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Cliopatria

  • Jun 23, 2005

    Barack Obama and the New American Liberalism

    by Cliopatria

    The art of political speechwriting has seemed dead for so long that it is our automatic instinct to be skeptical when it seems to have arisen from its crypt. So it is especially welcome to see that Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois who went to Washington to such great acclaim, may have revived it. On June 4, at Knox College’s graduation in Obama’s home state, he gave a wonderful address that managed somehow to evoke three of the finest po
  • Jun 23, 2005

    A Gulag By Any Other Name . . .

    by Cliopatria

    OK, let's test the hypocricy guage: Paul Jacob, a Senior Fellow at a Townhall.com member group, Americans for Limited Government, and regular on talk radio, has written a piece (dated June 19, 2005) about Canadian healthcare in which the words “communism,” “Gulag,” and “totalitarian” feature prominently. “Gulag” even appears in the headline, so obviously this is more than just the sin of Jacobs, given that editors obvio
  • Jun 23, 2005

    Style Over Substance

    by Cliopatria

    Am I missing something, or is there almost no substance to this piece in today's New York Times? What is the point? Al Gore is a hell of a guy? That may well be. Many Muslims feel ostracized? I think we need more than that to give the precious space for an op-ed piece in the Times. Or is the lesson that if someone at the Kennedy School runs into the former VP and Democratic nominee at the health cl
  • Jun 22, 2005

    Because Other People Talk Funny . . .

    by Cliopatria

    For some reason, I find this endlessly amusing. It changes any webpage into any of several dialects -- Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Redneck, Jive, Swedish Chef, Moron, Pig Latin, and Hacker. Someone on the web did this to Rebunk today, and I found out about it and checked it out. Rebunk should be set as the default so that you can see your favorite blog commentary translated! Endlessly entertaini
  • Jun 22, 2005

    "Duke" Cunningham and a New Low

    by Cliopatria

    We may have reached a new low. While the right excoriates Dick Durbin for, er, apparently for opposing torture, this one managed to slip under their delicately tuned critical compass: Here is California Republican Randy"Duke" Cunningham's justification for passing the nonsense known as the Flag Burning Amendment:"Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center. Ask them and they will tell you: pass this amendment." Out of craven political opportunism, this man is claiming to
  • Jun 22, 2005

    More to teachin' than lecturing...

    by Cliopatria

    Tenured faculty at PCC are evaluated only once every three years.   When I was first teaching, I was always fearful about evaluations, knowing that to at least some degree, tenure hinged on favorable feedback.  Now, I look forward to in-class evaluations because I get the chance to learn what my students think about the class, and how I might improve my teaching.  It's a lot easier to take constructive criticism when one's teaching position is secure, I'll say that.

  • Jun 22, 2005

    The Full "Spin Top 100 Since 1985" List

    by Cliopatria

    100. The Strokes - Is This It
    99. Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
    98. Cornershop - When I Was Born For The 7th Time
    97. Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
    96. The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy, and The Lash
    95. Elastica - Elastica
    94. Slint - Spiderland
    93. Pearl Jam - Ten
    92. Big Black - Atomizer
    91. XTC - Skylarking
    90. Sonic Youth - Sister
    89. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
    88. Stereolab - Emperor Tomato Ketc
  • Jun 22, 2005

    ASPAC Notes: Blogging the Revolution

    by Cliopatria

    ASPAC 2005 is done and it was a very successful conference. I'll be writing up some of the interesting research and discussions in the near future, distributing it among the relevantblogs, but I wanted to start by sharing some thoughts I presented on how historians use the Internet. A fair bit of my talk covered ground which my colleagues,

  • Jun 22, 2005

    More Noted Things ...

    by Cliopatria

    At Chapati Mystery, Sepoy remembers summers in Lahore.

    Hiram Hover wonders whether our book ordering practices for classes are not undermining our own interest in promoting the sales of excellent middle market books -- the kind of books that nurtured our interest in becoming historians in the first place.

    William G

  • Jun 21, 2005

    Two Queries To Suck On ...

    by Cliopatria

    Manan Ahmed passes along this request for help from Richard Hughes at Illinois State University:"Why Did Disco Suck?" You can go there to offer your thoughts, though Manan comments that"some questions are too easy to answer, no?"

    But I've got a query of my own: When did"suck" become a legitimate verb of historical analysis and why does it have negative connotation? I admit to being a prude of the first order and am enough beyond the generationa

  • Jun 21, 2005

    Manslaughter for Killen

    by Cliopatria

    Edgar Ray Killen has been found guilty of manslaughter in Mississippi. The jury rejected murder charges, but each of the three counts carries with it a twenty year sentence.

  • Jun 21, 2005

    Lows and Highs ...

    by Cliopatria

    When Chris Bray and I were having dinner at the Atlanta airport on Sunday, I asked him if he'd met Joyce Appleby. A distinguished historian of the early American republic, Professor Appleby is a former president of both the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians. But, since her retirement, I wasn't sure how often a graduate student at UCLA would have an
  • Jun 20, 2005

    Senate and Anti-Lynching

    by Cliopatria

    My colleague Ralph Luker recently posted on the Senate's anti-lynching resolution, and the peculiar decision of a handful of Senate Republicans to decline to co-sponsor the resolution (which passed by a voice vote). Today's Roll Call (subscription only) follows up on the story, asking each of the senators' offices for an explanation of their decisions. The results are
  • Jun 20, 2005

    Race and Reminders

    by Cliopatria

    A confluence of events has placed the Civil Rights Movement (and, perhaps of equal importance, those who opposed it) squarely in the news cycle. Each of them reminds us how the past and present are inextricably intertwined.

    Probably the most prominent story involves the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, who is being tried for his alleged part in the murders of James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman during Freedom Summer in 1964. For the most part the trial is symbolic as much as anyt

  • Jun 20, 2005

    Noted Here and There ...

    by Cliopatria

    At Chapati Mystery, Sepoy points out some noted things in south Asian history and appropriate to Father's Day. See, especially, Pankaj Mishra,"The People's War," London Review of Books, 23 June. Key graph:
    Histories of South Asia rarely describe Nepal, except as a recipient of religions and i
  • Jun 19, 2005

    Get Overcharged, I Would!

    by Cliopatria

    It is a Sunday evening here in Oxford, and I half decided, after walking around a bit on a hot and muggy evening, to go to see a movie. I have not yet seen Star Wars Episode III: Back For More Cash, and I figured tonight would be a good time to do so.

    So I go up to the counter to see if I could get an early ticket (and maybe a convenient, and possibly air conditioned, seat to read the Sunday Times). I could. If I had been willing to pay £13.50. That's right -- basically the e

  • Jun 19, 2005

    That's It, For Now

    by Cliopatria

    I'll be leaving very early in the morning, headed for Fort Benning by way of my favorite pre-dawn nightmare, LAX. Not sure how long it will be, but I do suspect that I won't be able to post here for quite a while. Thanks for the opportunity, which I look forward to once again being able to use.

    For whatever it's worth, I really am capable of forming thoughts on subjects unrelated to neocons and the war in Iraq. I've had a long post stuck in my head for a few weeks on the topi