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Whatever Intelligent Design Is, It's Not a Theory and It's Not Science

by Richard L. Cravatts

“Our creationist detractors charge that evolution is an unproved and unprovable charade,” wrote the brilliant paleontologist and Harvard professor, Stephen Jay Gould, “a secular religion masquerading as science.” Signaling that those charges are still part of a contentious discussion about the origins of life, Kansas’s Board of Education just recently adopted new standards to question the validity of Darwinian theory and open the door to teaching alternate explan

Congress Should Censure President Bush

by Martin Halpern

President Bush used the occasion of Veteran’s Day to attack critics of the Iraq war as unpatriotic. In the face of the overwhelming evidence that the war was started on false premises, the president has the audacity to state that anyone who raises questions about the origins of the war are hurting our soldiers and giving aid and comfort to our enemies. The president makes no sense and has no shame. Bush makes no sense because he pulled a bait and switch and asks us not to notic

Why the Love Affair Between Katherine Harris and the Bush Administration Has Wilted

by Edward Olshaker

To many Democrats she is the devil incarnate, the person who cost Al Gore the presidency in 2000. But to many Republicans she will always be remembered fondly. At President Bush's Florida inaugural ball in 2001 she was even compared with Rosa Parks. As the Christian Science Monitor writer Peter Grier reported: …When Dick Cheney dropped by, a phalanx of trumpeters announced his arrival as if he were a conquering emperor. When George W. Bush came by, he got &

Thomas Paine--Where Are You When We Need You?

by Harvey J. Kaye

Eager to reconnect with the Spirit of 1776, Americans have turned biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton -- along with histories of our War for Independence such as David McCullough's 1776 -- into huge bestsellers. We celebrate the Founders' audacity and commitment, marvel at their battlefield heroics, literary talents and political wisdom and heatedly debate their collective and respective flaws and contradictions. However, as t

Why Are Greek Americans Celebrating John Negroponte?

by George Beres

No one has greater appreciation for ethnic history than Greek-Americans. For my parents and immigrants from Hellas like them, their Greekness supplied a sense of pride that strengthened them for difficult times that confront all immigrants to our shores. As one of them, I know Greek-Americans share pride in democracy having begun in the land of their roots. That's why I am perplexed by how easily some forget recent history of one who has defiled principles we share from ancient tradition.

Why the California Initiative System is Undermining Democracy

by Jules Tygiel

IF GOV. ARNOLD Schwarzenegger really wants to"blow up the boxes" in Sacramento, he should sponsor one two-line initiative:"There shall be no further initiatives."All previous initiatives may be modified by a majority vote of the Legislature." When asked after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 what kind of government the new American nation had adopted, Benjamin Franklin famously replied,"A republic, if you can keep it." In a republic, there is no monarch. More import

The Last High White House Official Indicted While in Office: U.S. Grant's Orville Babcock

by Rick Shenkman

Orville Babcock, a West Point graduate, had been in the army with Grant, serving with him in the difficult days of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania campaigns, among others. Grant subsequently had hired him in the White House to serve as his chief of staff (though the position formally was known as secretary to the president). Babcock was a very energetic, very well-organized assistant and Grant liked him immensely. Grant probably spent more time with Babcock than with any other member of his a

They Say the Buck Stops in the Oval Office, But It Doesn't

by David L. Roll

In the third month of the Korean War, with mid-term congressional elections looming, President Harry Truman fired Louis Johnson, the nation's second secretary of defense. Hours after Hurricane Katrina predictably laid waste to New Orleans, Michael Brown, the hapless

Why I Want Both Teams to Win the World Series

by Ron Briley

This year’s World Series leaves me considerably conflicted between head and heart. For a political progressive, a victory by the Chicago White Sox would erase the curse of the exploited 1919 Black Sox and place baseball’s world championship in a blue state. On the other hand, a victory for Houston is yet another triumph for the conservative sun belt over the rust belt, and, of course, the Astros are the favorite team of George Herbert Walker Bush. He and Barbara are prominently frame

Why Don't Harvard Graduates Join the Military Anymore?

by Richard F. Miller

An important subplot in Harvard’s Civil War: The History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (UPNE, 2005) was the issue of why Northern elites, especially the cultural, commercial and old Federalist elites of Mas

