Bookworm

Stonehenge Used as Cemetery From the Beginning

"At least part of the mystery of Stonehenge may have now been solved: it was from the beginning a monument to the dead. New radiocarbon dates from human cremation burials in and around brooding stones on Salisbury Plain in England indicate that the site was used as a cemetery from 3000 B. C. well into its zenith around 2500 B.C., British archaeologists reported on Thursday. What appeared to be the head of a stone mace, a symbol of authority, was found with one of the burials, the archaeologists said, indicating that this was probably a cemetery for the ruling dynasty responsible for erecting Stonehenge." [NYTimes.com]

Obamamania

Why Obamamania? Because He Runs as the Great White Hope
in The Washington Post 'Outlook' by David Greenberg, 13 January 2008

David Greenberg expertly analyzes the phenomenon of Barack Obama, which he calls Obamamania, from a historical perspective. He compares Obama's speechmaking skills to those of William Jennings Bryan and Martin Luther King, but contrasts him with predecessors such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton who brought new ideologies and innovative policy ideas to the table. Greenberg acknowledges how tempting it is to vote for this optimistic African American man as a way to symbolically wipe out our racially troubled past, but warns that this would be just a temporary sidestep of the many difficult racial issues the U.S. faces.

Too Little, Too Late

Why I Believe Bush Must Go
in The Washington Post 'Outlook' by George McGovern, 6 January 2008

In this scathing and lengthy editorial, former senator George McGovern calls on Congress to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney, believing that the case against them is stronger than that against President Nixon and Vice President Agnew. He excoriates the administration for waging a "murderous, illegal, nonsensical war" in Iraq and egregiously mishandling the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. McGovern admits that his call for impeachment is made belatedly and has little chance of being acted upon. This begs the question of whether party politics and his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for President partially motivated him to write this piece.

From Whence Accrues Value?

Keeping It Real
in The New York Times Magazine by James Gleick, 6 January 2008

Why would someone pay over $21 million for a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta? Once, the document's power accrued from King John's words. Now, James Gleick believes that the value of the document lies largely in the story behind it, a phenomenon that science fiction author Philip K. Dick called historicity. Without history, the ball Bobby Thomson hit would be just a sphere of cowhide, and Princess Diana's spare wedding dress would be simply a confection of taffeta. Gleick hypothesizes that the very ubiquity of computerized copies of information may intensify our awe of the scarce and magical originals.

Animated History Of NYC Subway

This animated map shows the NYC subway system, with the lines appearing on the map in the order in which they were built. 

[Found via Q Daily News: Appealing Industries: Animated History Of NYC Subway]

Wonders of the World

• The Seven Wonders of the ancient world
• The new Seven Wonders, decided by a worldwide online vote

The New Yorker, June 11 & 18, 2007 (#1)

I used to subscribe to The New Yorker, but frequently, even pre-parenthood, found myself with stacks of them.  It's a deceptively thin magazine -- the prose is almost always well-written and requires thought to digest, so you can't really skim.  I will admit to flipping through to look at the cartoons first thing.

I picked up the Summer Fiction issue over the weekend.  The Talk of the Town section this week begins with an essay juxtaposing a new play called Frost/Nixon (and its theme of how history will remember famous figures) with George W. Bush's legacy.  According to the author, George Packer, the President did four good things last week (including strengthening "sanctions against Sudanese companies and officials in response to the ongoing massacres in Darfur" pg. 45), but "[n]obody will remember it."  Packer believes that "popular memory flattens out the facts" and doesn't retain many details about presidencies.  Bush and close allies such as Condoleeza Rice are holding out hope that perhaps this Bush presidency will not be judged solely on the Iraq war and the administration's responses and policies post-9/11, but might be expanded to encompass a turning tide in the Middle East.  Packer writes,

"This exercise in justification by faith posits a visionary President with the courage to ignore temporary bad news.  By this light, Bush's habit of declaring A to be B--for example, claiming that the surge reflects the public's desire for a change in war policy, or interpreting increased violence in Iraq as a token of the enemy's frustration with American success--becomes a sign of clarity and resolve, not delusional thinking. . . [T]he current President will repeat the same sunny falsehoods and sententious illusions about the war until he leaves office, and then he will go on repeating them in retirement.  And that will be his legacy: the war, and the shallow, unreflective character that made it." (46)

Historical Illiteracy

"In a recent survey of college students on U.S. civic literacy, more than 81 percent knew that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was expressing hope for "racial justice and brotherhood" in his historic "I Have a Dream" speech.

That's the good news.

Most of the rest surveyed thought King was advocating the abolition of slavery." [Washingtonpost.com]

The Shadow of a Smile

"My father was in Parliament Square when a Soviet tank began firing into the unarmed crowd. He hit the ground during the massacre, which took hundreds of lives. On Friday, Oct. 26, the front page of The New York Times carried his report, headlined “Soviet Tank Fires on the Unarmed — Peaceful Marchers, Bearing Only Hungarian Flag, Are Mowed Down in Budapest.”

The article was accompanied by a note from the editors: “This dispatch from Endre Marton, The Associated Press correspondent ... was the first direct word from The Associated Press bureau in Budapest since Tuesday night.” The world was now paying attention to Hungary." [NY Times]

Articles such as this remind me that there's a lot of world history with which I am not conversant.  It's a short article, worth the read.

O'Reilly Doesn't Know What He's Talking About

I know -- the title of this post isn't exactly a revelation.  Apparently he made quite the boo-boo while talking to Wesley Clark the other night and Fox News is already trying to clean up the evidence. 

"'In Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces who had their hands in the air and were unarmed and they shot them dead, you know that. That’s on the record. And documented.'"

Anyone who knows their World War II history is probably cringing right now — because O’Reilly got that one totally backwards, it was the German troops of the 1st SS Panzer Division that massacred 84 unarmed U.S. soldiers who had just surrendered." [QDN]