tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49533657613570415772024-03-12T15:03:39.533-07:00ABC-CLIO BlogABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.comBlogger303125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-36637819106597326142014-07-10T12:14:00.003-07:002014-07-28T07:36:53.280-07:00The Taliban: Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">For Westerners, Afghanistan has always
been distant, exotic, and periodically threatening. In the Occident, the Afghan
warrior tradition enjoys well-earned respect. Many countries have invaded
Afghanistan, but few have controlled it for long.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> In the 19th century, the British conquered, then were
defeated, then conquered again, and then left Afghanistan. The Soviets had an
equally checkered relationship with Afghanistan and, like the British before
them, were defeated.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Arial Unicode MS";">Afghans, too, suffered the wages of war. In the late 20th<sup>
</sup>century, the Soviets carpet bombed villages and valleys, killing over 1
million Afghans and dispersing many millions more into squalid, disease-ridden
refugee shanties. After the Soviet invasion, the always-fragile traditional
economy collapsed, plunging Afghans into destitution, fatalism, and despair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">For more than 12
years, the United States has been at war in Afghanistan. Events surrounding
that country provoke controversy. An American soldier captured by the Taliban
under questionable <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>circumstances was
recently traded for elite Afghan insurgents. Will this prolong the insurgency,
will it shorten it, or will it have no consequence? This is uncertain. But what
is certain is that Afghanistan serves as a grand laboratory of military and
economic developmental polices. Lessons drawn from counterinsurgency successes
and failures guide American policies in some of the most desperately poor
nations of the world. This is a battle of wills.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The Taliban’s goal of
reestablishing Islamic law, or Sharia, is common to many Islamic organizations,
both militant as well as those who proclaim themselves peaceful. The use of
insurgency is one tactic to achieve the world domination of Islam. Militant
Islam is expressed through different means and media. For this reason, it is a
battle of ideas, as well as bullets. It is being waged through the Internet, in
mosques, and in religious schools, or madrassas, as well as on the fields of
battle in Afghanistan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The Taliban offer an
unrelenting dedication to conquer Afghanistan, an unconstrained use of terror,
and solidarity with important fragments of global Islam. The Taliban leverage
deeply ingrained Afghan skepticism of Western promises for a better future.
Foreign men have come and gone from Afghanistan, and, despite promises, only
the poverty remains.<sup> </sup>Taliban leaders boast that Afghans are armed
with the religious fervor, honor, and resolve. “Such weapons are neither
available in the arsenal of America nor in the warehouse of her allies.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4953365761357041577#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
In January 2013, the Taliban crowed, “No sooner will the foreigners quit than
the Afghans will start living under the cover of an Islamic government and in
the environment of Islamic brotherhood.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The American-led
Coalition is determined to prevent the Taliban’s triumph. Today’s soldiers on
both sides of the struggle have lived only in wartime. The sons of Taliban
fighters, who were 10 when the group was scattered into Pakistan, are now in
their early 20s. Many are hardened fighters and will, undoubtedly, face the
sons of the Northern Alliance. The Taliban are tough, but so are many other
Afghans.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>As the book</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313398971" target="_blank">The Taliban: Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgents</a></span></i></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;">
comes to publication, U.S. forces are
scheduled to leave, and the Taliban will certainly try to fill the security
vacuum. Thirteen years of building a civil service, army, police, and health
and educational system will be put to the test. The extent to which
Afghanistan’s fortunes are intertwined with or independent of American military
will be decided. Will the Taliban’s power-sharing negotiations become a viper’s
embrace of the still-struggling Karzai regime? Can the Karzai regime stand on
its own to meet the Taliban challenge? The stakes are survival for the new
Afghan state.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQ-oRJsyfdDF5jVGWGj4V5NcpFGQ8cP3MOz4zDY8r5jXgwPTo7NKTBkx3ou7f6v4XktnXL2bNC6owY90uUjjz9LiKpocXaIItseYef5Sv5YNzPSWR2KcEFepAW34XVmp3Jpj5alDNFhw/s1600/Taliban.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQ-oRJsyfdDF5jVGWGj4V5NcpFGQ8cP3MOz4zDY8r5jXgwPTo7NKTBkx3ou7f6v4XktnXL2bNC6owY90uUjjz9LiKpocXaIItseYef5Sv5YNzPSWR2KcEFepAW34XVmp3Jpj5alDNFhw/s1600/Taliban.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mark Silinsky</span></b> is a 30-year
veteran of the defense intelligence community. He has served as a senior
counterinsurgency advisor and counterintelligence analyst in the United States
and in Afghanistan. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Southern
California; earned a master's degree from Oxford University; and is a graduate
of the Naval War College, the National Defense University, and the National
Intelligence University.</span>
</div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4953365761357041577#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
Statement of the Islamic Emirate on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11, Afghan
Forums, Accessed July 1, 2014, http://www.afghanforums.com/showthread.php?23426-Statement-of-the-Islamic-Emirate-on-the-Tenth-Anniversary-of-9-11-you-must-read-it-)</div>
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</div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-12946950169129310162014-06-06T09:30:00.000-07:002014-06-06T09:30:07.235-07:00The Enduring Relevancy of Nation-States in International Politics: The Case of China<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">We
are well in to the second decade of the 21st century and may observe the contemporary
security challenges in global politics. The international environment is
fraught with transnational threats, from national disasters to infectious
diseases, politically-motivated organized violence to technologically-sophisticated
cross border threats. It is difficult to look with optimism at the 21st-century
international security situation. It may be even more difficult to prepare for it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">But,
there remains a crucial element of international politics and the insecurity
therein—whatever the time period—that is known, namely, the preeminent role of
nation-states. Understanding the interests and objectives of a nation-state,
its intentions and objectives as well as its capabilities, plans, and
operations, prepares us for the most daunting challenges of the 21st century. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Indeed,
nearly every day in newspapers around the world we read about one nation-state
in particular, China. Asia to Africa, the Middle East to the Americas, the
activities, products, and services of China and its state-owned enterprises and
citizens fill the headlines of business and economic news headlines. Moreover,
politically, China is making its presence known throughout the world, well
beyond its borders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Is
this all by design? Does China have a strategy in place to effect international
politics? Current events give us a glimpse, perhaps, of China’s strategic
intentions. For example, from May 20-21, 2014, China hosted the fourth summit
of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA)
in Shanghai, taking over the chairmanship for two years. On the sidelines of CICA,
China and Russia signed agreements for Russia to supply China with natural gas for
30 years to help fuel the economic development of both nation-states, but
especially China. Worth an estimated $400 billion, China is developing closer
strategic ties to Russia; however, for what purpose? How do China and Russia
envision international politics in the 21st century?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Within
its own borders, meanwhile, China is facing daunting economic as well as social
challenges. Recent events reveal problems at home. In the predominantly-Muslim
region of Xinjiang, multiple attacks on May 22, 2014 killed dozens and injured
nearly 100 Chinese citizens in the city of Urumqi. The central government in
Beijing blamed ethnic Muslims, locally known as Uighurs, and labeled them as
terrorists. To what extent will security challenges like this affect Chinese
policies, domestic and foreign? How will China address its internal challenges
in the face of external events, both regionally and beyond?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">In
fact, this is the traditional strategic tension for China, managing relations
within and outside of its own borders. To understand recent events such as the
CICA summit, the Sino-Russian gas deal, or the attacks in Urumqi, one needs a
foundational understanding of the strategic aspects of China. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">In
China, as elsewhere in Asia, history plays a vitally important role in
political affairs, domestic and international. Edited by Donovan C. Chau and
Thomas M. Kane, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China and International
Security</i> devotes an entire volume comprising 13 chapters to understanding
the strategic history and relationships of China. From dynastic to modern
times, China’s history has much to inform us about its strategic intentions and
plans, including in international politics today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">To
capture a sense of the internal debates and challenges of China, the second
volume of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China and International
Security</i> focuses on Chinese national security, also in 13 chapters. We
learn that China’s Muslim minority is but one example of the strategic tensions
within China. Areas challenging China internally include its demographics and
Communist Party as well as its views of human rights and the international
security environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Taken
together, these two volumes, one historical and another inwardly focused,
provide the strategic framework for better comprehending China’s contemporary
security challenges, which is the focus of volume three, comprising 15 chapters.
From regional to international strategies, China is exhibiting purposeful plans
and relationships to further Chinese strategic interests. While the character
of these interests may be debated, what is clear is that China has national
interests, and it is attempting to promote and preserve them. Thus, the role of
nation-states in international politics is revealed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">China
will have a profound influence on the 21st-century world. What happens in China
will have political, economic, and, therefore, strategic effects beyond its
borders. What China does, near and far—that is, how China behaves—will also
impact politics, regionally and internationally. To prepare strategically for
the 21st century, we must look to the past and within China as well as examine
its regional and international strategies; this is the purpose and utility of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440800016" target="_blank">China and International Security</a></i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrUlDXRygZfGTk-XYmPC2kWKPMjh0F7UW4SgvaRrgEklgyKizzg7noIEiNv0NKvXNtFUfYzSybvuFQ7cLHuWngPh6DpNTv0_HB9bmKgqqje33r4hDAJ0_MB2lfwzxbYO7gdI3ny00axY/s1600/CHINA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrUlDXRygZfGTk-XYmPC2kWKPMjh0F7UW4SgvaRrgEklgyKizzg7noIEiNv0NKvXNtFUfYzSybvuFQ7cLHuWngPh6DpNTv0_HB9bmKgqqje33r4hDAJ0_MB2lfwzxbYO7gdI3ny00axY/s1600/CHINA.jpg" height="320" width="246" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Donovan
C. Chau</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">,
PhD, is associate professor of political science at California State
University, San Bernardino. Educated at Claremont McKenna College, Missouri
State University, and the University of Reading, his teaching and research
focus on international politics, particularly in Asia and Africa. He has
written book chapters, journal articles, monographs, and two books, including <i>Exploiting
Africa: The Influence of Maoist China in Algeria, Ghana, and Tanzania</i>.<br />
<br />
<b>Thomas M. Kane</b>, PhD, is senior lecturer at the University of Hull,
specializing in strategic studies and international relations with a particular
interest in East Asia. His published works include <i>Chinese Grand Strategy
and Maritime Power</i> and <i>Ancient China on Postmodern War</i>. His book <i>Strategy:
Key Thinkers</i> includes substantial material on ancient and 20th-century
Chinese military thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-79954567319588996382014-04-11T14:13:00.001-07:002014-04-11T14:13:12.699-07:00North Korean Human Rights Concerns and Its Challenges<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">North
Korea draws the world’s attention for its many idiosyncrasies: The Korean
peninsula remains the last Cold War frontier with the Communist North and the
capitalist South still at a war; the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is
one of the poorest nations, yet one of the proudest; it is one of the most
sanctioned states, yet one of the most defiant; it is one of the weakest, yet
one of the most resilient. This paradox sums up its presence in the world
community. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">As
the globalization process unfolds, human rights concerns have emerged as a
major variable in international interactions. The fashionable buzz words such
as human security, humanitarian intervention, life security, and securitization
of non-traditional security issues point to a gradual shift of focus from
Hobbesian guns-and-bullets paradigm to Kantian moral-ethical interests. The
general trend in Northeast Asia is, though, still preoccupied with national
security priority over human rights protection. Here we have the North
Korean problem confabulated with nuclear threats and human rights abuses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">The
summary execution of Jang Sung-taek, the current North Korean leader Kim
Jung-un’s relative and patron, on December 12, 2013 alerted to the systematic
human rights violations which did not evade the highest echelon of Pyongyang’s
ruling strata. It took only four days for the regime to execute Jang since his
arrest on December 8 of that year. The expeditious execution implies the denial
of defendant’s rights to attorney and total dismissal of legally stipulated
procedures. This high profile case supports the existing testimonies of North
Korean refugees on the arbitrary and summary executions in the totalitarian
regime.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">North Korea acknowledges universality of
human rights, while advocating “socialist democracy” and “our theory of human
rights.” The contradictions lie in the obvious gap between rhetorical claims as
stated in the DPRK Constitution and empirical reality as testified by
the </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">refugee</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">s. One of the
challenges in North Korean human rights lies with the fact that the Pyongyang
regime is the violator as well as the potential protector of the rights. The
concerned parties of international community, therefore, have to tread the
precarious waters in inducing the North Korean government’s cooperation to
abide by rule of law, while trying not further push it </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">to a </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">self-isolating,
defensive </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">corner</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Making it more challenging, North Korea sees
human rights not as a norm to protect, but a </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">politically
motivated pressure</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">
tool. The regime calls for self-vigilance in facing the criticisms raised and
voiced by the international community. The Pyongyang leadership dismisses the
concerned voices of the “imperial powers” as unjustifiable interference into
domestic affairs. North Korea’s self-perception as the weak surrounded by the
hostile and powerful nations makes it ever more conscious of slight
belittlement, imagined or real, of its sovereignty. </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">The human rights violations add more complexity to the
existing ‘North Korean problem’ where its primary concern lies
with nuclear capability. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Pyongyang’s aversion to the human rights
discourse originates from two primary reasons: overriding prerogatives to
maintain a domestic ruling hierarchy and the suspicions towards Western-centric
rights discourse. The world order perceived by North Korea derives from a struggle
between the imperialists and the subjugated. The two exemplary imperialist
countries in their perception are the U.S. and Japan, whilst member nations of
the opposing camp which they identify with include Cuba, Egypt, and Indonesia.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">Th</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">is</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">simple dichotomy</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> of ‘with us vs.
against us’ are often </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">demonstrated
</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">at</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"> the United Nations Human Rights Council
sessions. On March 25, 2010, for example, North Korea refused to accept the Council’s
final resolution by stating that it will either “take note of” or “reject” the
117 recommendations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">The
advancement of human rights is a noble enterprise. As democracy aims to amend
the unequal distribution of power, universal rights is to respect the innate
humanity of all regardless of external attributes. Human rights discourse in
this regard can be both empowering and potentially subversive. The tension
between heightened awareness and the tenacity of ancient regime explains one of
the challenges of the 21<sup>st</sup>-century global society where North Korea
raises concerns for its unique challenges.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";"><o:p> </o:p></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313364075" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313364075" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVcti6LmcCkoAtRo47s7qw93UMk_hJeob4i7Wsy5qttWQ7ncPv6XYWQNdqegBXye4KTjZwMr6huXMQBVJyjnuo3oz5lFRyttmql_kPEqkF4e81H-xUL1UjBLufiObfArs7GoawNv-avkY/s1600/Securitization+of+Human+Rights-1502668.JPG" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";">Mikyoung Kim</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Malgun Gothic";"> is Associate Professor at Hiroshima City University-Hiroshima.
