Things Noted Here and There ...

On Professional Ethics: Joshua Frank,"Accusations and Smears: An Interview with Ward Churchill," Counter-Punch, 18 July, is the first half of a two part interview with WC. It's a perfectly fascinating document. Churchill takes Jon Weiner's argument, that the historians' scandals of the last 15 years are nothing but political, beyond Weiner's own claims. Churchill is incorrect at many points and the interview so offended Michelle Malkin that she threatens him with legal action. Thanks to Mark Brady at Liberty & Power for the tip.

On Death and Dying: Diana K. Sugg,"Angels and Ghosts: Anatomy of a Story," Poynteronline, 15 July, is a journalist's deeply moving account of a dying child and the mother who cares for him.

Historians at Arms: Chris Bray is not the only young blogger/historian whose education and incipient career has been put on hold by the call to arms. Shortly after 9/11, Will Hickox joined the Army Reserve just out of high school at 17. After his initial training, he entered college and completed three semesters before being re-activated in March 2003 and sent to Iraq. Now, Hickox is blogging from Iraq as"fortyrounder" at Tales from the Desert. Welcome to the community of history bloggers, Will.

Languages: Michael Erard,"How Linguists and Missionaries Share a Bible of 6,192 Languages," New York Times, 19 July. Ethnologue is the most comprehensive guide to languages spoken around the world. Erard points out that, even as linguists tell us that languages are dying out with each passing year, the numbers of languages"ethnologued" have grown with each new edition. Obviously, the numbers of known languages have something to do with the distinction between a language and a dialect. The country with the greatest linguistic diversity? Papua New Guinea. The country with the least linguistic diversity? Haiti.

Pilgrimages: It's a challenge to keep up with the movements of the Cliopatricians. Mark Grimsley will be assisting doctors and dentists on a medical mission in Honduras for the next ten days. KC Johnson is traveling in Israel during that time. Nathanael Robinson has returned to Massachusetts from doing research in Alsace.