Why They Are Shooting at the Authorities in New Orleans

by Thaddeus Russell

The violence in New Orleans was so relentless and cold-blooded that it seemed to be from a Hollywood movie, not real life. Two people walked into a restaurant, forced a brother and sister onto their knees, then shot them in the head. A drug dealer settled a score with a woman by ordering someone to kill her with the command, “Get that whore!” Other women were raped at gunpoint. Hundreds of people were beaten, some fatally, simply for being on the streets at the wrong time.T

Bush's Second Term Blues

by Alfred J. Zacher

Is George Bush becoming a lame duck? Is the curse of the second term, that plagued all but six of nineteen presidents elected to a second term, about to settle upon the president? The question has been raised over the past month or so as his ratings have been sinking and the public indicating dissatisfaction with the direction the country is taking. Rising gas prices and interest rates coupled with the swelling deficit due to the cost of Katrina and Rita have moved the economy into the

Why the Military Shouldn't Take Charge in Emergencies

by John Barnhill

A majority of Americans in a recent poll expressed support for the use of our military as part of law enforcement during domestic emergencies. President Bush evidently shares this view, for he proposed using the military to enforce the law in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He suggested as well that the military might be best qualified to quarantine sections of the United States in the event of a bird flu epidemic. He has proposed that the Department of Defense, not a civilian agency, receiv

We Could Use a Man like Herbert Hoover Again

by Timothy Walch

Herbert Hoover, where are you now that we need you? Hurricane Katrina has underscored the importance of unified command and control in response to national disasters. Unfortunately, no one has stepped forward to take on this responsibility. For that job, we need a person in the mold of Herbert Hoover again. Herbert Hoover? He's an unlikely role model. After all, many Americans still blame him for the Great Depression, and he's generally considered below average among our presid

Being Fearful Hasn't Made Us Safer ... Maybe We Should Try Being Hopeful

by Ira Chernus

Who can deny it? It's an almost physical pleasure to watch George W. Bush's fall from grace. And it's so easy. All you have to do is say, "Bush has botched the war on terrorism. Bush is not keeping us safe from terrorists -- or from the terrors of nature." You've already got over half the country with you, and more are jumping on board the anti-Bush train every day. But before we settle in to ride that train to political glory, we ought to consider whether it can really take us to a be

Patrolling Borders: Bacon's Rebellion and Modern “Minutemen”

by Heather Norby

In light of recent border politics and the post September 11, 2001 focus on real and imagined foreign threats, I have found myself thinking of Bacon’s Rebellion. After the showdown in April between California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger praising private border patrols and President Bush condemning them as vigilantes many of us on the left were asking ourselves if this was some good-cop, bad-cop stunt. It occurred to me that the questions raised by these modern self titled &ld

Why I Am Running for the U.S. Senate from Maryland

by Allan Lichtman

Conservative big government is making government costlier and less fair. It is stifling individual freedom and democratic decision-making.--Allan Lichtman, Newsday.com August 7, 2005After analyzing American politics for many years I am running as a Democrat for the United States Senate seat in Maryland being vacated by Paul Sarbanes. This election matters to everyone nationwide, since Bush has targeted our state as a top priority for picking up a seat in 2006 and holding his S

Huck, Katrina, Gerhard, and Us

by Martin Halpern

At age 80 Hal Holbrook performed his “Mark Twain Tonight” again on Broadway in June and I was lucky enough to be able to attend. "The world I live in irritates me enormously," Holbrook told the St. Petersburg Times in his fiftieth year of appearing as Twain: "Doing the Twain show has become a way for me to express my feelings. It gives me the opportunity to take a look at what

When Hemingway Took the Government to Task for a Hurricane Disaster that Cost Hundreds of Lives

by Melissah J. Pawlikowski

On September 2, 1935 what became known as the Great Labor Day Hurricane ravaged the Florida Keys with winds of 160 miles per hour and gusts up to 200 miles per hour. Soon after the clouds had cleared, leaving a crystal blue horizon, the dead were counted. Between 400 and 600 people perished. What made this storm all the more tragic was that among the dead were 265 World War I veterans. At the height of the Great Depression these veterans had been sent to build a road on the low lying

The War That Wasn’t: Religious Conflict in Public Schools of the 19th Century

by Benjamin Justice

Most modern accounts of the history of public education in the nineteenth century make for grim reading. The story goes something like this: an anti-Catholic, Protestant majority foisted common schools on a re