</span><span style="color: #2d3835; font-family: "Helvetica","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;">She was a Fulbright visiting professor at Portland State
University, OR, and served with the U.S. State Department at the U.S. Embassy
in Seoul, Korea, as a public diplomacy specialist. She has published many
articles on memory, human rights, and gender in Northeast Asia, and is the
author of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313364075" target="_blank">Securitization of Human Rights:North Korean Refugees in East Asia</a> </i>(Praeger Security International, 2012). </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-19870428313763618582014-03-17T15:02:00.000-07:002014-03-17T15:02:32.460-07:00Ukrainian Crisis & Its Implications
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The crisis in Ukraine began with former President
Yanukovych refusing to sign a trade agreement with the European Union (EU).
This refusal was met with an outcry by the Ukrainian people. Signing this
agreement would have helped progress Ukraine economically and politically,
whereas refusing to sign it demonstrated Yanukovych’s alliance with Russia.
More than 100,000 people poured into the streets of Kiev to protest Yanukovych.
These protests were met with extreme violence leading in the deaths of more
than 80 protestors over three months. In December, Russia and Ukraine reached a
deal under Yanukovych in which Russia agreed to send $15 billion in aid to the
country through significant discounts on oil that would help Ukraine with its
debt crisis, saving it from defaulting. This only caused further unease with
the Ukrainian people, who already view Russia as having too much influence over
their country. On February 22, Yanukovych was voted out of his post as president
of Ukraine and an interim government was put in place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The divide between Russian-speaking eastern and
Ukrainian-speaking western parts of Ukraine runs deep within the inhabitants of
these regions who hold ties to different nations. As a former Soviet state,
many ethnic Russians reside in Ukraine, specifically in the Crimea region whose
population primarily consists of ethnic Russians. Additionally, Russia’s
largest naval base outside of its borders is located in Sevastopol, a port in
Crimea. This past week Russia dispersed troops into Crimea, seizing control of
the region in a move that Ukrainian nationalists and members of the
international community are terming as an invasion of sovereign Ukrainian
territory, and therefore a potential violation of international law. At
present, the United States and the EU are urging Putin to withdraw his troops
to their former posts within the territory, a move that Putin is refusing. The
United States and members of the EU are threatening economic sanctions against
Russia if it does not comply with this request.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The implications of this conflict reach far and wide.
Where the United States and Russia certainly do not need more tension between
one another, the United States is facing another struggle: its demonstration of
power in the international community. There is a question regarding whether the
United States flexing its muscles in the face of Russia is enough to cause
Putin to back down. His moves currently suggest the United States does not have
the necessary political leverage over Russia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Continuing on the path that Putin has begun could create
problems for Russia. In addition to the sanctions proposed by the United States
and the EU, the stock market took a hard hit this week, dropping the value of
Russian and Ukrainian currencies. Putin has stated that his primary emphasis is
to keep ethnic Russians within Ukraine protected, but Ukrainians and others in
the international community question this motive. While this might be his public
reasoning for taking control of Crimea, many believe that his interests lie
more in an attempt to make a power play over a former Soviet state. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Talks that have taken place this week in Paris regarding
the crisis made it clear that Putin does not view the interim government as
having legitimacy. In response to the pro-West groups that took over Kiev,
Pro-Russian groups took power over the legislature of Crimea and have declared
that there will be a vote on March 16 to decide whether Crimea will remain a
part of Ukraine, or return to its pre-1954 status of Russian territory. The United
States and the EU reacted negatively to this move, rejecting its legitimacy. If
this moves forward there is a threat within Ukraine of civil war, pitting the
EU and United States against Russia in a fundamental way. The EU and the United
States have made clear their intentions of posing sanctions on Russia, but a
full-fledged civil war within Ukraine could force the world’s superpowers to
pick sides, ultimately placing the EU and the United States against Russia in a
war that the world and its people cannot afford.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiynpXr7VmnOgIWdI9XQrlGaQS7_47rn99nRNOqbnip3_UanEaNNhZ6Bfn261kLUE428XSayaxenwAeJa4qrf9KYHeVtvJ-zlXY8Yj5HVvBHRWNBx6UKAehCNVkWpLmDfkqlyivjn-18QQ/s1600/A2036C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiynpXr7VmnOgIWdI9XQrlGaQS7_47rn99nRNOqbnip3_UanEaNNhZ6Bfn261kLUE428XSayaxenwAeJa4qrf9KYHeVtvJ-zlXY8Yj5HVvBHRWNBx6UKAehCNVkWpLmDfkqlyivjn-18QQ/s1600/A2036C.JPG" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Houman A. Sadri</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">,
PhD, is associate professor of political science and coordinator of the UCF
Model United Nations Program at the University of Central Florida in Orlando,
FL. He is the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313379802" target="_blank">Global SecurityWatch — The Caucasus States</a> </i>(Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2010). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Leah
Delaney</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> is a graduate of Ohio State University's International
Studies program and is currently pursuing Master's degrees from University of
Central Florida in Political Science and Nova Southeastern University in Mental
Health Counseling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-5266726829521771412014-02-28T13:11:00.005-08:002014-02-28T13:22:57.880-08:00El Chapo’s Take-Down Will Not Fragment the Sinaloa Cartel<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Such Mexican cartels as the Arellano Féliz
Organization, the Beltrán Leyva Organization, the Gulf Cartel, and Los Zetas
have fragmented when their boss was captured or killed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lieutenants vied for power with each other
even as rival crime organizations sought to seize the turf of the fallen Mafioso.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In contrast, there is a good chance that Sinaloa
Cartel is likely to avoid such fragmentation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, the bloodless take-down of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán
Loera is a thorn in the side of the Sinaloa Cartel, but not a dagger in its
heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, who has disguised
himself with plastic surgery, should be able to step into El Chapo’s boots
without a free-for-all among colleagues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>El Mayo, born January 1, 1948 in El Álamo, Badiraguato, Sinaloa, is a
savvy, seasoned narco-trafficker, an inseparable ally of El Chapo, and virtual
co-leader of their enterprise that stretches from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Mexico</st1:country-region>
to Central America to Europe to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region></st1:place>.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chicago, Illinois, recently slammed El Chapo as
“Public Enemy Number One” because of the Sinaloans dominance of the Windy
City’s drug commerce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">During El Chapo’s imprisonment from June 9, 1993 to
January 19, 2001, Zambada helped orchestrate his escape from El Grande prison
in a laundry cart after his electronically wired cell door inexplicably flew
open and video cameras went dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
feat became known as the “golden kilogram”—an allusion to the weight of the
gold used to bribe those who helped the kingpin gain freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">El Mayo is also allied with </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Jos%C3%A9_Esparragoza_Moreno" title="Juan José Esparragoza Moreno"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Juan José
"El Azul " Esparragoza Moreno</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, one of the most astute lords in Mexico’s
underworld and, by far, its best negotiator. El Azul, so called because of the
blue tint to his skin, combines the bargaining skills of a Talleyrand, the
strategic instincts of a Henry Kissinger, and the low-keyed personality of a
squint-eyed accountant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aligned with the
Juárez Cartel until the July 1997 death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, he cast his
lot with the Sinaloa Cartel after El Chapo rolled out of the Puente Grande
prison in a laundry cart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although a
power in the Sinaloa syndicate, Esparragoza has carved out a fiefdom in <st1:city w:st="on">Cuernavaca</st1:city> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Puebla</st1:state></st1:place>.
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">El Mayo’s
financial and political acumen enabled the mustachioed strongmen to knit close
relations with Félix Gallardo and Amado Carrillo Fuentes in their heyday. Since
the 1990s, El Mayo has had his own <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pistoleros</i>,
which helps him enforce agreements with interlocutors. He has enjoyed a high
degree of autonomy in his areas of greatest influence: </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaloa" title="Sinaloa"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Sinaloa</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durango" title="Durango"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Durango</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancun" title="Cancun"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Cancun</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintana_Roo" title="Quintana Roo"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Quintana Roo</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonora" title="Sonora"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Sonora</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monterrey" title="Monterrey"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Monterrey</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and </span></span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuevo_Leon" title="Nuevo Leon"><span style="color: windowtext; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Nuevo Leon</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While his gunman Gustavo
Inzunza reportedly killed more than 50 people in Sinaloa, spilling blood is not
El Mayo’s forte—except when agreements with him remain unfulfilled. The DEA and
PGR have placed a $5 million bounty on his head.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What group
could seek to take-over the territory and assets of the Sinaloa Cartel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beset by intra-mural brawling, the sadistic
Los Zetas have lost their command and control structure manipulated by Miguel
Ángel “El 40” Trevino Morales and Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano; although
Héctor is still in command, his Beltrán Leyvas have suffered disintegration as
a half-dozen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cartelitos</i> have emerged;
the Gulf Cartel is riven between Los Metros and Los Rojos; and the Knights
Templars have their hands full battling auto-defense groups, the Navy, the
Army, and the Federal Police in the Tierra Caliente.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Only the
fast-growing Cartel de Nueva Generación Jalisco (CJNG), which has been an
off-and-on ally of El Chapo, could pose a threat to the Sinaloans. However, the
CJNG has more enemies than friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its
foes include La Resistencia, Los Zetas, and Los Knights Templars—not to mention
remaining elements of La Familia Michoacana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No one is
“untouchable," but the El Mayo-El Azul tandem have the resources, know-how,
leadership skills, and cohesion to accomplish a transition from El Chapo and
enable the Sinaloa Cartel to maintain, if not expand, its territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia8KBl3fV_jgKi45NM5V0osrjNSUG5gMcAdLZhTf_udnAnZyx6PAubjoMeiXAIuhG6hlaFls2Eg14A-gtRGAfOih2lwi1gtyLv7AdZefD78qtbtfV9f1m7x-frhaSq3z_9z6ZP1IDRDR8/s1600/A4122C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia8KBl3fV_jgKi45NM5V0osrjNSUG5gMcAdLZhTf_udnAnZyx6PAubjoMeiXAIuhG6hlaFls2Eg14A-gtRGAfOih2lwi1gtyLv7AdZefD78qtbtfV9f1m7x-frhaSq3z_9z6ZP1IDRDR8/s1600/A4122C.JPG" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>George W.
Grayson</strong> is professor emeritus at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">College</st1:placetype>
of <st1:placename w:st="on">William</st1:placename></st1:place> &
Mary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His latest book, recently
published by Praeger, is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440829864" target="_blank">The Cartels: TheStory of Mexico’s MostDangerous Criminal Organizations and Their Impact on U.S. Security</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This op-ed was also published in El Universal, Feb.
24, 2014.</span></span></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-31735926392187230092014-02-06T16:10:00.000-08:002014-02-06T16:10:20.735-08:00Security and Threat Potential at the Olympics
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As <span style="color: black;">NBC's
Russian Security Analyst for the 2014 Sochi Olympics,</span> I was asked during
a recent interview what I thought the chances are that there would be no attacks
during the games, and my answer was a quick and unequivocal “zero percent.” The
best way to understand the threats facing the Sochi Olympics is to use some of
the concepts discussed at length in my book <i><span style="color: navy;"><span style="color: black;">The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North
Caucasus</span></span></i>; in particular the Most Dangerous Courses of Action
(MDCOA) and the Most Probable Courses of Action (MPCOA). There will be an
attack associated with the Olympics, but for it to be a “successful” attack
(from the insurgents and terrorists points of view), it doesn’t have to occur
anywhere near Sochi.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But before we talk about what the different groups operating in the North Caucasus might do, we have to first look at the situation from their point of view and see what targets would be available to them. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My initial assessment of security at the Olympics has remained
unchanged, especially after having spent a few days in Sochi, Adler, and
Krasnaya Polyana assessing the venues. Although it is not impossible for
terrorists<b> </b>or lone wolves to strike the Games directly, security at the
sporting events is very tight and it would require a significant amount of
planning, coordination, and logistics to pull off any type of attack, much less
a major one. And because there are plenty of “soft” targets that would yield
the same desired outcome, I think it extremely unlikely that athletes or
spectators will be in danger while at the Games themselves.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, outside the venues is a different story. Metal detectors and security
personnel screen everyone who enters a hotel, police and military patrols
routinely check the perimeters, and a heavy static security presence in the
city provides its own deterrent. However, a single committed terrorist could
gain entry to any of these hotels. Restaurants, bars, and clubs (where large
groups of people will inevitably end up each evening), have only the barest of
security and are largely dependent on the ubiquitous police patrols to try and
prevent would-be attackers from getting near them. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And while it’s necessary to present your credentials before boarding any train
or bus that takes fans to any Olympic venue, the roads leading to the mountain
venues are open to anyone—despite the traffic police stationed every 400 yards
along the route—meaning that it would be relatively easy for a car full of
terrorists to drive to Krasnaya Polyana (a stone’s throw away from Olympic
hotels and restaurants) and target any large group on any given
evening. This is, of course, contingent upon two additional factors: any
terrorists getting through the “Ring of Steel” surrounding the environs of
Sochi, which extends about 4 hours in every direction around Sochi; and having
established a pre-positioned cache of weapons and explosives within the area
before the “Wall of Steel” was established. <span style="color: red;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Caucasus Emirate (CE, also known as the Imarat Kavkaz, IK) is a dangerous
organization, and parts of their organization have been responsible for some of
the most infamous and horrific terrorist attacks in history: notably, the
seizure of the Dubrovka Theater in 2002 (the Nord-Ost incident) and the Beslan
School Shooting (2004) where more than 300 people were killed, most of them
children and some attending their very first day of school. More importantly,
by looking at some of their past actions, it's easy to see that it is entirely
within the realm of possibility for them to conduct a high-profile attack. Two
particular incidents described in <i>The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North
Caucasus</i> indicate this threat: the assassination of Akhmad Kadyrov and the
Third Battle of Grozny. Both demonstrate the ability of the CE to plan
well in advance, while the first is one of the best examples in history of a
targeted assassination at a sporting event (burying the explosives in the
concrete below the VIP bleachers and then waiting months until Kadyrov showed
up for an event), the second shows that the CE knows how to effectively utilize
caches in order to circumvent security forces and pass through “walls of steel”
in order to later conduct devastatingly coordinated attacks within a “secure”
area. It was, in fact, the Third Battle of Grozny that resulted in Chechnya
achieving defacto independence from Russia from 1996-1999. This is the same
organization that is responsible for the dual suicide bombings in the Russian
city of Volgograd in December of 2013.<span style="color: #1f497d;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The same factors that
made those incidents possible, most notably the lack of what I refer to as
Civil Infrastructure (in the forms of extreme corruption, the high number of
conscripts, and unprofessionalism in the security forces), as well as the
access (provided by massive construction projects) are still extant right now
at the Sochi Games. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Something will happen, but probably not in the direct environs of the Olympics.
