Roundup: Talking About History
This is where we excerpt articles about history that appear in the media. Among the subjects included on this page are: anniversaries of historical events, legacies of presidents, cutting-edge research, and historical disputes.
SOURCE: Alabama Policy Institute (2-9-05)
[Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society. ]
History, particularly military history, is a great interest of mine and occupies a great deal of my "discretionary" reading. Not too long ago I came across a story that tells a little history of World War I that you may not have learned in school. During World War I the first Allied soldiers to advance to Germany's border at the Rhine River were Americans … and they were black.
Looking at the racial make-up of America's military today, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when blacks were denied the opportunity to fight alongside whites. Despite the fact that blacks fought and died in every American war since the Revolution, it wasn't until after World War II that black soldiers were...
History, particularly military history, is a great interest of mine and occupies a great deal of my "discretionary" reading. Not too long ago I came across a story that tells a little history of World War I that you may not have learned in school. During World War I the first Allied soldiers to advance to Germany's border at the Rhine River were Americans … and they were black.
Looking at the racial make-up of America's military today, it is hard to imagine that there was a time when blacks were denied the opportunity to fight alongside whites. Despite the fact that blacks fought and died in every American war since the Revolution, it wasn't until after World War II that black soldiers were...
Saturday, September 30, 2006 - 21:44
Comments
SOURCE: National Review Online (10-9-06)
... Although the keenest students of military history have often been soldiers, the subject isn’t only for them. “I don’t believe it is possible to treat military history as something entirely apart from the general national history,” said Theodore Roosevelt to the American Historical Association in 1912. For most students, that’s how military history was taught — as a key part of a larger narrative. After the Second World War, however, the field boomed as veterans streamed into higher education as both students and professors. A general increase in the size of faculties allowed for new approaches, and the onset of the Cold War kept everybody’s mind focused on the problem of armed conflict.
Then came the Vietnam War and the rise of the tenured radicals. The historians among them saw their field as the academic wing of a “social justice” movement, and they focused their attention on race, sex, and class. “They think you’re supposed to study the kind of social history you...
Then came the Vietnam War and the rise of the tenured radicals. The historians among them saw their field as the academic wing of a “social justice” movement, and they focused their attention on race, sex, and class. “They think you’re supposed to study the kind of social history you...
Friday, September 29, 2006 - 10:00
SOURCE: WSJ (9-29-06)
Christie's recently announced that, in November, it will sell four paintings by the early-20th-century Austrian modernist Gustav Klimt, works whose combined estimated value is between $93 million and $140 million. The news has caused a sensation, and not only because of the greatness of the art and the size of the price tag.
These Klimts, three landscapes and a portrait, are part of a group of five turned over to Maria Altmann by the Austrian government earlier this year. After a seven-year campaign by Ms. Altmann, 90, Austrian officials finally acknowledged her legal right to ownership. It was, of course, the confiscatory practices of the Third Reich that had disrupted a continuous line of family ownership and had made Ms. Altmann's claim an emblem of postwar property-rights justice.
Ms. Altmann's uncle, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, had originally owned the five paintings, two of which are portraits of his wife, Adele, who died in 1925. Bloch-Bauer had fled his...
These Klimts, three landscapes and a portrait, are part of a group of five turned over to Maria Altmann by the Austrian government earlier this year. After a seven-year campaign by Ms. Altmann, 90, Austrian officials finally acknowledged her legal right to ownership. It was, of course, the confiscatory practices of the Third Reich that had disrupted a continuous line of family ownership and had made Ms. Altmann's claim an emblem of postwar property-rights justice.
Ms. Altmann's uncle, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, had originally owned the five paintings, two of which are portraits of his wife, Adele, who died in 1925. Bloch-Bauer had fled his...
Friday, September 29, 2006 - 09:37
Editor: This week Geoffrey Wheatcroft penned an essay in the Guardian which claimed that Israel embraced from its origins the kind of terrorist tactics it now condemns. His article was subsequently answered in frontpagemag.com by Carol Gould. Excerpts from both articles follow.
[Geoffrey Wheatcroft is the author of The Controversy of Zion.]
... There have indeed been outrageous and indefensible killings of Israeli civilians, but even that raises more questions than it answers. It is a platitude to say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Palestinians will point out that Israeli state violence has always more than matched that of its opponents - notably in the numbers of civilians killed - and they could point out also that this dates from before the creation of the state of Israel....
