StocktonAfterClass

Send us Fan Mail This is a global study done by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).  The headlines have changed but I think the patterns are still valid.  And there are some interesting issues, some raised and some not raised. 

Send us Fan Mail With J. D. Vance chosen by the Republicans as their Vice Presidential nominee, his memoir, Hilbilly Elegy has been thrust back into the political limelight.  I read this when it came out in 2016 but decided to re-read it in 2024.  These are my thoughts in two phases, one phase from 2016, one phase from 2024. I hope you find this of interest.  ps.  Sorry I forgot the music. 

Send us Fan Mail Today is September 19,2024.  Israel has blown up pagers and walki-talkis in Lebanon and is bombing inside of Lebanon.  Hezbollah is firing across the border.  It appears that bad things are afoot.  Alas, I do not have a podcast on the 2006 Lebanon War.  Israelis (and neutral observers) generally see that Israel lost both of those wars, or at least left with serious wounds and its...

Send us Fan Mail Somehow I seems appropriate to repost this podcast.  That was a day that changed American History (and maybe world history).  It is based on notes I made at the time, so it is very accurate about how we felt at the time.  

Send us Fan Mail This is what can happen when you get out of the neighborhood  In fact, I did once encounter a situation where some security issues were at risk.  A friend in intelligence told me how many nuclear weapons the Israelis had.  This was probably 30 years ago.  He said I could never repeat what he told me because he could be imprisoned for revealing such secret information.   I was not...

Send us Fan Mail Some of the people involved in the Uncommitted movement, especially Arab-Americans, feel betrayed by the Democrats and are planning to abandon them.  Many will vote for Jill Stein.  Others are trying to engage the Democrats to see what leverage they can use to extract concessions.  These are not easy choices.  This is a discussion of some of the issues and arguments in this debate...

Send us Fan Mail Just yesterday the Israelis bombed a mosque with a school.  It was filled with refugees who had hoped that Israel would not bomb such a place. They may have killed 90 people, although they say the numbers are fabricated and anyway that was a terrorist command and control center, and anyway why were all those people there, and anyway we had warned them.  Killing people during war,...

Send us Fan Mail Clarification:  Under international law the Golan Province is Syrian territory.  It was conquered in 1967.  The Israelis consider it a part of Israel itself.  They claimed it, and then Donald Trump recognized it.  They even created a settlement called Trump Heights to show their appreciation.  The population of that province (apart from Jewish settlers) are Druze.  Majdal Shams, w...

Send us Fan Mail This was written three days after Trump was lightly wounded in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.    It is based on patterns of violence rather than hard knowledge.  I hope it helps. 

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Send us Fan Mail John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago is one of the very top strategic analysts in this country.  He is of the Realist School.  He thinks we should look at the reality of power, and that each country should look after its own interests.   Earlier in this month, he delivered a talk in Australia on the Gaza War.  He came up with data I had never heard and insights I had neve...

Send us Fan Mail This is the second of two podcasts on my visit to Palestine in early June, 2024.  If you have not listened to the first podcast, please do so before listening to this  one. 

Send us Fan Mail In early June, 2024, I visited Palestine.   It was a visit that changed my way of thinking.  As someone who had taught a course on the Israeli-Palestine Conflict for 40 years this surprised me.  This is Part I of a two-part podcast.  The second part is not this long and has a different focus. 

Send us Fan Mail On May 20, the War Crimes Prosecutor Karim Khan asked the International Criminal Court for warrants to arrest the leaders of Hamas and Israel, and three others.  This was a stunning development.  This podcast is a discussion of what is included in that document.  Later in the week, South Africa asked the High Court of Justice for additional Provisional Rulings ordering Israel to s...

Send us Fan Mail Two years ago we learned that the Supreme Court would reverse Roe v Wade.  I worked through the leaked draft and tried to extract the logic of the decision.   It was painful to see such tortured analysis.  Some of those Trump justices had actually said that Roe was "settled law" during their hearings.  That is a phrase that means, everyone agrees and it is not subject to...

Send us Fan Mail Back in February of 1990 Nelson Mandela was freed from 27 years in prison.  When he walked out of prison that Sunday morning, the whole world was watching.  At least everyone in our house was watching.  Mandela quickly became the world's greatest statesman.  This is my assessment of his life and contribution.  And of the two times Jane and I crossed paths with him.  

Send us Fan Mail I prepared this podcast last year (2023) but did not get around to posting it until now (2024).  It focuses upon the time a few years ago when  I was asked to speak to the graduating class.  The students were there and their parents.  Plus the Chancellor and Deans and other luminaries.    It was a really nice event.   I did make one mistake.  When I came to the campus in 1973 the...

Send us Fan Mail This summarizes the main findings of a book on this topic.  The Ottomans had experts in Zionism who monitored writings and developments very carefully. This podcast has surprising  findings. Note:  This was recorded during covid times as a class lecture (when we were not allowed to go live).  

Send us Fan Mail Evangeline was a standard assignment in the 8th grade when I was a kid.  It was long and had big words but we read it because it made us better people.  This is the story of this poem, and of my experience with it.    It is also the story of Longfellow, the most popular poet of his age, and of his poems.  The Village Smith, Paul Revere's Ride, Haiwatha, and the powerful Chris...

Send us Fan Mail In January, 2024 Hamas published a paper called "Our Narrative . . .  Operation Al -Aqsa Flood."  It is an 18 page document discussing their perspective on the events of October 7.  I had not read any Hamas explanations, beyond short statements quoted by people not friendly to their side, so I immediately printed this out and read it.  More than once.  As I read this doc...

Send us Fan Mail   This is a summary of the main points in the ICJ ruling. Below is a summary of other International Humanitarian Laws.  These definine various crimes that occur within the context of war.  They are distinct from genocide but could be a part of genocide.  They would be heard by the International Criminal Court rather than by the High Court of Justice.  The three most commonly discu...

Send us Fan Mail In December, 2023 South Africa filed a document before the High Court of Justice in the Hague accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.  This was for its actions against Gaza in the wake of the blood-chilling Hamas attack on Israeli military positions, towns, and a music festival on October 7.  Those attacks killed nearly 1200 people.  There are thre...

Send us Fan Mail The Israeli election of November, 2022 brought into the Knesset some of the most extreme individuals in that country's history.  To bring himself back into office,  Netanyahu brought them into his cabinet.  (Smotrich and Bin Gvir get the most attention, but there are others).   These were people who had been brought up in the shadow  of Rabbi Meir Kahane.  Kahane had been ban...

Send us Fan Mail To destroy "in whole or in part" the ability of a people to function.   I delivered this talk in 2020  for a unit on Armenia.  It was well before the fall of 2023 and the horrible Gaza War.  As I am writing (December 2023) 20,000 Palestinians have been killed.  The Israelis say the number of Hamas combatants killed is around 1700+  Gaza is no longer functioning.  There h...

Send us Fan Mail In December, 2023  House Republicans summoned the Presidents of Harvard, MIT and University of Pennsylvania to a hearing about Anti-Semitism on their campuses.  They were asked if calling for Genocide against Jews would be an offense.  Knowing that Republicans consider the word “intifada” (“shaking off”) and the phrase “from the river to the sea” to be genocidal, not to mention th...