There are a lot of reasons the folks who attended Glenn Beck’s 8/28 rally attended. Many are fans of Glenn Beck’s radio and television programs. Many are active in the tea party movement. But I think most, and an immense number who were not there, are like the Whos in Dr. Seuss’ book, “Horton Hears [...]
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Ms. McArdle exercising her 2nd amendment rights. (2nd Anniversary re-print. Original posted 2/10/2010) At a rather young age (10?) I recall reading an article about standardized tests. Researchers were doing studies to determine if standardized tests unfairly measured “low income” and/or “minority” children. The example they used was one of those common, simile problems often [...] (2nd Anniversary re-print. Original posted 12/01/2009) I hope I don’t offend anyone; this is a sincere question and I am very interested in learning what y’all (you’se guys for Rich and Stosh, you’ins for Eric) have to say. I haven’t looked at the numbers but there is no question our nation graduates way, way, way too [...] I taught a course called “Congress and the Presidency” this summer and I’m polishing off the finals for that course as I begin the Fall semester tomorrow. Anyway… I asked the class, as part of a larger question: Lasty, on which, if any, President did you either change your opinion from this class or merely [...] This one is on us America — and quite frankly you can thank us too World. I haven’t talked to Rufus but since I know he is independently upper middle class he won’t mind if we forgo our usual fee. We have solved America’s problems in our Friday Open Thread. Who knew [...] Frank J. at www.imao.us has a great post about recent news stories that ceased to be news once it was discovered the perpetrators were not angry, right wing nutjobs. They were angry, left wing nutjobs, but since the mainstream media is convinced there is no such animal there is no sense in assigning a reporter to [...] and then there are journalists. P.J. O’Rourke tells us about a special kind of expert in The Weekly Standard — the 72-Hour Expert from Kabul, Afghanistan. If you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and [...] I cannot believe how unfair life is. I have to go back to work today full time after being off (“off” meaning some summer courses) since the beginning of May. Rest assured Threedonians. I will never ask “Why me?” “Why not me?” now that is the question. Share on Facebook Did Germany outstrip England’s growth — reaching industrial parity in 1900 because it didn’t have copyright laws? This article from Speigel online makes that claim. The entire country seemed to be obsessed with reading. The sudden passion for books struck even booksellers as strange and in 1836 led literary critic Wolfgang Menzel to declare Germans [...] I’m prepping Fall Courses and wrapping up Summer ones. These are a couple of the books I’ll be assigning this Fall. For a grad seminar called Psychology, Law and Public Policy In my Disability Law course: The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (History of Disability) And as a supplemental in my Humanities course (which I love to teach [...] I don’t even know where to begin. O.K., you don’t like Sarah Palin. We get it. But the first point you’re going to use in your defense is the right to choose to kill your children?! Huh? Isn’t that Palin’s point with her Momma Grizzly analogy? A Momma Grizzly will fight to protect her cubs. [...] In my Congress and the Presidency course tomorrow night… I’m slapping them upside the head with this. Take that muddle-headed public school product! Kapow! Follow me in November! (OK I’ll leave that last part out in class) He wasn’t able to tame the government to be sure, but bless him [...] Every year a couple of professors at Beloit College in Wisconsin put out what they call “The Mindset List”. The List sets out some things that each years incoming freshman may not know or have ever experienced. For example… when I teach criminal law courses or my course in crime and media many [...] A little book post for this Tuesday morning. I always liked Nathaniel Hawthorne in my American Lit classes… 1600s America by way of 1800s filtered through the 1980s… the simmering tension, the supernatural aspects and the cold and bare New England… good and different stuff for this West Texas boy. I came [...] Every year in my summer courses around this time — and definitely in my Fall International Law seminar — I have to set the record straight when it comes to Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The “hate America crowd” loves to hit us over the head with Fat [...] I’m reading John Yoo’s Crisis and Command for a class called Congress and the Presidency… I’m on the Andrew Jackson chapter and so far it’s quite good. There’s a lot of good history as well as insight into the workings of the Constitution– explicit and implicit — with (or sometimes not so much) the [...] Mom always said we’d pick up bad words at school… and she was right! h/t: BoingBoing Share on Facebook In my International Law seminars we often discuss the similarities between pirates (or pyrates as Daniel Dafoe would write) and terrorists. I’ve just put the above book on my list since that course is coming up in the Fall again. The history of dealing with pirates could offer a great road map for [...] 