The Manhattan District Attorney bringing an indictment against a former president is a devout Christian. Here is Megan Saliashvili at Sojourners: …at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, one of the most significant institutions serving Black New Yorkers, Bragg is known […]
Archives for 2023
Cornell University rejects a student call for trigger warnings
Here is a taste of the Cornell University Student Assembly’s Resolution 31: “Mandating Content Warnings for Traumatic Content in the Classroom”: Abstract: Urging university officials to require instructors who present graphic traumatic content that may trigger the onset of symptoms […]
The Author’s Corner with Michael D. Pierson
Michael D. Pierson is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. This interview is based on his new book, The Wild Woman of Cincinnati: Gender and Politics on the Eve of the Civil War (LSU Press, 2023). JF: […]
Episode 54: “Respecting life, but not all costs”
A Catholic expert on right-to-die cases testifies at the Terri Schiavo trial. Episode 54: âRespecting life, but not at all costsâ dropped today. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above have access to new episodes of this narrative history podcast. To listen […]
What should we make of Staten Island?
For one year in graduate school (1998-1999) I made a weekly commute between Stony Brook, Long Island and Philadelphia. During that year I often drove through Staten Island. My trip along Interstate 278 took me past the Fresh Kills Landfill. […]
A college without the liberal arts is a vocational school
Historian Bret G. Devereaux asks, “Is a university a university without the liberal arts?” Here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home we have been asking this question for nearly a decade and a half. Here is Devereaux at The […]
In 1920, Eugene Debs got 1 million votes for president of the United States. He was in jail.
Today someone asked me if Donald Trump could still run for president if he is in jail. I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs received over 900,000 votes while […]
âIsnât It a Privilege to Love People?â
Remembering Nat Belz
Earthly injustice in light of the Resurrection
âChrist is risen!â â they sing at church. But I am saddened, my soul is silent. The world is filled with blood and tears, And the sound of this hymn before the altar seems an insult. If He were here […]
Commonplace Book #252
The center of Socialist strength in the Southwest lay in the small towns and adjoining rural areas, and it shared its appeal with fundamentalist religious sects. In 1906 over 86 percent of all Baptists, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and United […]
James Madison: “A tax on newspapers” would be “an insidious forerunner to something worse”
About a year ago, Current published Steven Waldman‘s piece “The Return of Local News.” Waldman is the president and cofounder of Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. He also serves as chair of the Rebuild Local News Coalition. […]
Evangelical roundup for April 3, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land: Nathaniel Belz, RIP I tell The Guardian that the Trump indictment will not hurt him with many of his most diehard evangelical followers. In California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas there are more Hispanic […]
REVIEW: The Middle Children of History
Do you think ChatGPT can write a novel? Read this book.
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: When Warren Harding paid mistress to stay silent. Dominic Green reviews Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope. Michael Kazin wonders if it is […]
Song of the Day
Asa Hutchinson is running for president
So far the 72-year-old former governor of Arkansas is the only one who has not gone ballistic about Trump’s recent indictment. This probably means he has no chance to win the nomination. Here is ABC News: Former Arkansas Gov. Asa […]
“The issue is not white supremacy, the issue is which whites will be supreme”
[History] cuts a lot of the bullshit. If somebody can just say “white supremacy,” it releases them from having to talk about something that my mentor C. Vann Woodward pointed out many years ago in discussing the disenfranchisement movement in […]
University of Virginia changes its name!
Watch UVA go all in for April Fools Day (with an endorsement from historian Chris Gehrz): Thanks for stopping by. If you want to learn more about CURRENT, check out our home page and our About page. We are supported […]
Asa Hutchinson: Trump should withdraw from the 2024 presidential race
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who many believe will run for president in 2024, called upon Donald Trump to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. Here is The Hill: Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said Trump should âstep asideâ from the […]
Dondi E. Costin is the new president of Liberty University
As Kate Shellnut reports at Christianity Today, Liberty University has finally replaced Jerry Falwell Jr. on a permanent basis. Dondi Custin is a retired Air Force chaplain. Here is a taste of Kate’s reporting: Two and a half years after […]