Departments

;

Cliopatria

  • Aug 27, 2005

    Larson on "Intelligent Design"

    by Cliopatria

    Edward J. Larson,"A Natural Selection: Intelligent Design," LA Times, 26 August. The former fellow at the Discovery Institute and distinguished historian of the evolution controversy argues that"intelligent design" is not science. Key graphs:
    Intelligent design, despite its proponents' claims to the contrary, isn't modern science. It's part of that
  • Aug 26, 2005

    Record Gas Prices?

    by Cliopatria

    "It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm." [So said] Florence Nightingale, "Notes on Hospitals," 1863. And regarding news media, begin here: They should not subtract from the public's understanding. Yet subtract they nowadays do with endless headlines and talk about "record" oil and gasoline prices. For example, a recent headline in the Financial Times proclaimed: "New York inv
  • Aug 25, 2005

    Dear Mr. Brooks

    by Cliopatria

    In your 8/25 column, Divided They Stand, you conclude [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/opinion/25brooks.html]:

    But when you get Galbraith and Gerecht in the same mood, you know something important has happened. The U.S. has orchestrated a document that is organically Iraqi.

    It's their country, after all.

    However in your entire piece there is not a single quote from any act

  • Aug 25, 2005

    Opponents only, no collaborators

    by Cliopatria



    Czech PM Paroubek apologized to Germans who were expelled in 1945 by Benes. Well, at least those Germans who were"anti-Fascists."
    "We are correcting an injustice committed against our German co-citizens,'' Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek said. The apology is for"the opponents of Naz
  • Aug 25, 2005

    Incomplete analogies

    by Cliopatria

    The only thing particularly surprising about Jane Stevenson's editorial in the Guardian is that it took this long for someone to write it. As is so often the case with historical analogies, the parallels between Roman Catholics in sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century England and Muslims in the twenty-first century UK look more than a bit shaky when examined und
  • Aug 24, 2005

    Defend the Library

    by Cliopatria

    A few months ago, University of Chicago's central library Regenstein had a questionnaire circulated to assess the way students used the space and plan ahead on how best to re-orient the library in the coming 5-10 years. One theme in the questionnaire was whether we"met" people in the Reg or whether we"wanted a social space". Questions about availability of foods and snacks and chill-out music.

    As someone who uses the stacks to,
  • Aug 24, 2005

    Graff on Online Communities

    by Cliopatria

    Academic Commons is a new bloggy webpage for discussing the use of online technology in liberal arts education. Currently in the Commons is this interview with Gerald Graff, which includes an interesting observation that I have excerpted below the fold.

    In the quote below, Graff argues that involving students in online discussions has pedagogical advantages that

  • Aug 24, 2005

    Additionally Noted

    by Cliopatria

    Although European ships transported millions of slaves from Africa across the Atlantic between the 16th and 19th centuries, the recovery of a wrecked slave vessel has been rare. Sharon LaFraniere's"Tracing a Mutiny by Slaves in 1766," New York Times, 24 August, tells the fascinating story of a rebellion by slaves on a Dutch slave ship off south Africa and the effort to recover surviving evidenc
  • Aug 23, 2005

    social security notes from all over

    by Cliopatria

    For the moment we are no longer talking about partially privatizing, reforming, or otherwise changing Social Security. But while it's in our minds, we might note expert opinions from elsewhere. An official report of the Financial Services Authority in the UK notes that people who opted out of the government pension in favor of a private alternative are now worse off than those who
  • Aug 23, 2005

    Churchill Inquiry

    by Cliopatria

    A faculty subcommittee at the University of Colorado has dismissed two charges (copyright infringement and false claims of ethnicity) against Ward Churchill and sent seven other counts against him forward for further investigation. For further information and reactions, see:

    Jennifer Brown,"Tentative ‘Victory' for Prof," Denver Post, 23 August;
    Kevin Flynn,"

  • Aug 23, 2005

    Context

    by Cliopatria

    Homosexuality is not banned in China today, but gays and lesbians maintain a low profile except in some cities. Free political speech is not encouraged in China, but the needs and desires of the people in the growing capitalist sector demand some exchanges of ideas. That is the context in which the first gay studies course in China is being offered at Fudan University in Shanghai. (Thanks to today’s Chronicle for