Still More Noted Things

Roy Rivenburg,"A Philosophical View of Sex," LA Times, 25 February, reports on Jacques Derrida's dying effort to force UC, Irvine, to quash its investigation into charges of sexual harrassment against Russian Studies professor, Dragan Kujundzic, by breaching his commitment of his papers to the University. Kujundzic now chairs Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Florida. See also: Manan Ahmed at Chapati Mystery and Margaret Soltan at University Diaries.

John Gravois,"A Fast from the Past: a Retired Scholar Talks about an Episode 13 Years Ago," CHE, 2 March (subscriber only), is notes from a chapter in my autobiography.

David Garrow,"The Ku Klux Klan is Still Dead," LA Times, 27 February, challenges claims by both the Klan and its critics that it is alive and well. James Shannon,"The Lynching of Willie Earle," The Beat, 13 February, tells the story of South Carolina's last lynching and wonders whether it was.

From Jill Lepore's"The Sharpened Quill," New Yorker, 16 October 2006, an assessment of Tom Paine's role among the Founding Fathers:

Thomas Paine is, at best, a lesser Founder. In the comic-book version of history that serves as our national heritage, where the Founding Fathers are like the Hanna-Barbera Super Friends, Paine is Aquaman to Washington's Superman and Jefferson's Batman; we never find out how he got his superpowers, and he only shows up when they need someone who can swim.

At Old is the New New, which is developing a new new look, Rob MacDougall and friends cast the Founding Fathers as comic book superheroes.

Finally, in what part of the western world is the old east German Democratic Republic still sovereign? Strange Maps has the answer.