09.29.07
Posted in UIS, Current History at 3:40 am by Stephanie
A lot of interesting things noted in this week’s readings and lectures.
A book recommendation from DrB: Race and Slavery in the Middle East by British historian Brent Lewis.
Further, on the topic of slavery, DrB says that Mauritania just abolished last month!
This map used in DrB’s lecture. Which led me to this photo essay and this article, “Does the Koran Condone Killing?”
“Al-Zarqawi,” says Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Western and Islamic law at UCLA, “searches for the trash that everyone threw out centuries ago and declares the trash to be Islam.”
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09.28.07
Posted in Current History, Herodotus' Children at 11:01 am by Stephanie
The continuing news of the Jena 6 has brought comparisons to the Little Rock 9. Vanity Fair has a photo essay about one of the events that brought racism and the need for civil rights for all Americans into stark contrast.
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09.24.05
Posted in Current History at 11:08 am by Stephanie
The man whose life work of tracking down Nazis and bringing them to justice died this week at the age of 96. After surviving the Mauthausen death camp, Simon Wiesenthal went on to track down 1,100 Nazis including Adolf Eichmann. Wiesenthal’s work against anti-semitism and intolerance must not go unnoticed or end with his death. It is important work.
Lots of great links and more information at
BBC News
For more on the death camps, I highly recommend Hitler’s Death Camps written by a former teacher of mine, Dr. Konnilyn Feig.
Simon Wiesenthal Center
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09.16.05
Posted in Current History at 11:58 pm by Stephanie
(Note: Originally written 18 Apr, 2005. With some editorial changes to make it more suitable for an history blog)
Sometimes, the world conspires to bring something to my attention and makes me believe that it’s important. Really important. Not just “remember to pay my bills” important, but “this has an affect on everyone” important.
This is the kind of stuff I really want to dig my teeth into: Authors Want Improved History Education and Re-writing History
The first story involves such great historians as Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. lobbying congress to fix “No Child Left Behind” so history doesn’t get left behind. Studies are starting to show that studying history is the springboard to loads of other disciplines. It’s akin to what listening to Mozart can do for your study and retention skills. Is anybody out there listening?
The second story involves something I hadn’t heard about until today. The riots that happened in Beijing, China over the weekend by students because a new Japanese textbook whitewashes their involvement in World War II. This is tricky stuff going on here. It has more to do with politics than history. The discussion was absolutely fascinating. How do governments, educators and text book writers balance history? What gets left out (and what gets put in) because it’s advantageous to show a country in a certain light, that while it may be factual isn’t necessarily truthful.
Whose truth gets recorded and remembered? The saying used to be, “The winners write the history.” But is that true anymore? With the power of the internet and blogging available to so many, how does one go about sorting through the facts to get to the truth? Which truth is important and what will future generations have to say about that truth?
It’s a lot to chew on, folks. And let me just say one other thing, this country better get its educational priorities in line, because we are raising people who no longer have the tools to do the critical thinking required to be a participant in the democracy that America was built upon.
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Posted in Current History at 10:51 pm by Stephanie
(Note: Originally written 29, 2005, with some editorial changes to make it more suitable for an history blog)
Unbelievable stories like this keep happening.
[Siegfried Kampl of Austria] had said he would relinquish his seat amid pressure from all sides after he deplored the “brutal persecution” of Austrian Nazis after World War II.
Last month, he said his father was a member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party like “more than 99%” of Austrians.
He also referred to Austrian deserters of Nazi Germany’s armed forces as “assassins of battle comrades”.
And there’s more:
Days after the Kampl controversy broke on 19 April, another right-wing member of the Bundesrat, John Gudenus, contended that the existence of Nazi gas chambers “remains to be proven”.
As an historian in training, I am supposed to try to be objective and dispassionate but honestly, What is WRONG with people?
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09.15.05
Posted in Current History at 8:12 pm by Stephanie
I don’t have anything profound to say about 9/11. It was 4 years ago and we still haven’t caught Osama bin Laden. Instead, we went to Afghanistan. Then we went to Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction which weren’t there and toppled a dictator in the name of democracy.