Nonetheless, Russia is just too big to protect everything, and if readers of
the book will remember, it is standard procedure for insurgents to attack where
government forces are weakest, while terrorist cells must attack targets that
will get the most attention. With the eyes of the entire world now on Sochi,
almost anywhere in Russia is a possible target for terrorism. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEI1gRT1mZU7frdrexf-z-RITX7s9hAk0QIcd-t4B1thLmlECgT9hfcNJaT5-OZMNZ3eZ9xA7aggLbBpNvAtkZl3i2ykHJP3l_BHA9km0YY6UplRXlCkbVP0wkNOPYHjkQ3ftr3iwGb88/s1600/A3073C.JPG" height="320" width="211" /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Robert Schaefer</span></b><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> is a
U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) and Eurasian Foreign Area Officer. For
over 25 years he has served in a variety of special units and participated in
virtually every U.S. overseas operation since 1990. He has extensive
experience with counterinsurgency and counterterrorist operations around the
world and has lived and worked in many countries in Eastern Europe
and Central Asia as a diplomat and adviser to foreign governments and
militaries. He is uniquely qualified to analyze the conflict in the North
Caucasus because of his first-hand experience planning and executing counterinsurgency
and counter-terrorism operations in the Caucasus region. LTC Schaefer
is the 2001 recipient of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and the
Office of Strategic Services Society's Award of Excellence as the U.S. Special
Operations Command Person of the Year for his historic achievements with
Russian airborne forces. He obtained his MA
from Harvard University's Russia, Eastern Europe,
and Central Asia program, and is the host of National Public Radio's
Memorial Day Special 2007–2012. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the
Caucasus Survey, a consultant to several government agencies and a frequent
commentator for news programs and seminars focusing on the North
Caucasus insurgency. His critically-acclaimed book <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313386343"><em>The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat</em> <em>to Jihad</em></a></span> won multiple national awards and was named to Kirkus Reviews "Best
of 2011," and the "Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism"
by the journal <i>Perspectives on Terrorism</i>.</span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-40780426697800024322013-12-06T08:36:00.000-08:002013-12-06T08:36:01.387-08:00Remembering Nelson Mandela, 1918–2013<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">The passing of Nelson Mandela is sure to inspire a global outpouring of mourning, testimonials, and commentary, perhaps on a scale without precedent in the age of the Internet and social media. His life story and character have long moved and inspired many millions of people. Mandela received a life sentence for treason in 1964 for his anti-apartheid activism and spent 27 years in prison. After his release in 1990, he began leading negotiations for a peaceful end to apartheid with F.W. de Klerk, then-president of South Africa. In 1994, Mandela was elected president in the nation's first free multiracial elections. Shortly thereafter, he instigated a truth and reconciliation process that sought forgiveness in forging a new multiracial democracy.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">Mandela stepped down from the presidency after one term and became a global statesman. He devoted his time over the next few years to peace negotiations in other African countries, charitable work, and advocacy for such causes as human rights, poverty eradication, and HIV/AIDS prevention. In 1993, Mandela and F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid-era president, shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Mandela's leadership was not without criticism in some aspects, and South Africa today still struggles with inequality, corruption, and violent crime, while the African National Congress (ANC) he led is a divided party. However, he leaves behind a functional democracy and sub-Saharan Africa's largest economy—outcomes that were hardly assured in the last days of apartheid.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222;">Mandela is without dispute among the 20th century's most significant, influential, and revered figures, and will be studied globally for many years to come. In South Africa he remains both Madiba (his Xhosa clan name) and "The Father of the Nation."</span></span>ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-20281688178713876192013-11-06T09:42:00.003-08:002013-11-06T09:43:48.788-08:00New Primary Resource Collection: Explorers of the American West<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We are pleased to announce the addition of a rich collection of primary resources to our <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147483687"><b><i>United States Geography</i></b></a> Online Solution!</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAoHXYjmnSEdxvQI71YxR35HXVUJTfcCoImSOij8neizNxlaORC3lPDyMnPOaB8tD8Po8wcimjJun-pfbA9mDVP_SCJ_Pa28kzaOOuEgfUPQDy_FR6eWVlmrWwvP3w9ribgCBj646vtco/s1600/Explorers.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAoHXYjmnSEdxvQI71YxR35HXVUJTfcCoImSOij8neizNxlaORC3lPDyMnPOaB8tD8Po8wcimjJun-pfbA9mDVP_SCJ_Pa28kzaOOuEgfUPQDy_FR6eWVlmrWwvP3w9ribgCBj646vtco/s400/Explorers.bmp" width="357" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #121917; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: 19px; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Sacajawea is depicted guiding the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Rocky Mountains in this painting.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Users have access to a plethora of fascinating and illuminating primary sources such as journal entries and artwork. The new collection includes:</span><br />
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<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>60 journal excerpts</b> from some of the most notable explorers of the 19th century</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>50 pieces of<u> <a href="http://usgeography.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1829890?terms=explorers+of+the+american+west">primary source media</a></u></b>, which includes artwork from the expeditions, pdf maps, and photographs of journal pages</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">6 <b>interactive expedition maps</b> that feature pop-up boxes with journal excerpts that correspond to locations on the maps. These maps are one-of-a-kind, produced in-house from coordinates found in the journals themselves, and <b>only found at ABC-CLIO</b>!</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Timelines </b>for each featured expedition with links to their corresponding journal excerpts</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Essays</b> describing each expedition</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="http://usgeography.abc-clio.com/Feature/Story/1833359">A feature story</a></b>, “Ocian in View Celebrated,” that serves as our gateway to the collection and includes an Examine activity analyzing primary documents</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Two<b> <a href="http://supportcenter.abc-clio.com/Support/Display/1818685?cid=118&terms=american+west%20%20and%20http://supportcenter.abc-clio.com/Support/Display/1819761?cid=118&terms=american+west">lesson plans</a></b> on the support site to accompany the collection in which students analyze primary documents: Concept of Place in the American West and Explorers of the American West and Native American</span></span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Click the linked text above to begin exploring these unique and informative resources.</span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-81830370540445111492013-10-10T10:37:00.001-07:002013-10-10T10:38:01.180-07:00Congratulations to Our VOYA Five-Foot Bookshelf Featured Titles!<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The VOYA Five-Foot Bookshelf is an annual collection featuring VOYA reviewers' picks for best books for professionals who serve teens. We are honored to see so many of our Libraries Unlimited titles make the list!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781610690393">Adult Learners: Professional Development and the School Librarian</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Carl A. Harvey II</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">978-1-61069-039-3</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781610691000">Managing Children's Services in Libraries, Fourth Edition</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Adele M. Fasick and Leslie Edmonds Holt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">978-1-61069-100-0</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781610691185">Integrating Young Adult Literature through the Common Core Standards</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Rachel L. Wadham and Jonathan W. Ostenson</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">978-1-61069-118-5</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Lucy Schall</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">978-1-61069-289-2</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781598849608">Rainbow Family Collections: Selecting and Using Children's Books with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Content</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Jamie Campbell Naidoo</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">978-1-59884-960-8</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781610691260">Library Leadership in the United States and Europe: A Comparative Study of Academic and Public Libraries</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Peter Hernon and Niels Ole Pors, Editors</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">978-1-61069-126-0</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">View the electronic issue of VOYA <a href="http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?pbid=ec089b39-ceea-45d5-845d-c16b50f72843">here</a>. Find the Five-Foot Bookshelf feature on pages 8 and 9.</span></b>ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-30919955877829949232013-10-08T09:00:00.000-07:002013-10-08T09:00:00.496-07:00Zoot Suit Riots<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The
following interview features Roger Bruns,
historian and former deputy executive director of the National Historical
Publications and Records Commission at the National Archives in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place>, <st1:state w:st="on">DC</st1:state></st1:city>.
He is the author of many books, including<a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440803802"> </a><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440803802">Encyclopedia of Cesar Chavez: The Farm Workers' Fight for Rights and Justice</a>; <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313386480">Negro Leagues Baseball</a>; </i>and <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313340864">Icons of Latino America: Latino Contributions to American Culture</a></i>. He has written several biographies
for young readers on such figures as Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. He is author of the forthcoming <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313398780">Zoot Suit Riots</a></i>, part of the Landmarks of the America Mosaic series.</span></blockquote>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">You have written a book to
be published next spring by ABC-Clio on the Zoot Suit Riots in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:city></st1:place> during World War
II. First of all, what are zoot
suits? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Although the
exact origins of the zoot-suit are unclear, many Mexican-American youth in Los
Angeles in the early 1940s adopted the so-called “drape” look worn by
African-Americans they had seen in pictures and movies, especially in eastern
cities, and, most especially, in Harlem. The jazz music and the jitterbug dance
craze had made their way to the West Coast along with the clothes that spoke of
youthful rebellion and urban identity. There was the oversized coat with broad
shoulders and ballooned and pegged pants, large broad-brimmed hat, with a watch
chain often dangling down the side. Thick-soled shoes called Calcos added to
the look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mostly, the
youngsters were Mexican-Americans born in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> to parents who had immigrated.
Walking around the streets wearing the drapes with friends from their
neighborhoods gave
them, both young men and women, a group
identity – admiration from some in their own community; disgust and ridicule
from others, especially Anglos. Many
young men took on the name “pachucos” and women “pachucas,” terms of uncertain
origins that mostly came to mean those in adolescent gangs wearing zoot-suits.
Not every pachuco wore a zoot suit, however, and certainly most members of the
Mexican-American community did not consider themselves part of the pachuco
rage. Indeed, the parents of many of those adolescents involved were
unquestionably anxious and concerned about the fidelity of their sons and
daughters to this new cultural phenomenon.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But the zoot-suit rage grew.
Pachucos intermixed English and Spanish with slang they called “Chuco,” much of
it from a Caló dialect that could be
traced to early Spanish wanderers and outcasts. They gathered in groups
that carried names of Mexican-American neighborhoods <st1:address w:st="on">– <st1:street w:st="on">39<sup>th</sup> Street</st1:street></st1:address>, White Fence,
Alpine Street, and <st1:placename w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Happy</st1:place>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Valley</st1:placetype></st1:placename>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What led to riots?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Most of all, we
have to remember the entrenched prejudice against Mexican-Americans in this
period. It was not only invidious but out in the open for all to see. Many
public facilities were closed to Mexican-Americans. Some churches would allow
Mexican-Americans inside only on certain days. Many cemeteries, even those
publicly operated, reserved special sections specifically for
Mexican-Americans, thus separating them in death from Anglos just as they had
been during life. Some theaters did allow
Mexican-Americans and Afro-Americans access but only on certain nights. There
were actually signs that read “No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mexican-Americans read stories in <st1:city w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:city> newspapers that called them
“undesirables.” They were accused by law enforcement officials and political
leaders of being inclined to engage in criminal activities and were, therefore,
a threat to law and order. When arrested for petty crimes, many were subjected
to what was euphemistically called the “third degree” – from beatings with
rubber hoses to “three-day hunger tests.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Zoot Suit Riots are inextricably linked to
the infamous, so-called Sleepy Lagoon murder in August 1941 southeast of <st1:city w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:city>. The Sleepy Lagoon was a reservoir used to
irrigate crops and a swimming hole and meeting place for many Mexican-American
youths. At a party at a nearby house on August 1, a young man named Jose Diaz
was found dead after a brawl among a group of youngsters from the neighborhood
around 38<sup>th</sup> Street and some youths from other neighborhoods. The Los
Angeles Police Department, in a zealous demonstration of combating juvenile
delinquency, rounded up in a dragnet more than 600 young people, mainly those
who wore zoot suits. Unable to tie any single individual to the crime, a grand
jury indicted over 20 youngsters for murder, an unprecedented and outrageous
overreach. In the subsequent trial, marked by unbridled bias and judicial
misconduct by the judge, most were convicted of first or second degree murder.
They would later be released on appeal after serving significant time in jail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Within months of
the convictions, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city>
erupted in a riot. On June 3, 1943, with
tensions escalating between <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
sailors stationed in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city>
and Mexican-American zoot suiters, some 50 sailors on shore leave ventured into
Mexican-American neighborhoods armed with clubs and other weapons. Their
mission, supposedly in retaliation for earlier attacks on servicemen, was
simple – beat up and rip the clothing from any “zoot suiter” they could find.
For several days, sporadic attacks by servicemen against Mexican-Americans
threw parts of downtown <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city>
into chaos and rioting. For a week, sailors and other
servicemen dragged kids off streetcars, from restaurants, and out of movie
theaters. The boys were beaten and stripped of their zoot suits, a kind of
ritualistic cultural humiliation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thousands of
white civilians egged on the servicemen. At one point at the end of the week of
carnage, an estimated 1000 servicemen
rampaged through the Mexican district, storming into bars, penny arcades,
theaters, <a href="" name="_GoBack"></a>stores, and dance halls with relative impunity.