3D — like IMAX — can be (and usually is) little more than a party trick unless used sparingly or in some way integral to the story. I can’t think of a better use for 3-D than this short film “City of Ruins” showing at The Warsaw Uprising Museum. It looks powerful. Here’s the [...] Washington D.C. School District Chancellor Michelle Rhee has just fired 241 teachers for incompetence. Huzzah! This will only inure to the benefit of the good teachers not to mention students. I’m sure she’ll catch hell for it, but she sounds like a tough one. Here’s an op-ed she wrote last month for The [...] Tonight in my Diplomatic History of the U.S. course I’ll briefly touch on our first Korean campaign in 1871 (we’re talking post-Civil War; Gilded Age diplomacy leading into World War 1) — or “Corea” as they liked to spell it. The above is Kwang Song-dong — an island fort — Korea’s strongest at the [...] Kevin Williamson of The National Review has a tour de force column from the print version that they have posted online. It is one helluva read. Here’s a bit — go read the whole thing here: To use lethal force in self-defense is the ultimate declaration of independence, a kind of momentary secession from [...] Birthright citizenship? Passport tourism is a big hit in China. From The Washington Post: What can $1,475 buy you in modern China? Not a Tiffany diamond or a mini-sedan, say Robert Zhou and Daisy Chao. But for that price, they guarantee you something more lasting, with unquestioned future benefits: a U.S. passport and citizenship [...] George W. Bush caught a lot of heat when he said that illegal aliens do jobs “Americans won’t do”. As each passing year of college freshman come through my classroom I think he is right — and as I look at many of my colleagues (especially the Gen x and Y) I am even [...] Here’s a nice piece by Joseph Ellis from American Heritage Magazine on slavery, the Founders, and the second Great Compromise in Philadelphia. One of the ideas I constantly give to my students is to judge people from their historical context — not to excuse evils or whatever but to more accurately understand what happened [...] Share on Facebook These here Interwebs are great for learning and answering questions. A little bit of providence doesn’t hurt either. Yesterday we took the kids to Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles (highly recommended — beautiful, interesting, and free) — added bonus… it’s above The Greek Theater and the strains of Peter Frampton and Yes were [...] In his historic 1992 campaign to the Presidency Bill Clinton and his staff famously kept a one sentence quote as the guiding directive for his campaign; “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” The principle was that the economy is the single most important issue to voters, and trumps all other issues. With his statement, “Ultimately what these [...] Starting a Diplomatic History of the U.S. course tonight… Tonight is an introduction on international law, diplomacy and diplomats, ambassadors… so they’ll get the first 3-4 minutes of this clip on the personal inviolability of diplomats (or heralds in this case)…. Don’t shoot the messenger! Then we’ll move to foreign policy. I’m having them [...] To Kill a Mockingbird and Harper Lee — reconsidered from The Wall Street Journal): In all great novels there is some quality of moral ambiguity, some potentially controversial element that keeps the book from being easily grasped or explained. One hundred years from now, critics will still be arguing about the real nature of the relationship [...] Professors take a fair amount of bashing — and often rightly so. The problem isn’t professors per se — the problem is that people listen to the wrong professors. Examples 1-4 (OK… 2-5) here from Germany (der Spiegel): In 1998, four renegade German professors tried to stop the introduction of the euro with a [...] I try to avoid linking to Steyn because everything the guy writes is more brilliant than anything anyone else is writing. After awhile, the brilliance becomes mundane, but… Readers may recall Ann Coulter’s visit to the University of Ottawa a couple of months back. The Provost, François Houle, had threatened her with criminal [...] Edward George Bulwer-Lytton…. some of you may know who this man was…. ALL of us have been affected by his “greatest creation”… I quote to you from the opening paragraph of his greatest work (emphasis mine) — the 1830 novel Paul Clifford: “It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except [...] Since Floyd has copped to listening to NPR I suppose it’s safe for me to come out of the closet. Ira Glass has one of the most annoying voices to ever earn a living on radio. He can pack more condescension and superiority into a simple, “Good Morning” than Shakespearean trained Lionel Barrymore’s, “You’re worth [...] In another decision released today, the Supreme Court found against the Christian Legal Society’s bid to remain a registered student organization and exclude openly gay members against the school policy of The Hastings College of the Law. In other words… public schools can now ban religious groups who exclude gays from leadership positions or [...] Socialists and green whack jobs do no play. Witness this story from Spain — courtesy of Pajamas Media: Spain’s Dr. Gabriel Calzada — the author of a damning study concluding that Spain’s “green jobs” energy program has been a catastrophic economic failure — was mailed a dismantled bomb on Tuesday by solar energy company Thermotechnic. Says [...] Not what usually comes to mind when the words “bow-chicka-bow-wow” are uttered. When Planned Parenthood is leading the class, the answer to that question ain’t all that hard to figure out. According to the story at Fox, some parents of adolescents who attended a sex eduction class at the local high school in Shenandoah, [...] It’s Junk Science Week at The Financial Post — and the awards are in! Here’s one of the awards for climate change cover up. The Rubber Duck award in the climate category goes to Lord Oxburgh, who gave “peer review” a whole new meaning in rushing out the first whitewash of the Climategate scandal. He headed an [...] Let me preface this by saying this former student of mine is the sweetest young woman in the world — a delight to have in the classroom and intellectually curious (insofar as that goes) and while I only had her in 3 courses of her entire college career I feel on some level like somewhat [...] Freud would have something to say about this AND there’s an intern joke here too. Sadly… this is no joke. From The London Daily Telegraph: In the well-known original image, Churchill makes a “V” shaped symbol with his fingers – while gripping a cigar in the corner of his mouth. But in a reproduction of [...] Culture war and revisionism gets old. It seems nearly half of the posts at any given conservative website are about some instance of attack on values, family, television, God, military, faith or tradition. Just as some liberals feel there is no set custom that doesn’t deserve as much dissection and doubt as possible, there is [...] |
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