Roundup

Textbooks proposed for Texas schools open can of worms

by Emile J. Lester

"Students in Texas public schools could soon be learning that democracy and our nation’s government are based on the ideas of biblical figures like Moses and King Solomon."

The Civil War’s Environmental Impact

by Ted Widmer

Northern and Southern armies cut down roughly two million trees.

Delusions of the Democrats

by Kevin Baker

Demographics will not save them. A vision might.

The President Who Never Earned His Varsity Letter

by Michael Beschloss

For a president who never made the front line of his college squad, football played a surprisingly large part in Richard Nixon’s life.

Why Is American Teaching So Bad?

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Who becomes a teacher in America? The answer keeps changing, and not in ways that should make any of us proud.

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

A Day Late & a Dollar Short: Obama & China agree on Languid Climate Goals

by Juan Cole

Neither country has been willing to do all that much at all to reduce emissions.

Treat street harassment as a crime

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Learn from 'masher' prosecutions, and go after at least some of the men who menaced Shoshana Roberts

The military make mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the self-criticism’s become excessive

by Max Boot

Despite the dismal state of Iraq today and to a lesser extent of Afghanistan, America’s veterans can be proud of their achievements over the past 13 years.

Obama can’t govern? Who knew?

by Niall Ferguson

"The reason the public has lost its illusions about Obama is that he has proved to be as bumbling an executive as he was beguiling as a campaigner."

What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals

by Beverly Gage

Would the F.B.I.’s smear campaign against Martin Luther King Jr. work today?

A German-Jewish Zionist Explains Why Anti-Semitism Is All the Same

by Maxim Biller

Faced with specific pressures in Europe, a writer asks, ‘Would I think and write in a different way if there were no Israel?’

‘Re-enacting the Vietnam War’

by Mike Attie and Meghan O’Hara

Most remarkable perhaps is how this unusual hobby brings combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan together with civilians and veterans of Vietnam.

What we can learn from Vietnam War veterans about heroin addictions

by James Clear

95% of Vietnam veterans who used heroin got off it when they returned home. What was their secret?

How American voters fell out of love with their own parties

by Leon Neyfakh

Today we hate the other side more than we root for our own team. Why the end of rah-rah politics is bad for democracy.

The Story of How The New Republic Invented Modern Liberalism

by Franklin Foer

The magazine was born wearing an idealistic face. The editors would help craft a new notion of American government, one that now goes by a very familiar name: liberalism

Iraq and the Battle of the Potomac

by Peter Van Buren

Four Months into Iraq War 3.0, the Cracks Are Showing -- on the Battlefield and at the Pentagon

Was Vincent Van Gogh Murdered?

by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

If Van Gogh didn’t shoot himself, who did shoot him?

Even George Washington couldn't get along with the Senate

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Tension between the chief executive and the upper body of Congress is baked into our national DNA.

When will US admit Boots on Ground in Iraq (3000 Troops)?

by Juan Cole

That these troops will be sent with Iraqi soldiers to al-Anbar Province belies the administration’s repeated denial that it will put boots on the ground.