Answering questions at Boston College O’Neill Library
Yoon’s martial law was illegally called, and reminded citizens of past traumatic instances of autoritarian rule. I’m on the edge of my board waiting to see if Yoon will be impeached successfully. My thoughts are still tangled up as I read up on the history in South Korea. International Studies Department here at BC has a lot of great classes on Korea– there’s even a new one this coming spring semester EALC2330-01 that sounds really interesting.
I know that these are times full of questions for many people. I am just a Wall and have no answers but I do know that no matter what, or how each person is feeling right now, being there for each other, taking time to listen and be kind, can help in the midst of any confusion. There will be numerous articles and publications analyzing the election, and that might provide you more information as well.
The will of the people is a concept that autocrats of all ages have clothed themselves in. My Roman historian helper also wants me to point out that the “order” Augustus established was based on killing most of the people who still remembered how the old Republic ran and outliving the rest.
Was going to say Wall Street was betting half a point, but the Fed just announced half a point, so, sorry. Wall Time runs a good bit more slowly than Wall Street Time.
The short answer is no, you’re not going to meet many librarians (or library walls) in favor of banning books under almost any circumstances. The baseline for the profession is the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights. Librarians try to build collections that serve all of a community, and you can’t do that without collecting material that will be controversial to some. The few shouldn’t get to dictate to the many what they can read.
$1000 to ten families sounds nice. There’s a chance this would have a larger lasting impact providing it to more families than one. It is also more likely due to the smaller amount, that this would be spent in the community so it would in turn help small business as well.
Math really doesn’t work out, does it? Turns out they wrote 85. Final score: Hamilton 51, Madison 29, Jay 5, but there was historical controversy about that for over a hundred years. Hamilton and Madison claimed different numbers. Classic essay here: https://bit.ly/bc-fed
No. Most forms of socialism are perfectly compatible with democracy. Lots of Americans assume all socialism is like Stalinist Russia, and it’s just not true. Here are a few thoughts on that from the Democratic Socialists of America: https://bit.ly/bc-dsa, and here are some things from the library on the topic: https://bit.ly/bc-dsa2.
Disliking LGBTQ+ people or not wanting to date any Black person doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, but they do make you a racist and a homophobe. I am curious why you don’t want those labels assigned to you. Is it because you don’t think they fully represent you? Are you more than just your dislike for these groups? I certainly hope so, and ask that you look at every person as a full and complex human and not just one thing. Oh, and if you don’t hire someone simply because they are gay, then you aren’t treating them like everyone else, and that would be discriminatory and bad.
The UN says solitary confinement is torture. Europe has mostly eliminated its use; this Wall is opposed to using walls in such an inhumane way. There is a strong streak of retributory punishment in the US, though, given the broad approval of capital punishment, three strikes laws, and solitary confinement. I hope one result of coronavirus isolation will be compassion for those subjected to far more extreme versions of isolation.
Hi! They don’t. The World Health Organizations tracks outbreaks year by year, and they show up in every continent and country. bit.ly/WHO-diseases
Who can tell these days? There seem to be historic shifts in voter preference underway.
Obama is keeping his counsel on his lack of endorsements in the Democratic primary, and given that he hasn’t been shy about endorsing candidacies in the past (bit.ly/obama-endorsements), that’s… unusual. And perhaps significant. Who will win? There are too many variables in play even for seasoned poll-watchers like FiveThirtyEight to make predictions. It’s a very consequential election, and with so many unknowns, it’s no wonder people are having a hard time maintaining civility.
If we were called United States-ians, it wouldn’t really roll off the tongue as well. To the extent that peoples in other countries in the North and South American continents are also members of those continents, they can reasonably call themselves “North Americans” and “South Americans” in the same way that other people around the world call themselves “Europeans”, “Africans”, “Asians”, and “Australians”. Though no one really calls themselves after multi-continent land masses; “Eurasians” isn’t a popular rallying cry despite the existence of Russia and Turkey. Calling people from the USA “Americans” is simply a useful, easy-to-pronounce shorthand for “people from the United States of America”. And, to be fair, the USA is the only country in North or South America to also have the word “America” in its name.
That number would be markedly different depending on what you mean. If you mean deaths of citizens directly attributable to their socialist governments (i.e., what one might call state-sponsored murder, or “democide,”) it’s one number. If you mean deaths of citizens *indirectly* (i.e. owing to military campaigns or resource management) that’s a quite different number. Also, is your definition of socialism narrow (only including totalitarian socialist states) or broad (also including countries briefly governed by democratically elected socialists, such as Allende in Chile?) I recommend searching “democide” in the Historical Abstracts database.
I would suppose it is because BC deeply values academic freedom. Aside from direct expressions of hate speech against ethnic groups or other protected classes or activities that could physically harm someone, BC, like many colleges in the US, hesitates to prohibit speech or activities, even when some groups could claim they are offensive or divisive. Political speech is perhaps the most protected of speech categories, as it also falls well within constitutional rights to free speech.
Jimmy Carter’s post-presidential life of authorship, shunning cash cow payouts, and community service is widely viewed as a life well lived, and not “messed up.” Take a look at this entry, Life After the Presidency, Jimmy Carter (bit.ly/millercenter-carter), from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia for an overview. For more on the post-presidential lives of other U.S. Presidents visit, U.S. Presidents, Miller Center (millercenter.org/president).
Sorry I didn’t get to this yesterday. There is sadly a long history of anti-immigration sentiment in US history, almost as old as the country. You might start with a source like this historical encyclopedia: bit.ly/bc-nativism.
The Wall doesn’t endorse candidates, but I’ve been super interested in the popularity of Giant Meteor since their 2016 run.
That’s a big topic, and there are a bunch of ways you could approach it. Here are a few suggestions for things to read. Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts (O’Neill Library DR16 .K36 1993) is a classic history, or you could try something like Mazower’s The Balkans: A Short History (O’Neill DR36 .M39 2000). If you want something comprehensive you could try Jelavich’s History of the Balkans (O’Neill DR36 .J37 1983). And Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (O’Neill DR366 .W3) is still a classic piece of travel writing and cultural observation.
The Wall is having trouble with the word “best” in this context. All three had very influential public careers and some measure of scandal attached to them. Teddy had much more time to do public service and pass laws to serve the Commonwealth and the country, but that’s the tragedy of the family as well.
