Two weeks ago, the NY Times reported that women are "leaving men in the dust" in colleges and universities nation-wide, with women now 58% of all undergraduates.(as a point of information, American University had a freshman class last year that was 64% female)Today, the Washington Post reports that women are also taking over TV news:The number of female anchors reached a record high last year, accounting for 57 percent of the positions in a nationwide survey conducted by the Radio and Television News Directors Association. Just as impressive are the gains in the rest of the newsroom. Women...

Secretary Rice:“What I won't do is go to some place and try to get a cease-fire that I know isn't going to last.”“A cease-fire would be a false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo, allowing terrorists to launch attacks at the time and terms of their choosing, and to threaten innocent people, Arab and Israeli, throughout the region.”“That would be a guarantee of future violence.”I actually think Rice is right here. Thinking beyond the current suffering the conflict obviously has brought (and will bring) to both the Israelis and Lebanese, simply imposing a cease-fire without...

I have been revisiting US policy in Iraq of late-- to the extent that you can revisit an ongoing issue. Mostly, this comes in the form of reading Cobra II, Squandered Victory, the Foreign Affairs articles and on-line debates, and of course the fine work posted here on the Duck. After all this, I'm not sure I have an opinion or even a learned analysis on the issue (even given my previous postings on the topic). Quite frankly, I'm not sure what to think anymore in strictly analytic / "expert analyst" sense. My mood, however, is certainly one of pessimism and skepticism-- not just of the Bush...

They see us killing each other... over and over since time began. -- Akira Kurosawa's Ran.Malak Khaled interviews Lebanese refugees:Their grand daughter, Marwa, looks at us with sad eyes.“Why are you sad,” I ask her.“I want to go home.”“Why aren’t you home?”“Israel is bombing a lot.”“What do you feel when you hear the bombing,” I ask her.“I feel so afraid. The sound is very very very loud.”“And what do you do when you feel afraid?“I cry, and I go to Mama”“Do you feel afraid here?”“No. Here, I am not afraid, but I was afraid at home.”“You know, there are kids being bombed in Israel now, you...

Over recent days, however, we've seen a flurry of talk about the end of Pax Americana and the coming of multipolarity.It wasn't long ago that America was the "New Rome". In fact, only a few months ago did I finish Deepak Lal's In Praise of Empires, in which he argues that “the contemporary academic theory” that “Ph.D. practitioners have learned has by and large been devised for the anarchical European state system which developed with the fall of Rome.” How “to maintain an empire is not what they have been taught in their classrooms” (p. 78).International-relations pundits and even--I know...

But he's not going to abandon work altogether. And what kind of work will he do?BUSH WILL MIX work with vacation time at Crawford ranch. Aides explore August swing to battleground state such as Pennsylvania, where Republicans are defending three endangered House seats and Sen. Santorum. Also planned: one-year commemoration of Hurricane Katrina, viewed by Republican strategists as biggest second-term setback.The Duck really isn't supposed to be a shrill, partisan blog. But there comes a point in time when those of us who care deeply about international relations just can't take it any more....

Via LGM:Shorter United States Army LTC Ralph Kauzlarich: Pat Tillman's parents are only unhappy about the death of their son and the subsequent Army coverup of that event because they aren't Christian."In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more- that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can...

Yassar asks the kind of question academics both love and hate: "What is exactly the thesis of your book?" We love it because, well, we like to talk about our work. We hate it because, well, we kind of also don't like talking about our work--particularly when much of our discussion depends on arcane disciplinary debates.So, as a temporary evasion, I've decided to post the penultimate introductory chapter of my book manuscript, clumsily entitled "Religions Contention, Imperial Rule, and International Relations in Early Modern Europe." Comments are welcome. You can download it here (PDF). The...