A number of taxi drivers joined the fun, offering
free rides to servicemen and civilians to the riot areas. .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eventually, with
news of the riots reaching the national press and with First Lady Eleanor
Roosevelt referring to the spectacle as race riots against Mexican-Americans, local and military police eventually restored order. Of
the many hundreds of individuals herded
off to jail, almost all were Mexican-Americans, the targets of the
attackers. They were mostly charged with
disturbing the peace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the end, the Los Angeles City Council banned the wearing of zoot suits
on <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city>
streets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What was the highlight of
your research?</b><b> In the
course of your research, what discovery surprised you the most? <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Records at the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA) in <st1:city w:st="on">College Park</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Maryland</st1:state>, at <st1:city w:st="on">NARA</st1:city>’s records
center in <st1:city w:st="on">Riverside</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">California</st1:state>,
and at the Franklin Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, had a wealth of original
documents about the deep concern of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
government that the trial and riots were damaging the country’s relations with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Mexico</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on">Latin America</st1:place>
during wartime. In late 1942, the Office of War Information (OWI), an agency
designed to coordinate news releases favorable to <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
interests during the war, worried that open hostility toward Mexican-Americans
in <st1:city w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:city>
was being exploited by the enemy. Axis propaganda sent to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Mexico</st1:country-region>,
and other Latin American countries attacked as a sham <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> claims that it was a
democratic nation free of the persecution of minorities. The OWI sent Alan Cranston, a former
journalist who would later become a U.S. Senator from <st1:state w:st="on">California</st1:state>. <st1:city w:st="on">Cranston</st1:city> met managing editors and publishers
of all four of the major newspapers in the city encouraging them to stop
slandering Mexican-Americans in their articles. He also encouraged city
officials to prepare a plan to help ameliorate the conditions under which
Mexican-Americans were struggling in the city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Also State Department officials had
numerous communications and face-to-face meetings with Mexican diplomatic
figures trying to temper the anger and suspicions aroused by the Sleepy Lagoon
trial and the riots. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What effects did the Sleepy
Lagoon trial and the Zoot Suit Riots have on the Mexican-American community and
how are these events from 60 years ago relevant today?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">So
outrageous had been the treatment accorded to Mexican-American citizens in Los
Angeles during wartime that activists, reformers, and the immigrant community
itself began to fight back, to make
demands, and seek ways to come together to force change</span> against the kind of systemic prejudice and dehumanization so evident in the trial and
the riots. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In coming years
organizers would win a landmark case of <i>Mendez
v. Westminster</i> (1947) that would outlaw segregation of Mexican-Americans in
public schools. In the same year, reformers founded the Community Services
Organization (CSO), a civic-action group dedicated to promote community
improvement, awareness of citizenship rights and responsibilities and to fight
against human and civil rights abuses.<span class="maintext"> It would fight
discrimination in housing, employment, and education; promote political
involvement; and establish self-help programs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Throughout the
1960s and early 1970s, the so-called Chicano Movement produced a new generation
of activists and leaders who brought to national attention a variety of issues
vital to the Mexican American community and sought to remedy the ills of
discrimination and powerlessness through direct political action.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the early 1960s, Cesar Chavez, a
zoot-suiter in his youth, began his historic fight to establish a union of
farmworkers. One of his friends and allies, Luis Valdez, who would later be
called by many “the Father of Chicano Theater, wrote a play called</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Zoot
Suit </i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">that opened on Broadway in 1978. It related the events of the early
1940s to the continuing struggles of Mexican-Americans and played for the first
time in Mexico City in 2010, the same year that the state of Arizona passed
draconian legislation against immigration. As the nation continues to grapple
with such issues as immigration, fair employment and educational opportunities,
and the many aspects of civil rights for Latinos, the story of the Zoot Suits
Riots remains a compelling reminder of how far we have come but how daunting
remain the challenges.</span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-18830046955346674562013-10-01T13:15:00.001-07:002013-10-01T13:15:57.261-07:00Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Encyclopedia of Latino Culture<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It is important to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month. U.S. Latinos/as today constitutes a dynamic and very diverse population in this country. Their growth in the past few decades has been very rapid to the point where they have already surpassed African Americans as the largest ethnic minority in the United Sates. According to the 2010 U.S. census, there had been a 43 percent increase in the Latino/a population since 2000, from a total of 35 million to over 50 million inhabitants. They are expected to become an increasingly important force culturally, politically, and economically in the next few decades. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is very important to understand that U.S. Latinos/as share strong cultural bonds and a common heritage and language, but at the same time they are very diverse in many other respects; their histories are different and they also differ racially and ethnically. For example, many Mexican Americans come from families that have lived in the U.S. Southwest for many generations and many others come from families who have arrived in the United States from Mexico. Many Latinos/as, whose past can be traced to countries such as Mexico, the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, and the Andean countries of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile, have brought with them a rich Indian and mestizo ancestry. Many Latinos/as from the Caribbean countries of Cuba and the Dominican Republic, the island of Puerto Rico, and Brazil can trace their ancestry as far back the beginning of African slavery in the New World. It would be a mistake to think that U.S. Latinos/as form a monolithic and homogeneous group. In addition to their racial and ethnic differences, they are diverse in other ways including: economic status; political preferences; religious affiliations; education, language proficiency in both English and Spanish; rates of assimilation into U.S. society; ongoing connections to their countries of origin; customs; and cultural practices. It is this last aspect of U.S. Latino/a culture that led to the creation of the <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440800986">Encyclopedia of Latino Culture</a></i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">When I was asked by the editors at Greenwood Press to edit this three-volume publication, I did not hesitate. I knew that this would this would afford me a marvelous opportunity to become more knowledgeable about the breadth of U.S. Latino/a culture because most of my published research and teaching had been focused on the literature and popular culture of Mexican Americans. I knew also that in seeking out contributors to write the various entries, I would become better acquainted with experts in many different aspects of U.S. Latino/a culture. These were somewhat selfish reasons for taking on what became a two-year project, but I also believed that such an encyclopedia designed for the general reader and the high school student would be different and more accessible than similar projects. I am now in the final year of my long academic career, and am gratified that bringing this huge project to fruition will, I hope, contribute to an overall better understanding and appreciation of the rich cultural contributions and customs of U.S. Latinos/as. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Charles M. Tatum, </b>PhD, is the editor of the forthcoming,<i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440800986"> Encyclopedia of Latino Culture: From Calaveras to Quinceañeras</a></i>, November 2013, ISBN: 978-1-4408-0098-6</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He is Professor of Spanish and Chicano Studies at the University of Arizona. He was for fifteen years dean of College of Humanities. He has written and edited several books on Chicana/o literature and popular culture including <i>Chicano Popular Culture: Que hable el pueblo</i> (2001), <i>Chicano and Chicana Literature: Otra voz del pueblo</i> (2006) and <i>Lowriders in Chicano Culture: From Low to Slow to Show </i>(2001). He the co-founder of the journal, <i>Studies in Latin American Popular Culture</i>. </span>ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-92208943185678289982013-09-17T10:37:00.004-07:002013-09-17T10:38:12.142-07:00Interview with O.C. Edwards Jr., Author of A Nation with the Soul of a Church<div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>Why is the
publication of <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313393853">A Nation with the Soul of a Church</a> </i>important at this moment in history—that is, how does it
relate to today's news headlines or connect to contemporary questions or
issues?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think the publication of <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313393853">A Nation with the Soul of a Church</a></i> is
important at this time both for its vivid reminder of the strong influence of
religion on the public life of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> and its analysis of
some of the ways that influence is exercised for good or evil. Different
religious groups are taking opposing stands on so many of the issues before the
country today and those stands are often communicated to congregations through
the sermons of clergy. At the moment there are few clergy whose names are
household words, but thousands of pastors are swaying their congregations at the
local level and cumulatively they have a national
influence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>What drew you to the
topic of <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313393853">A Nation with the Soul of a Church</a></i>? How does the topic relate to you
personally?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: #00106a; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I was drawn to the topic of how Christian proclamation
had shaped American history by Praeger's commission to write a book on it. After
completing my long history of preaching I had not known I wanted to write
another book, but when I heard the topic I started salivating. It gave me a
motive for relating my interest in the wider topic to life in my own
society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>What did you learn in
the course of your research; what discovery surprised you the
most?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: #00106a; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Writing the book certainly refreshed and improved my
knowledge of American history in general and taught me a lot about a number of
interesting clergy. I believe Bill Coffin was the only one discussed whom I had
ever met personally, but I had heard Billy Graham when he was just becoming well
known and, since I live near him, had even seen him in a local restaurant,
although I did not impose myself on him. I suppose the biggest surprise to me
was to see how the stories of the individual preachers had connections with one
another and together created an impressionistic history of American
Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>What challenges did
you face in your research or writing?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: #00106a; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The biggest challenge to me in writing was in living
some distance from a major theological library. I was fortunate in being able to
persuade the theological librarian at Sewanee, Jim Dunkly, to both tell me what
I ought to read and provide me with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>What do you want
readers to learn from your book?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: #00106a; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> I think I would like secularists to be reminded of what
a force religion still is in our society and for Christians to see that not all
religious influences are for the good of society. I would also like folks to
know how much good really good people can do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>If your book inspired
one change in the world, what would you want it to be?
</b><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">My book concludes with "an extra sermon at no extra
charge" in which I warn fellow Americans of the dangers of believing in American
exceptionalism. While I believe that our standards are some of the highest ever
incorporated in government documents, I am afraid that all to often we have
failed to live up to them, partly because too many of us assume we can do no
evil. Pride always goes before a fall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>Where might others
focus their energies in following on your work in this
area?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: #00106a; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Because my book covers so
much territory, a great deal more could be discovered about each of its subjects
and the influence of their preaching in their
society.</span></span></div>
</div>
<br />
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><b>What are you working
on now?</b><span style="color: #00106a;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="color: #00106a; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Right now I am revising a mystery novel I wrote in 1980.
It is set in a fictitious Episcopal seminary during the Vietnam War and one
seminarian who was a Medal of Honor winner in the war is suspected of murdering
a fellow student who was a flower child.</span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7D55qcPtXgy6Enq2LRNMf934nD7HajfcFwEZTvON5oF3IHxHcpbs20lyO9C5BlVx-PW1svCl3Mli9cYZrd_8Go56Th7nwwNG1ReVkqrDy62x-_hx1WaXlkvg49cMu2qsU7XpgWRQeW4/s1600/A3404C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7D55qcPtXgy6Enq2LRNMf934nD7HajfcFwEZTvON5oF3IHxHcpbs20lyO9C5BlVx-PW1svCl3Mli9cYZrd_8Go56Th7nwwNG1ReVkqrDy62x-_hx1WaXlkvg49cMu2qsU7XpgWRQeW4/s320/A3404C.JPG" width="212" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>O.C. Edwards Jr.</b>, PhD, is a retired Episcopal priest. He is a former president and professor emeritus of preaching at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary at Evanston, IL, has cochaired the Faith and Order Commission, and served on the executive committee of the National Council of Churches. His books include <i>A History of Preaching</i> and <i>How Holy Writ Was Written</i>. With John Westerhoff he edited <i>A Faithful Church: Issues in the History of Catechesis</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-29862647054129856382013-08-13T09:00:00.000-07:002013-08-13T09:00:06.598-07:00A Group Interview with the Editors of Queering Christianity - Part II<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Part II of yesterday's interview:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What do
you want readers to learn from your book?</b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>R.
Shore-Goss (RS):</b> As non-LGBTQI readers read the book, they will see how queer
Christians share some of the similar experiences of Christianity with unique
differences as well. There is a place for all of us at the table. The mission
of the open and inclusive table, that repeats the historical Jesus, is a powerful
symbol of God’s wild grace. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>Cheng (PC):</b> My hope is that
the readers of our book will recognize the diversity of perspectives that exist
within queer theology, and that the book can help others to find their own
theological voices.</span><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Bohache (TB):</b>
That God’s table has always been open. It is the gatekeepers who have
restricted it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Thomas (NT):</b> I would like readers to hear both an
alternative voice and the liberation that the book offers to our Sacred Text. Many
will, I hope, give God a second, third or . . . chance to discover a liberating,
loving and inclusive God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>J.
Shore-Goss (JSG):</b> My chapters were about allowing space for deep listening, yet
throughout the book there is the challenge to open up, allow light into the
places that were once dark and know—truly know—that all are welcome to the
table . . . that in the Creator's eyes we are all one, all worthy, and all loved.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>More (MM):</b> I
hope they think, and question what they thought they knew, and become aware of
a greater expanse of God’s grace in the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Saniuk (JS):</b>
To give themselves permission to see Jesus in the light of their own
experiences, not just in what they have been taught to believe; to see him as a
companion who encountered incredible brutality . . . and then rose again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>If your
book inspired one change in the world, what would you want it to be? </b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>RS:</b> Greater inclusiveness of the Christian denominations of queer
theologies and voices and more “green” churches. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>PC:</b> I would love to
see religious discussions about LGBTQI issues move from polarized debates to
polyvalent conversations in which multiple perspectives are held together in
creative tension.</span><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>TB:</b>
More inclusivity and greater discussion of queer issues in the church and more
interest in theology within the queer community(ies).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>NT:</b> The ultimate and radical full inclusion
of God’s people regardless of gender, gender identity, race, color, faith
experience, age, or other “ism” that excludes and separates people into an “in”
or “out” group!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JSG:</b> My wish would be that all churches and religions find a place for
LGBTQI persons at their tables. Once our faith communities find a way of seeing
all as equal, so will the rest of our societies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>MM:</b> The
one change I would pray for is that people come to openly accept transgenders
as they wish to be—normalized in society without the stigma of hate and
marginalization, and without being abused by fundamentalist misuse of the Bible
as a weapon against them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JS:</b>
For churches to stop demonizing LGBTQI people (among others) in the name of
God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Where
might others focus their energies in following on your work in this area?</b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>RS:</b> The development of heterosexual queer theologies, more reflections
on transgendered and intersexed theologies, a theology of sexuality (inclusive
of married, single, and alternative configurations) that pushes the exploration
of the interconnections of sexuality and spirituality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>PC:</b> My hope is that
more LGBTQI theologians will write about the intersections of race and
sexuality and, in particular, about the significant contributions that LGBTQI
people of color have made to queer theology.</span><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>TB:</b>
Sexual minorities within the LGBTQI community(ies)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>NT:</b> I hope that a Theology of Inclusion might
one day be developed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JSG:</b> This is a Christianity-based book coming out of the Metropolitan Community
Churches experience of the open table. I would love to see other people of
faith start to explore and see what something similar may look like in their
context, Christian and non-Christian alike.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JS:</b>
I would love to see even more “queered” worship forms! We have an incredible
freedom in MCC to re-make our collective spiritual practice. The open Communion
table is just the beginning.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What are you working on now?</b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></u></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">RS: I have the copyright for <i>Jesus ACTED UP: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto.</i> It appeared in 1993
and was a classic in starting queer theology. I was just introduced as the
“father of queer theology” at the UCC General Synod by a queer clergy. I intend
to publish this classic in Kindle form: <i>Jesus
ACTED UP: Then and Now</i>. I will re-publish the original book, and I have
asked several scholars to talk about the then and the now (where are we going).
