Campus Activism Peaks

Few consider Stanford University an activist school, especially when compared to our rival across the Bay, the University of California at Berkeley. Students and staff have attempted to change this perception in recent months through advocacy on issues like the living wage or sweatshop-free labor.

The Real Difference Gore Made

After having a spectacular year culminating in the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore faced a wave of negative responses regarding his most recent accolade. Some questioned the validity of climate change and others simply don’t like Gore. However, my quip is that the Nobel Committee didn’t give the man the prize for his finest accomplishment: inventing the Internet.

Smoke Signals

Stanford continues to improve its health services and advance in technology. Also, student activism may be fizzling out in the face of widespread indifference.

A Book Review Saga: Professor David Kennedy Takes on Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman’s new book, The Conscience of a Liberal, is named after Barry Goldwater’s 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative. Like Goldwater’s seminal expression of conservatism, Krugman wants his book to define an ideology and spur a new era in politics. He even states this on the flap jacket: “The Conscience of a Liberal promises to reshape public debate about American policy and become a touchstone for an entire generation.”

World News in Brief

US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte arrived last Friday in Islamabad to help coordinate a power-sharing arrangement between President Musharraf, opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and newly-appointed Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro. Musharraf continues to insist both that democracy is feasible in Pakistan and that his militarily-coerced reelection last month was legal, despite widespread public outcry. Either way, in facing the prospect of a Wild West with nukes, Negroponte has been overhead repeatedly assuring Musharraf that he looks sharp in Brooks Brothers.

Stanford Hosts Conference on Ethnicity in Europe

The culmination of nearly two years of planning, the Ethnicity in Today’s Europe conference concluded Veteran’s Day weekend. The conference brought together scholars from Spain, Germany, and across the United States to address the question “What is new about the question of ethnicity in Europe today, and what is not?” Panelists tackled this question from many different angles, using their expertise in fields ranging from economics to German Studies.

Editor’s Note: Unsettling Settled Questions

At Stanford, one of the virtues of our education is getting to know people from myriad walks of life. We meet and talk with people from all over the country and all over the world, from different kinds of neighborhoods, with different family histories, with different aims and aspirations. We meet people of faith, people who eschew religion, and people in between, people of different faiths and people with different beliefs about atheism or agnosticism. We meet people of different cultures, we meet people with different political views, who differ as much from one another as they do from us. What we encounter through it all is diversity of thought and ways of thinking.

Reminiscent for Koizumi

Junichuro Koizumi was a tough act to follow. As Prime Minister of Japan, this charismatic conservative greatly strengthened his country’s alliance with America through a personal friendship with President Bush and as active a participation in the War on Terror as Japan’s pacifist Constitution would allow. While controversial, Koizumi also let it be known that a Communist Chinese-dominated Asia was unacceptable and laid the groundwork for a coalition of Pacific powers that could defend the Republic of China at Taiwan and contain Beijing’s influence.