Atlantic Review, a lively web site run by German Fulbright alumni, links to an article by history professor Christopher Phelps, urging America's politicos to get out a bit more:
Perhaps we should extend the Fulbright program to Congress. Most senators and representatives have never traveled outside the United States. Most do not have passports. Those facts are unsettling, given the dominance of the United States in world affairs. If our representatives lived and studied abroad for a few months before taking office, it would expose them to the world's complexity. It might humble us.
Good idea. Here's another. Give grants to encourage American academics to spend some time living in American society. There are so many possibilities: two weeks in Boston for an MIT lecturer, a month in Queens for a Columbia head of department. Naturally, it would be a strain coping with the cultural and emotional upheavals, but there's an entire country out there waiting to be discovered.
