Years ago, I taught in Arkansas for a couple of years. During that time, I had the pleasure of being invited to dinner at end of term by two of my students, an Iranian-American brother and sister.

The homemade ethnic food was lovely, the two young people very gracious, basically complimenting me on my erudition and on not being from Arkansas. The brother was about two years older than his sister and clearly had been told to watch over her, and did so. We chatted about our respective nations and ethnic origins and exchanged travel stories, and in the ...   more »

Yesterday presented some hard choices on which congressional hearing to attend. Capitol Hill offered a subcommittee hearing on Iran by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; a hearing about drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP); and a subcommittee hearing on the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ by the House Judiciary Committee.

I ended up splitting the difference between two important hearings, taking the panel statements at the hearing on Iran by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, chaired by ...   more »