Saturday Notes

Brooks Barnes, Emily Steel, and Sarah McBride,"Unhorsed Jockey: Behind the Fall of Imus, A Digital Brush Fire," Wall Street Journal, 13 April, traces the origin of the downfall of Don Imus to a little known blogger at Media Matters for America. Having been on the receiving end of brush fires more than once, I've got a conservative's reservations about them. I don't ever want to be caught in a lynching party. In Imus's case, I think there was reason for him to go. Hat tip.

Two weeks ago, Rick Shenkman's"The Storm Facing Tulane's History Department," HNN, 27 March, reported on departmental in-fighting at Tulane. There's no disputing that there's in-fighting (four members of the department are boycotting its meetings and a law suit is pending). Other members of the department believed that Rick's article cast their colleague, Roseanne Adderley, in an unfair light. (She had refused to comment for the original article.) Now, five current members of the department, including its chairperson, have posted a protest in her behalf. Thirty former members of the department join them in it.

Dahlia Lithwick,"Mike Nifong, Meet Alberto," Slate, 11 April, is a not-to-be-missed op-ed.

Dave Davisson,"Digital History in the Twenty-First Century: An Introduction to History 2.0," Patahistory, 12 April. Dave is presenting this paper today to an interested group that knows nothing about digital history. He's inviting your comments on his paper.

Johann Hari,"Bush's Imperial Historian: White Man for the Job," TNR, 13 April (free link for non-subscribers), takes a closer look at the obscure British historian, Andrew Roberts, who is embraced by the Bush administration. See also: Andrew Sullivan, Matt Yglesias, and Jacob Weisberg. If only this stuff were made up!

Finally, congratulations to Eric Sundquist, whose Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, Post Holocaust America has won the Weinberg Judaic Studies Institute Book Award for 2007. Other finalists for the award: Tony Michels's A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York and Eric L. Goldstein's The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race and American Identity.