A fight ensues. Fun radio!
Month: September 2013
How a blunder finished off the Wal
The intention was to announce the changes overnight and phase in the new rules the next morning. Instead one of the Politburo members, Guenter Schabowski, blurted out the plans during a televised press conference – and compounded his error by adding the new rules would come into force “immediately”.
Live press conferences were a novelty in communist days, and Mr Schabowski was becoming something of a celebrity through his appearances. Mr Modrow is still scathing about Mr Schabowski’s preening in front of the media.
“The order wasn’t to be published until 0400 in the morning. But Mr Schabowski didn’t notice. He went into an international press conference. And he was so arrogant and full of himself. We had no idea this was happening.”
2013 Iran Elections
Al Jazeera’s coverage was second to none
Booker T. and W.E.B.
Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois
By Dudley Randall
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
“It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?”
“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.
“If I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I’ll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook,
Some men rejoice in skill of hand,
And some in cultivating land,
But there are others who maintain
The right to cultivate the brain.”
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,
“That all you folks have missed the boat
Who shout about the right to vote,
And spend vain days and sleepless nights
In uproar over civil rights.
Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,
But work, and save, and buy a house.”
“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.
“For what can property avail
If dignity and justice fail?
Unless you help to make the laws,
They’ll steal your house with trumped-up clause.
A rope’s as tight, a fire as hot,
No matter how much cash you’ve got.
Speak soft, and try your little plan,
But as for me, I’ll be a man.”
“It seems to me,” said Booker T.–
“I don’t agree,”
Said W.E.B.
How China Made the Tiananmen Square Massacre Irrelevant
China has achieved the impossible: They’ve made Tiananmen Square irrelevant.
China is a much better place to live now for most people. Young Chinese people now have far more freedom to pursue the career of their choice, travel abroad, and marry whomever they choose (provided their spouse is of the opposite sex, though China has also become much more tolerant of homosexuality in recent years). Far more Chinese citizens than before have access to the country’s social safety net, including a rudimentary health care system, and a much greater proportion of the China’s population can realistically obtain a university education. These advancements do not excuse China of its continued human rights violations, but they do explain how the Party can remain popular despite repression, corruption, and other problems.
Take the Impossible “Literacy” Test Louisiana Gave Black Voters in the 1960s
Most of the tests collected here are a battery of trivia questions related to civic procedure and citizenship. (Two from the Alabama test: “Name the attorney general of the United States” and “Can you be imprisoned, under Alabama law, for a debt?”)
But this Louisiana “literacy” test, singular among its fellows, has nothing to do with citizenship. Designed to put the applicant through mental contortions, the test’s questions are often confusingly worded. If some of them seem unanswerable, that effect was intentional. The (white) registrar would be the ultimate judge of whether an answer was correct.
Try this one: “Write every other word in this first line and print every third word in same line (original type smaller and first line ended at comma) but capitalize the fifth word that you write.”
Why do popular histories of the War of Independence ignore modern scholarship?
If you bought a popular book on science, one that came with a similar sheen of intellectual prestige, and learned that it essentially ignored years’ worth of scholarship, you’d demand your money back. Why should history be any different?
…These pop histories make arguments I haven’t seen scholars of the Revolution make in years. Implicit in all of them is the notion that the founders’ professed ideas of liberty and equality truly rallied colonists to their cause. It’s a comforting thought, but one that flies in the face of the latest research. For most of the war, the majority of colonists probably wanted nothing to do with the conflict, an argument emphasized at a recent Penn conference of leading scholars. Battlefield successes and Britain’s heavy-handed tactics may have boosted the patriots’ appeal, but it’s misleading to call their cause genuinely “popular.” To gain supporters, local patriot leaders often relied on fear and intimidation, not appeals to hearts and minds. In most towns, for instance, patriots created vigilante groups, called Committees of Safety, that forced colonists to take loyalty oaths, swearing to turn in anyone deemed suspicious. During the war, in other words, colonial America may have felt more like the Soviet Union than a free and open republic.
Russian History Blog
Great Russian History Blog supported by the Center for History and New Media and the Center for Eurasian Studies at George Mason University.
King’s Dream Remains an Elusive
A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that fewer than half (45%) of all Americans say the country has made substantial progress toward racial equality and about the same share (49%) say that “a lot more” remains to be done.
The analysis finds that the economic gulf between blacks and whites that was present half a century ago largely remains. When it comes to household income and household wealth, the gaps between blacks and whites have widened. On measures such as high school completion and life expectancy, they have narrowed. On other measures, including poverty and homeownership rates, the gaps are roughly the same as they were 40 years ago.
How the Soviets Used Our Civil Rights Conflicts Against Us
June 1963 memo that summarizes Soviet media coverage of the growing American conflicts over civil rights. These Soviet broadcasts, which reached audiences in Asia, Africa, and South America, tried to turn global public opinion against the United States.
A few major arguments of these broadcasts, as Hughes summarized them: Capitalism provided a natural environment for racism, which would never end so long as the American system needed cheap labor. The federal government’s policy of limited intervention in Southern conflicts was tantamount to support of Southern racism. The United States could not claim to be the leader of the free world while hypocritically refusing to support civil rights within its borders.
In the most politically damaging line of reasoning, Soviet broadcasters argued that American domestic policy toward its black citizens was “indicative of its policy toward peoples of color throughout the world.” Emerging African, Asian, and South American nations, in other words, should not count on Americans to support their independence.