Nicholas Kristoff’s column in the February 16 edition of The New York Times about the irrelevancy of academic scholars in the national discussion has set off quite a conversation among my academic friends on social media. His point is that the academy contains some of the greatest minds in the world today, but too many …Continue Reading »
As I write, Atlanta is bracing for the second fall of snow in the last two weeks, and after the debacle last time, the nation is watching to see if city and state leaders are any better prepared for the latest few inches/avalanche/ice storm. Most Atlantans seem to have made it easier on them by …Continue Reading »
Cronkite. By Douglas Brinkley. Harper Collins, 2012, 819 pp., $35. “From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official, President Kennedy died at 1 o’clock p.m., Central Standard Time, 2 o’clock, Eastern Standard Time, some thirty-eight minutes ago.” Last week I wrote about the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination that America commemorated last November. Among all …Continue Reading »
Lost in the news yesterday of the Super Bowl and the tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman was the death of another actor, one equally talented and brilliant: Maximillian Schell, dead at 83 on Saturday, February 1. If you’ve never seen him or heard of him, watch him in Judgment at Nuremberg, Stanley Kramer’s 1961 …Continue Reading »
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson. By Robert Caro. Alfred A. Knopf, 2012, 712 pp., $35. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, continues to fascinate fifty years after that horrific Friday in Dallas. With the nation having just commemorated that milestone, I decided it was time to …Continue Reading »