According to a report in the New York Times, the British government is seeking oral histories taken from individuals in Northern Ireland at the time of the war in the 1990s. While the participants believed that the oral histories they offered would be sealed until their deaths, the British government desires the records in connection to murders and kidnappings they are investigating from 40 years ago.
Read the entire story here.
Last Monday, Doris Kearns Goodwin, a notable historian specializing in the history of the
American Presidency, presented a lecture entitled “Team of Rivals: Lessons of Leadership from
Abraham Lincoln.” Sponsored by the Clough Colloquium at the Winston Center for Leadership
and Ethics, Goodwin’s talk was based on her recent best-selling work of the same title about
Abraham Lincoln’s transformative presidency and his role in leading the Union to victory during
the American Civil War.
Goodwin says that her fascination with the American Presidency began when she was a twenty
four year-old White House intern for President Lyndon Johnson. President Johnson became
personally acquainted with Goodwin during this time, although Goodwin assured the audience
that it was a completely “non-amorous affair that eventually led [her] to study the lives of
great American Presidents, from LBJ to JFK to FDR (the subject of Goodwin’s’ Pulitzer Prize-
winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War
II), and finally, to [her] favorite: Abraham Lincoln.” She related Lincoln’s celebrated life story,
addressing his destitute upbringing and his unquenchable desire to be educated and make his
mark in history. Both of these qualities, Goodwin says, enabled him to meander his way through
the morass of Illinois politics and the United States Senate. Eventually, his resourcefulness and
ability to appeal to both sides of the antebellum divide won him the Presidency, though not
without incurring the wrath of the Southern States that started to secede one by one starting in
the spring of 1861.
Lincoln’s strength as a President lay in his ability to make concessions. The title of her talk gives
an indication of this because Lincoln’s cabinet was filled with men who were “better educated,
more respected, and who each thought he should lead the country rather than Lincoln.”
Goodwin’s lecture was laced with anecdotes from Lincoln’s early life, his crucial decisions
made while President, and, most importantly, traits that defined him as a truly inspiring
leader. “Lincoln never missed the chance to force his cabinet to compromise, especially when he
and his cabinet were debating hot-button issues related to the war,” remarked Goodwin. On the
other hand, Lincoln was stern and assertive when his subordinates, particularly General George
McClellan, were not properly carrying out their duties on the battlefield. Goodwin’s discussion of
Lincoln’s death and assassination sparked the question of what he would have done had he lived
to see the end of the war and commenced his own program of Reconstruction.
Overall, Goodwin’s speech was informative, anecdotal, and wildly humorous. She concluded
with a poignant closing statement about her passion for history, which she says “allows [her] to
believe that the private people we have loved and lost in our families, and the public figures that
we have respected in history just as Lincoln wanted us to believe, can be immortalized in our
hearts and memories so long as we pledge to tell and retell the stories of their lives.”
Recently, the College Republicans hosted a panel to discuss the many economic and political issues facing the United States, including the ongoing budget battle and rapidly growing deficit issues currently being debated by Obama, the Democrat-controlled Senate, and the Republican-controlled House. Economics Professor Peterson and Political Science Professor Hale debated the critical points pertaining to each issue and identified solutions to and compromises for each.
The critical long-term issue facing the United States right now is the rapidly growing size of the government deficit, currently estimated to be $1.6 trillion for 2011, and the increased amount of government spending.
A growing backlash has mounted as fiscal conservatives contend that the rising national debt could undermine international faith in the United States and challenge the legitimacy of the dollar as the global reserve currency. These opponents of Obama’s Keynesian economic policies argue that government spending needs to be dramatically reduced to eliminate the budget deficit and reduce the national debt. This thinking follows the growing debate taking place among people of conflicting political parties over whether the massive government stimulus was actually effective. Many argue it did not work because the unemployment rate has remained persistently high and the economy has not been fully recovered yet.
Numerous Americans wonder: why worry about the deficit? The answer can be found in the lessons learned from the current plights in Greece and Ireland, which have run large budget deficits and amassed unsustainable levels of government debt. These countries have fallen into a debt trap that the United States could soon fall into too if they do not take action to reduce the national debt.
The Obama administration recently announced that by 2016 the national debt will be $20.8 trillion. The risk of a potentially weakened dollar has raised the likelihood of reduced appetite for foreign creditor nations to finance our national debt, as evidenced by recent reduced appetite for treasury bonds by the Chinese. The conclusion Hale and Peterson came to was that decisions about deficit reduction, reducing the national debt, and enacting spending cuts need to made now.
