the vampire’s university

Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. The time during which the labourer works, is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labour-power he has purchased of him. Karl Marx, Capital  David Blacker has a piece at monthlyreview.org with the […]

Michael Moore: “America is We, the People”

Michael Moore answers question on “American exceptionalism”; gives his version of the Pledge of Allegiance. “American exceptionalism” has been a hot-button focus of contention in recent curriculum controversies, and features in several posts here on Curricublog. This past Sunday (October 2, 2011), Michael Moore was featured on the interview and call-in show IN DEPTH on C-Span’s BookTV. […]

David Barton on majorities and minority rights

Under Construction I don’t have time to write this post right now — hopefully I’ll get to it before too long. But I did want to post these paragraphs now while people are looking for this. These relate to a story on Al Sharpton’s show on MSNBC tonight (Aug 24, 2011) on Rick Perry and David […]

Rick Perry and Higher Education

On the newest leading Republican Party candidate for U.S. President, from the Chronicle of Higher Education: … Perry has promoted a conservative ideology in a higher-education policy agenda that emphasizes transparency and accountability and treats colleges like businesses whose customers are students. His associates have been hired for key leadership and advisory positions in the University […]

Public investment, innovation, and quality of life

The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution has released an important new report on Innovation — how innovation happens, and its consequences for society. The Report includes documentation and discussion of the following findings (For more information, click on each of the facts below or download the full policy memo (PDF) »): Innovation drives economic growth […]

Congress math (& civics) deficits

What can we understand from this stunning performance by Jared Polis (D-CO) in the debate on the House floor (July 28, 2011)?: 2½ minutes were yielded to Polis so he could present prepared remarks, equiped with a neatly-printed three-color chart showing yields and interest rates paid by countries rated AAA vs. AA. The bottom line […]

State of the Nation: IN PERIL! (Bachmann speech / videos)

On his MSNBC Hardball program last week, Chris Matthews was calling Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) a “balloon head” — somebody who speaks freely without knowing anything, about U.S. history, in particular, and somebody who need to go back to school to learn something about history, so that she might finally know something about the things she likes […]

Virginia Foxx heads House SubCom on Higher Education ( Heaven Help Us !! )

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: Rep. Virginia Foxx to Head House Higher-Education Panel January 4, 2011, 2:49 pm House Republicans have appointed Rep. Virginia Foxx as chair of the subcommittee on higher education. Representative Foxx, a conservative from North Carolina, previously taught or served as an administrator at Appalachian State University, Caldwell Community College, and Mayland […]

Palin on Larry King denouncing Obama’s cookie policy (xtranormal animation)

For Sarah Palin’s crusading against the Obamas’ and the Democrat Party’s anti-cookie nanny-state, here is some real-world documentation, and an animated send-up.

Welcome, Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow is dropping in on us to do her show from here, tomorrow night, Tues. October 5. I’m not kidding. The announcement is here, on her blog. She will be broadcasting from the Deer Park tavern here in Newark, Delaware, which is right next to the Willard Hall Education Building, home of the University […]

GOP Congress candidate: Church|State separation comes from “Hitler’s mouth” (video)

For all the attention being given to Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell’s upset of long-time popular Congressman and former Delaware Governor Mike Castle for the GOP nomination for Joe Biden’s seat in the U.S. Senate, relatively little notice has been paid to fellow Tea Partier Glen Urquhart’s upset of the mainstream GOP favorite for the […]

Tea Partiers & anti-democratic ignorance

The fact that GOP and Tea Party candidates can get away with this nonsense — at least to the extent of garnering enough support to force runoff elections, if not to secure GOP nominations — demonstrates the sad state of historical education in this country. Alabama GOP runoff candidate Rick Barber is running this ad […]

Oklahoma’s Judeo-Christian Law amendment measure

Jeff Musall has it about right in his (subtly-titled) opinion piece, “Oklahoma’s ‘Save Our State’ amendment to ban Sharia law is abominable.” Here is the news release from the Oklahoma legislature:

Wickham: Texas history as opportunity

In USA Today (and by syndication in other Garnette papers), Dwayne Wickham has a May 25 column to show how the Texas State Board of Education’s (SBOE) newly-adopted standards for history education, despite intentions by the SBOE leading bloc of right-wing ideologues, actually can provide an opportunity for teaching real history. Wickham notes that Among […]

Texas outdone by South Dakota (climate change)

After so many posts here on Texas lunacy, it’s something of a relief to post on another state outdoing Texas in dictating political nonsense for teaching in the public schools. State of South Dakota EIGHTY-FIFTH SESSION LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, 2010 363R0643 HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 1009 A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Calling for balanced teaching of global warming in […]

2½-Hour TV tribute to Howard Zinn

This program is being re-aired: Saturday, February 27th at 1pm (ET) Saturday, February 27th at 11:30pm (ET) The C-SPAN page, with information, transcript, and video, is at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/219641 .

Representative Democracy vs. the Senate filibuster

A cloture-proof filibuster is more than just a remote hypothetical possibility. The pie-chart here provides a picture of what it means for representative democracy when such a minority can hold hostage the government of the United States. The minority — in terms of representation of the people — is significantly less than the 40% that it is often thought to be.