[Geoffrey Wheatcroft is the author of The Controversy of Zion.]
... There have indeed been outrageous and indefensible killings of Israeli civilians, but even that raises more questions than it answers. It is a platitude to say that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Palestinians will point out that Israeli state violence has always more than matched that of its opponents - notably in the numbers of civilians killed - and they could point out also that this dates from before the creation of the state of Israel....
Friday, September 29, 2006 - 09:34
SOURCE: Japan Focus (9-10-06)
QUESTION: Choose the correct statement about Korea under Japanese rule.
1) A government-general was established and Ito Hirobumi was the first governor-general.
2) Korea was the first foreign territory acquired by Japan after the Meiji Restoration.
3) The system of giving Koreans Japanese names was implemented at the time of annexation.
4) Koreans were forcibly transported to Japan during World War II. [1]
Four is the correct answer to the world history question, according to the test administered across Japan by the University Entrance Examination Center in January 2004. The uproar was predictable and instantaneous, reflecting the advance made in recent years by deniers of Korean forced labor in Japan. Fujioka Nobukatsu, a Tokyo University professor and central figure within the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Tsukurukai), the influential group that pushes history textbooks minimizing or rejecting Japanese culpability for war...
1) A government-general was established and Ito Hirobumi was the first governor-general.
2) Korea was the first foreign territory acquired by Japan after the Meiji Restoration.
3) The system of giving Koreans Japanese names was implemented at the time of annexation.
4) Koreans were forcibly transported to Japan during World War II. [1]
Four is the correct answer to the world history question, according to the test administered across Japan by the University Entrance Examination Center in January 2004. The uproar was predictable and instantaneous, reflecting the advance made in recent years by deniers of Korean forced labor in Japan. Fujioka Nobukatsu, a Tokyo University professor and central figure within the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (Tsukurukai), the influential group that pushes history textbooks minimizing or rejecting Japanese culpability for war...
Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 15:14
SOURCE: AP (9-27-06)
CHICAGO — Iva Toguri D'Aquino, who was convicted and later pardoned of being World War II propagandist "Tokyo Rose," died Tuesday of natural causes, said her nephew, William Toguri. She was 90.
Tokyo Rose was the name given by soldiers to a female radio broadcaster responsible for anti-American transmissions intended to demoralize soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater. D'Aquino was the only U.S. citizen identified among the potential suspects.
In 1949, she became the seventh person to be convicted of treason in American history and served six years in prison. But doubts about her possible role as Tokyo Rose later surfaced and she was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in 1977.
D'Aquino was born in Los Angeles on July 4, 1916, to Japanese immigrant parents. She began to use the first name Iva during her school years.
D'Aquino had recently graduated from UCLA and was visiting relatives in Japan when she became trapped in the...
Tokyo Rose was the name given by soldiers to a female radio broadcaster responsible for anti-American transmissions intended to demoralize soldiers fighting in the Pacific theater. D'Aquino was the only U.S. citizen identified among the potential suspects.
In 1949, she became the seventh person to be convicted of treason in American history and served six years in prison. But doubts about her possible role as Tokyo Rose later surfaced and she was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in 1977.
D'Aquino was born in Los Angeles on July 4, 1916, to Japanese immigrant parents. She began to use the first name Iva during her school years.
D'Aquino had recently graduated from UCLA and was visiting relatives in Japan when she became trapped in the...
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - 17:41
SOURCE: New Republic (9-25-06)
You have probably heard the story about how a former Notre Dame football player, George Gipp, lay dying in bed and asked his coach, Knute Rockne, to tell the players to "win one for the Gipper." Later on, when his team is trailing at halftime, Rockne goes on to relay this moment to his players, who, in a burst of inspiration, go on to win the game. It is one of the most iconic episodes in the history of American sport.
It's also a fabrication.
Rockne never heard Gipp's dying words, and he never mentioned him in a halftime speech. (And Gipp, far from the heroic figure Ronald Reagan portrayed him as in the 1940 film Knute Rockne All-American, was a card shark and pool hustler.)
Notre Dame football occupies a central place in the culture of American sport. Newspapers in the Midwest generally have dedicated beat writers for the hometown teams and one other program: Notre Dame. The 117 Division 1-A football teams that are not Notre Dame share...
