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Cliopatria

  • Jul 5, 2005

    Dr. Joseph Skelly and the Bronze Star

    by Cliopatria

    I want to send out my hearty congratulations to Joseph Skelly, a history professor on leave from his position at Mt. Saint Vincent College in New York and one of my colleagues as a Foundation for the Defense of Democracies fellow in 2003-2004. He has been awarded the Bronze Star for his"exceptionally meritorious service" in Iraq where he has been a U.S. Army reservist working to rebuild Iraqi universities.

  • Jul 5, 2005

    Carnivalesque #6

    by Cliopatria

    Carnivalesque Button
    "I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor hate them, but to understand them." -- Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Politicus (1677)
    This is a roundup of the best blogging on Early Modern History (c. 1450-1850) since
  • Jul 4, 2005

    This Week At Cliopatria ...

    by Cliopatria

    Tomorrow, 5 July, Jon Dresner will host Carnivalesque Button, the Early Modern festival, here at Cliopatria. If you have posts to nominate that relate to the period from roughly 1450 to 1850 C. E. and have appeared within the last two months, please send them to Jon, dresner*at*hawaii*dot*edu, immediately.

    On Thursday, 7 July,

  • Jul 4, 2005

    John Quincy Adams Guest Blogs at Cliopatria ...

    by Cliopatria

    Next to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, I think that my favorite American president is John Quincy Adams. Perhaps that's the only explanation of the fact that when I was in graduate school at Chapel Hill, I bought his leatherbound Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, Delivered to the Classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters [sic] in Harvard University. 2 volumes (Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1810). Lord knows, I've never been able to make my way through all the turgid prose
  • Jul 4, 2005

    Happy Birthday America!

    by Cliopatria

    I hope everyone has a great 4th of July and that you gorge yourselves on animal bits and drinks to celebrate our decision to unshackle ourselves from the bonds of tyranny and create a nation where the bars can stay open later than 11:00. Today's Boston Globe editorial is simply the full text of the Declaration of Independence.
  • Jul 3, 2005

    Karl Rove's Dream

    by Cliopatria

    When are three fights better than one? When it's a Supreme Court nomination up for grabs. Let me back up.

    If I understand Karl Rove, he is hoping the phone will ring and at the other end will be the Supreme Court clerk announcing a second resignation from the bench.

    Having one resignation is good. But it gives him little freedom to maneuver between the competing interest groups that have a stake in a new justice. A second resignation would give him just the freedom
  • Jul 3, 2005

    Scattershooting Fireworks . . . .

    by Cliopatria

    I missed the fireworks display at the local dirt track last night, It’s quite visible from a field just two houses north of mine, and I was home. For whatever reason I just listened to the booming from my house.

    I loved firecrackers as a kid. And sparklers, and bottle rockets, and roman candles. Even those snake things that you lit and grew out of the ground like a small Hollywood special effect.

    One New Years Eve, my teenage friends and I had a bottle rocket war,
  • Jul 3, 2005

    Gaylord Nelson

    by Cliopatria

    Former Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson died this morning, at 5.10am, at the age of 89. Nelson is best remembered, as his biographer suggests, for being the Senate's first environmentalist, a key player in the start of Earth Day. For those interested in politics or foreign policy, however, Nelson also left important legacies.

    Through the 1930s, Wisconsin was a one-party state, dominated by the Republicans

  • Jul 2, 2005

    Rove as Plame Source?

    by Cliopatria

    If it is true, as MSNBC (and Editor & Publisher and others) is reporting, that Karl Rove is the source for the Valerie Plame leak, brace yourselves, because all hell is going to break loose. I'll reserve comment until this is confirmed, but things might have just gotten interesting.
  • Jul 2, 2005

    Snapshots and Chatter

    by Cliopatria

    My first surprise upon reporting to Fort Benning for active duty was the identity of the folks who greeted me outside the barracks. Two buildings on Kelley Hill now house soldiers called back from the Individual Ready Reserve, while the buildings directly adjacent to the IRR barracks house soldiers in a medical retention unit -- soldiers, in other words, who were injured in combat while in Iraq. It's interesting that the Army has chosen to
  • Jul 2, 2005

    Shelby Foote

    by Cliopatria

    I was a little surprised to realize that as yet no-one at Cliopatria has - I think - mentioned the death last Monday of American Civil War historian Shelby Foote. As a non-Americanist the only thing I really know or remember about Foote is what Slate's Field Maloney describes as his 'courtly drawl' on the Ken Burns documentary The Civil War. I wonder if those in the know have more to say on whether Foote was, on balance,
  • Jul 1, 2005

    O’Connor Resigns

    by Cliopatria

    Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is resigning. Obviously this matters. She has shaped the legacy of the Rehnquist Court just as much, and arguably more, than the Chief Justice has. Her swings have made Court policy.

    Slate has recycled a list of possible replacements for Rehnquist that they first posted a week or so ago. The list includes summarie

  • Jul 1, 2005

    Justice O'Connor Retires

    by Cliopatria

    It's not like any of you turn to Rebunk for breaking news, but my guess is that judicial nominations will be a major source of contemplation, discussion and argument here and on just about every other blog in which politics is a significant theme. One has to assume that Rehnquist is not far behind. Here is the story on CNN.
  • Jul 1, 2005

    Latest from IU

    by Cliopatria

    Marian College professor Pierre Atlas has an impressive analysis of the continuing controversy over IU-Indianapolis law school's personnel standards. Untenured associate professor William Bradford, you might recall, had an"excellent" rating in scholarship, teaching, and service; a publication record that exceeded that of some of his long-time senior colleagues; and yet received 5 negative votes (of a
  • Jul 1, 2005

    The "Lack of Ideas" Myth

    by Cliopatria

    Jonathan Chait has a brilliant essay in the July 11th issue of The New Republic about the supposed lack of ideas among liberals. (Registration, and possibly subscription, may be required.) His conclusion seems to me pretty spot-on: It is not about ideas, but rather which party is in power. Democrats and liberals have plenty of ideas. But since they are not the party in power, almost none of those ideas have a serious cha
  • Jul 1, 2005

    The Sudan: Ally or Enemy?

    by Cliopatria

    The New Republic’s blog &c has a rather pointed entry on the administration’s Sudan policy. The money quotation:

    What's worse than making a declaration of genocide and then doing effectively nothing to stop it? Making a declaration of genocide, doing effectively nothing to stop it, and then moving toward normalized relations with the perpetrators.
    It is usually
  • Jul 1, 2005

    The Spoils of Victory

    by Cliopatria

    There are lots of ways to celebrate a World Series title, especially when it is one as long-awaited as that which the Red Sox won in 2004. An article from today’s Boston Globe, “Birth of a New Nation,” indicates one of the better ones.