I am also enmeshed in a Christian green theology and hope to have completed it in
the fall of 2014. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>PC:</b> I am currently writing
about what theologians need to know about queer theory for a forthcoming work on
theology, sexuality, and gender.</span><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>TB:</b> A book on “queering the Body of Christ” – expanding the
disreputable ecclesiology touched on in my chapter “<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Unzipping</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Church</st1:placetype></st1:place>”
in <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440829659">Queering Christianity</a>.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>NT:</b> Continue to work on marriage equality, immigration,
the environment, equal access to health care, HIV/AIDS, poverty. Future book: </span><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: navy;">"A Theology of Inclusion: The Emerging Church in the
21st Century."</span><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; tab-stops: 31.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: navy;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JSG:</b> I am currently studying and researching for my Ph.D. through the
Graduate Theological Foundation. I am looking at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
as an international queer pluralistic spiritual community for the 21<sup>st</sup>
century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JS:</b> There is really interesting work on shame in congregations
that is just coming out. I also am looking more deeply into the particularities
of the “T” side of LGBTQI, and intersections with race and gender that I
haven’t yet been able to explore.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-40409215911638187782013-08-12T11:13:00.002-07:002013-08-12T11:14:09.478-07:00A Group Interview with the Editors of Queering Christianity - Part I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Why is
the publication of <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440829659">Queering Christianity</a> </i>important
at this moment in history—that is, how does it relate to today's news headlines
or connect to contemporary questions or issues? </b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Robert Shore-Goss (RS):</b> As the
ghettoized church is drawing to an end, except for some geographic areas, it
brings LGBTQI experience into dialogue with mainstream Christian denominations.
At the recent UCC General Synod, the head of the Open and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Affirming</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Churches</st1:placetype></st1:place>
(some 1,200 churches) indicated plans to recommend the book. There is a strong
parallel between marriage equality and churches opening up to include LGBTQI
people into their churches, ordaining them and marrying them. This has led an
upsurge of gay/lesbian students in the seminaries. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>Patrick Cheng (PC):</b> LGBTQI issues have been in
the headlines recently with the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings on the Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA) and California Proposition 8. Religious debates over LGBTQI
issues remain hotly contested, however, and I believe that books such as <i>Queering
Christianity</i> are important contributions to the broader conversations
about LGBTQI issues.</span><span style="color: navy;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Thomas Bohache (TB):</b> In the
public/civil/secular sphere we see more and more progress in rights for LGBTQI
people. However, we do not see the same sort of progress in the religious
sphere. This book I believe will open non-queer people to some points of view
foreign to them; for queer people, the book will make them realize that they do
indeed have a place at the table, even if they have not yet found it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Neil Thomas (NT):</b> In the changing religious and political scene, with the
growing acceptance of LGBTQI peoples in mainline religious organizations, this
book is both vital and timely in the ongoing understanding and evolution of
God’s revealed Word.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Joseph Shore-Goss (JSG):</b> As the
marriage equality movement moves forward in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> and in other
countries there are still places where the LGBTQI community are still
persecuted and even killed for being who they are…created and loved in God’s
image. This book helps move that conversation forward…but more importantly,
move it forward in a Christian context.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Megan More (MM): </b>With the
increased focus on the LGBTQI community regarding marriage equality and job
protections, removing the stigma and dispelling the ignorance is more important
than ever, especially when it comes to religion and dogma.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Joan Saniuk (JS):</b> We are in
the midst of an incredible sea change in the culture. The overturning of DOMA
is a legal acknowledgment that LGBTQI people, and the families we form (or
not), are for real. <i>Queering Christianity</i>
gives voice to the experience, and wisdom, that this community has learned in
the past half-century. It’s a perfect time to bring that wisdom out into the
open.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What drew
you to the topic of <i>Queering Christianity</i>? How does the topic relate to you personally?</b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>PC:</b> As an openly gay seminary
professor and a queer theologian, I have written extensively about the
intersections of theology, pastoral care, and the spiritual lives of LGBTQI
people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: navy;"><b>TB:</b> </span><span style="color: navy;">Inclusivity is extremely
important to me for it is the central message of Jesus. We cannot call
ourselves followers of Christ if we do not embrace and encourage inclusivity
across all boundaries. I am a gay man who was ejected from the table and told
not to make a reservation again, so this topic is very dear to my heart. After
25 years of ministry to the LGBTQI community(ies), I see that it is still just
as important as it was in my youth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>NT:</b> As a pastor in Metropolitan Community Churches for the past
24 years, this is both my journey and my story to understand that God’s Word is
queer, subversive, and includes me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JSG: </b>I have to
admit my husband is an editor so I am close to the context to begin with. I had
just finished my M.A. thesis on pastoral care and counseling with transgendered
youth and that is what actually led to the invite to write for the book. I have
been openly gay and active in the LGBTQI community since I was 22. I have
always been involved deeply in my community, and this book allowed me to engage
some topics in a deep spiritual context where my passion for my faith and my
community can come together.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>MM:</b> As a transwoman and
ordained minister, I feel that a legitimate "trans" voice must be
heard.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JS:</b> I joined MCC in
the 1990s –a time of horrific stress in the queer and HIV-affected communities.
It was both baffling, and alarming, to see many organizations disintegrate,
whether through exhaustion or with bizarre infighting, as Eric Rofes and
Urvashi Vaid among others have chronicled. I needed to understand how I—how
we as MCC—could maintain a ministry of hope amid all that chaos.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What
did you learn in the course of your research; what discovery surprised you the
most?</b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>TB:</b> That the diverse
types of discrimination are all located in the concept of power—who has it,
who wants it, and what people do to keep it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thomas: I discovered much more about God’s radical inclusion and the
misinterpretation of God’s Word as revealed through evangelical Christianity,
which has dominated the religious discourse in this past century. This dominant
culture is shifting and changing, and a more progressive voice is emerging.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JSG:</b> What truly
astounded me in my research was that no one--I mean no one--had addressed
pastoral care for transgendered youth. This is one of the most underserved
populations within the queer community and a group at the highest risk as often
they are kicked out of homes, living on the streets, susceptible to drug abuse,
prostitution, and/or rape.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>MM:</b> Little surprised
me in relation to my own writing, since these are issues that have been dear to
my heart for some time. Realizing how this has affected other theologians and
authors was my own pleasant surprise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JS:</b> I discovered
Leanne McCall Tigert’s work on trauma theory at the same time that I was
studying congregations where there had been abuse. Suddenly, all the drama I’d
observed began to fit into a larger pattern.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What
challenges did you face in your research or writing?</b><u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>JSG:</b> The most
difficult thing was taking old concepts or hetero-normative language and
seeking out the expression of thought that I believed would be more accessible
to the LGBTQI community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>MM:</b> My only real
challenges is the lack of writing on this issue overall. Transgenders in
religion is not a very expansive subject, yet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: navy; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>JS:</b> I really
struggled with how to apply the information from trauma theory, to talk about
some very real psychological challenges without pathologizing. </span></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-39921238512475965582013-08-07T10:30:00.000-07:002013-08-07T10:31:57.512-07:00The Dead Tree Version of the Internet: Using Books in the Digital Age High School <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By: Nick Burns, Student, Marketing Intern, ABC-CLIO</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">To the publishers
of the world be contented to know that you
are, in fact, still needed. For high school research papers, at least. Of
course, the volume of information available on the Internet has grown, is
growing, and always will grow—that is the fundamental trait of the Internet—but
this information remains (and likely will remain) for the most part scattered,
undeveloped, and insufficiently specific for even high school research
purposes. That is, if the high school student in question wants to write a
halfway-decent paper.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">I did want to
write a halfway-decent paper earlier this year for my AP US History class, on
the writings of Henry David Thoreau and how they shaped the later American
conservation movement that starred personalities like the bravado-inebriated
Teddy Roosevelt, the eccentric Gifford Pinchot, and the solitary saint of </span><st1:place style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;" w:st="on">Yosemite</st1:place><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">, John Muir. The Internet was the place to start.
Online resources, since they cater to reduced attention spans and to the most
general of audiences, and thanks to the interconnectedness of the Internet, are
usually the most useful to start with. The ABC-CLIO page on the <a href="http://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Topics/Display/1187816?sid=256057&cid=26&oid=263258&useConcept=False">American conservation movement</a>, in the <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147483682">American History</a> database, serves as an excellent
example of this. I came across names I'd heard of (Thoreau, Emerson, Muir) but
also important ones I hadn't (George Marsh was the most important of these). The
broad network that is the Internet let me get the minimum level of knowledge to
be able to navigate more complicated analyses of the time period.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">However, an
understanding of history, like an understanding of most things, is not complete
without an array of biased and unbiased sources that must be synthesized into a
complete picture. Coming to that understanding requires in these perspectives a
fair amount of specificity, and perhaps even more importantly the right amount
of bias—not bias, maybe, but inflection: not a sterile encyclopedia article,
yet not a zealot ranting on a comments page—something that can only be found in
books. What's more, a well-researched, well-written nonfiction book is a
specific, personal investigation into an issue. That's what differentiates
books from crowd-sourced Internet articles.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">The databases were useful for gaining the level of knowledge necessary to be able
to parse more sophisticated reference materials. To gain further detail and insight necessary to build a well-researched and
well-thought-out enough argument it took me a backpack full of biographies, books on conservation history,
books by Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir themselves, as well as essays by Wallace
Stegner, and lastly the magnificently useful, diversely fascinating, and
ridiculously heavy </span><i style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">American Earth</i><span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;">,
Bill McKibben's compilation of the most important primary documents in American
conservation history.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">History papers can
be—and, unfortunately, for the most part are—written using only Wikipedia
articles, but these papers usually don't possess any valuable insights, unless
those insights come solely from the (hormone-addled, nascent and naïve) mind of
the kid writing it. In other words, the Internet—in the sense of trying to form
conclusions about history—is a tool, and an endlessly useful one, but one that
can only take you so far. A book—in the same sense—is a tool, but it
can also be something greater: a journey, because it requires commitment on the
part of both author and reader. This commitment makes insight possible in a way
that no other medium can, and this is why books will always have a place in the
in the world of high school research papers, and in the world at large.</span></span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-56956501189511878222013-07-11T10:56:00.000-07:002013-07-11T16:17:59.781-07:00Conflict in Egypt<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By: Nancy Gallagher</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On July 3, 2013, the military overthrew the
elected Egyptian government. Led by the Muslim Brotherhood (the Society of
Muslim Brothers), the government had come to power on June 30, 2012. Was it a
second revolution, a necessary correction in the path of the January 25 (2011)
Egyptian Revolution, or a military coup? Who were the Muslim Brothers, how did
they rise to power, and why did they fall so spectacularly? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hasan El-Banna, a schoolteacher and
religious leader, established the Muslim Brothers in 1928. The organization initially sought to Islamize
society in order to drive the British out, but King Farouk (reigned 1936–1952)
and Gamal Abdel Nasser (president 1952–1970) severely suppressed it. Most of
the Muslim Brothers leadership came to follow the ideas of Sayyid Qutb, who
advocated the assassination of political leaders who did not adopt his
interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, calling them “infidels.” Over the years,
the organization won many supporters because of its grassroots religious
leadership and extensive social welfare organizations. In the elections that
followed the January 25 Revolution, the Muslim Brothers candidate, Mohammad
Morsi, was elected to power with 52% of the vote. His opponent, the candidate
of the old regime, went into exile. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #262626;">Many people voted for Morsi because
he had vowed to carry out the goals of the revolution. He, however, soon
demonstrated that he would carry out the goals of the Muslim Brothers. He
proved unwilling to work with other factions. He did not take steps to reform
the brutal and corrupt state security sector. He did not reach out to the
opposition. He did not include Coptic Christians and women in his government,
despite his many campaign promises. In November, six months after being
elected, he issued a decree that would shield him from judicial review. After
intense opposition, he revoked the decree, but the damage was done. He then forced
through a constitution that was narrow and exclusionary. Women feared they
would lose their hard- and recently won rights. Copts and other minorities
feared for their future in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
The government did little to reassure them. </span><span style="color: #262626;">Morsi and his appointees proceeded to
go after the media, the NGOs, the judiciary, and the arts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Before being elected he had announced
a program to revive the economy, but it did not materialize. The economy
continued to sink. A loan from the International Monetary Fund could not be
obtained. Tourists did not return. He appointed a member of al-Gama’a
al-Islamiyya—the organization allegedly responsible for the massacre of 62
people, mostly tourists, in <st1:city w:st="on">Luxor</st1:city> in1997—to the
post of mayor of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Luxor</st1:place></st1:city>.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">He thought he had tamed the military
when he dismissed Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi, who had been <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s de
facto ruler after the 2011 revolution, but Tantawi’s replacement, Abdul Fatah
El-Sisi, proved to be the ultimate power broker. When Morsi broke relations with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Syria</st1:place></st1:country-region> and encouraged
his followers to wage jihad against the Syrian regime, without first informing
him, Sisi decided Morsi had to go. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On June 30, a year after Morsi came
to power, at least two million people demonstrated against the government in
response to the Tamarod (rebel) campaign that began with a petition calling for
early elections. Egyptians claimed it was the largest demonstration in history.
The Muslim Brothers bused members from outside <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Cairo</st1:place></st1:city> to stage a rival demonstration, but the
extent of public disaffection was clear.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On July 3, the army arrested Morsi.
