Sunday Notes
Joshua Green,"Take Two," Atlantic, November, is a fascinating and fresh-from-behind-the-firewall take on Hillary Clinton, who announced herself a candidate for President of the United States yesterday. Meanwhile, you can get an early sense of what we may be in for in the next 21 months from this article in Insight.com. Without naming a source, this rightwing rag claims that Clinton's team has already done oppositional research into Barak Obama's"Muslim background." The story is making the rounds on other rightwing sites here and here. Snopes.com has a recently updated entry on this urban legend. Thanks to William Harshaw and my own anonymous tipster.
"50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2006," The Beast, 12 January. GWB comes in only at #3, but there's something on this list to irritate everyone. Thanks to Josh Marshall and David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo for the tips.
Of Sacha Baron Cohen in Roland White,"Borat's Easy ... Being Me is Odd," TimesOnLine, 21 January: He was a student"... at Haberdashers' Aske's, a private school on the outskirts of north London. Baron Cohen left there to enjoy a gap year on a kibbutz and then went on to study history at Cambridge, where he wrote a dissertation on Jews in the US civil rights movement ...." Brendon O'Neill,"Backstory: Borat Write Thesis. It Niiiice. You Like Read?" Christian Science Monitor, 21 November, explored the connection much more fully. David Garrow tells me that Tony Badger was the advisor on Cohen's project.
Sheri Klouda had a tenure track position, teaching Hebrew, at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Dallas, TX, until authorities at the seminary recalled that Sheri was a she. That seemed to violate the words in I Timothy:"I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man." Offering a teaching position to their graduate, explained the chairman of Southwestern's board of trustees, was a"momentary lax of the parameters." Idiot. Thanks to Margaret Soltan at University Diaries for the tip.