Things Noted Here and There

Garry Wills,"Christ Among the Partisans," NYT, 9 April, is unlikely to satisfy partisans of either the Left or Right in the United States. As Jews celebrate Passover and Christians celebrate Holy Week, however, it is especially appropriate that we think about relations with our Muslim brothers and sisters and recall the prayer of Micah, a prophet to all three of us, that we"do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our G_d."

Caleb Carr,"Let Them Have Their Civil War," Washington Post, 9 April, argues that American military presence in Iraq has given the Iraqis an opportunity to form a democratic civil government. They've chosen not to, so American forces should withdraw and allow the Iraqis to fight it out among themselves. It sounds irresponsible to me, but our whole path in Iraq has pursued that course. Carr teaches military history at Bard.

At Unqualified Offerings, there's a blog thread Erving Goffman would call"interaction as conventional structure." Our colleague, ChrisBray, weighs in twice; and there's a"Sensible intervention by Tim Burke pointing out that both sides have a point."

Welcome George H. Williams' WorkBook to the history blogosphere. His first two posts are a defense of academic blogging and a report on the recent meeting of the American Society for 18th Century Studies in Montreal.

Sepoy's friend Prithvi Datta Chandra Shobhi teaches South Asian Civilization at the University of Chicago and blogs at Land of Lime. He and Juan Cole joined us at the last banquet of the Cliopatricians at the AHA convention in Philadelphia. Anyway, pdcs points out something that our convention planners should absorb and act on immediately. Given the high rates of convention hotel rooms, it is absurd that we must pay an additional fee for connections to the internet. Henceforth, negotiators for convention locations must say to hotel management:"No Connection; No Convention. It comes with the territory."

Finally, Cliopatria's friend Graham Larkin sends along a recommendation of The Internet Movie Database,"the earth's largest movie database" ..."visited by over 35 million movie lovers each month." It is searchable for titles, characters, plots, quotations and more. When it offers"translated sites" in"Italiano" and"Deutsch," however, you'd expect – you know – for it to translate something.