Academic Rants

 The Other America At 250 As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, it is an excellent time to look back and admire the scope of the American experiment. No other nation has emerged from its colonial status and formed a government and culture so unique and distinct from its motherland while taking elements of that culture and building a foundation that could have possibly launched the greatest nation of the world. The parliamentary system is the basis for America’s representative government. But unlike what existed in England, the American applications of the House of Commons and House of Lords became far more reaching and in essence democratic.  The creation of the presidency went far beyond the role of a prime minister as it became the people’s choice not the legislative party’s choice. What became exceptional is that the president and governing bodies of representatives do not have to be members of the same party. Citizens through voting can create their own degrees of g...

The slow decline of America is equally focusing attention on the changing status of Europe. One of the most telling signs of global change is the more pronounced criticism of the old order. The virtues of Western Civilization are being exposed as myths, and many of the key elements of the past are being rewritten. At the same time the legacy of colonization and wars has created a new perspective of imperial conflict. European identity disguised as nationalism is seen as threatening the integrity of constructive politics. In their national elections, politicians in Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom have tried to define who rightfully should be citizens of their nations. Some candidates have selectively excluded all people of color and other Europeans suggesting that they should be labeled immigrants. Yet, many of the non-white residents have been in these nations longer than their white neighbors. Such discussions, which might resemble Brexit or America's White Supremaci...

Our society's fascination with Artificial Intelligence is strongly rooted in science fiction films, video games and novels. For many that brand of AI suggests a dark future where robots could destroy the world, replace humans in the workplace and create dystopic societies.  But what about in real life? "Artificial Intelligence" research is decades old having its origins in late 19th century Europe. The movement took shape at Dartmouth College in 1955 when John McCarthy coined the term. By 1979, the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, now the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, was formed.   Although history reveals that AI research has universal guidelines and principles and is not controlled by a group of mad scientists, modern nationalism is deeply involved in its development and deployment. AI has applications in almost every facet of human life including health, media, education, film sustainability, transportation/mobility, nation...

  This is a map of Underground Railroad Routes. In many respects it could be a map of the Great Migration. Between the late 1820s and the 1860s, enslaved African Americans fled the South.  In the 1830s, the Underground Railroad was officially born and hundreds traveled northward towards midwestern or northeastern cities. Sometimes blacks had to go to Canada East or Canada West before finding safe havens. Note later in the Antebellum years, blacks fled west to Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas trying to escape the expansion of the slave trade. About 80 years later, some of the same routes were used to escape Jim Crow oppression. This time people used the actual railroads. They took trains northward and sometimes towards the west. These migrations continued into the post-war era leaving blacks in most northeastern, midwestern, and western cities. New York, Chicago, Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Pittsburgh became the major recipients of the first waves of black arriv...

     An Academic Divide: Navigating Truth in a Fractured America Far too often, I start my day reading electronic versions of NPR News, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. My reading habits clearly reflect an educational slant, a predisposition I trace not to my undergraduate or graduate studies, but to my elementary education. It was there, in elementary school, that we were introduced to The New York Times. This practice came with absorbing its "big words" and learning how to fold the oversized newspaper. Our teachers impressed upon us that educated people read The Times, while less educated individuals consumed The New York Daily News or The New York Post. However, while we were diligently reading The Times in school, our parents continued to get their information from the Daily News and the Post. In my household, it was uncommon to converse with elders about their sources of information or their social, pol...

  I took my essay, written and published on May 26th, and gave it to ChatGPT to edit. Within a minute it produced the following essay. It also offered guidance for strengthening my argument and tailoring it for a variety of audiences. Here is the final product. What do you think? Edited Essay: In 2015, Kendrick Lamar released his critically acclaimed album To Pimp A Butterfly . The cover featured a group of young Black men piled on the lawn in front of the White House. Beneath the crowd lay a knocked-out President—implied to be Obama. It struck me as strange that Lamar would criticize the first Black president, a hero in many households. It made me wonder: what would a contemporary protest album cover look like if it targeted the current administration? In our media-saturated world, politicians are not exempt from harsh criticism. The American public holds strong opinions and often attacks with impunity. Yet, as a nation, we remain divided on Donald Trump—as a businessman, a poli...