Cuba’s former dictator, Fidel Castro, has died at the age of 90. When I woke up on Saturday morning to see the news, I was surprised by the reaction of many friends on social media, as well as the national media. The New York Times headline read, “Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at...
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Last week it was announced that Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill. The announcement was met with mixed reactions, though most seem to be positive. Placing a woman of color on American currency, an honor which thus far has been reserved for the Founding Fathers, is undoubtedly an event, one...
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Advocates of reparations for the descendants of African American slaves recently challenged socialist Bernie Sanders to embrace their cause, which he refused to do. A leading advocate of reparations, Atlantic contributor Ta-Nehisi Coates, criticizes Sanders for placing class-based politics before race. Lost in the unending debate over reparations is a key point: group reparations ignore the...
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Since a crazed, hate-filled and cowardly gunman killed nine black Christians in Charleston, South Carolina, the PC police have been in attack mode on anything associated with the Confederate States of America. The South Carolina General Assembly quickly voted to removed the Battle Flag from a Confederate Soldiers’ Memorial on the State House grounds. Now, critics...
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The movie adaptation of 50 Shades of Grey by author E.L. James swept its opening weekend competition and has generated blockbuster revenues of over $133 million, making it the top grossing movie of 2015. Controversy has come with it, as would be expected from any movie breaking through traditional cultural taboos. Combine that with...
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As the world observes conflicts in Iraq, Syria, the Ukraine, and elsewhere, the impact on human life is undeniably tragic. Nowhere is this tragedy more pronounced than in the impact of these conflicts have on children. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel, more than 10,000 children have died in...
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A recent news item suggests that if offense possibly can be taken, it will be taken. We have just been treated to studied outrage at the nicknames of the NFL’s Washington “Redskins”, Florida State University’s “Seminoles” and MLB’s Cleveland “Indians.” As my friend and colleague Randy Holcombe reminds us in a recent blog, the...
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The two strikes by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) unions during the recent contract negotiations have prompted a legislative campaign to ban strikes by public transit workers in California. John Logan, a professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, recently wrote an opinion piece opposing a ban for...
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Robert Fogel died a few days ago. He was a prominent figure in the academic economic history profession for five decades, virtually from the time he burst onto the scene with the publication of a polished-up version of his Johns Hopkins Ph.D. dissertation, Railroads and American Economic Growth, in 1964. This book was the...
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An excellent movie released six years ago, “Amazing Grace,” depicted the life of William Wilberforce and his ultimately successful efforts to abolish, first, the British Slave Trade in 1806, and then slavery throughout the English empire with the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. He did so entirely peacefully, through the British parliamentary system. It...
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