John Donne,"Against the Abomination of Torture," St. Paul's Cathedral, London, Easter Sunday, 17 April 1625. Scott Horton,"John Donne and the Outlawing of Torture," Harper's, 15 August, puts the document in historical context. Hat tip.

Mark Davis,"Preserving," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 15 August, recognizes the urgency of preserving the documents of small Jewish communities scattered over the remote Southern countryside. They are thriving in the urban South, but rapidly disappearing from its towns and villages. A 1905 photograph in the print edition of the article shows the children of Benjamin Boorstin, a Russian immigrant, with the family cow in Covington, Georgia, and says that the elder Boorstin walked the cow to Atlanta, when he moved his family here. Ten years after the photograph, his son, Samuel, joined Leo Frank's legal defense team before Frank was lynched. Samuel Boorstin's son, Daniel, was born in Atlanta, during the turmoil over the Leo Frank case. After the lynching, however, Samuel Boorstin moved his family to Oklahoma, where the noted American historian grew up.

David Robinson,"Surviving Himmler," Scotsman, 13 August, reviews Katrin Himmler's The Himmler Brothers.

Suzanna Andrews,"Arthur Miller's Missing Act," Vanity Fair, September, tells the remarkable story of the playwright's son, Daniel. Hat tip.

Finally, farewell to Max Roach. Here, he's featured with the Max Roach Quartet; and here, he appears with the legendary Abbey Lincoln: Part I and Part II.

Jonathan Dresner - 8/17/2007

My connections with the South are somewhat transitory. My aunt was born in Georgia, during my grandfather's military service. And on the other side, cousins of my great-grandfather ran a liquor distributorship in New Orleans before Prohibition: we've got the letterhead from the "Dresner Brothers Distillery Distributors" featuring the award-winning and healthful "Green River Whiskey" ("the whiskey without a headache," a brand which, regretfully, no longer exists). My brother and I are the first generation of "Dresner Brothers" since then, actually.