Less Serious Notes

A Conservative in the History Market: Gary Shapiro,"Mark Moyar, Historian of Vietnam, Finds Academe Hostile to a Hawk," NY Sun, 30 April, reviews the five year job search of a diplomatic/military historian. A summa cum Harvard graduate, Moyar earned his doctorate at Cambridge and is the author of Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong (Naval Institute Press, 1997) and Triumph Forsaken: The Viet Nam War, 1954-1965 (Cambridge UP, 2006). If you were in on recent searches at the Air Force War College, Duke, Miami, Old Dominion, Rochester Institute of Technology, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, or UT--El Paso, you should read this because they all get a mention. Moyar is now teaching at the Marine Corps University at Quantico, Virginia, but he's suing the University of Iowa. Thanks to Grant Jones for the tip.

Let's Face It. I am a Sap: Amy Crawford,"Derby Days," Smithsonian, May, reminds me to get some good bourbon and fresh mint at the market. On Saturday, I'll lift my cup of cheer and, when they play"My Old Kentucky Home", a tear will role down my cheek. It happens every time. But I wish that Crawford had noticed that 12 or 13 of 15 jockeys in the first running of the Derby were African Americans and that they won 15 of the first 28 Kentucky Derbies. They were edged out of the competition after 1903. When Marlon St. Julien rode Curule in 2002, no black jockey had competed in the Derby in 79 years. Hat tip.

Call My Lawyer! As the story of the DC Madam who released her list of the telephone numbers of clients and, ah, companions to ABC News develops, I noticed this from ABC's Brian Ross:

There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers, and there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list, and as well, the women who work for the service ... include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.

If the U only paid us a decent salary, we professors wouldn't need to work the streets!

Friedman Units (FUs): The next six months in Iraq, 2003-2007. Apparently Atrios coined the term last year and the Huffington Post called it the"Best New Phrase" of 2006. Has he used it yet to cover the surge? If you calculate your age in FU's and express it in Friday Cat Blogging, you get this. Hat tip.

Tech Central: Never ask Rob MacDougall to create a pie chart.