How well does the historical analogy work?
Category Archives: History
A Wounded Obama
We may be in for a rough ride.
And then there’s this:
The article, which includes a senior administration official gloating that Obama successfully pressured Netanyahu to avoid launching a military strike on Iran back when it could still have stopped the radical Islamic regime’s nuclear program, signaled that Obama has Iran’s back.
It continues to amaze me that any American Jews continue to support this man. Or Americans who care at all about our national security.
A Quarter Of A Century After The Fall Of The Wall
Germany remains divided. History can remain destiny for a long time.
The Important Subject You’re Not Being Taught In College
That’s OK, people only pay tens of thousands of dollars to attend Harvard.
How We Won In Vietnam
…but are losing at home.
The “Time Served” Model Of Education
…is breaking down. This, I think, is the key point:
The conventions of the credit hour, the semester and the academic year were formalized in the early 1900s. Time forms the template for designing college programs, accrediting them and — crucially — funding them using federal student aid.
But in 2013, for the first time, the Department of Education took steps to loosen the rules.
The new idea: Allow institutions to get student-aid funding by creating programs that directly measure learning, not time. Students can move at their own pace. The school certifies — measures — what they know and are able to do.
The public-school paradigm is also based on a century-old model: industrial learning. Time to abandon it, but it’s hard, because it so benefits the status quo, even if it’s a disaster for the kids.
The Gods Of The Copybook Headings
…are back.
Every generation must relearn the lessons. Unfortunately, it’s even harder to teach them when people who find them personally inconvenient to their agendas are in charge of the educational system.
The Middle East
…is returning to ins natural state.
The borders were always arbitrary, imposed from outside, which is the only way that it could have been done. This is truly the end of colonialism. Sadly, what will follow will almost certainly be worse.
Strange Seeds On Distant Shores
More thoughts on American history, politics and culture.
The Problem With Ebola
It isn’t the virus, it’s the incompetence. Not to mention the venality.
[Update late morning]
Amazingly, left-blogger Atrios (aka Duncan Black) agrees:
Ultimately the point is that as of now, Ebola is a small problem in the United States overall, if a very serious problem for the people infected by it, and we have failed to deal with this small problem. The lack of clearly established systematic responses to potential deadly disease outbreaks is extremely worrying. If a genuine epidemic occurs, there’s no reason to think the response will be any better.
At least as of now, there’s no reason to be frightened of Ebola. Turn off cable news and go about your day. A small number of infected people is not an epidemic. But there is reason to be frightened of the apparent inability of our institutions to deal with an actual epidemic, or true national emergencies of any kind.
Yes. As has been pointed out ad infinitum. when the government (and particularly the federal government) tries to do too many things, it ends of doing none of them well.