How will history look at this? I’m too close to say anything even remotely objective and academic. If you’re looking for personal opinions, try Blither, Blather, Bloviate, I might write something there.
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09.06.05
Posted in Current History at 9:34 pm by Stephanie
Hurricane Katrina is still top of the news as the relief effort very slowly gets underway and the finger pointing goes into full tilt boogie. Both President Bush and Congress have vowed to investigate what went wrong. Meanwhile, water is now being pumped back into Lake Ponchatrain and people were bused out of New Orleans to Houston and are making do in the AstroDome while everyone tries to figure out how to get lives on any sort of track.
Kadhimiya - Meant to mention this last week when it happened but got too caught up in other things, real life and Katrina included. Nearly 1,000 Shi’a pilgrims were killed last week during a stampede started when someone yelled out there was a suicide bomber in the crowd. People were crushed, or drowned when they jumped over the bridge into the water without knowing how to swim. The pictures of the piles of shoes left behind by the pilgrims were grim reminders of the tension in the Middle East. Immediately after the death count started, fingers were being pointed at the Sunni.
William Rehnquist died over Labour Day weekend of thyroid cancer. This leaves not only the gap the Sandra Day O’Connor left when she resigned, but the Chief Justice’s spot as well. President Bush has made the unprecedented move of nominating John Roberts, who was already going through the process for Justice, to fill the Chief Justice’s spot.
Bush’s popularity is really low right now, the Republicans are embarrassed over the slowness of the Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts. The next few weeks will be devastatingly entertaining in the realm of US politics.
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09.03.05
Posted in Current History at 8:23 pm by Stephanie
Mothers grieved, their anguish obvious. Victims’ families stayed in the bombed out school and the cemetery to honour those who died. A year after the attack on a school by terrorists; where 331 people died, 186 of them children, there are still few answers about happened that day a year ago.
What is clear is that the school was taken over by what have been called Chechen rebels and the Russian military was sent in. Negotiations broke down, shots were fired, bombs went off, more artillery was used, the ceiling of the school fell in and killed 331.
One hostage-taker is in custody and being tried. President Vladimir Putin has ordered an inquiry. The Beslan Mothers’ Committee was invited to Moscow to talk with Putin. As with many tragedies, the world may never know what really happened.
Sources:
BBC News: Grieving Beslan marks seige end
BBC News: Beslan seige still a mystery
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08.30.05
Posted in Current History at 8:56 pm by Stephanie
Tidbits from the radio news today:
- Katrina has caused the most damage of any storm in American history EVER
- Every building in New Orleans has sustained some sort of damage.
America has an almost 250 year “official” history as a country, and more than that as colonies, settlements, etc. In all that time, no storm has ever done this sort of damage, and it wasn’t even as bad as expected!
Every building, every single building in New Orleans. All of them have sustained some sort of damage. The French Quarter, birthplace of the blues and American jazz may wind up completely under water. New Orleans; home to Louis Armstrong, Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Mardi Gras, Emeril, Paul Prudhomme, Anne Rice … damaged, ruined.
The SuperDome is now a refugee camp. 80% of the city was evacuated, those that couldn’t get out couldn’t afford gas, didn’t have a car (or one that worked), were ill or infirm. An interview with a 3rd-grade teacher said he didn’t have a car that worked and that was why he was still in New Orleans. He gave money to some people that did have a car for gas money so they could get out.
I seem to be rambling, the scope of this is staggering. I keep fixating on the smaller things. Maybe this is the way history is written, about the smaller things because the big picture is too large.
Taking a back seat to New Orleans are Mississippi, Alabama and the rest of the state of Louisiana. It will take months and years to recover from this one. No one can get in to do damage assessments.
And one other historic note: Katrina has pushed the price of oil up over $70/barrel. Price at the pump in Northern California, almost $3/gallon. I did see one station that was up to $3.05/gallon.
I feel so old when I think, “When I was in high school, gas was .50/gallon!”
BBC News Online
Wikipedia - Hurricane Katrina
Weather Channel
Google: Hurricane Katrina
Technorati: Hurricane Katrina
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