The National Science Foundation
Dr. Dunwei Wang, an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Boston College, has received a Career Award from the National Science Foundation to assist him with his ongoing research into clean energy technology and the community outreach programs of his laboratories. The five year,$550,000 grant will enable Wang, now in his fourth year at BC, to continue developing his Nanonet technology, which consists of a series of flexible wires that Wang says will “change the world” by culling hydrogen gas from a water splitting process generated by the addition of a metallic catalyst. This research is important, Wang says, because “without clean energy, our future as a species is reaching a point of critically dangerous uncertainty.”
Wang became involved in the research because he truly desired to make a difference in reducing the overall impact of atmospheric carbon emissions. “Rigorous scientific analysis tells us that Earth’s environmental biosphere cannot stand the depletion of the ozone layer throughCO2 emissions any longer,” said Wang. “That is why we are at the stage where we must take action to combat the excessive and unsustainable practices our society has for too long condoned.There can be no compromise when it comes to reducing humanity’s influence on Mother Nature.”
The Nanonet technology works by using silicon and titanium to grow nano-scale elongate into a two-dimensional metal lattice. Combining the two elements produces titanium disilicide, which further drives a water-splitting reaction and “allows for the harvesting of hydrogen gas as an alternative energy source.” Although tests have yielded positive results so far, the product is far from being implemented at the commercialization stage, according to Wang. “Much more research needs to be done to determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the Nanonet before we can confidently say it is ready to be released. Hopefully, the work of the coming five years will reveal some important insights into how it could potentially work,” he said.
Wang also has fulfilled some of the community outreach goals of his lab by demonstrating solar and wind-powered technologies to kids before every home football game: “This is a fun but informative way to demystify science in the public sphere. By getting people involved and interested in science, I hope to see a new shift in mindset regarding the importance of sustainability and how this issue could drastically affect new generations of people being born into a world increasingly in peril.”
Left to Right: Managing Editor Allison Gallagher, Editor-in-Chief Jesse Naiman, Executive Editor Max Bindernagel
The Observer at Boston College has won the Collegiate Network’s (CN) Paper of the Year award! Editor-in-Chief Jesse Naiman and Managing Editor Allison Gallagher attended the annual CN conference from November 5-7 in Dallas, Texas and received the award on behalf of The Observer.
Editor-in-Chief Jesse Naiman issued the following statement in regards to the victory:
“We at The Observer are ecstatic for winning this award. We are grateful to the CN for all it has done for us over the years and we are honored to receive such recognition from it. In addition, we would like to thank all of our donors and friends for their continued support. None of this would be possible without them.
“With this award, we realize that while we are proud of our work product thus far, we have many ways in which we can improve, and just as important, we will also have even more breaking stories to bring to our readers. The Observer will continue to be vigilant in pursuing its mission of bringing news and editorial that would otherwise not exist at BC.”
The Observer was previously named runner-up for the same award in 2009, and won the award in 2006.
Recently, Dr. Elizabeth Ferris, Foreign Policy analyst and co-director of the Brookings- Bern Project for Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institute, gave an insightful lecture on responses to the humanitarian crises caused by the Haiti earthquake and the recent flood in Pakistan.
She compared how the rest of the world responded to the natural disasters in those two countries in terms of humanitarian aid, and her lecture delved into the issues surrounding the exact nature of what “aid” is and the ramifications of distorting the difference between true humanitarianism and human rights advocacy. Dr. Ferris noted how a drastic disparity existed between the responses toward the Haitians and the Pakistani flood victims.
Statistical findings she cited from her own research at the Brookings Institute shed much light on this matter. For example, one-third of Haitians were directly affected by the earthquake, whereas the Pakistani flood affected only 12% of the population there.
Also, the American general public raised $1.2 billion in monetary aid for the victims of the Haiti earthquake whilst only $220 million was raised for Pakistan. Ferris hypothesized that these starkly dissimilar responses could have been due to the time and location of the disaster.
Since the Haiti earthquake occurred first and is closer geographically to the U.S., the response to that tragedy was correspondingly more focused than for the distant flood. In addition, national biases and political agendas surely played a role in shaping the international responses to the two crises.
