November 2007
31 posts
Potential Lessons from History
But unfortunately, the story of America’s transformation during the years 1815 to 1848 is not entirely morally uplifting. It is also a story of the expansion of slavery, dispossession of the Native Americans, and aggressive war against our Mexican neighbor. The war against Mexico provides several parallels with Vietnam and Iraq, although I did not pause the book’s narrative to point them out. The...
“You become a historian not so much because you’re interested in history,...”
– Henry Steele Commager [Today, 4 out of 15 kids raised their hands when I asked if anyone hated my history class]
Or did education fail us when this writer became...
We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait....
A sad day for libraries
A scheme to put thousands of advertisements into library books will find borrowers taking home a little more than they had bargained for. Up to 500,000 inserts a month are due to be handed out by libraries in Essex, Somerset, Bromley, Leeds and Southend. The plan is being run by the direct marketing company Howse Jackson, whose business development director Mark Jackson said the company was...
For the Anniversary of my Death
Every Year without knowing it I have passed the day When the last fires will wave to me And the silence will set out Tireless traveller Like the beam of a lightless star Then I will no longer Find myself in life as in a strange garment Suprised at the earth And the love of one woman And the shamelessness of men As today writing after three days of rain Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease...
“Political Science” Randy Newman
The Great Bear
Even on clear nights, lead the most supple children Out onto hilltops, and by no means will They make it out. Neither the gruff round image From a remembered page nor the uncertain Finger tracing that image out can manage To mark the lines of what ought to be there, Passing through certain bounding stars, until The whole massive expanse of bear appear Swinging, across the ecliptic; and. although...
Goulet
Robert Goulet, who marshaled his dark good looks and thundering baritone voice to play a dashing Lancelot in the original “Camelot” in 1960, then went on to a wide-ranging career as a singer and actor, winning a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy, died yesterday in Los Angeles. He was 73. [here]
Sports Illustrated
An avid sports fan can now read Sports Illustrated without learning anything new. In 1997’s The Franchise, Michael MacCambridge’s history of SI, Bill Colson (the top editor from 1996 to 2002) admits that the magazine’s increasing focus on the major sports helped “contribut[e] to the narrowing of interest of the American sports fan.” Sports Illustrated had always, for...
October 2007
51 posts
Thirty Illnesses, Sorted According to Whether or...
Illnesses Whose Victims May Not Be Safely Eaten 1. Rabies 2. Chickenpox 3. Leukemia 4. Tuberculosis 5. The common cold 6. Hodgkin’s disease 7. Hepatitis* 8. Leprosy 9. Crohn’s disease** 10. Mono (aka mononucleosis, the Epstein-Barr virus, the kissing disease) 11. AIDS 12. Influenza 13. Malaria*** 14. Herpes (genital or oral) 15. SARS Illnesses Whose Victims May Be...
“Dante, who knew the world about suffering, had a place in hell for people who...”
– Marilynne Robison, from “Facing Reality”
“Well, it is a sort of sedentary, carpet slippers, self-inspecting, nose-picking,...”
– Martin Amis on writing
