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The View from My Ship
Browsing All Posts filed under »Foreign Affairs«
The Banana Republics
Some of you may be wondering what a “banana republic” is. You can look it up in Wikipedia but be careful, since the first definition that pops up is to an upscale clothing store with lots of boobs and legs, although there are other outfits marketed for everybody from babies to men. Keep on scrolling […]
How to Explain Who We Are
May 28, 2020
Not too long ago I read two pieces that got me to thinking. The first was a piece in an online journal, The Daily Signal, titled “The Virus Before the Virus” by Armstrong Williams, and the second was “How a civilization ends,” a review of a new book, The Abandonment of the West, by Michael […]
Taking a Privilege
March 19, 2020
I am taking a privilege today to tell you about a forthcoming visit to the University by Ambassador Lino Gutiérrez, former U. S ambassador to both Nicaragua and Argentina. He served as U. S. ambassador to Nicaragua from 1996-1999 and as ambassador to Argentina from 2003-2006. Ambassadors hold the highest foreign service assignment to the […]
How Not to Change a Latin American Government: The Bay of Pigs, Redux
May 26, 2019
How Not to Change a Latin American Government: The Bay of Pigs, Redux We have written about Cuba and the United States a few times in the past. There are remarkable similarities between the early 1960s and Venezuela and the United States today, giving some credence to the old adage that history does occasionally repeat […]
Venezuela, Little Venice
May 25, 2019
Little Venice That’s the origins of Venezuela’s name, “Little Venice.” And here’s your quick quiz of the week, right up front. Who is the most famous man in Venezuela or her history? A. Nicolas Maduro, B. Hugo Chávez, C. Simón Bolívar, D. Fidel Castro. Venezuela is in the news this week. Actually Venezuela has been […]
Watching the Vietnam War, Redux
November 29, 2017
I can remember watching Walter Cronkite on the nightly CBS news reporting on the Vietnam War, probably from 1968, the summer it seems that the world was crashing around our shoulders. The Tet Offensive launched by the North Vietnamese and their allies the Vietcong in the South was underway and all South Viet Nam appeared […]
Spanish History, 101
September 14, 2017
I first went to Spain in the late summer of 1964, sent by the USN as a newly minted Ensign to join my ship then in the Sixth Fleet. I landed in Rota, across the bay from the more famous city of Cadiz, and lingered there a few days waiting for a flight, first to […]
“Sowing the Oil” in Venezuela
September 14, 2017
I first went to Venezuela in about 1977. It was then politically quiet, economically well off, and possessed a working democracy. There were kinks and chinks in the armor of such a nice picture but I enjoyed my week there at a conference on the history of the Americas. The government was riding a […]
Foreign Affairs
September 14, 2017
“Foreign affairs” smacks, in my puerile imagination, as something risqué between diplomats and sexy female spies as much as about foreign policy. But today let’s focus on foreign affairs, as in affairs between states, not diplomats and spies. I’ve written about foreign affairs occasionally. I tied in Alabama into one study of the air war […]
St. Francis and the Crusaders
September 14, 2017
A few semesters ago I taught a course online at UA on the first half of the history of Christianity. The students in this course sampled how Christianity came into being and evolved over the first 1500 years. One of the questions they had to address was how the Church could have produced both a […]
Bible Gateway’s Verse of the Day
- Romans 12:15 May 28, 2023“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
May 4, 2023
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