Additionally Noted Things
In Niall Ferguson,"A Nineteenth Century Critique of a Twenty-First Century President," LA Times, 6 March, William E. Gladstone eviscerates the domestic and foreign policies of George W. Bush. Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the tip.
Robert McCrum,"Our Top 50 Players in the World of Books," The Observer, 5 March, is a gossipy calculus of the leading figures in the UK's book world. Historian Simon Schama clocks in at #41.
CommandanteAgi and The Disgruntled Chemist attend a meeting sponsored by the College Young Republicans at UC, Irvine. After"the clash of civilizations," both of them want to take a shower. Thanks to Jonathan Dresner for the tip.
Finally, farewell to Anne Braden. I was a 14-year-old kid, living in the Louisville suburbs, when Carl and Anne Braden bought a house in another suburb and immediately sold it to an African-American couple. When word of that got out, the house was bombed. No one was injured, but it was my introduction to the tensions of the civil rights era. Neither was anyone ever arrested for the bombing, but many people suspected that the Bradens, themselves, had done it.
The obituary does little justice to Anne (or Carl), I suspect, because their lives embarrassed the Courier-Journal, the city's flagship voice of Southern white liberalism. Carl was fired from his job there as a proof-reader and, subsequently, convicted of violating the state's sedition law. Eventually, his conviction was overturned, but suspicion of the Bradens as communist-sympathizers hung on for the rest of their lives. As secretaries of the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF), they were devoted to the movement; and, clearly, there was something seditious about it, but this Young Republican is as proud of having overcome youthful fear and suspicion of Carl and Anne to sit through a couple of strategy meetings with her as I am of having sat through a strategy session with Dr. King.