Journalist – Historian – Speaker
In another edition of how we got into this mess, Nick Danforth, a doctoral candidate in Turkish history at Georgetown writes for the Atlantic about Syria’s borders. He begins by pointing out that it’s easy to blame Syria’s troubles for arbitrarily-drawn borders, then writes: There’s plenty to criticize about the legacy of colonialism, but dwelling on …
As a father of a girl, I’m highly alert to the ways that toys are marketed to children. It’s not that boys don’t have gender-specific marketing and that I’m not concerned about issues related to boys: I am concerned and they do. But two factors come into play: One, my son has Down syndrome, and …
NOTE 10/19/2016: This essay was published in 2013, featuring a memoriam I wrote in 2012 not long after Ambassador Stevens died (before I started the blog). Things have changed, but the post is unedited from that time. ————————————————————— Exactly a year ago, I woke to discover from the news that my cousin, Ambassador Chris Stevens, …
I’m trying out an argument here and looking for feedback. The feminist position on parenting is as follows: Men and women should have equal choices when it comes to work and caregiving. Historically, feminists have advocated for employment policies that support women who choose to have a family and want to work. These include: paid …
Yesterday, several journalists converged on a study arguing that students at Northwestern learned more from adjuncts than from tenured/tenure-track faculty. Here’s my take: This study reveals something about the great work done by adjuncts, but also makes me think about the perverse incentive structure of R1 full-time faculty life. Every incentive – prestige, status, money …
Yesterday I had an argument with a man who felt that feminists were disrespecting him as a father. I gained a few insights from it that I thought I would share with you. 1. If you find yourself compelled to write a sentence that starts, “The problem with feminists is …” – Consider writing a …
Jacob Barnett, a 14-year-old with Asbergers, is a genius. Now I think the smarter-than-Einstein gimmick that reporters use (here’s one on an 11-year-old English girl) just demonstrates how little we understand about intelligence and how limited the notion of IQ (the number) is. That said, Barnett is clearly a genius. I’m interested in two things …
This week oscillated between vaccines (Jenny McCarthy begins at “The View” on the 9th) and the big Ethan Saylor news. I could write about Saylor every day, honestly, but I think the readers of this blog know how I feel on the issues. Still, please remember that Gov O’Malley is resisting calls for an independent …
EDIT: This is one of the most popular posts on the history of the blog. I assume many of you coming here are looking for confirmation that Vaccines are terrible. You won’t find them here. I am, however, fascinated by the way that anti-Vax language comes from both the right and the left and the …
One thing we learn from the history of the Crusades (and I think one of the core arguments of Jay Rubenstein’s work) – when military figures view contemporary events through an apocalyptic lens, we’ve got a recipe for extra special kinds of disaster. The influence of apocalyptic thinkers on the Bush White House always concerned …