It's also a fabrication.
Rockne never heard Gipp's dying words, and he never mentioned him in a halftime speech. (And Gipp, far from the heroic figure Ronald Reagan portrayed him as in the 1940 film Knute Rockne All-American, was a card shark and pool hustler.)
Notre Dame football occupies a central place in the culture of American sport. Newspapers in the Midwest generally have dedicated beat writers for the hometown teams and one other program: Notre Dame. The 117 Division 1-A football teams that are not Notre Dame share...
Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - 11:59
SOURCE: New Republic (9-23-06)
In spring 1945, not long after his liberation from Auschwitz, Primo Levi, traveling across southern Poland by train, got off in a small town to stretch his legs and immediately found himself at the center of a group of curious people, all speaking excitedly, and incomprehensibly, in Polish. "Perhaps I was among the first dressed in 'zebra' clothes to appear in that place," he surmised, referring to the striped uniform of the death camp, in The Reawakening, his memoir of the journey home through the wreckage of Europe. Fortunately for Levi, "in the middle of the group of workers and peasants a bourgeois appeared, with a felt hat, glasses and a leather briefcase in his hand--a lawyer. He was Polish, he spoke French and German well, he was an extremely courteous and benevolent person; in short, he possessed all the requisites enabling me finally, after the long year of slavery and silence, to recognize in him the messenger, the spokesman of the civilized world, the first...
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 19:00
SOURCE: Prospect Magazine (10-1-06)
The fact that the British and the Irish both live on islands gives them a misleading sense of security about their unique historical identities. But do we really know who we are, where we come from and what defines the nature of our genetic and cultural heritage? Who are and were the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish and the English? And did the English really crush a glorious Celtic heritage?
Everyone has heard of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. And most of us are familiar with the idea that the English are descended from Anglo-Saxons, who invaded eastern England after the Romans left, while most of the people in the rest of the British Isles derive from indigenous Celtic ancestors with a sprinkling of Viking blood around the fringes.
Yet there is no agreement among historians or archaeologists on the meaning of the words "Celtic" or "Anglo-Saxon." What is more, new evidence from genetic analysis (see note below) indicates that the Anglo-Saxons...
Everyone has heard of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. And most of us are familiar with the idea that the English are descended from Anglo-Saxons, who invaded eastern England after the Romans left, while most of the people in the rest of the British Isles derive from indigenous Celtic ancestors with a sprinkling of Viking blood around the fringes.
Yet there is no agreement among historians or archaeologists on the meaning of the words "Celtic" or "Anglo-Saxon." What is more, new evidence from genetic analysis (see note below) indicates that the Anglo-Saxons...
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 17:56
SOURCE: LAT (9-26-06)
[DAVID GREENBERG, who teaches history and media studies at Rutgers University, wrote the text for "Presidential Doodles," published by Basic Books.]
THE ART OF DOODLING is an ancient one. Prehistoric South African cave drawings and Mesopotamian clay tablets bear marks unrelated to their main content. So it should come as no surprise that presidents doodle too. In fact, they exhibit a range of styles and subjects as varied as the personalities of the men who have held the office.
One class of doodles includes those that seem to spring from the presidential id. Lyndon B. Johnson, a man of primal urges and ferocious appetites, drew three-headed creatures that look like aliens and mutant animals with spiky ears and wild hair. Benjamin Harrison — one of the forgotten presidents of the late 19th century — also sketched vaguely menacing figures, including one with a jack-o'-lantern face and shock of hair resting on its head like a miniature haystack. A child...
THE ART OF DOODLING is an ancient one. Prehistoric South African cave drawings and Mesopotamian clay tablets bear marks unrelated to their main content. So it should come as no surprise that presidents doodle too. In fact, they exhibit a range of styles and subjects as varied as the personalities of the men who have held the office.
One class of doodles includes those that seem to spring from the presidential id. Lyndon B. Johnson, a man of primal urges and ferocious appetites, drew three-headed creatures that look like aliens and mutant animals with spiky ears and wild hair. Benjamin Harrison — one of the forgotten presidents of the late 19th century — also sketched vaguely menacing figures, including one with a jack-o'-lantern face and shock of hair resting on its head like a miniature haystack. A child...
