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In Print & On the Air

ON SEPT. 29, DAVID KENNEDY,
the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, said on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean fits the traditional definition of a mainstream liberal. Dean stands for economic stability, individual security and international engagement and cooperation -- a classic definition in the "moderate American context that is pretty much what constitutes the core of liberal principles," he said. Portrayed as a leftist, Dean is financially conservative, Kennedy said, and in some instances supports the death penalty. During the program, Dean criticized retired Gen. Wesley Clark as a "Democrat for about 25 days" and asserted that Clark really was a lifelong Republican. In response, Kennedy said Dean might have been better off saying that Clark's military career made him look like the traditional man on horseback who comes to rescue the country but instead is more of a "one-trick" pony because the only position that gives Clark notoriety is his opposition to the Iraq war.

THE PROMISE OF TURNING THE Bay Area into a mecca of stem cell research came one step closer last week when Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation that creates a regulatory and ethical framework for the potentially lifesaving work, the San Jose Mercury News reported Sept. 25. But no one in Sacramento has agreed on a plan to pay for the research. "The big impediment to speeding research on embryonic stem cells is the lack of an assured source of nonfederal funding sources," said biochemist PAUL BERG, professor emeritus. As a result, the field is limping along. "Scientists are leery of getting into the field, unless there is the assurance of long-term funding," he said.

SAM WINEBURG, PROFESSOR OF education, discussed the future of history in the final issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday magazine July 13. Wineburg said he likes to give his students an exercise sending them to www.IHR.org, the website of the Institute for Historical Review. Although it looks like a bona fide academic site, Wineburg said, in fact it's a portal for Holocaust revisionists. Many of Wineburg's students get duped, however, by its appearance of legitimacy. "What's needed more than ever before is what the Web cannot provide: to discern fact from fiction," he said. "What we have to do is slow down and begin to ask some age-old questions: Why should we believe what we believe? What is the nature of historical evidence? I don't think it's Orwellian to say the stakes are between an educated citizenry and one that is susceptible to any kind of manipulation."