Richard Cohen had a useful article in The Washington Post the other day, in which he takes on the myth around Robert E. Lee. “It’s about time Robert E. Lee lost the Civil War,” writes Cohen. “The South, of course, was defeated on the battlefield in 1865, yet the Lee legend — swaddled in myth, …
Paul Krugman had another very fine column on the budget deficit in the Times yesterday. “The core of the Ryan proposal is a plan to privatize and defund Medicare. Yet this would do nothing to reduce the deficit over the next 10 years, which is why all the near-term deficit reduction comes from brutal reductions …
Joe Nocera made a good point about education in the Times yesterday. “[S]ocial scientists have contended — and unquestionably proved — that students’ socioeconomic backgrounds vastly outweigh what goes on in the school as factors in determining how much they learn. Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute lists dozens of reasons why this is …
I didn’t want to write about Donald Trump anymore, but he is making me do it. Today, President Obama published on the White House website a long-form version of his birth certificate. This “certificate” is a longer, more complete document than the “certification” that his campaign released in 2008, which is what a citizen of …
It will always be an impediment to any mellowing of my feelings towards Ronald Reagan to recall his visit to Philadelphia, Mississippi after becoming the Republican presidential nominee in 1980. Philadelphia was the place where the Civil Rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered in 1964, and for Reagan, in his …
Aztec Camera was a Scottish new wave band from Glasgow whose creative engine was a young man named Roddy Frame. This cover of Van Halen‘s Jump, circa 1984, not only takes the party song and turns it into something strangely heartfelt, it then takes the resulting ballad and takes it. . . someplace wild. You’ll …
Thanks to Gerry Prokopowicz, a professor of history at East Carolina University, for having me on his program Civil War Talk Radio. We passed an enjoyable hour talking about the Disunion series, the drama of the secession winter, and misappropriated turkey sandwiches. For all those who care to listen, please follow this link: http://www.impedimentsofwar.org/singleshow.php?show=722. I …
In an elegantly-written article in the Times today, Cathy Horyn talks to Christine Baranski, a girl from Buffalo, apparently Polish, who turned herself into an artist–a person of intellect, refinement, passion. She comes across as kind of wonderful, most especially in this passage: “All this talk about former haunts led Ms. Baranski to observe: “We’re …
Appearing on the Alex Jones Show on April 5th, Texas Rep. Ron Paul said he will make a final decision within a month on whether he will run for president in the 2012 election. Earlier his son, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, told Politico he believes his father will run. “I get every indication from …
Having foresworn discussing the sad spectacle of a diseased man (Charlie Sheen) imploding, I am now also foreswearing, following this post, participation in the current Donald Trump Naked Self-Promotion Campaign. This effort involves promoting the ratings of his cheesy TV show by pretending that he has an interest in running for the presidency, and, as …