelphia will be sporting powdered wigs and chanting"Sharon Howard is a goddess" at 7:
  • Dec 21, 2005

    Politics and Policy for Pataki

    by Cliopatria

    Here in New York, as we work our way through the second day of the Transit Workers' Union's illegal strike, TWU head Roger Toussaint has accomplished the seemingly impossible--producing a unified reaction, on a domestic issue, from the editorialboards of the city's