The Dartmouth Observer |
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Commentary on politics, history, culture, and literature by two Dartmouth graduates and their buddies
WHO WE ARE Chien Wen Kung graduated from Dartmouth College in 2004 and majored in History and English. He is currently a civil servant in Singapore. Someday, he hopes to pursue a PhD in History. John Stevenson graduated from Dartmouth College in 2005 with a BA in Government and War and Peace Studies. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He hopes to pursue a career in teaching and research. Kwame A. Holmes did not graduate from Dartmouth. However, after graduating from Florida A+M University in 2003, he began a doctorate in history at the University of Illinois--Urbana Champaign. Having moved to Chicago to write a dissertation on Black-Gay-Urban life in Washington D.C., he attached himself to the leg of John Stevenson and is thrilled to sporadically blog on the Dartmouth Observer. Feel free to email him comments, criticisms, spelling/grammar suggestions. BLOGS/WEBSITES WE READ The American Scene Arts & Letters Daily Agenda Gap Stephen Bainbridge Jack Balkin Becker and Posner Belgravia Dispatch Black Prof The Corner Demosthenes Daniel Drezner Five Rupees Free Dartmouth Galley Slaves Instapundit Mickey Kaus The Little Green Blog Left2Right Joe Malchow Josh Marshall OxBlog Bradford Plumer Political Theory Daily Info Andrew Samwick Right Reason Andrew Seal Andrew Sullivan Supreme Court Blog Tapped Tech Central Station UChicago Law Faculty Blog Volokh Conspiracy Washington Monthly Winds of Change Matthew Yglesias ARCHIVES BOOKS WE'RE READING CW's Books John's Books STUFF Site Feed    |
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Now this is exciting Scientists begin to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long-lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome: The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".Cool. (Sorry, can't think of anything more enlightening to say at the moment.) Sunday, April 10, 2005
Where's my Jedi option? I was just browsing my InCircle profile [InCircle is Dartmouth's official version of the Facebook] and noticed some very weird entries under the Ethnicity and Religion pull-down menus. In case you're wondering, here are the choices available: Ethnicity African American American Indian/Native American Burmese Cambodian Chicano/Mexican American Chinese/Chinese American East Indian/Pakistani Filipino/Filipino American Hispanic Hmong Indian Indonesian Japanese/Japanese American Korean/Korean American Laotian Latino/Latin American Malaysian Multi-Racial Native African Polynesian/Pacific Islander Puerto Rican Singaporean Taiwanese Thai/Other Asian Vietnamese/Vietnamese American White/Caucasian Other Religion African Traditional Agnostic/Atheist Baha'i Buddhism Cao Dai Chinese traditional Christianity Hinduism Islam Jainism Juche Judaism Neo-Paganism Primal-indigenous Rastafarianism Scientology Secular/Nonreligious Shinto Sikhism Spiritism Tenrikyo Unitarian-Universalism Zoroastrianism Other For goodness sakes, "Burmese," "Cambodian," "Pakistani," "Indonesian," and so on are not ethnicities. They're nationalities...and you've already got a "Country" menu on that same page! How can "Cao Dai," "Neo-Paganism," "Rastafarianism," and "Tenrikyo" be considered legitimate religions? How the heck did Juche, the official state ideology of North Korea, make the list? And if "Shintoism" and "Buddhism" can be given separate entries, what about some for Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, and so on? It's pretty clear that the administration isn't trying hard enough to be inclusive. So in that spirit of charity, I'm going to suggest a few additions to both categories: To the former: "American," "Canadian," "European," "Slav," "Arabic," "Persian," "Basque," "Global Citizen." To the latter: "Wahhabism," "Market Fundamentalism," "Communism," "Reason," "Satanism," and of course, "Jedi" and "Sith." These should certainly make alumni feel a lot better about themselves. |