My favorite meal at the SHA convention in Memphis last year was one I shared with Leon Litwack of UC, Berkeley, his lovely wife, and Bill Scarborough of the University of Southern Mississippi. You couldn't imagine two more unlikely companions over a meal than Litwack and Scarborough. Litwack is a"red diaper baby" and, into his seniority, remains a stalwart of the academic Left. Scarborough, on the other hand, is a tough old right-winger, who has written admiringly of the slave managers on the old South's plantations. When we first met at the St. George Tucker Society gathering last summer, Scarborough and I sat knee to knee in a limousine and talked about my civil rights activism and his active support of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. Well, the old reprobate* has his virtues, including having defended a young Marxist historian in his department when he was under fire. I'm not surprised to read in Robert Campbell's report at Liberty & Power that Scarborough has a 19 point indictment of the administration of the University of Southern Mississippi that will probably lead to a second faculty vote of no confidence in President Shelby Thames in the last year. My hat's off to my friend, Bill Scarborough. You go, Bill!
*Note to Van Hayhow: If I refer to a senior conservative historian as"the old reprobate," is HNN or am I subject to liability claims? Bill knows he's an old reprobate. We're agreed on that and laughed about his condition.

While I'm praising folk on the Right and you're over at Liberty & Power, have a look at Radley Balko's post on California Republican Congressman David Dreier's new bill that will not create national identity cards for all of us. I like libertarians keeping a close eye on Republican congressmen these days. And follow the posts of L & P's newest member, JasonKuznicki. He's giving our libertarian friends some real historical ballast.

My colleague, Manan Ahmed, suggests that Priya Jain's"When Freedom was ‘the peculiar institution'," at Salon is a must read for us all. It focuses on Adam Hochschild's new book, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves. Manan suggests that we ponder these words:

And then I began to think, what makes people empathize with other people of another color in another part of the world? Because that's what this movement was really about. It was the first time ever that a number of people got outraged and stayed outraged for many years about the plight of other people in a completely different part of the world. I think that's more likely to happen if you have something in common with those people.

See also: this interview with Hochschild in Mother Jones and Caleb McDaniel's reflections at Mode for Caleb.

When my colleague, Sharon Howard, hosted the 1st History Carnival (scroll down), she made it a hard act to follow and she's committed me to hosting the 2nd History Carnival this week at Cliopatria. Here are the guidelines for the History Carnival. History bloggers, please send links to your best posts in the last three weeks to me at ralphluker AT mindspring DOT com. If you don't self-nominate, I am free to select something from your blog and you do recall that dreadful thing you posted under Black Jack's influence two weeks ago, don't you? So, send me your best.

There are now two intentional alternatives to the History Carnival. On 3 February, St. Nate will host the Skeptics Circle. Brother Nate is looking for your best post on urban legends and hoaxes, pseudohistory, hysteria, and quackery. The other alternative to the History Carnival is archy's Carnival of Bad History. I leave it for you to decide whether your best post should go to archy or to me.

Hugo Schwyzer - 1/31/2005

Leon Litwack taught the first History course I taught as an undergraduate -- one of the most polished lecturers I ever heard. The only prof I've ever seen get a standing ovation at the end of the semester. Great memories...

Van L. Hayhow - 1/31/2005

After my first post, I thought of a story that was told to me some years ago when I was a much younger attorney. Another young attorney ran into an older attorney (the difference in their ages was about 30 years). The younger one said to the other: "Hello, you old reprobate?" The older attorney charged at him and jabbed his finger in the young attorney's chest and said: "I am not old."

Ralph E. Luker - 1/31/2005

Thanks, Van!

Van L. Hayhow - 1/31/2005

Prof. Luker:
Generally truth is a complete defense to a defamation suit. Also to defame, generally the words must must be published (a broad term that would include speaking) in a context that would lend them to be taken seriously. On the other hand, there is no screening process for filing civil lawsuits. Therefore if I filed a lawsuit against you on a promissory note for a million dollars, you should respond to the suit, and not ignore on the basis there is no such note. You could get defaulted and lose your opportunity to defend.