Medvedev did it

[agk-ru.livejournal.com]

After all, Medvedev has made a voyage to the Kuril Islands, as he promised.  In spite of the nervous reaction from Japan.

Honestly, I doubted he would. I admit I was wrong. And I am satisfied.

Teaching 'history' in schools - how do we approach ' national legends'?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Well, actually, it was the Deep South, but the action took us to the northern States, too. It will also involve a quick visit to the Wild West and the town of Shinbone - so let's hit the trail...

I was googling for maps Underground Railway Maps, actually. Me, being a tube worker on the London Underground, I was gonna do a piece on the history of London for another publication - but I saw a map of America, criss crossed by lines. I didn't know they had a network that went from Mobile in Alabama right up to the Canadian border - running underground, all the way... but there was on this map!

Well, they don't. "The Underground Railroad" refers to a shadowy network of volunteers who helped runaway slaves escape to Canada in the days before the American Civil War. If a slave ran away, there was a network of sympathisers who would act as guides, offer safe houses, give them food and clothing and send them on to the next place they could seek assistance.

The Underground Railroad is steeped in History and in Legend, and I draw a sharp distinction here. For while people like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass (with 2 s's) are well documented and historical characters, they were also shadowy individuals at work in it. Men like 'Peg Leg Joe', for instance. (Full details under cut, but shortened to save space) ( Read more... )

As a British, Non-conformist left winger, I have read an awful lot of 'heroic tales' about 'our' past. And I am getting to be a bit ambivalent about the recieved versions of events sometimes. I wish those on the left, the 'alternative history' advocates could come up with something a bit more convincing - something that really *did* show that the bad guys got outwitted. Someone as real as Joan of Arc or Harriet Tubman did appear sometimes, and we ought focus on these, and be be critical before we go giving anyone else like 'Peg Leg Joe' the thumbs up, I reckon.

This site tells the full story with all the details, if anyone is interested.

http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/

But what is your take - how should we present ' inspirational stories ' to kids in schools, if we do it at all? How about the tales of Moses, or Jesus of Nazereth?

As a Christian who has studied the Bible for myself, I have to question some of the interpretations of 'Received Wisdom' on the subject, sometimes. Maybe we should point out to schoolkids that what they read in books is only there for them to check, not to be swallowed whole and uncritically. Over to you....

On voting and civic duty

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Many of my friends and acquaintances are going around imploring people to vote and claiming its their civic duty.  People have a civic duty to be informed and they have a duty to make choices based on the information they've received while becoming informed.  They also have a duty to keep their mouths shut, figuratively, if they're lacking the information to make an informed choice.  

An informed person who stays home because of the paucity of choice and/or a refusal to participate for fear of being seen to endorse views s/he doesn't endorse is doing his/her civic duty while one who fails to become adequately informed but votes anyway is violating his/her civic duty.  People encouraging such people to vote, e.g. GOTV campaigners, are accomplices in this vile practice.

ETA: Let me try to restate my point more succinctly.  When it comes to voting, the essence of one's civic obligations lies in the act of becoming informed, not in the act of casting a ballot.

Election day watch / Real Time Chat on IRC

[telemann.livejournal.com]

If any of the community are interested, I've created an EfNet IRC channel called #talk_politics. IRC clients include mIRC (PC), IRCle (Mac), and BitchX (Unix on shell accounts). If that's all Greek and too geeky for you, go to and on the left pane there is a webchat java client. Change the alias in the field to what you want (there is I believe an 8 character limit for aliases), then change the channel to #talk_politics and hit enter. There is no software installed, so it's completely safe. Feel free to join the chat!

Pondering Reality versus Blaming the Victim -- where's the line?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Last week, I asked why the community has no tag for clusterfuck. Given that there were two posts in one day on the Rand Paul campaign head stomping incident both of which garnered more that 200 replies.

The incident was certainly a polarizing one and it seems that some conservatives on livejournal have taken the stance of essentially poo pooing the entire thing, not exactly the way to keep it classy. But what really got a head of steam rolling here were multiple posters openly wondering about the conduct of the victim, supposing that something might have set off Mr. Profitt's violent response.

Let me state for the record that I find that personally laughable. Mr. Profitt may not have indulged in an old fashioned Skinhead head stomping complete with jackboots, but he participated in assault against her for the sin of engaging in a little political theater. That tells me that Mr. Profitt has both a self control problem and a political naivete problem. Political theater has been with us for a while and whether it is recent incarnations like Code Pink, Billionaires for Bush, Protest Warrior or any of the number of Tea Party Protesters dressing up in Revolutionary Garb:



...it does not speak well at all of Mr. Profitt that he reacts to legitimate, non violent political theater with violence. So I'm not particularly inclined to think that questions of Ms. Valle's beahvior have much in the way of legs (and her exceptionally classy reply to his demand for an apology is another set of chits in her favor)

( Then I heard a story on NPR's Tell Me More that got my head wondering... )

Keynes - Hayek Rap Battle, the Sequel

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The put on a live preview of the sequel video to Fear the Boom and the Bust at a Recent Economist conference.

No matter which side of the battle you are on you just can get enough rapping economists. :-)

2010 Midterm Election - * * * O P E N T H R E A D * * *

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Open thread for following the election results tonight. Several states results maybe cliff hangers and go into recounts (e.g. Washington, Nevada, and Alaska). It should be a wild and bumpy ride tonight. And of course, you're welcomed to participate in a live chat on Efnet IRC #talk_politics. Efnet org has an easy java script client to join the channel, or use other clients.

First bit of news: ABC News has fired Andrew Brietbart from its election coverage tonight.

The Lula effect

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

( Dilma Rousseff elected president of Brazil )

There was a nice recent post about the influx of politicians of immigrant origin to the top ranks in South America. Yesterday Dilma Rousseff won the presidential elections in Brazil. Obviously, between change and continuity, Brazil chose the latter. Dilma Rousseff, the first female president of Brazil, was the most trusted ally of the charismatic Lula da Silva who's ending his reign after two extremely successful mandates and an amazing 80% popularity.

Dilma defeated her opponent Jose Serra, the former mayor of Sao Paulo, from the Social-Democratic Party - yes, in Brazil and many South American countries, the political spectrum seems to be the exact opposite to the US, where the liberals (generally seen as center-right anywhere else) are regarded leftist, and the conservatives are the right. In most of the rest of the world, it's otherwise. The differences with the US and Obama continue in that the electorate saw in Dilma a continuation of Lula's successful policies and they didn't want any change, rather they wanted "more of the same", possibly with some minor improvements.

( More of the same for Brazil, please )