Update: I have added links to several other good blog posts addressing the NAS report at the bottom of my post. The past few months have witnessed pundits of all persuasions declaring that the culture war is over. Conservative commentator Matt Lewis recently wrote in The Week that conservatives lost, and Ann Friedman’s sub-title in [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2013/01/history-and-the-culture-wars/
The past few years have witnessed a resurgence in the popularity of counterinsurgency. Since the Iraq War Surge of 2006, every field commander, armchair general, and think tank analyst has managed to employ the term if not openly embrace the tactic. Although the Iraq results were ambiguous, Barack Obama committed to a counterinsurgency program in [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2013/01/petraeus-coin-and-the-ghilzani/
Last week’s tragic massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has prompted a passionate discussion about how to respond to gun violence in the United States. The horrific imagery of twenty six- and seven-year olds being gunned down alongside their teachers and school administrators is enough to make even the coldest heart skip a beat. However, [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/12/the-price-of-empire/
I just watched this excellent interview of Michigan State Representative Brandon Dillon by Amy Goodman. It is well worth a look.
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/12/more-on-the-future-of-labor-and-capital/
Paul Krugman wrote a short post for his New York Times blog over the weekend that discusses the phenomenon of re-shoring manufacturing jobs from Asia to the United States. I found the underlying vision depressing, if not dystopian. Instead of presenting a hopeful prospect of a robust, twenty-first century economy, conditions that promote re-shoring presage [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/12/robots-profits-and-karl-marx/
A strange thing happened this week. And while it garnered attention by many for what has become known as the GOP’s characteristic lack of empathy, there was something even more strange operating at a different level. Senate Republicans voted down the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a treaty with roots [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/12/paranoia-and-conquest/
te Heesen, Anke. The World in a Box: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia. Translated by Ann M. Hentschel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Anke te Heesen chooses an obscure artifact as the subject of her 2002 monograph, The World in a Box: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Picture Encyclopedia. te Heesen, currently [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/11/review-the-world-in-a-box/
Yesterday I took a break from work and attended a local conference at DePaul University titled, “The Politics of Resources in the Neoliberal Era.” Three panelists, all from different disciplines, presented papers related to the theme. I have to say that, despite understanding the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, I was a bit surprised at [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/10/the-politics-of-resources-in-the-neoliberal-era/
For those of you in Chicago on October 13, 2012, please stop by the University of Illinois – Chicago to see my presentation titled, Power Projection and United States Imperialism: United Fruit and the 1954 Guatemala Coup. You can read the full paper here on my blog.
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/09/windy-city-graduate-student-history-conference/
I have been on vacation for the past several weeks, enjoying the hospitality and climate in the southeast Mediterranean. As a vacation destination, it is in many ways ideal: fresh food, a beautiful environment, friendly people and a gentle pace. Like most tourists, I made a lot of photographs. Mostly they are iconic images that [...]
http://www.born2synthesize.com/2012/09/perpetual-empire/