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 17:36
SOURCE: Japan Focus (8-31-06)
[Tsuneishi Kei-ichi is a Kanagawa University professor who specializes in disarmament of biological and chemical weapons. He is the leading specialist on Japan's wartime biological and chemical warfare Unit 731. This article was distributed by the Kyodo News Agency and appeared in the Kanagawa Shimbun on August 18, 2005. Translated by James Orr.]
Sponsored by the Nagasaki Peace Museum last July 9 the top Japanese researcher on Japan’s wartime biological weapons (BW) program, Tsuneishi Kei-ichi, gave a public lecture in Nagasaki together with the director of China’s Unit 731 War Crimes Museum in Harbin. Tsuneishi’s talk, entitled “The Image and Reality of Unit 731,” explained the declassified American intelligence records he discovered in 2005, revealing that U.S. Occupation authorities not only granted immunity from prosecution to Japanese scientists in exchange for their unrivaled BW data, but also made direct cash payments to obtain their experimental results. (“The...
Sponsored by the Nagasaki Peace Museum last July 9 the top Japanese researcher on Japan’s wartime biological weapons (BW) program, Tsuneishi Kei-ichi, gave a public lecture in Nagasaki together with the director of China’s Unit 731 War Crimes Museum in Harbin. Tsuneishi’s talk, entitled “The Image and Reality of Unit 731,” explained the declassified American intelligence records he discovered in 2005, revealing that U.S. Occupation authorities not only granted immunity from prosecution to Japanese scientists in exchange for their unrivaled BW data, but also made direct cash payments to obtain their experimental results. (“The...
Monday, September 25, 2006 - 00:26
SOURCE: Novak's Blog (9-24-06)
Almost everything about George Washington was hard-earned, and his faith was no exception. Although he ended up owning a library of nearly 1,000 books, some 40 or so concerning religious questions, his preferred teacher was experience. In his father’s line there was at least one Anglican cleric, and his mother was unusually devout and quite attentive to the religious life of her children. But Washington’s faith mostly grew out of his diligent efforts at self-improvement.
Washington studied the thinking of British generals and European monarchs, the manners of Indian chiefs, the habits of fur trappers of the frontier, good farmers and bad, and trustworthy and untrustworthy merchants. He pondered the ways of Congress and the surges of public sentiment. He watched closely the inner passions of his own fighting men.
He learned how all sorts of humans reason, what they fear, what attracts them, and what moves them to action. Washington was nearly a genius in getting...
Washington studied the thinking of British generals and European monarchs, the manners of Indian chiefs, the habits of fur trappers of the frontier, good farmers and bad, and trustworthy and untrustworthy merchants. He pondered the ways of Congress and the surges of public sentiment. He watched closely the inner passions of his own fighting men.
He learned how all sorts of humans reason, what they fear, what attracts them, and what moves them to action. Washington was nearly a genius in getting...
Sunday, September 24, 2006 - 22:27
SOURCE: NYT (9-23-06)
When Rabbi Simcha Weinstein leads Rosh Hashanah services this weekend at the B’nai Avraham synagogue in Brooklyn Heights, he will read a liturgy deeply concerned with the concept of teshuva, or repentance. And when Rabbi Weinstein speaks of repentance, he often thinks of a young man he met decades ago by the name of Peter Parker.
Parker had been walking home after competing in a wrestling match, vain in the aftermath of his victory, and as a robber dashed past him, he did nothing. That same robber proceeded to attack and kill Parker’s uncle.
Coming upon the scene, the nephew was struck by such guilt and remorse that he resolved to spend the rest of his life fighting crime.
As any fan of comic books, including Rabbi Weinstein, would recognize, Peter Parker is Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and drawn initially by Jack Kirby and then Steve Ditko. Parker’s moment of moral awakening occurred in the first issue of the Spider-Man strip, published in 1962...
Parker had been walking home after competing in a wrestling match, vain in the aftermath of his victory, and as a robber dashed past him, he did nothing. That same robber proceeded to attack and kill Parker’s uncle.
Coming upon the scene, the nephew was struck by such guilt and remorse that he resolved to spend the rest of his life fighting crime.
As any fan of comic books, including Rabbi Weinstein, would recognize, Peter Parker is Spider-Man, created by Stan Lee and drawn initially by Jack Kirby and then Steve Ditko. Parker’s moment of moral awakening occurred in the first issue of the Spider-Man strip, published in 1962...
