David Cameron has criticised “state multiculturalism” in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism.
At a security conference in Munich, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.
Sounds like Germany?
ELECTIONS next April are already casting long shadows in Nigeria. The ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) is set to hold a presidential primary next month with a victor to be announced by January 15th. A powerful challenger to Goodluck Jonathan, the incumbent, has emerged. A bout of frantic politicking is certain.
Read about the Abubakar vs. Goodwill Jonathan struggle for Nigeria’s presidency.
In light of Khorodovsky’s show trial, the Economist offers a disheartening, though perhaps realistic view of contemporary Russian politics. In doing, the author offers a comparison of Medvedev and Putin and concludes that, “[w]ith Mr Putin in power, Russia may suffer deep stagnation, but a collapse of the system would be all the more dramatic. With Mr Medvedev stagnation may be shorter, but his grip on power would be weaker. This may matter little in the long run, but it makes a big difference for Russians living now—not least for Mr Khodorkovsky himself.”
four-part special report from the Economist, with a compelling conclusion
Last year [2009] Northern Ireland suffered 22 terrorist-related attacks; so far this year there have been 39. Last year 17 people in the province were charged with terrorist offences; this year, according to Matt Baggott, the chief constable of Northern Ireland’s police service (PSNI), the figure is already 74. On September 24th, acting on advice from the Security Service, MI5, Theresa May, the home secretary, raised the official perception of the threat from republican groups to a level that implies an attack on the mainland is “a strong possibility”.
Here is a short but compelling piece about how United Russia propped up a political party, “A Just Russia”, and is now taking that party down in Siberia. It is also a courageous, if not misguided, Siberian woman who sees hope in a competitive political party system.
In this short piece, Bruce Levine, of the University of Illinois, discusses how the Confederacy’s illogical debate over the use of Black soldiers.
Errol Morris is a filmmaker whose movie “The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara” won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2004. He has also directed “Gates of Heaven,” “The Thin Blue Line,” “Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control,” “A Brief History of Time” and “Standard Operating Procedure.” He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and lives with his wife and two French bulldogs (Boris and Ivan) in Cambridge, Mass.
Read this five-part piece that Morris contributed in the New York Times. I read it in installments as it was published and have wanted to discuss it ever since.
Unlike many of the readings that I “assign” you, I do not have a list of questions or prompts to guide you. Just read and enjoy this piece and come to our next session prepared to contribute to a discussion about it. Oh, and bring a printed copy to our next session.
Read Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace and consider the following questions before our next session:
If you are interested, here is an interview with Wallace recorded two years before his suicide.
In this conversation recorded as part of the New York Public Library series, Steven Johnson (author of Where Good Ideas Come From) and Kevin Kelly (author of What Technology Wants) try to convince Robert that the things we make—from spoons to microwaves to computers—are an extension of the same evolutionary processes that made us. And we may need to adapt to the idea that our technology could someday truly have a mind of its own.
Listen to this 20 minute discussion and consider the following questions for our next session:
Lecture Outline:
Here is my Vietnam War Lecture.
Lecture Outline:
Conservatives would claim that the Republican Party can only regain power by “returning to its roots” and banishing heretics. But a funny thing happened on the way to winning national elections again: the GOP has drifted so far right that it’s retroactively disqualified the only Republicans since 1960 who’ve actually managed to, you know, win national elections. Based on their public statements, policy proposals, and accomplishments while in office, none of the modern Republican presidents—not Richard Nixon, not Gerald Ford, not George H.W. Bush, not even Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush—would come close to satisfying the Republican base if they were seeking election today.
Newsweek assesses the “conservativeness” the Republican Presidents from the past decades
Here’s a little piece on the curious role of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao
Here is a special report on the current challenges facing NATO and the role that NATO may [not] play in the future.
Despite government meddling and rampant piracy, commercial television is surging in the Middle Kingdom
Leaked embassy cables show US diplomats are concerned about the growing power of Russian organized crime and believe it has contacts with the highest levels of government in Moscow.
Slate’s Dalia Lithwick offers some insights into the Tea Party’s proposal to amend the “divinely inspired” Constitution.
Prof. Sugata Mitra is currently (2010), Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University. Sugata termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE). The experiment has since been repeated at many places, Hole in the Wall (HIW) has more than 23 kiosks in rural India. In 2004 the experiment was also carried on in Cambodia. His interests include Education, Remote Presence, Self-organising systems, Cognitive Systems, Physics and Consciousness.
Mitra’s experiment and was inspired to write his debut novel Q & A – this subsequently went on to become the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
Watch this 20 minute video, take some notes, consider the questions below and come prepared to discuss.
A free-for-all fight broke out on the floor of the Nigerian House of Representatives on June 22, 2010. It arose as members who opposed to the embattled speaker of the house, Dimeji Bankole, tried to introduce a motion for his impeachment.