Things Noted Here and There

Mary Beard,"Isn't It Funny?" NYRB, 17 July; Stefan Kanfer,"For Whom the Joke Tolls," City Journal, 25 June; and Anthony Gottlieb,"The Science of Humor," More Intelligent Life.com, 28 June, review John R. Clarke's Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 BC–AD 250 and Jim Holt's Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes. Hat tip.

"Simon Critchley's top 10 philosophers' deaths," Guardian, nd, is a precis for Critchley's The Book of Dead Philosophers. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.

Jacob Weisberg shows good taste in"The Best Books and Websites about the Birth of America," Slate, 28 June.

Jonathan Yardley reviews Julia Keller's Mr. Gatling's Terrible Marvel: The Gun That Changed Everything and the Misunderstood Genius Who Invented It for the Washington Post, 29 June.

David Frum,"Point of Origin," NYT, 29 June, destroys Allan Lichtman's White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement. Much as I disagree with Frum about many things, this isn't a persuasive book. If it were, 28 years of Republican hegemony would not have yielded the Supreme Court's first Catholic majority in American history. I'm less certain about Jonah Goldberg's claim that Lichtman is"one of the most preposterous self-promoting blowhards in academia today." There's a lot of competition out there.

David Garrow reviews Benjamin Wittes's Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror for the LA Times, 29 June.

Seymour Hersh,"Preparing the Battlefield," New Yorker, 7 July, reports on the Bush administration's"secret moves against Iran."

Matt Tabbai,"Full Metal McCain," Rolling Stone, 26 June, hits our guy, John, right between the eyes. Hat tip.

Finally, on the lighter side, don't miss Alison Bechdel's"Compulsory Reading," Dykes To Watch Out For, 25 June. Hat tip.