This is the kind of podcast I try to avoid. a discussion of an issue that is ongoing.  The problem is that it might evolve in a different direction and I would be exposed as someone who had seriously misunderstood the issues or missed key points.  I remember writing a podcast on the Ukraine-Russia controversy.  The next morning when I went into my office to record it, I realized that Russia had invaded Ukraine as I slept.  (Darn you, Putin.  He had said he was not going to invade.  Liar,...

Let's start with a Trigger Warning:  Not only am I going to tell you about this book, and about its impact on American society.  I am also going to read excerpts to you.  You will not find these passages easy to hear.   This is about Reconstruction in South Carolina where the author (Thomas Dixon Jr.) lived.  He was a prominent minister, actor, author, and local hero.  He was also a racist. But he was not unique.   He had a lot of fans.  His book sold 100,000 copies and the play he wrote on...

I have  a two-part podcast on Gandhi.  This is Part I. It focuses on  Gandhi's concept or strategy of Satyagraha.  He invented that term himself.  It means Soul  Force.  We might say non-violent resistance.  It is pacifist, but not passive.  it is definitely confrontational.  It was rooted in deep moral concepts, but also in Indian culture and history.  Maybe this podcast will make you want to read the book by Rudolph and Rudolph which discusses those cultural traditions in depth.  Gandhi...

This was the final lecture in my class on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the last time I taught that class.    The thesis is that none of the main political science models for how this conflict will end are correct.  But History (capital H) does not like intractable conflicts.  SOMETHING will happen.  And History (capital H) will not ask us what we think.  Most likely, History (capital H) will choose something we don't like and something we cannot anticipate.  This is called The Black...

How can a totally innocent man be unequivocally identified as a rapist?   And be sentenced to 28 years in prison?  And when the false conviction is exposed and the case thrown out, is there any way for the person who made the false identification to find peace?   This is the story of Alice Sebold, whose famous books, The Lovely Bones, and Lucky tell the stories of a young girl and a college freshman who get raped.  And what happens next.    

This is a discussion of the indictments in the Mara-Lago documents case.  If you are confused, and don't want to read the 60 page indictment with its 37 counts, this may be a short cut for you.  It addresses some context, some points of law, some background issues.   There are a couple of glitches in this podcast.   A fine would be $250,000, not $250.  And a name in a string of names is wrong.  And for those who are careful listeners, those two rulings by Judge Cannon were so closely...

In 1993, 30 years ago on April 19, the totalitarian government in Washington, the New Babylon, the entity that must be destroyed, exposed its true nature.  What happened on that day became an inflection point, a call to action.  This podcast is a followup on my earlier podcast on Violent White Nationalism.  It explains the logic of those who agree with that opening paragraph.  Don't expect to fell good at the end of this podcast. 

On March 30, 2023 I delivered my farewell Legacy Lecture to the UM-Dearborn community.  There were  70 plus people present.   The event had four stages.  First, two colleagues (Don Anderson and Elias Baumgarten) reflected on my career and their interactions with me;  then I delivered my talk; then five memorable students were on a panel to discuss their work with me; then there was an Open Mike.  The full event was about two hours.   The full video event is available on the College of Arts,...

On May 14, 1948  (on the American calendar) the Zionist forces in Palestine declared the arrival of the state of Israel.  2023 is the 75th anniversary of that event.  Israelis and Jewish nationalists in general consider this to be a day of liberation.  To Palestinians it is a day of catastrophe (Nakba) when they lost not only their farms and homes and quarries and orchards and professions  and bank accounts but their homeland.  The inflammatory rhetoric in our own country around these events...

In 1862 Victor Hugo wrote what may be the greatest novel of the 19th century.  He wrote this masterpiece in 14 months, while he was in exile.  It is about Jean Valjean who was sentenced to the galleys for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his widowed sister and her chidren.  Many people have seen the film or stage version of this novel, but the written text is stunning.  Was it divinely inspired? I don't know.  Did the hand of God reach down and direct the hand of the author?  I don't know.  I...

The Dominion Lawsuit Against Fox News, April 18, 2023 As a part of the Big Lie conspiracy theory, that Donald Trump had won the 2020 Presidential election but it had been stolen from him, Fox News began to feature attacks on Dominion Voting Machines.  They said that Dominion machines had “flipped” millions of votes from Trump to Biden, thus stealing the election.  Needless to say, this would destroy Dominion’s credibility, especially in Red States.   Dominion sued for $1.6 billion.  Legally,...

A Palestinian Reflects on life in Ramallah and Life in Ann Arbor Last year, Ramsey Hanhan published a slightly fictionalized memoir of his life.  It was called Fugitive Dreams:  A Personal Memoir.  Ramsey grew up in Ramallah, nine miles north of Jerusalem.  His parents were 1948 refugees.  In those days Ramallah was predominately a Christian town.  Today it is a bustling city.    Ramsey grew up under the Israeli occupation.  His textbooks had to have an Israeli stamp certifying that they did...