His supporters then confronted the military and dozens were killed. On July 8
the military opened fire on a demonstration in front of the Republican Guards
headquarters, killing 59 and wounding over 300.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was a military coup against an
elected government, but one supported by a vast number of people who felt that
the country could not survive such misrule much longer. The military hastily
made Adly Mansour, head of the <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">High
Constitutional Court</st1:address></st1:street>, interim president. Six
judges and four lawyers were to revise the 2012 constitution. Noted economist
Hazem el-Beblawi became prime minister, and opposition leader and Nobel Prize
winner Mohamed ElBaradei vice-president. The <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Gulf States</st1:place></st1:state> rushed billions of dollars in
aid to support the collapsing Egyptian economy. Nearly all the leaders of the
Muslim Brothers were arrested and its television stations were closed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #262626;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Muslim Brothers remain convinced
that they were elected in free and fair elections and should have been allowed
to complete their terms. <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is deeply polarized. The economy is weak, the security forces are unreformed,
and the role of the military in future governments is unclear. Will the
revolutionaries be able to realize their goals of “bread, freedom, and social
justice?” The struggle has barely begun.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Nancy Gallagher teaches Middle East history at the American
University in Cairo and is a research professor at the University of California
at Santa Barbara (UCSB). </i><o:p></o:p><i>She is a widely published expert on the Middle East and
Arab North Africa.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Georgia','serif'; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. . . </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For more on Egypt and its history, check out these resources:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1fW9yIGQTrGDCeYJS-70ruoRZP5A2XRorl0bUUnnw1KscN1Psfv0OFvuIQwq3sLzL6sS0a4alp6MwnEOONl7sLBCSrBHVLdzm3p2BoT_F4veAM3VoDwC4LhQRziBupN8iMGaNPEvrks/s1600/Global+Security+Watch--Egypt-80692328.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO1fW9yIGQTrGDCeYJS-70ruoRZP5A2XRorl0bUUnnw1KscN1Psfv0OFvuIQwq3sLzL6sS0a4alp6MwnEOONl7sLBCSrBHVLdzm3p2BoT_F4veAM3VoDwC4LhQRziBupN8iMGaNPEvrks/s1600/Global+Security+Watch--Egypt-80692328.JPG" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780275994822">Global Security Watch—Egypt: A Reference Handbook</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Denis J. Sullivan and Kimberly Jones</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1lhzZq0TjfAqujGhk_9zeTGLJfoOTXrk85y3EGhyphenhyphenOOqiY2twdf_GJ_IQ9J5Q0ond1Pr-lJaJpV8Mtsu-M8KK-ZmwdjJ-2-5um7f6GXWmOAAVEzhzxRtFbTfImvbfgRhFIq8jhLLGWKY/s1600/EGYPC.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ1lhzZq0TjfAqujGhk_9zeTGLJfoOTXrk85y3EGhyphenhyphenOOqiY2twdf_GJ_IQ9J5Q0ond1Pr-lJaJpV8Mtsu-M8KK-ZmwdjJ-2-5um7f6GXWmOAAVEzhzxRtFbTfImvbfgRhFIq8jhLLGWKY/s320/EGYPC.JPG" width="224" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781598842333">Egypt</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mona Russell</span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-59943903380236525032013-07-01T08:00:00.000-07:002013-07-01T08:00:00.435-07:00B(l)ack in the Kitchen: Food Network <b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">by Lisa Guerrero<br /> </span></b><b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"> </span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><a href="" name="_GoBack"><b>Introduction by David J. Leonard</b></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>The conversation surrounding Paula Deen and her use of the “N word” has
simultaneously erased the accusations of job discrimination and harassment all
while ignoring the larger issues of race and Food Network. In fact, Deen’s ultimate firing by the Food
Network has allowed the network to position itself as anti-racist, as <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s moral
conscience. Refusing to allow prejudice
to stain its airwaves, the Food Network has situated itself as a progressive
force of accountability and justice. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Deen, however, is reflective of their brand—one that normalizes and
operationalizes whiteness all while reimagining the world of food as racially
transcendent. Revelations regarding Deen
burst that illusion. With this in mind,
we are sharing an excerpt from Lisa Guerrero’s brilliant chapter from our
recent book, <b><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780275995140">African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings</a></b> </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjSI6ZhoPOuIBTBYRoBJEo9KlCgT0VLI96PVuWeM6p3Z_EN77pxB6IKclpWmrx8iJb6j9t-E25Vr5YCkAKSAkN99L1MgGV5LdjTEen8nvJCUNtfXxdFx2QcjrUtglQ13vTBO_mdhipiM/s1600/C9514.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjSI6ZhoPOuIBTBYRoBJEo9KlCgT0VLI96PVuWeM6p3Z_EN77pxB6IKclpWmrx8iJb6j9t-E25Vr5YCkAKSAkN99L1MgGV5LdjTEen8nvJCUNtfXxdFx2QcjrUtglQ13vTBO_mdhipiM/s320/C9514.JPG" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In all of its programming, even
within programs where race is undeniably apparent, either because of the
celebrity or the cuisine, food is presented as a race-neutral cultural
object. Unfortunately, in a race-based society,
as the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is, “race-neutral” invariably gets translated as “white.” <i>Food
Network</i> trades in the notion of the “racelessness” of food to create a
commodified sense of neoliberal inclusion and equality, wherein the focus is
placed on individuals and not on systems. Food is portrayed across the network
as a “universal language;” but as discussed above, it is definitely constructed
as a specifically class-based language, as well as a language constructed in
specifically racialized terms. To be
fair, <i>Food Network</i> is no different
from most other cable television networks where whiteness is predominant and
becomes easily normalized and rendered invisible to most viewers.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ironically, the relatability that <i>Food Network</i> carefully crafts around its
personalities is almost completely belied by the “everyday” lifestyles many of
the network celebrities are show to have as they are strategically integrated
into their respective shows, most notably with Ina Garten, Giada DeLaurentis,
and Bobby Flay. While the wealth and
whiteness displayed in these, and much of <i>Food
Network</i>’s other programming is conspicuous, they are treated as
commonplace, the effect of which is twofold:
1) it creates a socioracial standard when it comes to the act of food
consumption; and 2) it suggestively endorses the idea of food as a racial and
economic privilege. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Through its successful erasure of
race and class, <i>Food Network</i>
perpetuates certain understandings about the social landscape in which people
think about food consumption and commodification as being generally equal
amongst various populations, even as statistically and programmatically most
people can see that food equality isn’t a reality. But <i>Food
Network</i> is able to maintain this profitable food fantasy by constructing
its food narratives in a very particular sociohistorical vacuum that allows
audiences to distance themselves from not only certain tediums surrounding
daily food habits, but also the sociohistorical and socioeconomic systems of
food production and preparation in the United States. The strategic use of blackness on the network
is one of the primary ways in which this distancing is enabled.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The relative absence of blackness on
<i>Food Network</i>, while not unlike the
relative absence of blackness on network television generally speaking, succeeds
in denying the significant place African Americans have, both historically and
contemporaneously, in the creation of American food culture and foodways. This erasure, while creating an amputated
impression of American food backgrounds, does so in deliberate ways that are in
keeping with long histories of using whiteness to signify notions of expertise,
virtuosity, superiority, propriety, and polish.
In other words, in order to cement the network’s guiding narrative of
elevating food to a craft, an art, an aspiration, it needs to simultaneously
elevate whiteness, usually white maleness. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Not surprisingly, the programming on
<i>Food Network</i> frames American food in
very Eurocentric terms, tracing food origins and traditions to primarily
Western, European nations, while periodically recognizing the “exotic” fare of
Latin America or Asia. There is little
to no recognition of African cuisines within programming, despite the growing
popularity of African food and restaurants among American <i>consumers</i> sparked by growing numbers of African immigrants to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region>, and probably represented most
notably by the often tokenized celebrity chef, Marcus Samuelsson, who was born
in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ethiopia</st1:country-region> and raised in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sweden</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Neither is there much linkage drawn between
the specificity of African American soul food and the development of much of
what is considered American “southern food.”
The erasure of these African and African-American cultural linkages to
American food habits and histories effectively reimagines a significant portion
of American food architecture as almost exclusively white, a reimagining not
supported by history. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Now certainly <i>Food Network</i> isn’t <i>The
History Channel</i>, and viewers aren’t necessarily expecting to be provided
with critically accurate or developed histories of food origins, routes, or
social significances. Nonetheless, its
lack of wider, more representative narrative frames within its programming
results in two things: First, there is a
barely perceptible, encompassing whitening of both the network itself, as well
as the perspectives it creates about food relationships within American
populations. Secondly, when racial
“diversity” and representation do occur, they have the effect of “tokenism”
rather than inclusion. Nowhere is this
latter effect more apparent than in the network’s small club of Black cooking
personalities.</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The framing of <i>Food Network</i> and <i>The Cooking
Channel</i> break down into simplistic terms as “The U.S.” and “The Global,”
respectively. As such, <i>The Cooking Channel</i> does appear to
embrace diversity in a larger, more transparent way than <i>Food Network</i>. However, the
apparent differentials of framing are really only on a cosmetic level. There are more people of color that appear
regularly on <i>The Cooking Channel</i>, but
only slightly more, and considering the overbearing whiteness of <i>Food Network</i>, it really wouldn’t take
much to have “more” racial diversity.
But the neutralized by emphasizing the notion of “the exotic.”
The people of color on <i>The Cooking
Channel</i> are, by and large, not of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United
States</st1:country-region>, creating a comforting distance between <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> audiences
and any troublesome considerations about racism. </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In scholarly terms, it wouldn’t be
far off the mark to think about <i>Food
Network</i> as “the colonial” and <i>The
Cooking Channel</i> as “the postcolonial.”
In other words, <i>Food Network</i>
denies race and its systems by trying to devalue and/or erase race altogether,
while <i>The Cooking Channel</i> denies race
and its systems by putting race on display in almost exhibitional terms so that
audiences don’t relate to it as a “real” thing.
In both cases, whiteness is positioned as the fulcrum of food
experiences and knowledges. And
ultimately, blackness, especially American blackness, is relegated to becoming
the specialty ingredient that gets used sparingly in the recipe of televisual
food programming for fear that its flavor won’t be palatable to American
consumers.</span></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><u>Postscript</u></i><u>:</u> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">As we’ve seen over the last few days
not only with the vociferous response by Deen supporters, but also with SCOTUS
gutting the Voting Rights Act, Texas scrambling to capitalize on that decision
by pushing through a Voter ID bill, the dehumanizing tactics of the defense
counsel in the George Zimmerman trial, and the countless racist
microaggressions the accounts of which we are bombarded with daily, Paula
Deen’s words and behaviors are, in themselves, unsurprising and relatively
unremarkable, but rather indicative of the banality of American racism. As several scholars have articulately pointed
out in response to the Deen controversy, (including David J. Leonard), and as I
have tried to address in this piece in broader ways, while Deen should
certainly be held responsible for the ways in which her actions contribute to
the continuation of systemic and ideologic racisms in the United States, the
problem is much bigger than her use of racial epithets and her disturbing
bucolic nostalgia for the racial order of the antebellum South. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Perhaps the biggest problem of which
Deen is but one very small symptom, is a problem which will, in all likelihood
strangle equality and freedom for <i>all</i>
American citizens; it is the problem of the United States’ misguided belief in
its own magnanimity of race; the delusion that we have remedied our racial
illnesses and no longer need to be vigilant about the sickness, and in fact,
can be prideful about the “past tense” of our racial struggles. This blind hubris (which Justice Ginsburg so
aptly identified in her dissension to the Voting Rights Act decision), allows
for people like Paula Deen to sincerely dislocate their actions from the
insidiousness of racism…since racism has been fixed, (so it goes), then
certainly what people do and to whom they do it can’t be considered
racism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Unfortunately, this racist
psychosis, the inability to see racism even as you are enacting it, supporting
it, contributing to it, benefitting from it, is one of many deleterious
side-effects of our post-racial nation, and is sure to kill us quicker than a
Paula Deen recipe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; text-align: center;">
<b>. . .</b> </div>
<br />
<h1 align="center" style="background: white; text-align: center;">
<span class="blog-admin1"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=13096878&postID=1747208469962273658&from=pencil" target="_self" title="Edit"></a></span></span></h1>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">Lisa A. Guerrero</span></b><span style="color: #333333;"> <span style="background: white;">is Associate Professor of Comparative Ethnic Studies
at Washington State University Pullman. She is the editor of</span> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: white;">Teaching Race
in the 21st Century: College Professors Talk About Their Fears, Risks, and
Rewards</span></i> <span style="background: white;">(Palgrave Macmillan,
2009) and co-editor of </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780275995140">African Americans onTelevision: Race-ing for Ratings</a> </span></i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #333333;">(Praeger Press) with David J. Leonard.</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-52029831065233672872013-06-27T07:12:00.000-07:002013-06-27T07:12:57.559-07:00Interview with Michael Frassetto, Author of The Early Medieval World: From the Fall of Rome to the Time of Charlemagne<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>How does the
early medieval world differ from the classical world and the later Middle
Ages?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The early
medieval world differed in a number of ways from the ancient and later medieval
worlds. It was much more rural than the ancient world; cities virtually
disappeared in the early medieval world and the literate and urban culture
associated with ancient <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rome</st1:place></st1:city>
vanished. The early medieval world was an increasingly Christian world, unlike
the polytheistic world of antiquity, and its primary cultural center was the
monastery. Politically, the early medieval world was ruled by kings rather than
the emperors of antiquity and government itself was understood in more personal
terms. In part building upon the traditions of the early medieval world, the
later Middle Ages differed markedly from the early medieval world. City life
revived in the later Middle Ages and population and the economy grew
dramatically. The later Middle Ages experienced a commercial revolution that
revived international trade, which had virtually disappeared in the early
medieval world. The use of the written word throughout society expanded in the
later Middle Ages, new institutions of learning such as the university were
established, and the institutions of Church and state grew in power and organization.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What can the
early medieval world teach us about our modern world? Are there any
similarities?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It has often
been said that the past is a foreign country, and this is no more true than in
regard to the early medieval world, which had a worldview that is fundamentally
