More Noted Yet

Cory Maye still sits on death row in Mississippi. Three months ago, in an"Open Letter to Governor Haley Barbour," I joined other bloggers in trying to win a reconsideration of his case. We failed to get a breakthrough in the mainstream media. Now, Radley Balko is reporting from Mississippi, where he's doing research for a magazine article about Maye's plight. Still, it's only the bloggers – Glenn Reynolds and Kieran Healy – who are paying attention.

On Sunday, KC Johnson called attention to Alan Brinkley's"Clear and Present Dangers," NYTimes, 19 March, a review of Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century. In his"On the Square" column for First Things, Joseph Bottum suggests that Phillips and Brinkley have a short-sighted view of American history. American evangelicals pushed the nation toward our own civil war in the 1850s; American civil religion was defined in the decades spanning World War II in the tensions between the enormous influence of Cardinal Spellman, on the one hand, and the National Council of Churches on the other; and, subsequently, Billy Graham had greater access to the oval office than any evangelist in American history. In fact, you could push Bottum's objections back further to point out that in Puritan New England, evangelicals fathered and mothered the American idea and that the tensions between claiming and shunning political influence were already playing out among them. Nonetheless, the power of Phillips' argument for contemporary America lies in the links he draws between religion, oil, and borrowed money. Thanks to Tom at Big Tent for the tip.

When Harry Belafonte was interviewed at Cooper Union's Great Hall on Saturday, the tension between the desire for access to power and the willingness to shun it was evident in his explanation of why he had been disinvited to speak at Coretta Scott King's funeral on 7 February. He'd been close to the Kings for 50 years and had even helped Coretta pick out the suit in which ML was buried. His invitation to speak at her funeral was rescinded when the Kings' children learned that President Bush would attend and speak, but only on condition that certain people not be there. Belafonte was told he would not be on the platform and did not attend the funeral. Sad choices.

Other people are not so discriminating. I note the following debates: David Horowitz v Peter N. Kirstein 29 March Chicago IL; and David Horowitz v Ward Churchill 6-7 April Washington DC. I am so glad not to be there. Thanks to Ahistoricality for the tip.