Archive for October, 2009
Oh, Melvinia!
Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Carla Murphy.
A grad student once asked how my last name came to be Murphy. It was after hours and we were in a packed on-campus pub in central London. My classmates and I were using cheap liquor to forget another eye-crossing day of theory and lecture so it was a plus to chit-chat with the guy […]
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The Nobel Prize in Controversy
Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Robert Voris.
“The fame-making apparatus confers celebrity on an individual in a conflagration so intense that he or she can’t possibly survive.” – Don DeLillo John Bolton thinks that Barack Obama should decline the Nobel Peace Prize. In other news, John Bolton thinks that people care about what John Bolton thinks.
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The Nobel Prize Committee's Bold Call
Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Joel Schectman.
Obama didn’t ask for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the real nominating party will not be revealed for another fifty years under the rules for the competition. On its face it seems extraordinary, even unique, to have a statesman win the prize before he has achieved anything in either the areas of statecraft or peace. […]
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Is there an end in sight for the "Don't ask Don't tell policy?"
Posted on 11. Oct, 2009 by Maria Clark.
I started out this year like many other fellow liberals happy that Obama was making changes to move our country past the 1950s. He pledged to close Guantanamo Bay and he repealed Bush’s ban on providing aid to foreign clinics that perform abortions within the first few weeks. But as the year has worn on […]
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…and the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Obama?
Posted on 11. Oct, 2009 by Maria Clark.
It’s been almost a year since Obama’s historic election and so far the change we can believe in has yet to come true. Sure he’s addressed issues others in his job post have pushed under the rug. On Day 1 he issued an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay. Ten months later the prison is […]
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Winning Changes Everything
Posted on 10. Oct, 2009 by Michael Preston.
One of the more vocal and consistent complaints voiced by liberals about President Obama is that while he’s frequently inspiring, he doesn’t appear committed to marshaling public opinion behind progressive ideals. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones sums up the argument: His speeches soar, but they rarely seem designed to move the nation in a specific […]
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Obama Wins Nobel — And a Bigger Bullseye
Posted on 09. Oct, 2009 by Collin Orcutt.
“I’m trying to figure out, Celeste, if I want to be Barack Obama this morning, or if he’s under so much pressure to deliver world peace… “ —John Hockenberry, host of “The Takeaway,” to co-host Celeste Headlee I woke up this morning to the news that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize […]
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The Metrics of Education
Posted on 08. Oct, 2009 by Robert Voris.
“Look to the left. Look to the right. Two out of every three of you will have dropped out by graduation.” – Ovidio Martinez, Vice Principal, Theodore Roosevelt High School, Fresno, CA, 1996. We showed him, though. Almost 700 of us walked in our robes out of a starting freshman class of 1500. Well above […]
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David Frum – The Man That Knows Too Much?
Posted on 06. Oct, 2009 by Nicholas Martinez.
David Frum – – some people praise him, others want to run him out of politics completely. Some even think that he’s so politically confused, that he might just have a Jekyll and Hyde complex. But, what many people can agree on is that he loves drawing attention to himself. In his his most recent […]
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The Healthcare Debate, A Personal Journey
Posted on 04. Oct, 2009 by Kaili Boyd.
While our government is still haggling over the fine points of the health care bill, I’ve been struggling over going to the doctor. At the moment, I probably fit the typical profile of someone who just wants this debate to be over with. I don’t have medical insurance and I just to be able to […]
