Brunswick ME February 4, 2012, 3:44 pm  29°F wind speed: 11 mph NNW |
While law firms are finally rebounding from the recession, the future may still look bleak for prospective lawyers. An article in The Wall Street Journal explains that although the conditions at law firms have stabilized over the past few years, many firms are cutting the ranks of their entry level lawyers. The demand for high-ranking graduates from the Ivy League and other top law schools remains high, but for the rest, life after law school may not be what they had envisioned.  Christopher Hill '74 During the bloody conflict of the post-Yugoslav wars, only one newly independent country of the former Yugoslavia remained at peace. In a recent Project Syndicate essay, Christopher Hill ’74, praises Kiro Gligorov, Macedonia’s former president, for avoiding warfare despite the turbulent environment. Gligorov survived an assassination attempt in 1995 to die Jan 1, 2012 at the age of 94. Hill, currently dean of the Korbel School of International Studies at University of Denver, was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Macedonia and Poland. He was also special envoy for Kosovo, a negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords, and chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea from 2005-2009.  Dhiraj Murthy
Social media has become a battleground for warring candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination, prompting new research by Assistant Professor Sociology Dhiraj Murthy. Working with Stephanie Bond ’13 and lab programmer Alexander Gross, Murthy is researching urban American responses to Republican primary candidates on Twitter. The team has developed a tool to visualize tweets from the most populous urban American cities. Read more about the research and check out the visualization tool. Christopher Hill '74 The American occupation of and departure from Iraq has little bearing on how or whether Iraqis will resolve ancient political rifts, Christopher Hill ’74 argues in his latest commentary for Project Syndicate. “Iraq’s political problems are of Iraq’s making, and need to be resolved by Iraqis. Outside mediation can help. But no one should be under the illusion that foreign troops, engaged for eight years as a post-invasion occupying force, are ideal for this task,” he writes. Hill, a former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, says Iraq’s political leaders must “rise to the occasion” to quell tensions between Sunnis and Shias, and that other predominantly Sunni Arab states can help by accepting Shia majority rule in Iraq.  Christian Potholm
Christian Potholm, Bowdoin’s DeAlva Stanwood Alexander Professor of Government, weighs in on both the “bipartisan seating” plan for President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union, and on Maine Governor Paul LePage’s upcoming State of the State address in the Maine Sunday Telegram.
 Michael Franz
In a backlash against “Citizens United,” the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to spend freely in elections, cities across the country are passing resolutions in opposition to the ruling. Members of the Portland City Council voted 6-2 in favor of a non-binding resolution calling on Maine’s congressional delegation to support a Constitutional amendment abolishing “corporate personhood.” In advance of that vote, Associate Professor of Government Michael Franz shared insight into campaign finance in a segment airing on MPBN. Read the text or listen to the segment.
The latest census figures show that the number of Americans living in poverty rose to 46.2 million in 2010. That’s against an economic backdrop in which unemployment, house foreclosures and cuts to social services have also been on the rise. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the New York Times best seller Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001), chosen as the book for the Brunswick-Bowdoin Community Read, lent her insight and observations to a discussion on the topic “Is the American Dream Fading” on the Al Jazeera program Inside Story US 2012. Also weighing in are political commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley, and philosopher, civil rights activist and Princeton University professor Cornell West. Ehrenreich will speak at the first Common Hour of the 2012 spring semester at 12:30 p.m., Friday, January 27,  Dr. and Mrs. Fred Stoddard '64 at the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, DC.
In 1964 as president of the Political Forum, Fred Stoddard ’64 invited Martin Luther King Jr. to speak at Bowdoin about the civil rights movement and the importance of ending segregation and discrimination in America. On May 6, 1964, Stoddard and President Coles introduced the Reverend King to an overflowing crowd at First Parish Church. “Interestingly,” Stoddard writes, “one of my Harvard Medical students who went to Morehouse College’s sister school, Spellman, recently told me that the talk there now is that MLK’s trip to Maine was a turning point for him as he fought for the Voting Rights bill.” |  | ||
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