Wherein I Congratulate and Pontificate ...

by Cliopatria

Happy Blogiversary to Kevin Murphy's Ghost in the Machine. Five years of blogging! Despite his youth, Kevin's clearly the elder statesman among us history bloggers.

I have a couple of audio-visuals to go with our history lesson for the day. The first one is for the Gentiles among us: Yiddish with Dick and Jane. Thanks to Eugene Volokh for the tip. The second is for the Democrats among us. It came from my friend, Fred. Now, anything from my friend, Fred, carries a warning label. Do not show it to your students. If you are disturbed by the term"a**h***", do not show it to yourself. Some Republicans, disturbed or not, probably do need to see it. O.K, you've been forewarned. Here it is. Therewith, my contribution to our political reconciliation.

But I also have four articles to recommend: first, John Gray's review for the New Statesman of Mark Garnett's The Snake That Swallowed Its Tail: Some Contradictions in Modern Liberalism, in which Garnett makes the claim that we all share liberal values, but none of us know what they are; Malcolm Gladwell's"Something Borrowed" in the New Yorker, which explores a fascinating case of plagiarism and slander; Rick Perlstein in the Columbia Journalism Review on Paul Cowan's The Tribes of America; and Garry Wills and Michael Walzer on"just war" in the New York Review of Books. Tip of the hat to Arts and Letters Daily, Gnostical Turpitude and Unfogged.

As David Beito points out, members of the Organization of American Historians' ad hoc committee on academic freedom have received the complaint outlined by KC Johnson, Beito, and me in stone cold silence. Yoo-hoo, Jim Horton and David Montgomery: Where are you? Say, Ray Arsenault, I just sent you a document for your work on the Freedom Rides that you otherwise would never have found. How about a reply to KC, David, and me? Oh, Sara Evans, you do not want me even to think about revealing the undergraduate nickname of your feminist self to the whole world! But, seriously, folks, ... how about taking your committee's charge seriously and recognizing that there's a big, broad academic world out here and that the grievances of some historians are not getting heard by the OAH powers?

Note: Things get real uncomfortable for the powers when priests start turning into prophets. Thanks to Mr. Sun.

Finally, if you despair about Red America or about what H. L. Mencken called"the Sahara of the Bozart," read Caleb McDaniel's"About Me." Mr. Montgomery was down here in the Sahara, yeh verily, doing missionary work in the public schools of San Antonio, Texas, and even a tour of duty at Texas A & M hasn't ruined Caleb yet.

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More Comments:

Jonathan Dresner - 11/17/2004

The song itself comes from a group called "Jim's Big Ego" aka Jim Infantino, one of a group of really good 'bad boy' singer-songwriters coming up during my epoch in Cambridge. I'm a total fan of Ellis Paul, one of the other ones; I should check out Infantino's recent stuff. Sounds like he's doing pretty well, still.

I actually had a problem with the filmstrip. I don't watch TV news mostly. I read newspapers, mostly on-line, and I listen to radio. So I actually can't immediately distinguish between Tom Ridge, John Ashcroft, Antonin Scalia, Tom Delay, etc.. Though I got it from context well enough. Still, annotations would be nice..... OK, I'm a geek, and all those old white guys look alike to me.

Ralph E. Luker - 11/16/2004

You'll have to forgive me for not understanding that Rebunk's feelings are so sensitive, when I had been told, again and again, to get over it, be sportsmanlike, hit hard and hold no grievance. I don't recall it being said anywhere how nice it was for you and Tom to get to see me, etc. Pu-leez. As for the nice meal, I got stuck at the far end of the table with a real dullard who only wanted to drain my brain of information for which he gets handsomely paid. I can trade you hit for hit, Derek, if that's what you prefer.
rl

Kevin C. Murphy - 11/16/2004

Thanks for the kind words on GitM's 5th Blogday. Where did the time go?

At any rate, I may have tenure in the blogosphere at this point, but when it comes to quality of links, I defer to Cliopatria. ;) Keep up the great work.

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/16/2004

I am sorry. I was joking, of course, tongue in cheek, but I am sorry that my hamhanded comment reads, as it does, like an accusation.

BUT -- as for attacking friends in public (since if you really did not want this to be public you too could have chosen to respond via email), Tom and I, not to mention Tom's wife, were rather miffed when you wrote of the SHA on Cliopatria and mentioned not meeting Tom for the first time and how pleasant you thought he was, or how nice it was to see us, or how we had a number of good conversations and a nice meal, but rather how you tried to tell us how to conduct ourselves on the internet and we would not listen. One probably ought not to selectively launder in public.

dc

Ralph E. Luker - 11/16/2004

Because I had _already_ sent it to you quite some time ago! How quick you are forget having been done a favor, take offense, and accuse me of some ethical breach. We've already had that discussion about your false accusations about my ethical lapses. In fact, if either of you has a grievance with me about this, it would be Ray because I sent the document to you long before I sent it to him. But, in fact, I have no ethical _obligation_ to tell either of you anything. I may do it because I'm a good guy. I may do it because you are my friend -- in moments when I can forget that you regularly attack your friends in public -- but there is no _ethical principle_ that obliges me to tell you what you don't know. Are you paying me to do so? What evidence do I have that telling you _anything_ brings _anything_ but false accusations and grief? This might have been handled in the privacy of an e-mail, but you chose the medium. No need for an apology, Derek; any more than you apologized the last time you made false accusations against me.
rl

Derek Charles Catsam - 11/16/2004

On the issue of professional ethics: You know there are two scholars out there writing books on the Freedom Rides. You found evidence that you think one has not discovered. You sent him that information because you say otherwise he'd never see it. Why no heads up to the other one?
dc