We really enjoyed visiting the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville. I was impressed how the center handled all aspects of Ali’s career–boxer, activist, humanitarian–in a straightforward, warts-and-all manner. You hear him calling white people `devils’; you also hear him say that a 60 year old man who thinks the same things that he did …
Well, it was a cave, and it was mammoth. We took the short tour, and we were sated. Lots like this. The Park Ranger who guided the tour was very good. Later we visited Lincoln’s birthplace at Sinking Springs, most memorable for a majestic temple which contains a replica of the humble log cabin where …
West Virginia, astonishingly vertical, rises like a wall nearly everywhere but right in front of you. The highways cut like ribbons through the hills, while below grade, little communities huddle in the hollers. We got off the highway and followed a thin road to Matewan (that’s MATE-wan), a coal and railroad town. Now kind of …
View from our hotel balcony.
Art Donovan, the exemplary defensive tackle of the great Baltimore Colt teams of the 1950s, died in Baltimore. Among his other distinguished accomplishments, he was the subject of one of my first articles, in Sports Illustrated: Fans who tune in to Late Night With David Letterman get a special treat from time to time, when …
hanks to the folks at Jackson-McNally Bookstore in Soho for hosting a panel discussion by three of us who have been contributors to The New York Times‘ Disunion series, and to the new compilation of pieces from the series published by Black Dog & Levanthal. Clay Risen of the Times, Ted Widmer of Brown University, …
One of the pitfalls in writing about the Civil War is the tendency to see things through a Civil War lens. As a result, one sometimes sees connections between phenomena and events that have no business being tied together. And that’s what may be going on here. Still, when one reads in the Times about …
NULLIFICATION, SECESSION, AND NOW OBSTRUCTIONISM Read More »
. . .he’s done. As the New York Post reported yesterday, “The other shoe dropped yesterday for Anthony Weiner, who was forced to admit he engaged in a months-long sexting affair with a woman — a year after he resigned from Congress in disgrace — using the bizarre online alias Carlos Danger. Weiner copped to …
I’m delighted to see that Eliot Spitzer is running for Comptroller of the City of New York. Spitzer was an excellent public servant, especially as State Attorney General, where he reduced corporate big shots to sputtering and perhaps worse. I’m entirely open to the suggestion of the film Client 10 that with his predileciton for …
Last night at the All Star game, baseball paid homage to the greatest relief pitcher of all time, the peerless Mariano Rivera. It was the 13th time he has made the team; he has never given up an earned run. For another scoreless inning, Rivera was named the game’s MVP