Pride and Prejudice along the Unfinished Journey

The Babylon 5 fans amongst you will understand how I’m waking up this morning wanting a t-shirt that reads, “I was there at the dawn of the third age of mankind… and I all I got were my civil rights taken away.”
While Michelle Obama got in trouble for saying something like this, but I’ll be [...]

“In Your Guts, You Know She’s Nuts”

For those not catching the reference, my subject line is an updated-for-gender version of the line used by Lyndon Johnson’s supporters during the 1964 presidential campaign.  It was their retort to those Barry Goldwater fans who declared, “in your heart you know he’s right.” Goldwater, among other things, made veiled threats of launching a nuclear attack [...]

Football diplomacy

This past Saturday, from Abu Dubai to Zagreb, dozens upon dozens of qualifying matches took place in advance of the 2010 World Cup tournament in South Africa. By and large, there were few dramatic results on the pitch – Austria’s 3-1 upset of France at home in Vienna ranked as the biggest upset of the [...]

Leaving New Orleans

With Hurricane Gustav wreaking havoc on the Caribbean, and bearing down on the western half of the Gulf Coast, I think it’s well worth sharing an email I received yesterday from a very close friend (studying environmental law at Tulane) evacuating New Orleans. Posted publicly with his permission:

Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 11:39 AM
Subject Dispatch from [...]

Republican math problems

It has taken me a little while to wrap my mind around John McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, but after reading widely and going beyond the superficial CNN/MSNBC-type coverage, it now makes quite a lot of sense to me.
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer called it a “Hail Mary” — [...]

The Choice: Obama/Biden ‘08

So, Obama/Biden ‘08… 
Everything the past few days has pointed to Barack Obama choosing Joe Biden as his running mate, notwithstanding a few fake-outs and misreadings of the tea leaves, such as the hints that we’d see Clinton on the ticket after all, the sudden mention of Chet Edwards yesterday, and Wonkette’s conviction last night that [...]

8/8/08

As I write, at just past 8am (EDT) on 8/8/08, the Opening Ceremonies of the XXIX Oympiad have begun in Beijing, with fireworks shooting from Tiananmen Square to the stunning new Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium.
I’m hoping that somewhere, the Project Runway designers are being forced to watch and see what actual Opening Ceremonies teamwear looks [...]

Disaster politics

Disasters, natural or man-made, rarely cause dramatic political change on their own, but they frequently accelerate developments already underway. The 1944 earthquake in San Juan, Argentina helped set the stage for Juan Perón’s rise to power a year later. The radioactive fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear meltdown exposed the limits of the [...]

We Don’t Need Another Blogger (Welcome to Bear Left)

Dear Bear Left,

Oy vey, another blog?! Do we really need yet another blogger, offering their unsolicited commentary as the world goes by?

Welcome! I’m Bear Left, sometimes also known as Ian Lekus, and this is my new homestead in the cybersphere.

Back when I began my training as a professional historian, I declared that “my [...]