Новости за 23.05.2018

HNN Topics:  What's being said on social media and elsewhere 

• Trump's First State of the Union Address 1/30/18
• Mueller Investigation
• JFK Files
• Statues Debate
• Vietnam War Documentary by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick
• 9-11
• Columbus Day
• Books
• Arts
• Women in the News
• Black History
• Gun Violence
• Impeachment
• Peace Talks in Korea
• Trump Nixes Iran Deal: What Historians Are Saying

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Related Link The North Korean Nuclear Crisis in History (Interviews with Mitch Lerner and David Fields)

“Love is in the air” as the world awaits Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding on Saturday. But love is not the only emotion – for where tabloid press photographers are concerned, there is also a lot of fear and loathing. 

The first printing of food stamps. Washington, D.C., April 20, 1939.

As Congress debates the 2018 Farm Bill, a major priority for some Republicans has been changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), often still called food stamps. In particular there has been a push for stricter work requirements, mirroring welfare reform efforts from the 1990s. The amendment for stricter work requirements would put a time limit on how long SNAP clients could substitute job training for work... Читать дальше...

At the end of February, Americans following the national debate over gun control were treated to a surreal sight: worshipers at a church north of Philadelphia called the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary arrived for a blessing ceremony carryingAR-15 rifles. In the wake of a series of civilian shootings, this seemed wildly, even intentionally, provocative: political, some said, rather than really religious. That, of course, depends on where the boundaries of “religious” and “political” lie. Читать дальше...

Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of Shakespeare, containing scenes and characters from several of William Shakespeare's plays.

The minister feared for the children. Acknowledging the difficulties of raising them “at a time and in a place filled with obstacles and perils,” his sermon deplored new media, which produced “a constant flood of poisonous matter” dangerous to youth. 

Despite considerable media attention paid to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s meddling in American and European politics, the centennial of the Russian Revolution has failed to register on the radar screen of American politics and culture. Academic historians, however, have addressed the Bolshevik anniversary with a number of scholarly volumes which shed some light on the Russian experience and should expand understanding of a nation and society with whom the United States has experienced an adversarial... Читать дальше...

What do Russians think of Donald Trump? Does their thinking contain any insights about him?

In 2012, then candidate for president Mitt Romney declared that Russia was the United States’ “number one geopolitical foe.” In response, Romney’s opponent, President Barack Obama, mocked him mercilessly, taunting, “The 1980’s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.” For her part, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opined that, “It’s somewhat dated to be looking backwards.” The press also pounced, including the prestigious New York Times: “His comments display either a shocking... Читать дальше...

Google the words “Trump” and “legitimacy.” As of this writing, there are 686,000 hits, including articles from the New Yorker, Vox,US News and World Report, Politico, the Washington Post, Real Clear Politics, and the Atlantic,eachchallenging or reporting on the political legitimacy of Donald J. Trump. But concerns about legitimacy aren’t one sided. Googling “Robert S. Muller,” often cast as an opposition figure to Trump, and the word “legitimacy” will yield 1,070,000 hits, including articles from theWashington Post... Читать дальше...

Sherif Hussein's son, Emir Abdullah (seated), Hussein Ruhi (far left) and Colonel Cyril Wilson at Jeddah (used with permission from OUP)

In 1770 Boston, a 17-year-old prodigy and autodidact who’d taught herself Greek, Latin, and the principles of prosody wrote an elegy for the most famous preacher in the colonies, an Anglican minister in the growing Methodist tradition named George Whitfield. The poet’s homage to Whitfield, whom she may have heard speak in Boston as he made his tour throughout the colonies from northern New England to Savannah Georgia, and deep into the western frontier, was “exceptionally popular” as the literary critic Henry Louis Gates writes... Читать дальше...

1902 Life magazine cover, depicting water curing by U.S. troops in the Philippines

Every American President from 1901 to 2017, Republican and Democratic, conservative or progressive or moderate, Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama, has advanced America domestically in a multitude of ways. Some have contributed more domestic reform than others, but all nineteen of them changed the role of the federal government and the Presidency in a positive manner.

This week the nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is expected to go to the Senate for a floor vote. In the maneuvering surrounding this nomination an assortment of reasons have been advanced—by Ms. Haspel herself, senators, and pundits—for why she ought to be confirmed despite the fact that she has not acknowledged her participation in the CIA torture program or forthrightly answered questions about it. These assorted rationales are misleading and here’s why.

How do you feel when you discover that your father lynched people?

That is the question asked in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play Appropriate at the Theater Gym of the Virginia Repertory Company in Richmond, Virginia. The members of the Lafayette family gather after their father’s death at his plantation in Arkansas to sell his home and the various artifacts they found there. In their rummaging, the family members came across a book of photos their dad took of various lynchings of African-Americans... Читать дальше...