Новости за 30.06.2018

The Bible is a varied, complicated, and sometimes contradictory document, as one would expect from any text written by dozens of people, across centuries and cultures, and is subject to varying translations and interpretations. Yet for all of the differences of moral and theological nuances, it is strikingly unified when it comes to the question of how a stranger in our midst should be treated. Exodus 23:9 – “Do not oppress a foreigner.” Leviticus 19:33-34 – “When a foreigner resides among you in your land... Читать дальше...

A week ago Sunday, June 24, 2018, First Baptist Church of Dallas held its annual “Freedom Sunday.” The church website described the special service this way: “Celebrate our freedom as Americans and our freedom in Christ with patriotic worship and a special message from Dr. Robert Jeffress, “America is a Christian Nation.” 

I am worse than the kids when I go to a magic show. I sit there in the theater after the trick, mouth open, and ask my friend “How did they do that?”

Italy's Duce Benito Mussolini (left) with Oswald Mosley (right) during Mosley's visit to Italy in 1936.

Recently, Corey Lewandowski, a manager of Donald Trump's Presidential campaign told a Fox news television interviewer in regards to the ongoing immigration debate and the plight of a ten-year-old girl with Down's syndrome, "I don't want to hear your sob stories about kids separated from their parents." As a historian currently working on a book about immigration, children, and disability in the 1920s I couldn't help but notice the phrase "sob story" because it appeared so often in earlier immigration debates. Читать дальше...

Scientific evidence overwhelmingly attests to the existence of human-caused global warming. The problem, however, is many people ignore or dispute such evidence. Such it has been with evolution, and so it now is with global warming. A recent example has been the man President Trump appointed to the job of protecting our environment—the Environmental Protection Agency’s head, Scott Pruitt—and other Protestant evangelicals who share his hostility to a science-based climate policy. (Evangelicals... Читать дальше...

A standard story in show business is that of the scrappy composer/writer/actor who struggles for years and then makes good. We all know that man or woman is one out of a million, but the story always works. Sometimes, though, it has a tragic edge. That’s the tale of Jonathan Larson, the creator of the epic Broadway musical hit Rent.

The heart-rending images of migrant families being separated at the border generated a political maelstrom for Republicans that resulted in the capitulation of President Trump on June 20th. Trump signed an executive order that, he said, would keep migrant families together at the border. At the time of writing, 2000 migrant children continue to be in detention centers, separated from their families, as the Republican-dominated Congress struggles to consider an immigration reform bill. (The House... Читать дальше...

The series of tweets below was posted by Angus Johnston, historian of American student culture, at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY).

Ocean’s 8, the latest in the long time of Ocean’s heist thriller movies, stretching all the way back to the 1960s with Frank Sinatra and extended to recent years with George Clooney, is the delightful tale of an all-girl robbery ring. Their target is no ordinary liquor store or bank, but the historic, mammoth Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and its decades old Met Gala ball, whose tickets cost $30,000 each and whose guests include the most famous women in the world from Madonna to Katy Perry and Kim Kardashian... Читать дальше...

The United States tried for close to 200 years to build humane asylums, and there are very good reasons why few are in existence today. At the beginning of the 19th century, New York City legislators made plans to replace what was recognized as an early attempt gone horribly wrong. The public hospital now known as Bellevue had also been the location of the city’s asylum for the “lunatic poor.” For wealthy citizens suffering from mental health issues there were private, and kinder, sanatoriums. Читать дальше...

Josiah Henson

When one thinks of the pantheon of the great black abolitionists, several spring to mind: Frederick Douglass. Harriet Tubman. Solomon Northup. But there is a fourth leader who once belonged to that hallowed group: Josiah Henson.

His accolades certainly warranted the inclusion. He rescued 118 enslaved people. He won a medal at the first World's Fair in London. Queen Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle. Lord Grey offered him a job. Rutherford B. Hayes entertained him at the White House. Читать дальше...

News story about the 1844 convention of African-Americans in Ohio

It’s 1851, in Gibson County, Indiana. And Keziah Grier is standing before the Gibson County clerk. She is nearing sixty, and the clerk is looking at her closely as he assesses her skin, the visible scars, the texture and color of her hair, her build. 

Did this remind Keziah of her childhood when she was enslaved in South Carolina, before she was brought in bondage to the Indiana Territory? By 1851 Keziah Grier had long been free... Читать дальше...

As I was putting the finishing touches on my new book, the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute published an estimate of the taxpayer dollars that will have gone into America’s war on terror from September 12, 2001, through fiscal year 2018. That figure: a cool $5.6 trillion (including the future costs of caring for our war vets). On average, that’s at least $23,386 per taxpayer.

Harvard’s Graham Allison, as early as 2013, but also last year in his book, Destined for War, expounded his concept of the “Thucydides’ Trap:” “When one great power threatens to displace another, war is almost always the result.” He also describes it as the “severe structural stress caused when a rising power threatens to upend a ruling one.” 

President Donald Trump's actions at the recent G-7 Summit – imposing tariffs on America's trading partners a few days before the meeting opened, leaving the meeting early, refusing to sign the closing protocol, and disparaging the meeting's host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in post-conference tweets – continues his policy of "America First," independent of and alienating toward our longstanding Canadian and European allies. Trump has criticized the policies of the prime minister of Great Britain and the Chancellor of Germany... Читать дальше...

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” Mark Twain was reported to have said. I have been thinking about that observation as the minuet between Donald Trump and the Republican Party continues. While Trump undermines the rule of law in an attempt to protect his presidency from the Mueller investigation, his party members swirl around him, some of whom challenge his actions, others attempt just to survive, while still others are willing accomplices. In researching the emergence of the abolitionists movement in the 1830’s... Читать дальше...

Thousands of immigrant children held in U.S. shelters

In recent days, millions of Americans have seen the shocking, heartbreaking images of children—crying, screaming, hysterical children—being ripped from the arms of their parents and sent away to a newly constructed camp in the Texas desert. So many of us have been justifiably outraged by the news. Here are children, arriving with their parents after a perilous journey, seeking asylum from the life-threatening conditions in their home countries... Читать дальше...

Although many people have criticized the bizarre nature of Donald Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea, his recent love fest with Kim Jong Un does have the potential to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. 

Trump supporters featured on the Trump campaign website

Rick Shenkman is the publisher of the History News Network and the author of Political Animals:  How Our Stone-Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics (Basic Books, January 2016), from which this article is adapted. You can follow him on Twitter. He blogs at stoneagebrain.

Commentators in the print and video media often complain about President Donald Trump’s aggressive actions regarding immigration, tariffs, health care, climate change, guns, the Iran nuclear agreement, and other controversial topics, but they recognize that he won the election. Reluctantly, they acknowledge that Trump has a mandate to take strong positions on the issues. But they are wrong. Donald Trump does not possess impressive authority to move the nation dramatically in new directions. Pundits... Читать дальше...

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