History isn’t always what is convenient, comfortable, or acceptable to us, as I’m reminded reading this article sent to me by my friend John Wendel, about what’s going on at Thomas Jefferson’s old estate, Monticello. Here’s a snippet: The country has been fascinated for the better part of two centuries with the question of whether Jefferson followed his father-in-law’s example and fathered children by Elizabeth’s daughter, Sally. Leading historians who doubted this have done an about-face since genetic evidence linked Jefferson to one Hemings child. There is a growing consensus that Jefferson fathered most, if not all, of Sally’s children, …
Tag: politics
Sad But Funny and True…
I got this from my roommate… 1.) Go to www.google.com 2.) Type in: “weapons of mass destruction” 3.) Click on the button “I’m feeling lucky” 4.) Read the error message carefully You should get this.
Romanticism and Nations
Ever since about a month ago, I’ve had a kind of niggling little problem eating away at my thinking. At that time, I was discussion nationalism and the rule of law with my famous Northstar class. I asked the class about what they thought of the Geneva Conventions and the justifiability of war… basically asking if the idea of a “just war” philosophy or tradition is acceptable, since the validity of that idea is something the code outlined in the Geneva Conventions to some degree implies. One of the students got herself into what I thought was a conundrum. Except that …
The Saemangeum Bay Development Project
One of my friends and my bandmate wrote a song about this recently. According to him, a wetland used by birds migrating from Russia to Australia is facing “development” on the order of being paved with concrete so that “love-hotels” (that is, by-the-hour sex hotels, not uncommon here as an escape from repressive home life) can be constructed. I’m collecting articles for students to debate about it with some information at their fingertips. It’s probablt the first big environmentalist issue I’ve heard about since coming here, except for the silly culinary preference for female crabs which is destroying the crab …
Noh Mu Hyun opinion
Here’s an interesting opinion article on Noh Mu Hyun. I don’t know enough about him for now to comment myself, but I will try get some students to talk about him and also I’ll read more so I can try develop an opinion of my own that is informed by something other than just highly partisan newspapers.