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Showing posts from February, 2024

How a Surprising Supreme Court Case Bolstered Conservative Education

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F eb. 28, 2024, marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Grove City College v. Bell (1984). The case pitted a small conservative Christian college against the Reagan Administration’s Department of Education (ED), with the two sides debating whether Title IX’s requirement to sign an Assurance of Compliance form was needed to receive federal funding for higher education. That form assured a policy of non-discrimination at the signing institution, a prerequisite that the 1972 legislation required in order to receive federal money for educational purposes. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of Title IX, but also limited its enforcement to only areas that received federal funding, in this case the receipt of federal student grants. This meant that even though Grove City would have to sign the form, federal oversight of educational equity on its campus would only be limited to student grants, not any program that benefited from money being offset by that federal money

Why a Historian Is Looking Forward to the New Shōgun Series

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T he original Shōgun was a rare phenomenon. More than 1,200 pages and 400,000 words in length, it proved stunningly successful, staying on the best-seller list for more than 30 weeks and selling millions of copies. The 1975 novel presented a fictionalized account of a real event: the arrival of an English pilot, William Adams, to Japan in 1600. Clavell reimagined the story, giving his hero (whom he renamed John Blackthorne), a starring role in the archipelago’s turbulent domestic Politics in the months leading up to the climactic battle of Sekigahara, which brought more than a century of constant warfare to a final end. Some historians criticized Shōgun as a text rife with errors and national stereotypes. But others like Henry Smith championed the book, arguing that it conveyed “more information about Japan to more people than all the combined writings of scholars, journalists, and novelists since the Pacific War.” Five years after its publication and millions of dollars later,  Shō

Online Extremism Is Decades in the Making

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F or over a decade, an ever-growing array of zealots advocating violence and sedition have been given practically free rein on social media platforms. With sometimes tragic consequences, they easily target some of society’s most vulnerable individuals. The use of social media to radicalize and mobilize for violence was perhaps most clearly evidenced by the arrests of hundreds of people who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — and posted about it. Many observers have lamented social media’s role in spreading far-right ideas and conspiracy theories, radicalizing scores of Americans. Critics have called for more aggressive regulation. But few have realized that the use of Technology by America’s violent, far-right extremists is nothing new. They have long understood the importance of messaging and the power of the media and Entertainment to spread their ideology. In the 1980s, in fact, racist, anti-government extremists enthusiastically welcomed the emergence of digital Technol

The Story Behind Toby Keith’s Controversial 9/11 Anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue”

Country music singer Toby Keith died on Monday. He was 62. While Keith signed his first record deal in 1993, he became better known outside the country music orbit after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when he released the hit song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" in 2002. The rally-around-the-flag anthem captured the rage Americans were feeling after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with explicit lyrics like “you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A / 'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.” Keith came up with the idea for the song the week after 9/11. He was organizing his fantasy Football team and started scribbling the lyrics on the back of a sheet of paper. According to a Mar. 1, 2004 profile of the singer (headlined "America's Ruffian") in TIME, the song "tumbled out of him in a 20-minute writing binge." "‘I wrote it so that I had something to pla

The Arctic Refuge Has Always Been a Case Study in Weaponizing—or Worse—Science for Oil

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I n September 2023, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland canceled the remaining fossil fuel leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, auctioned off during the waning days of the Trump administration. Denouncing the oil and gas leasing program as “seriously flawed,” Haaland emphasized the “insufficient” environmental review conducted by Trump’s Interior Department. Interior officials had sold off drilling rights to the Arctic Refuge while willfully ignoring scientific evidence about the potential impacts of fossil fuel development. Yet the Trump Administration was merely following a playbook devised more than three decades before. Throughout the long debate over the Arctic Refuge, drilling proponents have ignored or sometimes altered data , weaponizing Science to support their push for fossil fuel development. Meanwhile, government scientists, who patiently spent years completing rigorous studies of wildlife habitats, found their research warped or misrepresented in the rus

The Man Who Changed Field Goals Forever

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Could the Super Bowl be decided by a field goal as time expires?  It’s far from impossible, considering that multiple playoff games this year have already been decided by late missed field goals.  And it’s happened before: a field goal at the end of the game has won the Super Bowl three times in the event’s history. What many fans don’t realize, however, is that field goals have changed over time. When Jim O’Brien of the Baltimore Colts won the 1971 Super Bowl with a 32-yard field goal, it looked very different compared to when Adam Vinatieri won Super Bowls XXXVI and XXXVIII some 30 years later for the New England Patriots. O’Brien used what was then the most common and traditional method of placekicking, in which the kicker took three short steps backwards. In 2024, that method of kicking no longer exists and it’s all thanks the influence of European soccer on the NFL game. The story of the change in NFL field-goal kicking begins with the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. W

How Mardi Gras Traditions Helped New Orleans’ LGBTQ Communities Thrive

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I n New Orleans, like in many other cities and towns, it was once a crime for men to dress as women in public. But in New Orleans, an exception was often made on one special day. During Mardi Gras, police looked the way and audiences cheered if someone cross-dressed. Traditionally, Mardi Gras is celebrated as a time of indulgence, especially in food, drink, dancing, and pageantry. Participants revel in excess to mark the time before Ash Wednesday begins the fasting and repentance observed during the period of Lent. In New Orleans, a historically Catholic city, Mardi Gras has also provided a rare opportunity for LGBTQ folks to freely express themselves. With costuming so key to the festivities, these celebrations created space for people to transgress many traditions, including those tied to gender norms. Over time, LGBTQ people in New Orleans subverted Mardi Gras customs to strengthen community in the face of discrimination and death. Read More: The History Behind 5 of New Orleans'