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Cliopatria

  • Feb 13, 2005

    Spelling Bee champions

    by Cliopatria

    Even without word processing, I would be asking myself this question once a year:

    How does spelling bee success correlate to adult professional success, and in what fields?

    I'm thinking not just of a single champion per year, but of the top hundreds of kids who learn to spell words that I could not spell and whose meanings I cannot guess.

    A cursory search provides no answers. Maybe some enterprising journalist can take this on.

    (I'm more inter
  • Feb 13, 2005

    Foreign Policy Polarity

    by Cliopatria

    "There cannot be an absence of moral content in American foreign policy. Europeans giggle at this, but we are not European, we are American, and we have different principles." Condoleeza Rice, Ph D., U.S. Secretary of State (02/05/2005)
    An acquaintance sent me this quote, and the ensuing discussion prompted me to think through some things. First, of course, is the use of"giggle" which is notably colloquial language, and probably d
  • Feb 13, 2005

    Oh... the horror, the horror

    by Cliopatria

    I just finished grading a set of map quizes for my Freshman World History survey. They were, dare I say, a bit on the frightening side. The students were given a line-drawing world map (with political boundaries provided) and asked to place the following 20 items on the map. Note that there were multiple possible right answers for several of the items.

    1)India 2)Somalia 3)Peru 4)Brazil 5)North Korea 6)Russia 7)Nigeria 8)Iraq 9)Libya 10)Great Britain 11)China 12)A Rain Forest 1
  • Feb 12, 2005

    A Festival of Trolls and Churchill Links ...

    by Cliopatria

    At Horizon, one of its group members, Ben Brumfield of Austin, Texas, comments:"I owe this whole Churchill flap for my discovery of the History News Network's wonderful blog Cliopatria. I may never post again." Cliopatria can be seduced by compliments, Mr. Brumfield, and she'll be adding Horizon to her History Blogroll, but she doesn't encourage infidelity or withholding favors from one's own. Gotta watch out for those
  • Feb 12, 2005

    Rabinowitz Is Out

    by Cliopatria

    One clearly positive development from the ward Churchill controversy: Nancy Rabinowitz, director of Hamilton's Kirkland Project, has resigned, under pressure. Rabinowitz compiled quite a record in the last six months--first inviting former Weather Underground terrorist Susan Rosenberg to a visiting position in writing, then inviting Churchill. Hamilton president Joan Stewart deserves praise for encouraging Rabinowitz to mov
  • Feb 11, 2005

    Has a Woman Ever Won Delegates to a National Political Convention?

    by Cliopatria

    Paul Overberg, in USA Today (2-10-05):

    Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's early lead in a poll testing Democrats' 2008 presidential preferences represents a breakthrough for women in politics. Though other women have tried, none has ever gained enough support to have a serious chance of winning the White House.

    Beginning in 1872, when suffragette Victoria Woodhull ran as the candidate of the Equal Rights Party, at least 22 women have sought the presidency of the Unite
  • Feb 11, 2005

    Habits of Mind

    by Cliopatria

    I had a lovely lunch yesterday: a diverse bunch of historians sitting around the table and discussing -- politely but vigorously -- the relative merits of three good history books. It was a professional, intellectual and personal pleasure. I think people outside of academia overestimate how often this happens to us. This was a biannual meeting of a prize committee, the ΦΑΘ [Phi Alpha Theta] Baldridge prize for best history book

  • Feb 11, 2005

    North Korea

    by Cliopatria

    The latest news about North Korea--that it possesses nuke weapons and doesn't want to engage in multi-lateral talks about them--is further evidence of the most serious drawback of the Iraq war.

    The war taught one lesson to dictators: if you want to save your regime, stockpile nuclear weapons. Those with such weapons won't be attacked. Those without, may be.

    Such a lesson!

    No matter what happens in Iraq, if this lesson stands the war will have been a disa
  • Feb 11, 2005

    Teaching Africa I: The Problem of a Core Curriculum

    by Cliopatria

    Ross Douthat’s article in the current Atlantic Monthly, drawn from his forthcoming critique of Harvard and other elite universities, aligns pretty closely with some of Gerald Graff’s criticisms of undergraduate curricula that I’ve praised elsewhere, though Douthat tries to see the problem from the student perspective.

