February 10, 2009 – 4:23 pm
Scores of articles have been written to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. One of the most interesting appeared in the February 2009 issue of Smithsonian magazine. I reprint it here in its entirety. The images and links are my choices.
Link to original article.
Lincoln’s Contested Legacy
Great Emancipator or unreconstructed racist? Defender of civil [...]
January 22, 2009 – 5:21 pm
James Michener’s short story collection, Tales of the South Pacific, a bestselling Pulitzer Prize winner in 1948, was eclipsed a year later by South Pacific, the blockbuster Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein musical that includes some of the most memorable songs written for the stage. One song, “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught,” includes this verse:
You’ve got [...]
January 19, 2009 – 3:07 pm
On August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave a speech in Washington, DC, to an immense crowd that filled the Capitol Mall. Revered and reviled in his time, King stood as the standard bearer in the fight for civil rights.
Clarence Jones, King confidante and one of those who helped draft the scripted [...]
January 6, 2009 – 12:14 pm
Following up my previous post on this topic, today I sent the letter below to the editor of the Finger Lakes Times in Seneca Falls, NY:
The struggle for women’s rights has an extraordinary history, and the struggle is ongoing.
My wife and I, on a recent vacation in the Finger Lakes area, made a special pilgrimage [...]
December 24, 2008 – 5:29 pm
The prophet is often unloved
There is great comfort in absolutes. It is the gray that wobbles us.
So we yearn for truth, the absolute truth. And if we find such sapphire clarity, it flattens our doubts. This is the great attraction of fundamentalism. Whether Hasidic, Shiite, or Evangelical, the acceptor has been presented with a revealed [...]
December 12, 2008 – 5:06 pm
A comment by Lanny on my recent post (Rule Book Racism: Can a Black Athlete Celebrate?) deserves a full response.
You write: “A young, black, athletic man will soon be our president.” Why don’t you call him white? He’s just as much white as black. Is my wife, Karina, yellow or white, Japanese or American? Her [...]
December 2, 2008 – 2:41 am
Clay mouths off after defeating Liston
In 1964, Cassius Clay, then only 22, brashly boasted that he would upset 7-1 favorite Sonny Liston for the world heavyweight championship. “I am the greatest!” he shouted. In retrospect, Clay clearly was the greatest. Why did his outbursts upset so many white sportscasters and fans?
One of TO’s many celebrations
In [...]
November 22, 2008 – 1:41 am
“Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!” —Philip Nolan in “The Man Without a Country” by Edward Everett Hale (short story, 1863)
Democrat Joe Lieberman, eight years ago, was denied the vice presidency by suspect Republican counting. Independent Joe Lieberman, two years ago, unwilling to accept rejection in [...]
November 15, 2008 – 11:54 pm
Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody
On November 15, America’s military gave a woman four stars for the first time. The Army promoted Lt. Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, 55, to four-star rank. Breaking the brass ceiling, she will take over as commanding general, U.S. Army Materiel Command, Fort Belvoir, Va.
“I recognize that with this selection, some will view [...]
November 3, 2008 – 2:20 pm
For the last two days I’ve been knocking on doors. Once a Rocky Mountain red, Colorado’s purple, on the eve of election, has tinted blue.
In surprisingly warm November air, I walked Lakewood, a suburb city northwest of downtown Denver. My streets were sidewalkless and potholed, the mailboxes nameplated with Lopez, Guzman, Escalante.
“Who you with?” a [...]
