The Other Half of History Daily Blog
Thoughts on modern politics from a historical perspective.
More on Guillen and Castro
As baseball manager Ozzie Guillen serves out his five day suspension for saying nice things about Fidel Castro, I took a look today at what college history textbooks have to say about the Cuban dictator. One thing they don’t say about him is the word “dictator.” That word is reserved for the many Castro overthrew, Fulgencio Batista.
I’ve just been looking through the college freshman history textbooks that I critique in the Columns section of this website, and not one of them uses the “D” word in regard to Castro, while all of them use that word, often proceeded by “corrupt,” to describe Batista.
Praising Fidel Castro is Bad?
On Tuesday Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen apologized for saying that he loves and respects Fidel Castro. His team has suspended him for five games, but Cuban immigrants in Florida are not satisfied. Anger at Guillen is so widespread and so passionate that the team is under pressure to fire him.
Poor Guillen has a rhetorical tightrope to walk now. If he tries to placate Cuban-Americans by saying anything negative about Castro, he’ll probably face just as much rage from liberals in Massachusetts and California (and just about every college faculty in the nation) as he currently faces in Florida.
Poll Worker: “I See Dead People”
Here’s a pretty funny video. Someone with a hidden camera picked up several ballots for New Hampshire’s Democrat Presidential primary using the names of dead voters. At one point he even offered to show ID to the poll worker, but the offer was spurned. Just the latest in a long line of examples of fraud-friendly polling places. More »
Whittaker Chambers on Atheism and Communism
This Easter weekend might be a good time to share some of Whittaker Chambers’ insights on the central role of atheism in the Communist Party.
Good Friday Links and Notes
Religion is in the news as we head into this Easter weekend. During speeches he gave on Tuesday and Wednesday, Senator Orrin Hatch said that he expects the Obama campaign to attack Mormonism during the upcoming Presidential race. Ann Coulter has predicted the same thing in recent weeks.
I think Hatch is completely wrong. I’ll be shocked if anyone in the Obama camp makes any kind of public statement mocking anyone’s religion. Members of the administration may talk that way privately, but they’ll never expose those attitudes to the American mainstream. More »