    The picture offered is of a four-year course of study that has no center or core, where stude
  • Feb 11, 2005

    Claudia Rossett, Oil for Food, and the United Nations

    by Cliopatria

    According to Claudia Rossett’s piece (registration, and possibly subscription, required) in the February 21st New Republic, the United Nations’ Oil for food scandal “was the largest scam in the history of humanitarian relief.” She has been the foremost journalist in assessing this scandal, bringing it to the world long before most news outlets believed Oil for Food to be a story. For a comprehensive tally of her rep
  • Feb 11, 2005

    The Real Sign of Spring

    by Cliopatria

    Every year there is one true sign of spring in New England. Even with five feet of snow on the ground and temperatures often dropping below zero, when the equipment vans are loadad and set to leave Van Ness and Yawkey Way to take the Red Sox' equipment down to Florida, a young man's thoughts turn to spring (training). At least this young man's thoughts do. This was the shortest offseason ever. But it is time to ask a question that I thought I would never utter -- Can the Red Sox repeat as Worl
  • Feb 11, 2005

    More Noted ...

    by Cliopatria

    By a vote of 261-161 yesterday, the House of Representatives approved an administration-backed bill to require the states to issue an electronic ID card to all adult residents. Big brother state is breathing down our necks and we are doing it to ourselves.

    I note that Daniel Pipes has been added to HNN's ro

  • Feb 10, 2005

    Social Insecurity

    by Cliopatria

    Just one quick observation.

    Without the Social Security surpluses of the 1990s, President Bush would never have been able to push through his tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001.

    In fact, without the Social Security surpluses there would have been no general surpluses in the 1990s.

    It was because Social Security was bringing in billions of surplus dollars that the budget was finally in the black.

    So President Clinton shouldn't have talked about t
  • Feb 10, 2005

    The Perils of Academic Unionism

    by Cliopatria

    CUNY's academic union (the Professional Staff Congress) is an odd entity, in that it consists of full-time senior college professors, full-time community college professors, part-time faculty, and staff--groups whose interests do not necessarily coincide. The current leadership came to power in a close 2000 election on the strength of heavy votes from adjuncts, staff, and some of CUNY's community college campuses. As a result, some of its contract demands (such
  • Feb 10, 2005

    Ward Churchill and Alexander Hamilton

    by Cliopatria

    While the Ward Churchill controversy was breaking I happened to be reading Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton (which is very good, by the way).

    He recounts that toward the end of June 1787 Hamilton, who had been uncharacteristically quiet during the preceeding 3 weeks of the convention, suddenly stood up and gave a six hour speech. He did not even break for lunch.

    This was his famous speech at which he was supposedly squinting toward monarchy. He said he wanted a
  • Feb 10, 2005

    The AAC&U's Stealth Brigade

    by Cliopatria

    During the last four years, liberal critics of President Bush have divided in their attacks. Some have focused on what they see as the President’s hypocrisy, others on the evils of his policies.

    I’m reminded of this dilemma when I write about the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), as I did last week for Inside Higher Education. Through initiatives heavy with educational jargon and code wor

  • Feb 10, 2005

    Consumer Nation

    by Cliopatria

    In the splendid PBS documentary "Building the Alaska Highway," which aired last night, there's a brief clip of FDR telling Americans in 1942, the low point of the war, that the news is "bad."

    The word stuck in my mind. When's the last time you heard a president say something like that? Presidents no longer talk that way. Instead, like Ronald Reagan, they always exude optimism.

    That FDR, who has a reputation as the Optimist-in-Chief, could sound such a bleak note in

  • Feb 10, 2005

    Some Noted Things ...

    by Cliopatria

    Wherein I Join Other Conscience Republicans and Conservatives: Andrew Sullivan and Sebastian Holsclaw rightly condemn Alberto Gonzalez, John Yoo and the Bush administration for suspending law and treaty obligations to make torture a central feature of America's war on terror. See: Jane Meyer's"