This blog could have well been linked at the “In the News” section but I wanted to make a few comments about it from the get go. First,I wish to say that I have  watched Heather Hurlburt at Bloggingheads many times and admire her intelligent commentary. I don’t always agree with everything she says but on the other hand she sometimes makes me reconsider a position which I have set in my mind.  She has some important things to say here, and more expansively in a long article which is referenced, about humanitarian interventions, for example.

There is not any single subject contemplated at this blog. It is intended to be on-going as a place where I will mostly put links and short observations or questions. Any subject may come up including movies and music, as well as my own poetry and short fiction. It is mainly intended as a place for short comments which I see as having relevance to ongoing events but am too lazy to expand upon unless they gain some traction. I may refer here to ongoing conversations  at Dag when what they bring to mind is too far off topic or might be otherwise disruptive.

I have followed Corey Robin online for about a year through email notices to his frequent blogs at his own site. He also contributes at Crooked Timber and has done so at many other places including The New York Times. For about a month he has been pushing hard on an issue of academic freedom which I have followed there but was un-aware was gaining the traction it has. It is even being covered internationally, at least in England and Israel. As my title indicates, it is the issue of the firing of Steven Salaita by the University of Illinois.

  I assume that anyone reading this notices, like most Americans who are either literate or have a TV, or who listen to drive-time AM radio, that we are heavily involved in the Middle East. We have at least a general knowledge of how the last thirty years or so have played out. If we are intellectually honest [IMO] we admit and acknowledge that the USA has no business being there as an influential power except for the business of business.