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Cliopatria

  • May 12, 2005

    Free Trade Rhetoric and Minimum Wages

    by Cliopatria

    As Congress debates CAFTA, I come back to a question I always ask as the various sides grandstand over the (generally meaningless) mantras of"free trade" and"protecting workers": Why not develop a minimum wage for each participating country based on standards of living in those countries? The cost of living in Nicaragua, say, will still be substantially less than in Atlanta, even if suddenly the poverty wages that workers often receive from American companies are out the window. If such an index
  • May 11, 2005

    Presidential Recordings News

    by Cliopatria

    I will be light blogging for the next week because of events associated with the release of the first three LBJ tapes volumes: Friday, I’ll be part of a panel at the LBJ Library on the tapes; next Thursday, will be at the 92nd Street Y. Meanwhile, in last Sunday’s Times, Eric Foner had a
  • May 11, 2005

    The History Carnival needs you

    by Cliopatria

    The next History Carnival will be held at St Nate's Blog on Sunday 15 May!

    Email your nominations - your own blog writing or that of other bloggers to: saint_nate AT hotmail DOT com (replace AT with @, DOT with . and close up the spaces), by the end of Saturday.

    To remind you all of what we're looking for:

    History is an enormous subject,
  • May 11, 2005

    David Horowitz: The Paul Revere of Fear?

    by Cliopatria

    David Horowitz's evolution from extreme left to extreme right is worth pondering as much for what it tells us about him as about the rest of the country.

    He is a perfect symbol of the extremes to which Americans on the margins swing in times of war. While most remain in the middle, some swing left and some swing right.

    In the 60s he swung left, aligning himself with the SDS and others of that ilk. Now in the war on terrorism he has swung right, aligning himself with
  • May 11, 2005

    Because Embargoes Work So Well...

    by Cliopatria

    Thomas Friedman shoots from the hip:
    North Korea's nuclear program could be stopped tomorrow by the country that provides roughly half of North Korea's energy and one-third of its food supplies - and that is China.

    All China has to say to Kim Jong Il is:"You will shut down your nuclear weapons program and put all your reactors under international inspection, or we will turn off your lights, cut off your heat and p

  • May 11, 2005

    David Brooks misses again

    by Cliopatria

    In his most recent column on Social Security reform proposals, David Brooks likens the Democrats to"alienated junior professors. No productive ideas. No sense of leadership. Just half-truths from the peanut gallery." I've already sent my letter of protest to the Times, on behalf of junior faculty everywhere. The rest of the column is talking points, discussion of which really doesn't belon
  • May 11, 2005

    Cliopatria Welcomes Chris Bray ...

    by Cliopatria

    Cliopatria is pleased to welcome Chris Bray to its circle. Bear with me. This is quite a story. Chris is a Californian, born in Anaheim and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. After high school, he began working as a journalist, initially for small community newspapers, but placing his work elsewhere, as well: Buzz, Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Reader, Newsday, and,
  • May 10, 2005

    Did Khrushchev Really Bang His Shoe?

    by Cliopatria

    Matthew Temple, in the Financial Times of London (5-7-05):

    On October 11, 1960, the power of a man's shoe to make a statement left fashion homiletic and entered history. The venue was the United Nations and the man, an unlikely footwear model, was Nikita Khrushchev.

    Most sons don't care about their father's shoes and Sergei Khrushchev was no different until he moved to America and everyone wanted his version of the incident. Being a good historian - he teaches at Br

  • May 10, 2005

    Another Win for FIRE

    by Cliopatria

    FIRE (with an assist from two independent candidates for trustee running on a pro-academic freedom platform) has achieved another important victory--persuading Dartmouth to repudiate its speech code. As FIRE president David French observes, however, it's important to use the Dartmouth triumph to maintain pressure on Ivy institutions that maintain speech codes, most n
  • May 10, 2005

    An Ethical Problem ...

    by Cliopatria

    At the end of last week, I received a manila envelope in the mail. The postage indicated that it was sent from Fargo, North Dakota. There was no return address on the envelope and no cover letter explaining who or why they had sent it. Inside the envelope was a xerox copy of John R. Wunder's"An Assessment of Possible Plagiarism in Profiting from the Plains by Dr. Claire Strom" and Wunder's cover letter of 23 November 2004 to Dr.
  • May 10, 2005

    Roll Call's Top Ten

    by Cliopatria

    This morning's Roll Call offers its list of the nation's top ten Senate races since the magazine's founding 50 years ago. The article is subscription only, but here's the list:

    1961 Texas Senate race: John Tower (R) vs. William Blakley (D)

    1970 Tennessee Senate race: Al Gore Sr. (D) vs. Bill Brock (R)

    1974 Nevada Senate race: Paul Laxalt (R) vs. Harry Reid (D)

    1980 Idaho Senate race: Frank Church (D

  • May 9, 2005

    Iraq and Vietnam

    by Cliopatria

    The HNN homepage has an article by Marilyn Young discussing the wisdom of using comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq in the classroom. In Young's words,"If you happen to be teaching a course on the Vietnam War and you happen to read the newspapers regularly, opportunities to connect the past to the present without undue risk of presentist violations abound. You can, for example, lead a class through a close examination of the analogies in constant
  • May 9, 2005

    A Step Back for the House

    by Cliopatria

    Mr. Johnson is a professor of history at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of Ernest Gruening and the American Dissenting Tradition (1998). He is a member of HNN's blog, Cliopatria.

    The House and Senate Historical Offices both trace their roots to the post-Watergate environment, when Congress bolstered its institutional standing in myriad ways. With political scientist Richard Baker and historian Don Ritchie, th

  • May 9, 2005

    Coddling Charles Taylor

    by Cliopatria

    As a general rule, coddling dictators is unwise. Coddling dictators who are on the ropes is just plain dumb. Coddling dictators who no longer hold power over their own people but who can still do tremendous damage is repugnant. Let these truisms stand for a moment while we consider the situation of Charles Taylor, the ruthless thug who ruled over the Vampire regime of Liberia as state President, before which he had been a murderous warlord who helped to destabilize several countries in West Afri