different than the worldview held today. Having said that, it must be noted
that the early medieval world has much to teach us today. People of the early
medieval period left an important legacy in terms of spirituality and religious
belief and practice that can provide comfort and important insights to many
people today. Early medieval rulers faced numerous challenges of governance and
had to create new institutions of government that could help guide modern
political leaders. The early medieval world was also one of surprising
diversity as peoples with a wide range of cultural practices, languages, and
traditions came to create a new social order out of the old Roman Empire, and
lessons in our own increasingly diverse world could be learned from our
medieval forebears.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b>What do you
think is a common misunderstanding about the early medieval world?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The most common
misunderstanding of the early Middle Ages is that it was a “dark age.” Although
the early medieval world suffered decline in population, city life, and other
areas, it was a period of important cultural transformation and growth. During
this period, <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> underwent a process of
Christianization, and it was during the early Middle Ages that the Christian,
Roman, and Germanic traditions merged to lay the foundation for later European
civilization. Important institutions such as the papacy and monasticism took
shape during this period, and influential Christian and encyclopedic texts were
written. There was also a series of cultural revivals, most notably the
Carolingian Renaissance in the eighth to ninth centuries, that produced
important artistic works and literary texts. The Carolingian revival was most
important for the later development of European civilization. Many ancient
classical and Christian works were copied and preserved by Carolingian authors
who also wrote works of history, biography, theology, and law. Carolingian
artists lavishly illuminated these texts with dazzling images that borrowed
from earlier Christian and Roman works of art.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>What are
some of the contributions the early medieval world gave to us?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The early
medieval world has left a number of important cultural artifacts. The Book of
Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels are two beautifully illuminated manuscripts
from the early Middle Ages, and Carolingian artists produced a number of
equally beautiful illuminated manuscripts. The standard version of what became
the Catholic Bible took shape during the early medieval world. Carolingian
scholars preserved much of ancient classical and Christian literature; the
earliest surviving copies of nearly all ancient Latin manuscripts were made by
Carolingian scholars in the ninth century. The Code of Justinian, which shaped
European legal and judicial traditions, and the Rule of Saint Benedict, which
defined the practice of religious life into the modern era, were creations of
the early medieval world. Charlemagne’s chapel at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Aachen</st1:city></st1:place>, Theodoric’s mausoleum, and the Hagia
Sophia are among the great architectural monuments created during the early
Middle Ages.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>In working
on the book, did you discover anything particularly surprising or interesting?</b><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One thing I
discovered is the wide range of truly interesting personalities that lived
during this period. The people of the early medieval world are a fascinating
group of scholars, holy men and women, and political leaders. Many of them are
interesting because of their courage and integrity and others are
interesting—perhaps more interesting—because of their ruthlessness and quest
for power at any cost. I was also surprised by the incredible creativity of the
period during which society went through a profound transformation. New forms
of religious life developed, and kings and other political leaders devised new
ideas about political power and created new forms of government. Patterns of
daily life were transformed and new social institutions developed. And although
I have long known this, I am continually surprised by the literary and artistic
creativity of this period that includes the great achievements of the Church fathers,
Carolingian Renaissance scholars, and many other early medieval writers and
scholars.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTFXXWin__bPXwFqMit0Q3LuMNpoX-avLFJW2T8hoy4gnXFRrap6LWG3YQ32RtnMF8noMpqFTyxqxMaEJYSsWDv0xfRV68eY-qXuT8xRbSms8ezK4ck94gotFrOixu_ZXFEOSi7Aiu5WU/s1600/A3680C.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTFXXWin__bPXwFqMit0Q3LuMNpoX-avLFJW2T8hoy4gnXFRrap6LWG3YQ32RtnMF8noMpqFTyxqxMaEJYSsWDv0xfRV68eY-qXuT8xRbSms8ezK4ck94gotFrOixu_ZXFEOSi7Aiu5WU/s320/A3680C.JPG" width="224" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Michael Frassetto</b>, PhD, teaches medieval and world history at the University of Delaware, La Salle University, and Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He has published numerous articles on medieval religious and social history. Frassetto is author of <i>The Great Medieval Heretics: Five Centuries of Religious Dissent</i> and editor of <i>Christian Attitudes toward the Jews in the Middle Ages: A Casebook </i>and <i>Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R.I. Moore</i></span>ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-20483392349711138292013-06-26T08:00:00.000-07:002013-06-26T08:00:09.003-07:00Affirmative Action Survives to See Another Day—For Now…<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The following is a piece from </span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>James A. Beckman, author of the forthcoming 2014 title </i></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Affirmative Action: Contemporary Perspectives <i>and A</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>ssociate Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Central Florida</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The dust has settled from yet another constitutional battle
involving the war over affirmative action in </span><st1:country-region style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;" w:st="on">America</st1:country-region><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. The United States Supreme Court rendered the
latest of a long line of decisions spanning over three decades on Monday, June
24, 2013, again placing restrictions (but not outright eliminating) the
practice of affirmative action in the case of </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. Proponents of affirmative action can take
solace in the fact that the concept of affirmative action still survives—at
least until the next major challenge. In
ruling in </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Fisher</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, the Court declined
to overturn any of its landmark cases of affirmative action—like </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Grutter v. Bollinger</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in 2003 and </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Regents of the University of California v.
Bakke</i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in 1978—and continued to allow universities to use race in admissions
decisions so long as no other “workable race-neutral alternatives would produce
the educational benefits of diversity.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Supreme Court in <i>Fisher</i>,
by a 7-1 ruling, avoided the most extreme path of entirely dismantling
affirmative action, and instead opting for a “middle of the road” approach,
which reversed the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (which had upheld the
University of Texas affirmative action admission’s plan as constitutional) as
not upholding the rigorous level of judicial review needed in race
classification cases as the Supreme Court has previously mandated and required
to be employed by courts reviewing these cases (as the Court said in <i>Bakke</i> in 1978 and <i>Grutter</i> in 2003), and remanding the case back to the lower courts
for further review. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thus, while the Court reversed the lower federal court's
decision as not meeting its exacting standards under “strict scrutiny,” the
majority did however again decline to strike down the general practice of
affirmative action as per se unconstitutional and refused to characterize the
practice as no longer being needed in society. Indeed, going into the <i>Fisher</i>
case, proponents of affirmative action were acutely aware that it was possible
that a majority on the Court could have dismantled affirmative action outright,
pronounced the complete prohibition on the use of race or ethnicity in
admissions decisions (or related governmental actions), and declared America’s
experiment with remedial race-conscious preferences to be at an end and no
longer necessary in modern society.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There was nothing overly revolutionary or radical in today’s
ruling, and the Court seems to reaffirm that diversity is a compelling
governmental interest and that <i>Bakke</i> and <i>Grutter</i> decisions are
still good law (despite Justice Scalia and Justices Thomas’ concurring opinions
to the contrary). This alone should give some comfort to supporters of
affirmative action—at least in the short term. Given that the Court has
basically used the <i>Fisher</i> ruling to
reaffirm its rules set out in <i>Grutter</i>—and specifically that “strict
scrutiny” needs to be truly meaningful scrutiny, and not (as the Court says)
“strict in theory and feeble in fact,” the standard for review in future cases
will certainly need to be more exacting, and states will need to show that “no
workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of
diversity.” While this is a more
exacting standard of review moving forward, the Court clearly did not decide
that UT’s program in using race was unconstitutional. The decision also references and upholds the
standards set forth in <i>Bakke</i> & <i>Grutter</i>—so <i>Bakke</i> and <i>Grutter</i> are
still good law, and diversity in higher education still can be considered a
permissible compelling governmental interest. The Court signaled that race based affirmative action plans can still be
considered constitutional if implemented properly (and if no workable race
neutral alternatives are available). </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thus, the ruling in <i>Fisher
</i>was a narrow one, saving the broader battle over affirmative action (and a
possible final end point) for another day. However, while holding that affirmative action survives, the Supreme
Court made clear that reviewing courts have the obligation to make their own
independent judgments about whether the university’s critical mass
determination is a valid one. That is,
strict scrutiny requires real and meaningful searching inquiries on the part of
the court; not deference to the institution at issue. Further, as diversity increases on campus, it
should be harder for institutions to consider race and use affirmative action
at all. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Thus, through the settling haze, the practice of affirmative
action still stands, alive, but battered. The practice has withstood the Court’s restrictions and caveats in such
cases as the <i>Regents of the University of
California v. Bakke</i> in 1978, <i>Adarand
v. Pena</i> in 1995, <i>Gratz v. Bollinger</i>
in 2003, <i>Grutter v. Bollinger</i> in 2003,
and now <i>Fisher v. University of Texas at
Austin</i> in 2013. It is battered,
bruised and wobbling—like a punch happy pugilist who is recoiling from one too
many uppercuts to the jaw; but yet, still it stands. Weaker, more tempered, but still in the fight. While judicial concepts like “strict
scrutiny” have been further defined and the level of review has been increased,
proponents of affirmative action can take solace in the fact that the concept
of affirmative action still survives—at least until the next major challenge.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">One final note: The next major challenge may not be too far
off in the distance. The Supreme Court
has already granted review of the next affirmative action case in <i>Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative
Action by Any Means Necessary</i>. The
case will be argued at the Supreme Court in the Fall 2013 term. This case deals with the propriety and fate
of state law bans on the practice of affirmative action. This case deals with the constitutionality of
Michigan Proposal 2, which amended the <st1:state w:st="on">Michigan</st1:state>
state constitution to prohibit (as a matter of state law) public institutions
within the state from utilizing racial-preference in admissions, employment,
and contracting. In the petition to the
Supreme Court requesting review, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette
stressed that he was not asking the Court to constitutionally dismantle
affirmative action itself (as was a possibility leading up to the <i>Fisher</i> ruling), but rather whether state
governments can decide to do so on their own. Thus, according to Michigan Attorney General Schuette, “this case
presents the different issue whether a state has the right to accept this
Court’s invitation in <i>Grutter</i> to
bring an end to all race-based preferences.” This “invitation” is clearly a reference to Justice O’Connor’s language
in <i>Grutter</i> that affirmative action
should not be a permanent program and should have a logical end point, and that
end point should be within the next quarter century from the <i>Grutter</i> decision (i.e., by 2028). The stage is already set for this next battle
over affirmative action. Stay tuned in
the Fall. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. . .</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><b>James A. Beckman</b> (J.D., Ohio State,
LL.M. Georgetown University) is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the
University of Central Florida, where he also serves as the inaugural chair of
the Department of Legal Studies. He is the author of <i>Comparative Legal
Approaches to Homeland Security and Anti-terrorism</i> (2007) and <i>Affirmative
Action Now: A Guide for Students, Families, and Counselors</i> (2006); he is
also the General Editor of <i>Affirmative Action: An Encyclopedia</i> (2004).
Before his entrance into academia in 2000, he served as an attorney-advisor for
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF) at its headquarters in
Washington, DC. Among other awards, he was the recipient of the United States
Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his legal work as an active
duty judge advocate from 1994–1998, and the Department of Justice Meritorious
Service Award (1999) for legal work on behalf of the Department of Justice and
ATF.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-14901489963376833942013-06-25T08:00:00.000-07:002013-06-25T08:00:02.779-07:00Spying in America<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>The following is a piece from Ronald A. Marks, author of </i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313391415">Spying in America in the Post 9/11 World: Domestic Threat and the Need for Change</a>:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since 9/11, the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United
States</st1:country-region></st1:place> has engaged in an unprecedented amount
of spying within the American homeland. An enemy who recognizes no borders,
recruits individuals and small groups, and is ruthless in its desire to kill
civilians has prompted the effort. We have engaged our spy community, our
military, and our law enforcement community to stop these attacks. The record
is now up for review.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the 12 years since the attack on
the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">World</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Trade</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place> towers and the Pentagon, we have
spent nearly half a trillion dollars on homeland security alone. The Federal
government has established deep information and law enforcement relationships
with the 17,600 state, local and tribal law authorities. It has reached out in
unprecedented ways to the business and public for information. It has intruded
into our personal lives every time we travel, every time we remove our shoes in
an airport or get wanded entering a public
building.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Authorities say some 50 terrorist
plots have been stopped. But, the Boston Bombings this year made Americans
uneasy over the effectiveness of what is being done to stop terrorism. The
exposure of the super-secret, extensive, and legally approved effort by the
National Security Agency (NSA) to take in and mine unprecedented volumes of
information from innumerable private and public sources has stunned the country
and forced the questions: are we doing too much and how much should we, the
public, need to know about it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Contained in the DNA of America’s
citizens is their concern over big government. We neither like nor trust it. The U.S. Constitution, the very essence of our political identity, splits the
power between three separate, co-equal branches of Federal government.
Additionally, it allows for state’s rights and specifically lays out individual
freedom in the Bill of Rights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So the time has come to debate our
actions publicly– whither <st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region> in its war on terror within <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>. The challenge the U.S.