Saturday, September 23, 2006 - 13:02
SOURCE: Foreign Policy Research Institute (9-20-06)
On May 6-7, FPRI's Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education hosted 44 teachers from 16 states across the country for a weekend of discussion on teaching about Islam. Speakers were drawn from the disciplines of religious studies, anthropology, political science, history, law, and journalism. The institute, held in Bryn Mawr, Pa., was made possible by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation. Future history weekends include Understanding China, to be held in Kenosha, Wisconsin in cooperation with Carthage College, Oct. 21-22, 2006 and Teaching American Military History, to be held at the First Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois in cooperation with the Cantigny First Division Foundation, Mar, 24-25, 2007. The History Institute for Teachers is chaired by David Eisenhower and Walter A. McDougall.
WELCOMING REMARKS Walter McDougall opened the conference with remarks on the U.S. democratization effort in...
Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 21:07
SOURCE: Foreign Policy Research Institute (9-1-06)
[David Forte is Charles R. Emrick Jr.-Calfee, Halter & Griswold Endowed Professor of Law at Cleveland State University and author of Studies in Islamic Law (Austin & Winfield, 1999). This essay is based on his presentation at the May 6-7, 2006 History Institute for Teachers on Islam, Islamism, and Democratic Values, hosted by FPRI’s Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education. The institute, held in Bryn Mawr, Pa., was made possible by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation.]
In March 2006, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who converted to Christianity, was charged with apostasy because, in a custody dispute, his wife had reported him to the authorities as a Christian. Had he been found guilty, according to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence (which is the form of Sharia in Afghanistan), Rahman would have had three days in which to recant; if he maintained his Christian beliefs, he would have been executed. But after enormous international pressure the judge dismissed his...
In March 2006, Abdul Rahman, an Afghan who converted to Christianity, was charged with apostasy because, in a custody dispute, his wife had reported him to the authorities as a Christian. Had he been found guilty, according to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence (which is the form of Sharia in Afghanistan), Rahman would have had three days in which to recant; if he maintained his Christian beliefs, he would have been executed. But after enormous international pressure the judge dismissed his...
Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 21:03
SOURCE: Perspectives, the newsmagazine of the AHA (9-1-06)
[Bruce Craig is director of the National Coalition for History.]
Buried in a 160-page bill—the Florida Education Omnibus Bill (H.B. 7087e3), essentially a comprehensive K–12 education bill—that Florida Governor Jeb Bush recently signed into law, are new provisions designed to "meet the highest standards for professionalism and historic accuracy." Some Florida history teachers, though have questioned the philosophical underpinnings of the law.
The most controversial passage states: "American history shall be viewed as factual, not constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." To that end teachers are charged not only to focus on the history and content of the Declaration but are also instructed to teach the "history, meaning, significance and effect of the provisions of the...
Buried in a 160-page bill—the Florida Education Omnibus Bill (H.B. 7087e3), essentially a comprehensive K–12 education bill—that Florida Governor Jeb Bush recently signed into law, are new provisions designed to "meet the highest standards for professionalism and historic accuracy." Some Florida history teachers, though have questioned the philosophical underpinnings of the law.
The most controversial passage states: "American history shall be viewed as factual, not constructed, shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable, and shall be defined as the creation of a new nation based largely on the universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence." To that end teachers are charged not only to focus on the history and content of the Declaration but are also instructed to teach the "history, meaning, significance and effect of the provisions of the...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 22:38
SOURCE: Counterpunch (9-19-06)
[Saul Landau's new book, A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD, will be published by Counterpunch Press. He can be reached at: slandau@igc.org]
On 9/11/73, General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup that overthrew Chile's elected government. The military bombed the Presidential Palace, assassinated 3,197 and tortured of tens of thousands more in order to "save" Chile from "subversion." Three decades later, Chilean courts stripped Pinochet of his self-anointed immunity from prosecution. The 90 year old ex-dictator, under house arrest, faces charges of murder, torture, drug dealing, tax evasion and money laundering.
Political circles in Santiago and Washington DC (which once encouraged him) sneer at the mention of his name. Few people even try to justify his orders to torch thousands of books and assassinate and exile Chile's greatest singers-composers, Victor Jara and Angel Parra....
