Fri, 28 September 2007
What the Media Doesn\\\'t Tell You host, Larry Velvel, interviews Rob Kall, founder and owner of opednews.com, a web site that aggregates editorial and news material, including considerable original content. The website primarily focuses on political issues. The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video. Comments[2] |
Fri, 28 September 2007
What the Media Doesn\\\'t Tell You host, Larry Velvel, interviews Rob Kall, founder and owner of opednews.com, a web site that aggregates editorial and news material, including considerable original content. The website primarily focuses on political issues. The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video. Comments[4] |
Thu, 20 September 2007 Problems with Educational Opportunities What the Media Doesn't Tell You host, Larry Velvel, interviews Colleen O'Brien, head of The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. The discussion centers around the lack of media portrayal of difficulties middle and lower economic class individuals have in gaining entrance to, adjusting to and financing higher education. They discuss why the media seems to focus only on the "elite" educational institutions and those who can manage to attain entrance to them. Comments[4] |
Thu, 13 September 2007 Are We Rome? What the Media Doesn't Tell you host Lawrence R. Velvel of the Massachusetts School of Law interviews Cullen Murphy, editor at large for Vanity Fair magazine, about his new book Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. Murphy discusses how the Roman Empire and the United States are similar and how they are different. Murphy says that both societies demonstrate great arrogance. The Romans believed that they would win any war they engaged in. They believed the will of Rome was all that mattered and they saw the rest of the world as barbaric. The Romans demonstrated their arrogance when they marched into the Teutoburg Forest, expecting to dominate the Germanic tribes but instead had three legions defeated. The United States demonstrated a similar ignorance of the world’s thoughts and beliefs. Americans assume all nations desire their democratic way of life. Such a belief led to the debacle in Viet Nam and again in Iraq. The Romans saw themselves as the center of the world, believing, as Murphy states, “all roads lead to Rome,� and they literally did. They believed Rome was the world’s umbilicus. The United States has developed the same belief as the center of the world with Washington D.C. as the new global navel. Murphy believes Rome and the United States have failed to learn from past mistakes. The Romans believed they were an empire without end and did not look to the past for understanding. The United States has similarly failed to learn from its own history, becoming mired in a debacle in Viet Nam and blindly sacrifices troops and national treasure in Iraq. The militaries of both societies grew larger and larger. No matter how big they became, they were too small to accomplish their goals, yet too large to maintain for long periods. The Roman army grew as they conquered new land and integrated the people of those lands into military service. Similarly, the United States currently has over 700 military bases throughout the world. And, as did the Romans, the United States has supplemented its military with private contracts. This trend has been replicated in other areas of government; public functions have been sold to private entities. In Rome, the emperor hollowed the government. He took enough power away from the legislature to make their meetings and debates meaningless. In the United States, the executive has done the same, eroding the abilities of the legislature. The checks and balances of American government have lost their effect—the executive goes unchecked. Murphy states one major difference between the two societies: in the United States, everyone feels as if part of the middle class. This feeling exists even if they are well above or below the middle class. In contrast, there were a handful of Roman families with almost all the wealth. The rest of the population was plebs or slaves. qw The Massachusetts School of Law, located in Andover, Massachusetts, makes high quality, affordable legal education available to less privileged persons who are traditionally excluded from the legal profession. As part of its mission of providing high quality education and information for both law students and the general public, the Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public via television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit www.mslaw.edu. MSLAW podcasts are available from http://mslaw.libsyn.com/rss, for subscriptions, or http://mslaw.libsyn.com, for direct downloads. MSLAW videos are available from Google Video. Comments[4] |
