May 2010

The Plundered Planet Podcast Series: Day 4

Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.

Jack and Jill… by Walt Whitman?

Well, I don’t know about any of the other Brits in the audience, but I could do with some light relief after a week of political intrigue! Hopefully this will be the very thing to cheer us up. From the Oxford Book of Parodies, edited by John Gross, here is the nursey rhyme Jack and Jill, as Walt Whitman might have written it.

Food Politics: Invited to Testify

Robert Paarlberg, author of Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know, is a leading authority on food policy, and one of the most prominent scholars writing on agricultural issues today. He is B.F. Johnson Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Soon after his “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers” article in the May/June 2010 issue of Foreign Policy, Paarlberg was asked to testify in front of the House Committee on Agriculture. Below, he shares his thoughts on this invitation.

The Plundered Planet Podcast Series: Day 3

Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.

Old Slang: Rogue

Slang words are so hard to etymologize because they are usually isolated, while language historians prefer to work with sound correspondences, cognates, and protoforms. Most modern “thick” dictionaries tell us that rogue, the subject of this post, is of unknown origin. This conclusion could be expected, for rogue, a 16th-century creation, meant “a wandering mendicant.” (Skeat attributes the original sense “a surly fellow” to it but does not adduce sufficient evidence in support of his statement.)

What does ‘hung parliament’ mean?

For the first time in over 30 years, the British general election last week resulted in a hung parliament. The news is full of the latest rounds of negotiations between the Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats, and at the time of writing, we still don’t know who will form the next government. But what does ‘hung parliament’ actually mean? I turned to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics to find out.

The Plundered Planet Podcast Series: Day 2

Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. A former director of Development Research at the World Bank and author of the widely acclaimed and award winning The Bottom Billion, Collier’s The Plundered Planet continues his life mission of advocating for the world’s poorest billion people.

Obama to Nominate Elena Kagan to Supreme Court

Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below he looks at the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.

The Plundered Planet Podcast Series: Day 1

Which is more important: saving the environment or fixing global poverty? Economist Paul Collier argues that we can find a middle ground and do both in his new book The Plundered Planet: Why We Must—and How We Can—Manage Nature for Global Prosperity.

Primates Reveal the Value of Grandmothers

In honor of Mother’s Day we are taking a closer look at grandmothers. In the post below is an excerpt from Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives: How Evolution Has Shaped Women’s Health.

Behind Nancy Pelosi’s Approval Ratings

In the excerpt below, from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the New American Politics, Pelosi goes under the microscope and is compared to both the Energizer Bunny and the Big Bad Wolf .

Folk Duet: Writing Discord and Folk Music

“Apathetic,” he scoffs.
“Naïve and romantic,” I counter defensively.
“These songs are so self-absorbed!”
“Those songs were so self-righteous!”

This is Pete Seeger-biographer David Dunaway and I debating the evolution of American folk music from our distinct generational perspectives, and we aren’t, technically, arguing. Beyond the pot-shots, we are engaging in academic discourse born out of the ever-shifting debate over purity, authenticity, and activism in folk music.

Walter Bagehot on the English Constituition

Written in 1867, The English Constitution is generally accepted to be the best account of the history and working of the British political system ever written. As arguments raged in mid-Victorian Britain about giving the working man the vote, and democracies overseas were pitched into despotism and civil war, Bagehot took a long, cool look at the ‘dignified’ and ‘efficient’ elements which made the English system the envy of the world.