Weekly Wavelength

This is one of the easiest ways to share your ideas on Politicolor. Every week we ask our contributors two questions and post their answers in an effort to help you find good ideas on the web. Because effective citizens are informed citizens…

What didn’t you know last week?

Arachne at her loom, after an admirer said her working was as beautiful as her work, “It is the same thing.”  Beautiful notion; one that will frame my teaching this year. (Hobbes21/Keith)

Didn’t know that only 30% of seersucker fabric in a garment actually touches the skin or that it was invented in New Orleans. (Puck/Puckermom/Laura)

Rousseau isn’t as completely strange as I thought he was. He sees the same problem as Hobbes, i.e. collective decision making and rejects the artificial notion of representation. It’s genuine participation or it’s slavery. Well, that’s still a little strange from this American perspective! (Stepwinder/Shellee)

What are you reading?

The first quarterly edition of the 2010 edition of the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography was devoted to Dolly Madison and her efforts to publish her husband’s notes from the Constitutional Convention. “A Constant Attention: Dolly Madison and the Publication of the Papers of James Madison, 1836-1837” by Holly C. Shulam, deals with Dolly, and her efforts, either directly or through various family connections or friends to secure publication. The more interesting, and perhaps more controversial article, “Securing a legacy: The Publication of James Madison’s Notes from the Constitutional Convention” by David. W. Houpt deals more with the efforts of Dolly and her agent Nicholas Trist to secure Congressional publication of the manuscript. Reading like a “whose who’ of Jacksonian America, Houpt recounts the debate and vote in the Senate that led to Senate approval of publication. Houpt asserts that John C. Calhoun, SC, still smarting from Madison’s public denunciation of nullification, voted nay out of spite. Calhoun, Houpt suggests, believed he was the intellectual heir to Madison’s legacy. Jefferson, maybe, but Madison? Check it out here. (Brenda)

A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck (sequel to A Long Way from Chicago).  Grandma Dowdel is a terrific character; this is great kids’ lit.
The really super-cool Geography Coloring Book by Wynn Kapit.  I dig the little arrows to indicate river direction: very helpful to students, even though they understand that rivers flow downhill. (Hobbes21/Keith)

Reading “Everything’s an Argument” (Puck/Puckermom/Laura)

Based on Heidi’s recommendation and my new found love of soccer, I am reading How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer. His subtitle is “an (unlikely) theory of globalization,” but I think it is less about globalization and more about regionalism and the way in which soccer explains cultures around the world. I just finished the chapter on Barca – the team from Barcelona. His discussion of Catalan identity felt a lot like our recent discussions at Montpelier about American citizenship – that citizenship is about comitting to a set of ideas – it’s about how you see and understand a place and a people. I recommend it, particularly for any new soccer lovers out there. (conteach/Shayne)

I attempted to read Res Publica: An International Framework for Education in Democracy in tandem with this year’s National Academy reading. My progress has stalled considerably now that we’re in our second week. But, I’m still interested in reading this presentation of the fundamentals as though it’s a completely strange. I guess I had a theme this week! This one has been provoked by our international participants this year–from South Africa and China. (Stepwinder/Shellee)

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