In the history of the US Supreme Court, Samuel Chase holds a singular, if dubious honor: he is, to date, the only Supreme Justice to be impeached (he was, however, ultimately acquitted by the US Senate). The background to his impeachment is indicative of the political ferment so common in the early days of theContinue reading “Samuel Chase and Judicial Supremacy”
Category Archives: History
Land, Ownership, Property, and Nationalism
A few days ago, a dinner-time conversation with some friends turned to the matter of property disputes within families. Both my wife and I spoke with some feeling about the fierce passions they evoked, their seeming intractability, and of course, in the context of modern real estate pressures, their ever-increasing ferocity. It reminded me, yetContinue reading “Land, Ownership, Property, and Nationalism”
Marriage: It Ain’t a Religious Thing
Last year, I wrote a post on same-sex marriage, or rather, on Barack Obama’s evolving views on it. In that post, I handed out some unsolicited advice to the President, suggesting he view marriage in its social and economic context, and noting that there were too many similarities between the explicitly institutionalized racism of theContinue reading “Marriage: It Ain’t a Religious Thing”
Ten Years After: War Criminals Still Walk Free
You call someone a ‘mass-murdering war criminal’, you best not miss. And so, when I use that term to describe the unholy troika of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld–as I have in the past–I should have very good reasons for doing so. Fortunately, that isn’t hard to do: a pretty systematic caseContinue reading “Ten Years After: War Criminals Still Walk Free”
The 1944 Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana Report
Today’s post continues a theme initiated yesterday: sensible views on drugs, expressed many, many years ago. Yesterday’s post referenced the New York Academy of Medicine’s 1955 report on opiate addiction. Today’s post goes back even further, to 1944. Then, as reefer madness swept the nation (WWII notwithstanding), New York City became the focus of aContinue reading “The 1944 Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana Report”
Mozart on Constanze: Tepid but Frank
In December 1781, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a letter to his father Leopold, telling him he wanted to marry Constanze Weber. He might have been a brilliant composer, but when it came to describing his beloved, his skills did not transfer so well. [I] must make you acquainted with the with the character of myContinue reading “Mozart on Constanze: Tepid but Frank”
Op-Eds and the Social Context of Science
A few years ago, I taught the third of four special interdisciplinary seminars that students of the CUNY Honors College are required to complete during the course of their degrees. The CHC3 seminar is titled Science and Technology in New York City, a moniker that is open, and subject to, broad interpretation by any facultyContinue reading “Op-Eds and the Social Context of Science”
O. Henry on the South (Mainly Nashville)
I’ve only read a couple of short stories by O. Henry but have long owned an omnibus collection of them (presented to me on my twenty-eighth birthday). I’ve finally taken a gander at it, and stumbled on his classic A Municipal Report. Henry was a Southerner transplanted to the East Coast, so I find the narrator’s voice–aContinue reading “O. Henry on the South (Mainly Nashville)”
Ten Years After: The Anti-War March of Feb 15, 2003
Exactly ten years ago, I gathered with hundreds of thousands of others, on a freezing cold day in New York City, to take part in an anti-war march. I was still hungover from a friend’s book party the previous night. We marched, got corralled into pens, felt our extremities freeze, jousted with policemen, lost friends,Continue reading “Ten Years After: The Anti-War March of Feb 15, 2003”
Adam Gopnik on the Scientist’s Lack of ‘Heroic Morals’
In an essay reviewing some contemporary historical work on Galileo, (‘Moon Man: What Galileo saw‘, The New Yorker, February 11, 2013), Adam Gopnik, noting Galileo’s less-than-heroic quasi-recantation before the Catholic Church, writes: Could he, as Brecht might have wanted, have done otherwise, acted more heroically? Milton’s Galileo was a free man imprisoned by intolerance. What wouldContinue reading “Adam Gopnik on the Scientist’s Lack of ‘Heroic Morals’”
Samir Chopra 