Opinion and Letters*

A Curriculum for Democracy

E.D. Hirsch’s content-rich pedagogy makes better citizens and smarter kids.

At his Senate confirmation hearing in February, Arne Duncan succinctly summarized the Obama administration’s approach to education reform: “We must build upon what works. We must stop doing what doesn’t work.”
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Unreliable memory shapes American legend

Defense attorneys know memory is unreliable, a bad witness prone to confabulation and self-service.
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Triumph of a dreamer

Any time anyone tells you that a dream is impossible, any time you’re discouraged by impossible challenges, just mutter this mantra: Tererai Trent.
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Army values brought to life

The army values are seven specific values that every soldier in the United States Army is to follow for guidance regarding their conduct. These values are the same for the newest private to the most senior general.
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Grand Solution or Grab Bag?

Community colleges are being asked to provide everything from second chances to vocational education. Is America ready to help them succeed?

In July, as U.S. automakers were emerging from bankruptcy, President Barack Obama dramatically announced the American Graduation Initiative at Macomb Community College, some 12 miles from Detroit, calling for a massive federal investment of $12 billion in the nation’s community colleges.
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Racing toward education reform

Without spending a penny, Education Secretary Arne Duncan prodded states to take important, if small, steps toward school reform.
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BEST-SELLERS

Fiction 1. FORD COUNTY, by John Grisham. Stories set in rural Mississippi. 2. THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown. Robert Langdon among the Masons. 3. KINDRED IN DEATH, by J. D. Robb. Lt. Eve Dallas investigates the brutal murder of a colleague’s daughter; by Nora Roberts, writing pseudonymously.
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EDITORIALS Help not wanted

Dick Morris, please go away

WHAT TO do when your side of the debate takes the low road? Remain silent? If you’re in the home stands, and a parent sitting next to you (and wearing the same colors) starts cussin’ out the opposing team of 8th-graders, what are you supposed to do? Fold your arms, look the other way, maybe sigh loudly?
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COLUMNISTS Music to the ears

While speaking with a group of visitors recently, I mentioned that the primary black male and female composers of the 20th Century were Arkansans. I could tell that my listeners at least recognized the name William Grant Still, who was born in Mississippi in 1895 but grew up in Little Rock and went on to become known as “the dean of American Negro composers.”
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Hungry vs.‘food insecure’

This week an Agriculture Department study showed that 16.4 million U.S. households containing 49.1 million people experienced “food insecurity” in 2008, up from 12.2 million households containing 36.2 million people in 2007.
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LETTERS

Join up with relaxed herd Have you been noting the herds of elephants migrating both north and south on Interstate 540? The lead pachyderm in each herd seems to go just a bit slower than all the followers would like, for each one is following closely, each elephant’s trunk grabbing the tail of the one ahead.
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UA grad’s new job

Ricardo Martinelli says his most memorable years were as a student at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville from 1969-74.
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Ideological mismatch

Political “science” has never been all that complicated. Indeed, sometimes its as simple as adding 1 to 1 to get 2.
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Travesty in New York

For late-19 th-Century anarchists, terrorism was the “propaganda of the deed.” And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11—not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.
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Just trust them

Close your eyes and stick out your hand

IMAGINE the reaction if the previous administration had been caught telling all these stories about how many jobs it had created-or-saved. Created-or-saved ? You think Jon Stewart would have a ball with that or what? We have yet to see the column by Paul Krugman in which he explains how many jobs are created-or-saved when government prints money and tries to spread it all over tarnation.
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