Re-Examining The Cold War Arms Race

Journalist David E. Hoffman’s new book The Dead Hand revisits the high stakes maneuvering that took place during the Cold War arms race and details the inner-workings of the Soviet nuclear program.

Hoffman had access to secret Kremlin documents while researching his book, which chronicles the Soviets’ internal deliberations, offers new insight into the roles of Mikhail Gorbachev and President Reagan, and describes the urgent search for nuclear and biological hazards left behind after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Hoffman, a Washington Post contributing editor, spent six years as the paper’s Moscow bureau chief. He is also the author of The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia.

Listen to his interview with Terry Gross (40 minutes)

Poisoning the Alcohol Supply

Although mostly forgotten today, the “chemist’s war of Prohibition” remains one of the strangest and most deadly decisions in American law-enforcement history. As one of its most outspoken opponents, Charles Norris, the chief medical examiner of New York City during the 1920s, liked to say, it was “our national experiment in extermination.” Poisonous alcohol still kills—16 people died just this month after drinking lethal booze in Indonesia, where bootleggers make their own brews to avoid steep taxes—but that’s due to unscrupulous businessmen rather than government order.

Read how the U.S. government poisoned untold thousands of its citizens in its “Noble Experiment”

How America Can Rise Again

Is America going to hell? After a year of economic calamity that many fear has sent us into irreversible decline, the author finds reassurance in the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal, and in the continuing strength of the forces that have made the country great: our university system, our receptiveness to immigration, our culture of innovation. In most significant ways, the U.S. remains the envy of the world. But here’s the alarming problem: our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional. Fixing it—without resorting to a constitutional convention or a coup—is the key to securing the nation’s future.

Read James Fallows’ piece

19 Questions

U.S. News Report on top universities

Atoms of Self-Interest

Type a one-page essay in support of (yes, I am only seeking pro-arguments so get into character if need be) the following prompt and post it in the comments section below. Feel free to perform some research–draw on Ayn Rand, Nietzsche, William F. Buckley, Herbert Spencer, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, et. al. Of course, you may quote such philosophers so long as you do so sparingly.

“Man owes nothing to society and man should ask nothing from society.”

The Breakup of China and Our Interest in It

Conclusion from The Atlantic in 1899:

“Is it for the benefit of the United States to deal with China as a vast unit under her native flag, or as fragments under many flags? That is what we have to decide…It is to be hoped that our government is silently exercising the utmost vigilance in behalf of our commercial privileges on the continent of Asia. Failure to do so might not be politically disastrous to the present administration, but posterity will not forgive nor history condone faults of omission or indifference after such warning as have already been given. Surely, no American administration would seriously contemplate the establishment of a dependency or protectorate on the mainland of China, while our interests there may be safeguarded by international control and reciprocity; but it is difficult to see how these securities can be obtained without more definite engagements on the part of our State Department than our uninformed public opinion now demands. Nevertheless, the signs of a healthy and growing interest are numerous.”

The more things change…

Here is the entire piece

A Nation of Racist Dwarfs: Kim Jong-il's regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought

Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.

Hitchens reflects on a trip to North Korea in Slate

Explaining The American Filibuster

If high-school government class taught us anything, it’s that getting bills passed through Congress is a game of numbers: The bill with the most votes wins.

Turns out it’s not that simple. These days, the polarized state of American politics means that major bills need at least 60 votes to avoid an inevitable filibuster by the opposition.

Political scientist Gregory Koger’s new book, Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate, addresses the institutionalization of the filibuster — and describes congressional loopholes by way of which fast thinking and hard work can beat the numbers. Koger teaches American politics at the University of Miami. He joins host Terry Gross for a conversation about what has happened to simple majority rule.

Listen to Koger discuss the filibuster in an interview with Terry Gross

Top 100 Most Influential Americans

Who are the most influential figures in American history? The Atlantic recently asked ten eminent historians. The result was The Atlantic’s Top 100—and some insight into the nature of influence and the contingency of history. Was Walt Disney really more influential than Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Benjamin Spock than Richard Nixon? Elvis Presley than Lewis and Clark? John D. Rockefeller than Bill Gates? Babe Ruth than Frank Lloyd Wright?

The List

Methodology & Analysis

Nietzsche's Ubermensch Applied

I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something to be surpassed. What have you done to surpass mankind? –Nietzsche

Analyze the following sources and come to our next session with written responses to the questions below.

Required Sources:

Optional Sources:

Response Questions:

1. Define and describe the concept of the ubermensch.
2. Apply the definition and description from #1 to characters throughout history, both real and imagined. Think: Omar from The Wire, Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, Tyler Durden in Fight Club, Dexter, etc.
3. Assess the functions and dysfunctions of the pragmatic applications of the ubermensch philosophy.
4. How does Judge Holden personify the Nietzsche’s ubermensch?