“International agencies donating time and aid to nations affected by either natural or man- made disasters each have their own preconceptions about the countries they are bringing aid to,” said Ferris. “Therefore, assistance of this kind is never neutral, and the responses to these crises can exacerbate the inequities in the socioeconomic systems of those distressed nations.”
Ferris raised some interesting questions during the lecture, such as what the government’s role is in responding to foreign disasters and what the optimal collective response to these calamities should be. Ultimately, only by learning from the examples of the past and planning for potential environmental catastrophes will we truly benefit future victims of these terrible and unforeseen events.
Earlier this month, in a response to The Observer’s article BC Law Defends Abortion Link, TFP Student Action launched an e-protest to request that BC Law remove the Planned Parenthood link from their website.
John Ritchie, TFP Student Action Director, recently updated me on the status of their protest.
“So far, we’ve collected 6,870 protest petitions to Fr. Leahy. And dozens of people have told me that they personally called his office, asking him to remove the PP link at BC Law,” said Ritchie.
He expressed hope that the protest will have an impact and that BC Law will remove the link soon. On their website, TFP Student Action reminded readers that:
“Regis University, Saint Mary’s College, Notre Dame de Namur University, Loyola University New Orleans, and Marquette Law School, Rosemont College, the University of Detroit Mercy also listed Planned Parenthood on their web sites. Thank God, those listings vanished soon after Catholic World News pointed them out and TFP Student Action protested.”
Sir Isaac Newton, by Sir Godfrey Kneller
On the second floor of the John J. Burns Library lies an exhibit that deepens one’s understanding of the significance of early scientific works from distinguished pioneers such as Sir Isaac Newton, Christoph Clavius, and Galileo Galileo.
The Burns Library, in collaboration with the Department of Physics, became one of the select institutions to acquire Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. This tremendous book elaborates on Newton’s three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation that form the foundation for many science and mathematics courses. It is truly breath taking knowing the fact that Sir Isaac Newton died in 1727 yet we still study his material today.
The exhibit also features information about other scientific pioneers like Christoph Clavius, who worked extremely hard at devoting himself to his craft, making things like the calendar possible for us today. Clavius was known for his collaboration on the Gregorian calendar and Gnomonices, which is a work based on the science of constructing sundials. This exhibit informs its viewers of the significant figures in history who paved the way for the study of and advancements in science and mathematics; what we know today could not have been possible without the perseverance of the scientists in the exhibit.
On the weekend of September 25th, over 1,350 families flocked the heights for Boston’s College’s annual parents weekend, the 3 day period that allows parents and immediate families to experience the academic and social elements of BC that their children live each day. The overwhelming school spirit is a key element of each year’s gathering.
On Friday, parents were given the opportunity to experience classes and lectures, immersing families into the academic aspects of Boston College, and even allowing alumni to re-connect with former professors and administrators.
Other scheduled events included the opportunity to meet with the dean of undergraduate schools as well as Father Leahy’s welcome address and open house displaying information about programs and services available on campus. Parents were additionally welcome to ask questions regarding the recently controversial ten year plan.
Friday night’s scheduled events included the Pops on the Heights concert at Conte Forum, and Keith Lockhart and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which were enjoyed by all.
The following day, students and parents rose early to attend the football game against Virginia Tech. Despite the 19-0 loss, tailgates were in full swing on Shea field and throughout campus, as parents and students alike enjoyed game day festivities.
The weekend was brought to a close on Sunday, with a family liturgy and breakfast in Conte Forum.
Many first year students had positive feedback about their first parents weekend. “I liked being able to show my parents the campus the way I see it and have the opportunity to introduce my family to my friends. Getting to see my family while at school is a rare occasion, so it is nice to have all the parents here at once,” said freshmen Lauren Spinelli from New Jersey.
Yet another enjoyable parents weekend has graced the heights.
TFP Student Action, a project of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, picked up the Observer’s story, BC Law Defends Abortion Link and has launched an e-protest to request the BC remove the link from their website.
“Activity that deliberately claims innocent life and promotes the Culture of Death should be off limits at Boston College and every Catholic university,” said TFP Student Action director John Ritchie.
TFP Student Action also noted that several Catholic colleges have already removed their own links to Planned Parenthood after media coverage and protests.
The following is a video produced by TFP Student Action to encourage those who are concerned about this issue to join their online protest.
Life News also picked up the story on the e-protest by TFP Student Action.
