Shirley Sherrod’s Defamation Suit
As some will recall, this past summer I argued that Shirley Sherrod would be ill-advised to file suit against Andrew Breitbart for defamation, largely on the grounds that, wherever my sympathies may lie, “her...
Monthly Archive: February 2011
The Second Ordinary Blog
A little while ago we rolled out our first hosted blog, Not a Potted Plant by Burt Likko. I’d like to welcome our second Ordinary Blogger, Alex Knapp who will be blogging at A...
Pigford: A Tragedy and a Non-Troversy
[UPDATED] Conor Friedersdorf points to a pay-wall blocked piece by Daniel Foster in National Review on the recently-passed “Pigford II” legislation. This story, of course, is largely being driven by Andrew Breitbart’s reporting, which...
For the Humanities, a Table of Doom
At this year’s Society for French Historical Studies (SFHS) conference in Charleston, South Carolina, there was a roundtable discussion entitled, “A Call to Action: The Present and Future of French History and the Humanities”,...
History’s Lost, Part II: Sappho
“Euripides was eaten by dogs; Aeschylus killed by a stone; Sappho leapt from a cliff. We know no more of them than that. We have their poetry, and that is all.” – Virginia Woolf,...
The Public Pension Problem
“The other weird thing about this post is that you link to an article outlining an absolutely disastrous public sector pension crisis without refuting any of the particulars. So we’re stuck with this massive...
The State of the Unions
Last week Conor linked to this Reason piece on California’s pension crisis and that state’s looming budget crisis. Now, I’ve done a lot of thinking about this over the past couple of weeks –...
Egypt is free?
Surprising news after yesterday’s speech from Hosni Mubarak: President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt turned over all power to the military, and left the Egyptian capital for his resort home in Sharm el-Sheik, Vice President...
Searching for Oskar Schindler
by Christopher Carr I considered titling this post a more academic “Rejoinders to a Utilitarian Framework for Evaluating the Morality of Abortion” but thought better when I realized how many lines that would take...
How Not to Read with Charity
Brad DeLong is a seemingly limitless source of uncharitable readings. He doesn’t disappoint in his latest:
Science, Non-Scientists, and the Mind-Killer
I’ve read several books about evolutionary theory, and they seem convincing to me. I’ve read Darwin. I’ve read Gould. I’ve read Dennett. In college, my physical anthropology textbooks made sense to me, although I...
The Price of Pleasure
Tony Comstock has a really excellent post up on the Tucson shootings, gun control, and the thirty-round magazine: Buried in the Federal Assault Weapons Ban’s meaningless restrictions on cosmetic features was a ban on...
“Reasonable” People
[Author’s Note: Rumors of my demise have been very marginally exaggerated. However, despite the full-bore reappearance of Brother Will in my absence and our failure to blog at the same time for many moons,...
The Financial Class and the Middle Class
In recent weeks I’ve begun pretty seriously rethinking my positions on organized labor and especially public sector unions (more on this in some upcoming posts) and I think there is a compelling case to...
Re-Manifesto
Note: Burt Likko is writing the first of what we hope will be several reader “sub-blogs” hosted by the League of Ordinary Gentlefolk. For more of his stuff, go here. People are forever asking...
The Glorious Cause
Below, J. L. Wall suggests that Rooster Cogburn’s character arc in True Grit is basically redemptive. I’m interested in an alternative hypothesis: What if Cogburn’s heroism is entirely consistent with his history as a...
More True Grit
The New York Review of Books blog discusses all three versions of True Grit (but mainly the latest) and questions of genre and Rooster’s need and potential for redemption. This bit of trivia, if...
Important Poll to Determine the Respectability of our Readership
Vote early, vote often: Is anthropogenic global warming actually happening? Did I leave anything out?
I’m Not a Conservative…
…but the League got called out in particular here, so I’ll give my answers to DougJ’s questions: 1) Do you believe in evolution? 2) Do you believe that the average temperature on earth has...
