Category Archives: Culture

Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman

SashaAndEmma

Years ago Paul Avrich, my high school classmate and later a colleague in a college where he was a professor and I an adjunct, invited me to spend an evening with an aging group of Jewish anarchists. At the gathering a woman told me that other than Eleanor Roosevelt, the country’s most remarkable woman had been Emma Goldman. Ahrne Thorne agreed. He was the last editor of the anarchist “Freie Arbeiter Shtimme” (Free Worker’s Voice, it was closed in 1977 after 87 years of publication when it had 1,700 subscribers). He said he had met Alexander Berkman and knew Emma Goldman well. It was hard for me to imagine these elderly men and women as threats to the Republic. They were also despised by Communists because anarchists had the temerity to reject their Soviet paradise. Continue reading

Lincoln

Steven Spielberg’s epic movie Lincoln is truly a masterpiece. As an historical drama it portrays Lincoln in the final months of his life and the final months of the Civil War. More than anything, it shows Lincoln attempting – against all odds – to pass the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. Continue reading

Is a liberal curriculum a mistake?

Book 1

One month ago, I interviewed for a teaching position at a small private school. The school was quite rightly proud of their high standards. Their students learned what was, in many ways, a classical curriculum. In addition to English, all students learned Latin and Greek, as well as one modern language. Continue reading

The Colorful History of the German Nation

The national colors of the European nations are well represented on the faces and body parts of the spectators during major soccer games between the countries. During the 2006 World Cup games Germany was a spectacular host to the nations of the world featuring its new stadiums, brothels and high-tech entertainment in their country. It also sported, for the first time in decades, its national colors of black-red-gold with a renewed national pride.
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