Jan 8, 2007

Things Noted Here and There

by Cliopatria

"Chinese Siege Warfare: Mechanical Artillary & Siege Weapons of Antiquity" sketches the development of weaponry over 2500 years. Scroll down for comparable weapons from Japan, Greco/Rome, the Middle East, Europe, and America. Thanks to Brandon Watson at Siris for the tip.

Map-lovers will delight in Strange Maps. Have a look at the one-day state, Carpatho-Ukraine,"Tarzan and the Lost Empire," and"The Enclaves and Counter-Enclaves of Baarle (B-NL)," for a graphic taste of territory real and imagined. Thanks to Brett Holman at Airminded for the tip.

Charles McGrath,"Plagiarism: Everybody into the Pool," NY Times, 7 January, reviews Richard A. Posner, The Little Book of Plagiarism, Jon Wiener, Historians in Trouble, and Tilar J. Mazzeo, Plagiarism and Literary Property in the Romantic Period."No wonder young people are confused, and no wonder they continue to plagiarize in record numbers, with more than 40 percent of college students admitting to copying from the Internet in 2001," says McGrath."We talk to them about plagiarism in absolute terms, as if we were all agreed on what it was, and yet the literature suggests that once you're out of school, it proves to be a crime like any other, with the punishment partly depending on whom you know and on how well you pull it off."

Yesterday, the AHA Council sidestepped approval or disapproval of Historians Against War's resolution that was approved by the AHA's Business Meeting on Saturday evening. The Council referred the resolution to the AHA's membership for approval or disapproval. See also: Richard Byrne,"Historians Tackle Statelessness, Speech Codes, and the War in Iraq," CHE, 8 January; and Scott Jaschik,"Historians, War, Responsibility," Inside Higher Ed, 8 January.

Finally, at Chapati Mystery, Sepoy has all the"must reads" to which I haven't linked.

More Comments:

Jonathan Dresner - 1/9/2007

Presumably the Council could propose anything for a general membership vote

I don't think that's actually correct, though. Sorry.

Jonathan Rose - 1/8/2007

I would approach the Council with the original motion anyway. Presumably the Council could propose anything for a general membership vote, whether or not it was first approved by the business meeting, and of course the Council is under no obligation to sign off on anything approved by the business meeting. You could point out that the amended motion is grossly ambiguous and could be easily misread. You could argue that simple fairness dictates that if the membership should have a chance to vote on the antiwar resolution, they should vote on ours as well. It won't cost the AHA anything extra to put a second question on the ballot. You can't blame a girl for trying, anyway.

Ralph E. Luker - 1/8/2007

I agree with you that the "compromise" could be taken as favoring abolition of "free speech zones" which would mean that there would be no where on campus where speech was free. We might ask the Council to submit the original motion to the membership, but the original motion did not survive at the business meeting. It's only because the anti-free speech zones motion passed that it was on the Council's agenda.

Jonathan Rose - 1/8/2007

Ralph, why don't we ask the AHA Council to refer your original free speech resolution to the AHA membership for a vote? There we might win. As it stands now, the "compromise" isn't a compromise at all: as I pointed out in my earlier posts, it reads like a call to tighten restrictions on speech.