It's a pleasure to welcome The Valve to the net's association of academic and literary sites. Sponsored by the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC), The Valve is edited by John Holbo who posts at John and Belle Have a Blog and Crooked Timber. Mark Bauerlein, Miriam Burstein, and Amardeep Singh are among the Valve's contributors. John, Miriam, or Amardeep might correct me about this, but I suspect that this is a development long in the works and that some of the seeds for it found roots in discussions at Critical Mass, Amardeep Singh, and John and Belle in the last year or so.

In another development, the report of an internal committee charged with reviewing complaints about the program in Middle Eastern studies at Columbia has been released. The Columbia Spectator and the New York Sun have the story. The report narrowed the scope of the charges and largely cleared the faculty members of blame. Thanks to KC Johnson for the tip.

Welcome to Mark LeVine of UC, Irvine, and an HNN blogger. He is the most recent historian to join the charmed circle of those of us who've been attacked by David Horowitz and his FrontPageRag. Even I think he needs a decenthaircut, but here's FrontPageRag's take on him.

Sandor A. Lopescu - 4/16/2005

FrontPage is crap, but they're right about more than LeVine's haircut. His website is a string of self-important (and self-promoting) nonsense--a vivid example of what The Fonz taught us--those who truly are "cool" never advertise it by saying how cool they are.
Also, dreary is a pretty good word to describe his writing. Have you read his (very) occasional Cliopatria blog? It's dull as dirt.

Sandor A. Lopescu - 4/16/2005

Right you are--I deserve it.

Ralph E. Luker - 3/31/2005

If I were a Catholic nun, Mr. Lopescu, you'd get a ruler on your knuckles. LeVine is not a Cliopatriarch; he merely and occasionally does his own blog at HNN.