W.J. Astore With the odds increasing that Congress will shut down the government this coming Tuesday, I couldn’t help but think of the classic Sci-Fi film, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (the original version, of course). Remember Klaatu? He comes to earth in peace, only to be hassled, harassed, and ultimately shot by the…
W.J. Astore Ever since the attacks of 9/11/2001, the United States has actively celebrated martial virtue. We’ve portrayed our troops as heroes. Presidents have celebrated them as the best led and best trained and most effective military in all of human history. To question the wisdom of such hagiographic portrayals is to be dismissed as…
Richard Sahn As a sociology professor who believes in the power of the spoken word, the critical analysis of an issue, the learning by questioning process, I am disheartened by the proliferation of online courses. Such courses may be a college administrator’s dream, but they are a serious educator’s nightmare. Since the beginning of my…
W.J. Astore I grew up learning biology the old-fashioned way, i.e. by learning all about evolution and Charles Darwin. I was also raised Catholic, where my priests explained to me that there was no conflict between evolutionary theories and Christianity. The story of creation in Genesis, they explained to me, was meant to be read…
W.J. Astore Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are one of those “pedagogical practices that are current and relevant to the new generation of learners,” to use a description featured prominently in promotional literature. Sure sounds trendy, doesn’t it? But education is not simply about content delivery. Education is about inspiration. It’s about lighting a fire…
W.J. Astore In 1992 I had the pleasure of meeting Major General Julian Thompson at a colloquium at Oxford. It was ten years after the Falklands War in 1982, and Thompson shared some of the lessons he had gleaned from fighting that war. The inherent unpredictability of war was one such lesson. Four months before…
W.J. Astore A recent article in the New York Times about how General (Ret.) David Petraeus is being honored by the New York Historical Society featured a word often used to describe Petraeus as well as another retired U.S. general fallen on hard times, Stanley McChrystal. The word is “ascetic.” The American media loved to…
A recent article by John Pilger in the British Guardian speaks of a silent military coup that has effectively gained control of American policymaking. It features the following alarmist passage: In 2008, while his liberal devotees dried their eyes, Obama accepted the entire Pentagon of his predecessor, George Bush: its wars and war crimes. As the constitution is replaced…
W.J. Astore The American way of war has often relied on massive firepower as a way to reduce American troop casualties. This was true of World War II and Korea, which were conventional “big battalion” wars, and it was also true of Vietnam, which was an unconventional war involving much smaller units. The problem in…
b. traven For those Democratic voters who still, after five years of bitter experience, retain the forlorn hope that a real liberal or progressive heart beats in Obama’s chest, the recent revelation in The Washington Post that it was Obama who, in 2011, empowered the National Security Agency to go after Americans’ private communications should finally end…
The Contrary Perspective 