Almost everyone knows about Winnie the Pooh, but not as many know about the Christopher Robin Poems.  There were two collections of these poems, later gathered into a single book, The World of Christopher Robin.  These are poems that my sons and my grandkids know very well because Jane and I read them over and over.  (Recently we mentioned this collectin to my grandson and he began to recite the one that he liked the most).   Kids love to hear things like this over and over but for parents,...

With Israel being led by the most extreme government in its history, and with violence escalating on the West Bank, I thought it might be useful to repost this podcast.  Ian Lustick is a significant political scientist.  He specializes in intractable ethnic and colonial conflicts, and how they end.  This is his discussion of why Israel is incapable to addressing its occupation, and why the U.S. is incapable to pressuring them.  I have another podcast on possible outcomes, including the Black...

Jane and I met Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter once, but I think we, and other Americans, knew him long before that.  These are my reflections on the life of a great American.  This includes his election as governor, Camp David, Panama Canal, his personality, and especially issues of race and racism.  It also includes his books, and especially An Hour Before Sunrise, his book on growing up in small town Georgia, and the nature of racial issues. 

Background to the Ukraine War.  Observations from February 24, 2022 This war will not end with the defeat of the Russian army or with Vladimir Putin in the Hague for a war crimes trial.  There will have to be a settlement.  This podcast offers some thoughts on the nature of the conflict.   Back in 2008 there was a crisis in Ukraine.  It led to the separation of two regions from Ukraine, and the Russian annexation of the Crimean peninsula.  I convened a Faculty Forum on the event, asking my...

Sixty years ago, the New Yorker published a long analytical essay on the Eichmann trial by the famous intellectual Hannah Arendt.  It became an instant classic.  It also became the center of rabid controversy.  This is a short discussion of Hannah Arendt, of her life, and of what happened when she published her discussion of this trial. 

During the lead up to the Iraq War of 2003 I was very active in raising concerns about why this would be a bad decision.  I was interviewed scores of times and spoke scores more to civic groups, churches, and anyone who wanted to listen to me.  I also delivered two major talks.  One was in 2002 as Congress prepared to vote on the "authorization to use force" resolution.  I feared the invasion would be a catastrophe and explained why the first Bush administration had been cautious.  The second...

Several top American leaders wrote their memoirs about this war.  Ordinarily we assume that our leaders, those giants who hold the top positions in the country and shape the destiny of the world,  are smarter than a student who had just completed my class on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.  We assume they will have some basic knowledge of the region and will have enough sense to avoid obvious dangers.   I read several of those memoirs and typed up their discussions of what they did and...

Kennedy School Rejects HRW Head over Apartheid Report.   When Kenneth Roth retired as head of Human Rights Watch he was invited to join the Kennedy School as a senior fellow for a year.  The appointment would be with the Carr Center for Human Rights one of the 12 centers affiliated with the Kennedy School.  He agreed to the nomination but when he had his interview with Douglas Elmendorf, Dean of the School (who has to approve all appointments),  he got odd questions.  One was “Do you have any...

Ron Rosenbaum published a book in 1998 discussing how 13 major scholars (and a score of lesser scholars) explained Hitler.  Who was Hitler?  Was he a charlatan just using Jew-hatred to rise to power?  Was he the personification of Evil?  Was he a Christian saint avenging the crucifixion of Christ?  Was he just a victim of German culture?  Did he slide into mass murder as events evolved, or had he planned the Holocaust as early as 1918?  And should we even discuss these issues?  This book...

Now that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has passed on, it is time for me to post the story of the time I ran for pope.  The Vatican and I have very different stories about what happened but this is my version.   There is also the story of Pope Joan, the female pope.  And of Spotlight, the Best Film of the year.  Enjoy

An impeachment is not the same as a criminal trial, which may be what Donald Trump is facing,  given that the January 6 Committee has referred four possible crimes to the Justice Department.   Trump had TWO impeachment trials, the first for holding up congressionally approved arms shipments to Ukraine until they opened an investigation of his opponent, the second for the insurrection on January 6.  This podcast addresses the second trial.  There is also an earlier podcast on The Logic of...

This is an unusual podcast.  It is s summary of a lecture delivered some years ago by the head, i.e., editor, of the Anchor Bible Project.  This is an effort to translate and ofer exegesis on 66 books.  47 were done at the time of the talk.   The editor says that we need to remember that the books of the Old Testament were not books.  They were scrolls that were organized into a single "book" by an editor or some editors.  And as editors, they organized those scrolls into a structure to...

In late December,  Jane and I will celebrate our 60th Wedding Anniversary.  Ten years ago, we celebrated our 50th anniversary by taking our whole family of ten on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Kenya.  We visited all the places that Jane and I knew from our time in that wonderful country.   Whenever an anniversary rolls around I always think back to when I first met this amazing and beautiful woman, and how I had to persuade her that this dorky guy was worth her time.    Back a decade ago, in...