Thursday, July 12, 2007

Politics Today: A New Feature on Tenured Radical

I am toying with thematic formats that will allow me to blog in a more moderate way on a few days of the week -- rather than devoting half a day to a blog post, or swear off blogging entirely so that I can get a chunk of work done before lunch. Moderation is what the Radical strives for, at least in some things. The truth is, part of my problem is that I begin the day by reading the New York Times, reading everyone else's blogs, and doing my email -- which transports me, mentally and intellectually, about as far from the nineteenth century and Civil War historians as I could be transported. It can take a while to get back, believe me, when my head is swirling with political scandal, academic gossip, wicked humor from my mostly pseudonymous colleagues, and the current plight of the Philadelphia Phillies.

But this morning I received a terrific video from a friend. I have tried to upload it here and failed (so do not click on the image and expect anything to happen) -- due to some combination of my technical inability and the fact that it would violate copyright six ways to Sunday. It is Walt Handelsman, the Pulitizer Prize-winning New York Newsday cartoonist, commenting on the political style of Nanny Dick:



Click here to view the video legally. Oh yes -- and Handelsman does comment on the archives question.

Could he be reading the Radical?

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For more political news of interest to historians in today's New York Times, see Enid Nemy's wonderful obituary of Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, otherwise known as Lady Bird because she was "purty as a lady bird." For the real skinny on the Johnson marriage, and what Lady Bird actually put up with from the man who co-directed the last unwinnable war, you must go to Robert Caro's wonderful, readable, now three-volume biography of LBJ. In today's Times you can also read the latest on the transfer of the Nixon Presidential Library to NARA, including descriptions of eleven more hours of White House tapes released by our heroes, the archivists.

Oh for the days that President's taped themselves! Does anyone but me wonder who the first blogging President will be?

3 comments:

Edward Carson said...

Who said reading was always a good thing. I too find myself reading a couple of news papers, a few blogs, and drafting e-mails for what seems like an eternity. When I am doing this my coffee seems to taste better. And, why is it when I need to work the most I hear a book calling my name.

Anonymous said...

Hey! This post was A+++. The biography LBJ seems really grand. Could you recommend anything that really covered the successes/failures of The Great Society project and the political battles (in Congress) over Vietnam?

Unknown said...

The end aftereffect was the Romain Jerome "Day&Night," a $300,000 Replica Rolex Watches fabricated with $.25 of decayed metal that does NOT acquaint the time! It may accept two of the granddaddies of all complications, the tourbillon, but after the abject of basal timekeeping, it's harder to see the point.