Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
From a project to photograph Great Britain and Ireland, square by square.
ReplyDelete(Copyright Simon Ledingham and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence - per the request of the site)
Av, I see there is a book coming out on the Rise and Fall of John Edwards,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Politician-Insiders-Account-Edwardss-Presidency/dp/031264065X
Thanks, Gintaras. That may be a little more scandal than I'm up for. I think Young is the one he paid to claim paternity.
ReplyDeleteEdwards seems to be a classic tragic figure. Started from nothing, used his smarts, charm, and good looks to make it in the world, and to connect with real people, and then came tumbling down with a self-inflicted wound to the heart. Hubris -- isn't what the Greeks called it?
It was almost like he became delusional -- but then this is American politics, so what did I expect?
After all of this, I'm still moved by the way, when he was withdrawing from the race, he stopped and talked to homeless veterans living under a bridge in New Orleans. He didn't need to do that. The race was over.
I still think there is something in his DNA that understood what was right -- withdrawing from Iraq, investing in the environment and people, addressing the needs of the poorest Americans first -- that's a powerful message, even though he was fatally flawed and unable to act on it.
I have Game Change coming with Madison. Hopefully get it Monday. That's probably all the insight into Edwards I'll need. From what I've read, they don't paint a very pretty picture of his wife, either. Sad when you think of what might have been for both of them.
This is the kind of inquiry we needed to have in this country. Alas, Obama didn't have the stomach for it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/26/iraq-war-illegal-chilcot-inquiry
New York Magazine had an excerpt from Game Change last week (read it online)that was scathing of John and Elizabeth Edwards. I won't be buying Game Change, especially after it was used by people like Michael Steele and several white Republican pundits who tried to use it (unsuccessfully) to destroy Harry Reid.
ReplyDeleteI imagine airing such dirty laundry from Campaign 2008 will do well at the book stands, but sadly it will only serve to make Americans more cynical about the election process.
ReplyDeleteWell, you are both probably right. But I'm such a political junkie, I really want to read it. I didn't read any of the post election books -- I planned to read Richard Wolffe's Renegade, but never saw it when it came out -- so this will be the jaded one I read.
ReplyDeleteIt could be too that I have already become so cynical about the election process that this one will speak to me.
RIP-Howard Zinn
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bo. I hadn't seen that. He was an important voice for America and will be missed.
ReplyDeleteI was too taken up with the State of the Union -- which I thought was a masterful job. I don't agree with some of his policies, but hopefully he can get our leaky ship back into the river and moving again.
And I'm proud of any president who can end discrimination in the armed forces, staring down the stony-faced generals in the front. Or talk down the Supreme Court sitting there with them. (Poor Ruth Ginsburg doesn't appear to be long for this world.)
And I particularly liked that he will be calling regularly on Congress. Even the republicans towards the end seemed to be paying attention -- whether it will make any difference or not remains to be seen.
My hope is that Americans were paying attention.
Read a few pages of Game Change during the republican response. I try to keep an open mind, but these guys don't seem to have much going for them. The book is far more informative.
ReplyDeleteI think I made the right choice. This one looks like a really good read. Hopefully it won't be too scandal ridden.
For example, Clinton spent $29 million in Iowa, and only got 70,000 votes. I don't think I've ever seen that number before. And it appears that she and her husband blamed Richardson.
And another number that I probably did know but had forgotten -- 239,000 people voted, twice the number from the caucus four years before.
As Obama is quoted on the cover from September 2008: "This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."
In Santa Monica of all places.A zinn kind of town.
ReplyDeleteHere's that conversation again with Zinn and Harrelson, which really is good:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BydZv9ykJU
Kind of funny seeing Zinn and Harrelson together. What I admired most about Zinn is that he never stepped back from his positions.
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time listening to Harrelson in the beginning, but he sort of grew on me. Zinn was simply wonderful.
ReplyDeleteAnd now JD Salinger is gone at 91.
ReplyDeleteThat's another inside story that may come out now that he's gone. What a fascinating man.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/28/catcher-in-rye-salinger-dies
ReplyDeleteInteresting story about the lost hydrogen bomb off Tybee Island.
ReplyDelete