Saturday, February 21st, 2009
Will Mohammed Khatami run for a third term as president of Iran, or won’t he? That’s the question dominating the political conversation in Tehran ahead of the June poll, in which hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who succeeded the reformist Khatami in 2005 — is standing for reelection. Pressure has been mounting on the former President to run again, with many seeing him as the only candidate able to defeat Ahmadinejad. There has even been an unprecedented public “Invite Khatami” campaign whose nostalgic theme song ends, “This time, we will truly appreciate your presence.”
Read on from Time magazine
Posted in AP Iran | No Comments »
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
Listen to Nigel Warburton discuss various philosophical definitions of art with Derrrick Matravers on Philosophy Bites (12 minutes)
Enjoy it here
Posted in Philosophy Society | No Comments »
Friday, February 6th, 2009
The proliferation of CCTV cameras and the growth of the DNA database were two examples of threats to privacy, the Lords constitution committee said.
Those subject to unlawful surveillance should be compensated while the policy of DNA retention should be rethought.
The government said CCTV and DNA were “essential crime fighting tools”.
Surveillance State?
Posted in AP Britain | No Comments »
Monday, February 2nd, 2009
The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like-and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided-or more so?
Read this brilliant piece from The Atlantic
Posted in USH: Civil Rights Movement | No Comments »
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
There are two sides to American immigration: the first is a story of economic benefit and promise; the other is a report of economic harm and despair.
The two “stories” stand in stark contrast with each other. Nevertheless, they define the two prisms by which immigrants are viewed. What is interesting is that the tension between the views is a constant component of our nation’s history. Whether the immigrants came in by a sailing ship in 1790 or 1840, a steamer in 1900, or an airplane in 2004; whether they were German, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Italians, east European Jews, Cubans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Russians, or Hispanics; the same two perspectives inform the immigration debate.
Read on from two Ball State professors
Posted in USH: Immigration, Industrialization and Urbanization | No Comments »
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
What a dilemma! Who should be let in?
Grapple with these hypotheticals
Now imagine the difficulties in developing and implemeting a blanket Immigration and Naturalization Policy!
Posted in USH: Immigration, Industrialization and Urbanization | No Comments »
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
The Prompt: The symbiotic relationship between the growing immigrant population and big city party machines during the Gilded Age was mutually beneficial. Assess the validity of this statement.
Feel free to refer to your DBQ Tips Sheet
Immigration and Political Machines DBQ
Posted in USH: Immigration, Industrialization and Urbanization | No Comments »
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
In case you missed class, here are my lecture notes
Posted in USH: Immigration, Industrialization and Urbanization | No Comments »
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil Rights Movement, which he participated in as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination related to his protest work, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War.
He is perhaps best known for A People’s History of the United States, which presents American history through the eyes of those he feels are outside of the political and economic establishment.
Here is an autobiographical clip from YouTube
Chapter 10: The Other Civil War with Response Questions
Sadly, Zinn died on 28 January 2010. Of the many obituaries written, this one stands out to me.
In his autobiography, You Can’t Stay Neutral on a Moving Train, Zinn said, “From the start, my teaching was infused with my own history. I would try to be fair to other points of view, but I wanted more than ‘objectivity’; I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.” RIP.
Posted in USH: Immigration, Industrialization and Urbanization | No Comments »