Cliopatria

• May 5, 2005
  

  Carnivalesque: Last Call for Contributions

  by Cliopatria

  Carnivalesque, the early modern blog carnival, will be held tomorrow, Friday 6 May.
  
  If you have blogged something interesting about the 'early modern' period (c.1500-1800) or have read something good in someone else's blog, since about the beginning of March, please do send your suggestions to Nathanael Robinson (Rhine River) today at: rhineriver AT earthlink DOT net
  
  Entries
  

• May 4, 2005
  

  Class Warfare?

  by Cliopatria

  Everywhere you turn you hear it: class warfare. One expects the peasants to storm the barricades at the White House. Republicans charge that Democrats are engaging in class warfare in denoucning tax breaks for the wealthy. Democrats charge that it's the Republicans who are engaging in class warfare by designing policies that expressly benefit the wealthy.
  
  The NYT reports that the fear of class warfare extends abroad as well. According to the morning paper Mexico's new rising star
  

• May 4, 2005
  

  FBI Investigation ...

  by Cliopatria

  The Associated Press is reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will exhume the body of Emmett Till in its re-opening of the inquiry into his murder in 1955. As David and Linda Royster Beito have pointed out, there are many obstacles to the inquiry. Many of the principles in the case have died in the intervening 50 years. For some years, the ori
  

• May 4, 2005
  

  Some Noted Occupations ...

  by Cliopatria

  Brandon Watson at Siris has an extended note about providential history, which is largely in agreement with Jon Dresner's"Worthwhile Discussions."

  So, you are denied tenure. If you're a male, you strip naked, climb the vines of ivy on the walls of your building, and get the dec

  

• May 4, 2005
  

  Education and Initiation

  by Cliopatria

  Two posts on education caught my eye last Monday. On HNN’s home page, there is a wonderful article by Tom Palaima on education and democracy. The discussion that has broken out there is also excellent. His key point is that the ancient Greek word translated as education means:

  all that goes into making sure that a newborn baby will mature into an adult with the abilities of mind, moral sensibilities, self-discipline, habits, sense of cu

  

• May 3, 2005
  

  Back -- and Callous to a Runaway Bride

  by Cliopatria

  I'm back in Odessa. When I left eleven days ago it was 90. Today it is 50. And rainy. Rain will be with us all week. It's nice to be back home, but it is supposed to be sunny here.

  I'll send a dollar to anyone who can give me a good answer as to why the story of the woman who fled her fiancee before their wedding and faked her own kidnapping should be in my newspaper or on my television set. (If you live in the greater Duluth, Georgia -- ie Atlanta -- area, you are ineligible, though even

  

• May 3, 2005
  

  Fisk You! ...

  by Cliopatria

  Harvard's Orlando Patterson and Jason Kaufman,"Bowling for Democracy," NY Times, 1 May, argue that cricket became a national pastime in class-conscious societies, but it died away where class lines were permeable. In conclusion, they suggest that democracy, like cricket, could be imposed from the"top down." They need to read

• May 3, 2005
  

  The Academy and the Solomon Amendment

  by Cliopatria

  Bad cases make bad law. I’m giving the last lecture tomorrow in my spring-term constitutional history class, and this theme has reappeared throughout the course. Muller, Schechter, and Bakke exemplify cases whose facts made the rendering of an elegant Supreme Court judgment difficult if not impossible. Today brings news of the latest such bad case, the challenge by a gro
  

• May 3, 2005
  

  SIU's Case/Our Future: A Counterfactual ...

  by Cliopatria

  Hiram Hover poses an interesting counterfactual. What if David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights were already enacted as law in Illinois? It gives legal standing to every student grievance about a pedagogical decision. Horowitz's vision for the future is that each of us becomes Jonathan Bean.
  
  

• May 3, 2005
  

  Some Noted Things ...

  by Cliopatria

  After reading Stuart Taylor's reflections on recent speeches by Janice Rogers Brown, one of the administration's nominees to the appellate court bench, Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy says that the speeches are enough to give conservatives"serious heartburn." See also: Irfan Khawaja's"Only God Can S
  

• May 3, 2005
  

  Worthwhile Discussions

  by Cliopatria

  I don't think any of us can be objective about our own claimed objectivity. -- Daniel Okrent, NYTimes, 4/24/05

  I.

  There are three categories of common arguments in blogspace:

  • Principles
  • Facts
  • Tone

  I don't mean to categorize posts, or bloggers, but disputes. Of these, I think the first two categories are pretty self-evident, but the third needs some e
  

• May 2, 2005
  

  Update on Southern Illinois University ...

  by Cliopatria

  The story about criticism of Professor Jonathan Bean by his department colleagues for his use of James Lubinskas's article,"Remembering the Zebra Killings," from Horowitz's Front Page Rag is now drawing national attention. There is Scott Jaschik's"'Handout Hysteria' or Insensitivity" at Inside Higher Ed and Cathy Young's"

• May 2, 2005
  

  David's Money/David's Facts ...

  by Cliopatria

  Jennifer Jacobson's"What Makes David Run?" Chronicle of Higher Education, 6 May, (subscriber only) features my favorite right-wing demagogue, David Horowitz. There are a couple of amusing notes in it."If he were liberal, [Horowitz] contends, he could be an editor at the [New York] Times or a department chairman at Harvard University. And his life story would have already been told on the big screen. Radica