Government will have making its case lie in the secret methods it has used to
build up our defenses. Government officials argue for not tipping our hand to
the terrorists—the traditional argument of sources and methods. And, unlike
other times in our history such as the anti-communist hunts of the<span style="color: navy;"> </span>1950s and 1960s, our
government has gone through extraordinary measures to make sure its actions were
legal and reviewed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the past few weeks, prompted by
an unlikely so-called whistleblower from NSA, the average American has been
exposed to the issue of FISA courts, and the Patriot Act, and Presidential
Executive Orders designed to check and double check surveillance programs. The
problem lies not in the court of law, but in the court of public
opinion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Americans are a tolerant people if
things are explained to them; if they are vetted into the process and reasoning
behind our Government protection. That public “light” has been not been
shined. The public “security” boards set up under law years ago to provide this
insight and outside government protection are only now being filled and put into
action. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It is up to the U.S. Government to
make its case for spying in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place> to its citizens. It is up to
its citizens to determine how much they want or are willing to tolerate. That
is what <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s Constitution call<span style="color: navy;">s</span> for and what should be
done.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Ronald A. Marks</b> is senior fellow at George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, Washington, DC, and a former CIA senior official. Marks has written about intelligence and homeland security issues for the last ten years.</span></div>
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ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-11213704946082996632013-06-10T09:00:00.000-07:002013-06-11T09:40:38.044-07:00ABC-CLIO Solutions Helps Nevada Student with National History Day Contest<br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Each year more than half a million children across the country participate in the <a href="http://www.nhd.org/Contest.htm">National History Day Contest</a>. Students are challenged to </i></span><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">c</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">hoose a historical topic related to the annual theme, and then conduct primary and secondary research. They are then asked to present this research in a creative way via performance, exhibit, documentary or website.</span></span></i><br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This year student Bennett Wallace's creative website on Valley Forge has been selected from his state to compete at the national level. Bennett used <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/DatabaseCategory.aspx?id=2147508111">ABC-CLIO Solutions</a> as his primary source of information in creating his website. We took a moment to ask Bennett about this project and how ABC-CLIO Solutions helped him create his winning website.</span></span></i><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screen shot of Bennett's webpage. Visit it here: <a href="http://94560837.nhd.weebly.com/index.html" title="http://94560837.nhd.weebly.com/index.html"><u title="http://94560837.nhd.weebly.com/index.html"><span style="color: blue; font-size: x-small;" title="http://94560837.nhd.weebly.com/index.html">http://94560837.nhd.weebly.com/index.html</span></u></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>ABC-CLIO (AC): Why did you choose this topic?</b></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Bennett Wallace (BW): I
chose Valley Forge as a topic because I had visited the Valley Forge National
Park when I was 11 and learned so many interesting things there about how Valley
Forge was a turning point in the war. I felt like it would fit the topic
perfectly. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><b style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">AC: </b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>How did ABC-CLIO resources help your research for this
project? </b><br /> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">BW: ABC-CLIO
resources helped me so much on this project because it was quick and easy to
find reliable sources from their database and they even have the MLA citation at
the bottom of each source. ABC-CLIO made it easy to cite sources for my
annotated bibliography. </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>AC:What challenges did you face during the course of this
project? How did you overcome these challenges?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">BW: The
challenges I had during this project were trying to keep under the word limit. There is quite a lot of information on Valley Forge and I wish I could have
added more. Another problem I faced was making the annotated bibliography. I
used so many sources that it was hard to cite them all. I overcame these
problems by getting rid of some pages on my website and also by using sites like
EasyBib and ABC-CLIO that made making my bibliography easier. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>AC: What surprised you the most about your subject during the
course of your research?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">BW: The
thing that surprised me most about my subject is that Valley Forge was a turning
point not only in the Revolutionary War but also in George Washington's life and
really our country's history. Also, what surprised me were the conditions at
Valley Forge and how harsh the winter was. </span><br />
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<i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We also asked Bennet's teacher, </i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>L</i><i>indsey
Clewell, </i></span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">for her perspective on the ABC-CLIO and the project:</i><br />
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<strong style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">AC: What
made you decide to have your students participate in the contest?</strong><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">L</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">indsey Clewell (LC): </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I
heard about National History Day from the coordinator of Social Studies for
Washoe County, Sue Davis. I thought that this sounded like an amazing
opportunity for students to learn lifelong skills while researching something
they are interested in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<strong style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">AC: </strong><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><strong>What
did you find most useful about ABC-CLIO Solutions for your students while
working on this project?</strong> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">LC: ABC-CLIO offers students reliable
information. In today’s world students have the tedious task of sorting through
information <span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #1f497d;"><span style="background-color: white;">to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black;">find out what
is</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span>correct and reliable. ABC-CLIO offers
a resource that students can go to and know that the information they are
reading about is accurate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><strong>AC: What
challenges did you face during the course of this project? How did you overcome
these challenges?</strong> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">LC: I feel the biggest challenge of this project was
teaching the students what is a reliable resource and what is not. They are
used to going to Google and typing in a search term and believing everything
they read is reliable. To get them digging a bit deeper into the resource and
asking the questions, “Where did this source come from?” and “How do I know if this
is reliable?”, was a task that is important and something that we spend a lot of
time on. I also made sure to give my students websites that are reliable and
offer many primary and secondary resources. This is a skill that my students
will need to know throughout their lives and is one that is worth <span style="color: black;"><span style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span style="background-color: white;">spending extra time to
teach.</span></span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><strong>AC: How
does ABC-CLIO Solutions compare to other research tools you've used in the
classroom?</strong> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">LC: ABC-CLIO is easy to navigate for students and this is why
my students tended to gravitate to the source. Their generation is used to
getting answers
fast and ABC-CLIO offered great answers in a timely manner. My students found
multiple resources relating to their topic in one place and they really
enjoyed this online resource as a primary source that they used. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>We asked </i></span><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Christine Hull, Director of Social Studies and Content Literacy Programs at the Nevada Department of Education, to give her feedback on how ABC-CLIO Solutions plays a role at the state level:</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>AC: What made you decide to have NV schools participate in the contest?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Christine Hull (CH): When I took the position I am in currently I inherited the role of History Day Coordinator for the State of Nevada. I encourage schools to participate in this contest because the process to prepare their projects aligns with Common Core as well as gives the teachers an authentic learning and assessment opportunity in their classrooms. I really believe the process is the most important part of the entire contest. The Director of National History Day, Cathy Gorn always says, History Day is every day! I truly believe that and the skills that students learn through this process truly are preparing them for their next step in education.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>AC: What challenges did you face during the course of this project? How did you overcome these challenges?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">CH: Our state is so diverse in geography and population. We are unable to have one state contest like every other state so the first time our entire delegation meets is in Maryland. We also run into problems reaching our districts in the eastern part of the state and something that I would really like to focus on in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>AC: How has ABC-CLIO Solutions helped you accomplish your overall goals for the social studies programs in NV schools?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">CH: Having the ABC-CLIO Solutions available to every K-12 student in the entire state makes it so great for me to encourage teachers to use this as their starting point for research. Knowing that they can all access the same articles and resources I know that if I show an example during a webinar or face to face training that everyone has access to a trusted source of information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>AC: How has ABC-CLIO Solutions helped NV teachers to implement the Common Core State Standards?</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">CH: Our teachers are loving the ability to search by not only content standards but also by CCSS. Using the primary sources and articles available in ABC-CLIO Solutions gives our teachers the ability to have an updated textbook of sorts that is aligned to the types of literacy activities they are implementing in their classrooms. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If you haven't already explored ABC-CLIO Solutions, <a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/DatabaseCategory.aspx?id=2147508111">sign up today for a FREE trial</a>!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">ABC-CLIO's <i>American History </i>online solution</td></tr>
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<br />ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-17048640700351582352013-05-20T10:40:00.002-07:002013-05-22T13:28:48.894-07:00Prophylactic Mastectomy: Angelina Jolie Opens a Door on a World of Challenging Decisions<br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Angelina Jolie’s brave announcement in the New York Times last week that she has undergone a prophylactic mastectomy and reconstruction
because of her high hereditary risk of breast and ovarian cancer has resonated
loudly with other women who come from families with high cancer rates. Being a
carrier of a deleterious mutation in a <i>BRCA1
</i><span style="font-size: small;">or </span><i>BRCA2</i><span style="font-size: small;"> gene means that a woman
faces a 56-87% risk of developing breast cancer and a 20-60% risk of developing
ovarian cancer, both rates far above those faced by women in the general population.
Many of the breast cancers occur at unusually early ages, so breast screening
in women at high risk is recommended to begin at age 25 and women in screening
programs are also advised to consider prophylactic mastectomy and prophylactic
oophorectomy when they complete their childbearing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> As the Cancer
Genetics and Prevention Clinic Director of Psychology Research and Clinical
Services and the author of <i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313345166"><b>Prophylactic Mastectomy: Insights from Women who Chose to Reduce Their Risk</b></a></i> (Praeger, 2012), I have heard many women’s stories
about how they came to the same decision Angelina made and how they have coped
with the physical and psychological challenges which surgery created. The vast
majority of women feel as Angelina said she did, grateful for the chance to
avoid cancer and to be able to reassure her children that they would not lose
her to that disease. Having lost a parent to cancer at a young age and having
small children are two of the most common motivations for women to choose
prophylactic mastectomy. What Angelina could not cover in her letter were the
many dilemmas, challenges, decisions, problems and adaptations which a woman
opting for prophylactic mastectomy faces along the way to her successful
surgery and recovery. The 21 women I interviewed for the book talked openly
about difficulties finding sympathetic doctors, countering well-meaning
relatives who opposed the surgery, confronting innermost feelings about their
breasts, figuring out how to explain this surgery to small children (one woman
told her young children her surgery was like when their stuffed animals needed
new stuffing!), and adjusting to a changed sexual experience and body image.
The road to “saving my own life” or “feeling safe within my body” is often a
bumpy one, leading to a good place, but sometimes requiring support from
family, friends, and professionals along the way. Hats off to Angelina, for
pointing the GPS down that road! She has made it much easier for other women to
follow.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><b>Andrea Farkas Patenaude</b>, PhD, </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Director of
Psychology Research and Clinical Services, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 115%;">Author,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"> </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313345166"><b>Prophylactic Mastectomy: Insights from Women Who Chose to Reduce Their Risk</b></a></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 115%;"><b> </b>(Praeger, 2012) </span></div>
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-66784806204032714902013-05-07T08:03:00.000-07:002013-05-22T13:28:44.260-07:00Video Discussion with the Authors of African Americans on Television: Racing for Ratings<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/W-s5SsVGwfA" width="560"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780275995140">African Americans on Television: Racing for Ratings</a></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>David J. Leonard</b>, PhD, is associate professor and chair in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University. Leonard has written <i>Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Lisa A. Guerrero</b>, PhD, is associate professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University. Guerrero is the editor of <i>Teaching Race in the 21st Century: College Teachers Talk about Their Fears, Risks, and Rewards</i>.</span>ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-11034702334539997542013-05-06T09:57:00.001-07:002013-05-22T13:29:27.420-07:00Interview with Bruce E. Johansen, Author of Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">What prompted you to write </span><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 150%;"><a href="http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9781440803178">The Encyclopedia of the American Indian Movement</a></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 150%;">? What
"message" do you want to communicate?</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Kim Kennedy White, the acquisitions editor for race and
ethnicity, asked me to write an encyclopedia about the American Indian
movement. Her idea excited me because I have known some of the principal people
over many years. I decided to include
both AIM, as well as many allied groups that also fought for Native American
rights beginning in the 1950s. People from many of these groups often made
common cause.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For example, I was a member of Leonard Peltier’s first
defense committee during the late 1970s, in Seattle. I also was the first to write
about his case in a national venue (<i>The
Nation</i>, September, 1977). My first book (<i>Wasi’chu: The Continuing Indian Wars,</i> 1979) described events during
the “reign of terror” at Pine Ridge from 1973 to 1976. I had witnessed some of the fishing-rights
activities in Puget Sound as a reporter at the Seattle <i>Times</i>, and knew many of the participants. Kim’s invitation made me
revisit all of this in a new way, as history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What I want to communicate is the story of people deciding
to demand justice and enforcement of treaty rights, and to do it in an
historical context that enables everyone to understand a time that has
influenced subsequent events.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What was
the highlight of your research? In the course of your research, what discovery
surprised you the most? What surprises readers/others the most about your
research?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The highlight was learning more, as an historian, about
people and events I had known or experienced, and reading other authors’ work
on the same subjects. I have written, for example, about sterilization of
American Indian women, and the effects of uranium on Navajo miners – both of
which became objects of protests that brought them to a halt. My favorite part
of writing is discovery of new information, followed by weaving of text. The
book includes many personal stories that should make it more readable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How did
your research change your outlook on the American Indian Movement?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The research enriched my outlook more than changing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">How have
people reacted to your book and/or the ideas you set forth? Is it what you
hoped for, or is there more work to be done?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Just about everyone I have told about this book wants to
read it cover-to-cover, which is very unusual for an encyclopedia. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What's
next for you?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">I
am writing and editing the <i>Encyclopedia
of American Indian Culture: From </i></span><i><span style="line-height: 150%;">Canoes to
Pow-wows</span></i><span style="line-height: 150%;"> with Kim. Also, I am writing two books in the Puget Sound
area, one on the revival of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, another on an amazing
multi-ethnic organization, El Centro de la Raza that people re-built with their
own hands in an abandoned school in Seattle. Both of these books are specific
applications of the kind of self-determination that developed during the time
that AIM was active. El Centro and the
Muckleshoots have been allied since the fishing “wars” of the 1960s and 1970s;
the Seattle area is very multi-ethnic, and many people have been given to
developing Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ideas of a “beloved community” that
crosses ethnic lines. Both books thus are relevant to the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place> as a whole because we are becoming more ethnically diverse every
day. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">El Centro</st1:place></st1:city>
was founded mainly by Latinos led by people who want to appreciate their own
culture as well as everyone else’s. I’m Norwegian-American, and their
historian. </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Bruce E. Johansen </b>is Jacob
J. Isaacson University Research Professor In Communication and Native American
Studies University of Nebraska at Omaha, having worked there since 1982,
meanwhile producing 37 books, mainly in Native American studies and on
environmental subjects. These include The Encyclopedia of Global Warming
Science and Technology (2 vols., 2009), Global Warming in the 21st century (3
vols., 2006), and as co-editor (with Barry M. Pritzker) of the 4-volume
Encyclopedia of Native American History.</span><br />
ABC-CLIOhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14986377337720555190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4953365761357041577.post-88105091266837006672013-05-02T09:37:00.001-07:002013-05-28T16:16:12.091-07:00Colonial Williamsburg’s Gift to the Nation Electronic Field Trip “Founders or Traitors”<br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="http://giftnation.history.org/">Colonial
Williamsburg’s Gift to the Nation</a></span></i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">
provides teachers with unique resources to engage students in the study of
citizenship and the values that shaped our nation. The Electronic Field Trip “<b>Founders or Traitors</b>” explores the
later part of 1776, which were “the times that try men’s souls.” Join Benjamin
Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge as they meet with British admiral
Lord Howe, hoping to end the American rebellion peacefully. Meet the signers of
the Declaration of Independence and discover the risks they took.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Available
online <b>24/7</b> from <b>May 1, 2013 to May 1, 2014<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>On-demand video streaming</b> over the Web<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Email </b>John Adams<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Interactive
<b>online games</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]--><b>Downloadable resources,</b> such as the teacher guide and program
script (PDF)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">·<span style="font-size: 7pt;">
</span><!--[endif]-->Comprehensive
<b>lesson plans</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>View
</b>the complete <a href="http://www.history.org/history/teaching/eft/eft_upcoming.cfm">2013-2014 Electronic Field Trip Schedule</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We hope you’ll take advantage of this
opportunity to bring this exciting, relevant program into your school or home! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Register
Now</b> at <a href="http://giftnation.history.org/">http://giftnation.history.org/</a></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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