In the 1960s and 70,...
On 9/11/73, General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup that overthrew Chile's elected government. The military bombed the Presidential Palace, assassinated 3,197 and tortured of tens of thousands more in order to "save" Chile from "subversion." Three decades later, Chilean courts stripped Pinochet of his self-anointed immunity from prosecution. The 90 year old ex-dictator, under house arrest, faces charges of murder, torture, drug dealing, tax evasion and money laundering.
Political circles in Santiago and Washington DC (which once encouraged him) sneer at the mention of his name. Few people even try to justify his orders to torch thousands of books and assassinate and exile Chile's greatest singers-composers, Victor Jara and Angel Parra....
In the 1960s and 70,...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 20:49
SOURCE: Asia Times Online (9-16-06)
[Dr Andrei Lankov is a lecturer in the faculty of Asian Studies, China and Korea Center, Australian National University. He graduated from Leningrad State University with a PhD in Far Eastern history and China, with emphasis on Korea, and his thesis focused on factionalism in the Yi Dynasty. He has published books and articles on Korea and North Asia. He is currently on leave, teaching at Kookmin University, Seoul.]
When South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last Sunday, what did they talk about? The likelihood of a North Korean nuclear test that might trigger a nuclear-arms race in East Asia? Or perhaps the tremendous growth of bilateral trade that has made China the most important trade partner of Seoul?
Logical assumptions, but wrong. As the official press release revealed, the two leaders spent a large part of their meeting talking about ancient history, in the most literal sense of the word. President Roh expressed his...
When South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last Sunday, what did they talk about? The likelihood of a North Korean nuclear test that might trigger a nuclear-arms race in East Asia? Or perhaps the tremendous growth of bilateral trade that has made China the most important trade partner of Seoul?
Logical assumptions, but wrong. As the official press release revealed, the two leaders spent a large part of their meeting talking about ancient history, in the most literal sense of the word. President Roh expressed his...
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 16:54
SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed (9-18-06)
Scholars who work on large archival projects have struggled during the Bush administration. The president has repeatedly proposed eliminating the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which is one of the two federal programs that supports the intense, decades-long projects that involve editing and publishing of collections of documents. Congress has saved the program, but just barely.
Now the National Endowment for the Humanities has revamped the rules for the other major federal program that supports such work: Scholarly Editions Grants. According to scholars, the NEH has largely stopped using the peer review process for the program, and as a result, the grant process has become inconsistent and unreliable. Projects that had regularly been receiving grants saw their applications denied for no apparent reason.
And now the NEH has issued new guidelines — just as scholars were finishing grant applications — granting preference to those projects...
Now the National Endowment for the Humanities has revamped the rules for the other major federal program that supports such work: Scholarly Editions Grants. According to scholars, the NEH has largely stopped using the peer review process for the program, and as a result, the grant process has become inconsistent and unreliable. Projects that had regularly been receiving grants saw their applications denied for no apparent reason.
And now the NEH has issued new guidelines — just as scholars were finishing grant applications — granting preference to those projects...
Monday, September 18, 2006 - 21:22
SOURCE: WSJ (9-18-06)
[Mr. Nowrasteh wrote the screenplay for the ABC docudrama about 9/11.]
I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal--to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood. Like all Americans, I wish it were not so. I wish there were no terrorists. I wish there had been no 9/11. I wish we could squabble among ourselves in assured security. But wishes avail nothing.
My Iranian parents fled tyranny and oppression. I know and appreciate deeply the sanctuary America has offered. Only in this...
I am neither an activist, politician or partisan, nor an ideologue of any stripe. What I am is a writer who takes his job very seriously, as do most of my colleagues: Also, one who recently took on the most distressing and important story it will ever fall to me to tell. I considered it a privilege when asked to write the script for "The Path to 9/11." I felt duty-bound from the outset to focus on a single goal--to represent our recent pre-9/11 history as the evidence revealed it to be. The American people deserve to know that history: They have paid for it in blood. Like all Americans, I wish it were not so. I wish there were no terrorists. I wish there had been no 9/11. I wish we could squabble among ourselves in assured security. But wishes avail nothing.
My Iranian parents fled tyranny and oppression. I know and appreciate deeply the sanctuary America has offered. Only in this...
Monday, September 18, 2006 - 21:04
