When history calls
(10/14/09 11:08am)
" When history calls, history calls."
Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Chronicle's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query. You can also try a Basic search
63 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
" When history calls, history calls."
For those of you who don't know who Roman Polanksi, here's an introduction.
I'm like everyone else--I get happy, I get sad, I have goals and I have fears. And, like everyone else I've given a lot of thought to what makes me happy, if I'm happy, and just what the hell happiness is to begin with. Like I said, I think I'm like all of us in that regard, but there's an entire half of the population that, when we get down to the gritty details of these things, I cannot understand as well as I would like: that being the female half, of course. In fact, if you ask certain women they're liable to tell you that I don't know jack-snappy about women and probably never will. Well, okay, whatever.
America has pretty much always operated on a two party system. While there were a few years there in the beginning when there was only one political party, or just protopolitical parties, for the last 190 years straight the government has been opposed in two diametrically opposing forces. Only the names have changed with time, but mostly it has been conservative versus liberal, big government versus small government, a regulated economy versus laissez-faire, etc. etc. Okay, we all know this, but according to some political analysts, America needs the two party system. They say that if there were three major parties, the government would be wildly unstable. One major party would result in a dictatorship state. Well, that seems to make sense, I suppose. I'm no poli-sci major, but clearly there must be a reason for most advanced democracies to have formulated into two-party systems, and it is quite obvious that this will not change anytime soon in this nation- despite the GOP's best efforts to make a complete laughingstock of itself.
I've always heard people say with either anger, apathy or resignation that the American education system is ineffective, weak and underfunded. Parents, teachers, political pundits, whoever all throw in their two cents in badmouthing the good ol' US of A by saying that American education is simply not keeping up and maintaining competitiveness with other countries (read: China).
I don't know if it was obvious to my many faithful readers, but this past semester I have been studying in Los Angeles as part of the Duke in LA program. Since Duke doesn't have a film major, and production classes are somewhat limited, I decided to take the opportunity to come out here and study film at University of Southern California and intern at a Hollywood production company.
Here's some news that will surely shock snobby film critics everywhere: Vin Diesel has made a successful action movie. It's an occurrence as rare as a celestial event, so I'd like to take some time and comment on it.
Why do we go to college?
What's up with the Republicans?
All those folks in the United Arab Emirates must laugh themselves to sleep every night, warm and comfortably insulated in the thick blanket of their self satisfaction. Any time one of them meets anyone from a different country, they can say what nobody else can: "We have the biggest, tallest building in the whole world!"
Yes! It's back! It's finally come back!
Oh, the Oscars....
It turns out that even illegal investments in the stock market fluctuate, and crime bosses are just as vulnerable as we are to corporate greed and irresponsible fiscal policies. According to this article, members of Japanese organized crime syndicates, commonly known as the yakuza, are turning to the Japanese government for relief from the global recession.
Well, OK, not really, but this whole thing with the octuplets needs to blow over, and quickly. I mean, medical miracles aside, why should I care? In fact, I don't know which is worse: the fact that everyone is making such a big deal of eight children being born together, or that the media is making a fuss over how public opinion has shifted from favoring this clearly insane "super mom" to deriding her because she happened to have six children previously (all under seven years of age).
Everyone hates a winner. Go anywhere in the country and you're liable to run into legions of anti-Yankees, anti-Cowboys and anti- Patriots fans. When a team becomes dominant, all of the motley collection of fanbases for all the other teams unite to spew a collective hatred on that one team, it happens time and time again.
“Iceland’s government topples amid financial mess.” Wow. Now there’s a headline for you. Countless other articles about Iceland have similar titles, all with the same dramatic effect. After reading that, one has to wonder if the world really is coming to an end, whether there is going to be domino-effect of governments keeling over across the globe. The headlines about Iceland seem to suggest it anyway.
A lot of people probably say to themselves: "boy, I wish I was a celebrity!" I guess I do that too, but I think I keep myself grounded more than most—I allow myself only 8 to 10 daydreams a day, as opposed to the norm of 12 to 15. It's nothing to be ashamed at, really, because everyone daydreams, but I concluded a few minutes ago that it is not only useless to fantasize about stardom, it should be downright reprehensible.
When I take a break from my remarkably lazy schedule and tune into world events, I think I see all hell breaking loose. Israel is at war again, this upcoming summer may be the first the North Pole doesn’t have ice and Oprah’s weight is rising faster than those sea levels. Okay, I suppose that last one isn’t exactly a huge deal but the other two are actually pretty important. The war is another in a long list of recent conflicts worldwide and global warming is… well, we all know about global warming.
Twilight, the movie based on the first book of the same name by bestselling author Stephenie Meyer, explores the very compelling issue of love between a punk girl and an undead hunk.
Nothing entertains like skillfully executed political satire, and Third is no exception. Written by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein, the play illustrates the clash between an ultraliberal distinguished professor and a conservative jock at a top 10 university.