Some of us were re-assured by the logic of the decision to move the OAH convention from San Francisco to San Jose. There was a labor dispute with the major hotels. Early registrants and program participants had been polled. Three-quarters of them had voted to move the convention to San Jose. One way to get an overwhelming mandate is to mark the ballots accordingly before you send them out. It's called"pseudo-democracy" and we know some places where it's been practiced. Common Sense at Liberty & Power has the story.

Where have we gone wrong? I'll eat Cliopatria's tiara at our next summit if Clinton, Bush, Reagan, or Kennedy are worthy of mention in the same breath with George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.

The tributes to Hunter S. Thompson fascinate me. Two of the best I've seen are: Ralph Steadman,"Hunter S. Thompson RIP," The Independent, 22 Feb.; and Tom Wolfe,"As Gonzo in Life as in His Work," Wall Street Journal, 22 Feb. Thanks to Martha Bridegam in comments at Horizon for the tip.

Miss Gould, the Grammarian at the New Yorker, once found four errors in a three word sentence.

In"Group Therapy", Alan Mintz reviews Andrew Heinze's Jews and the American Soul: Human Nature in the Twentieth Century.

Cliopatria's Jonathan Reynolds contributes"The Borders of Africa and World History" to a forum on Africa and World History in Historically Speaking.

Finally, after the dust-up over at Crooked Timber about women and academic blogging, you'd have thought that Kevin Drum at Political Animal would have known better than to pronounce about women and the op-ed page. Well, he didn't, but he gives us a convenient summary of the reactions. Daniel Drezner has a more positive take on the situation of female public intellectuals.

Oscar Chamberlain - 2/23/2005

Ralph, how sure are you about the OAH claim?
To the extent that people supported the petition through this site, http://www.petitiononline.com/geso2005/petition.html, there was no "x" already marked.

That site only collected a small percentage of the signators,; however, I have not been able to google up any conformation (or refutation for that matter).

I'm not saying your source was wrong, but I'm not positive that he's right.

Oscar Chamberlain - 2/23/2005

To quote Gil Scott-Heron, from a song about the Reagan Administration: "this country wants nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can – even if it's only as far as last week."

Unfortunately, that's about as far as many can go back.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/23/2005

_Chapati Mystery_ is a must read.

Manan Ahmed - 2/23/2005

Serves me right for assuming that something would escape your eagle-eyes, Ralph. Thanks.

Ralph E. Luker - 2/23/2005

Thanks, Manan. I had found and read that one earlier, so I linked to it yesterday. It's very good.

Manan Ahmed - 2/23/2005

Let me also highly recommend this eulogy by a young and upcoming writer.