We haven't had a good meander for while ...
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
This was supposed to be the Doom's Day weekend. Evidently, the Doom criers were wrong yet again.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should read & discuss a book on the Millerites and other Doom criers. Well, maybe ...
We had one of those groups here -- CUT (church universal triumphant....). Their followers came from all over the world having sold everything and given all their money to the church. Many bought little lots to build fall out shelters. I think the end of the world for them was a nuclear attack from Russia.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say it didn't happen but only because they chanted endlessly, throwing a protective cloud over the entire country.
Many stayed in the area (they had no place to go after the end didn't come and they had no money left), which made for an interesting community for awhile.
CUT purchased the Forbes ranch north of Yellowstone. Sadly they were a family able to give the land to the Park, much the way that the Rockefellers had done, but they chose not to. So now one of the biggest land owners outside the Park is the CUT church, which doesn't allow bison to roam on their land.
It was like one giant real estate hustle. I heard that the end of the world guy was also raking in the dough.
It's crazy out there.
Love the bison!
ReplyDeleteI suppose the old geezer just wanted to be ahead of the curve. At 89, he probably figured his days were numbered as it was. What got me was how the media jumped all over it. I guess things were pretty slow last week. But, here I am two days later, and I feel just fine!
HBO's Too Big to Fail is tonight. If it's even moderately close to the documentary, Inside Job, I'm sure it will be worth watching.
ReplyDeletePlus, look at how closely these actors resemble the actual people:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hbos-too-big-to-fail-cast-vs-reality/2011/05/19/AFtnhm7G_gallery.html
I watched Too Big to Fail -- really felt like this was pretty close to how it happened. William Hurt was great as always, but the one who really surprised me was Paul Gimatti who seemed to channel Ben Bernanke.
ReplyDeleteMay not be as great a movie as Inside Job, which is amazing, but hopefully more Americans will watch this version. One thing that this makes very clear -- this all happened on GW's watch which may come as a surprise to some of the Tea Baggers.
That's quite a cast,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1742683/
Worth watching. I didn't watch Recount -- too depressing -- so this is the first of the HBO political films I've seen. They are now doing Game Change, which is one of those books I could not put down. That should be interesting as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently reading an interesting history of Eisenhower and the Suez "crisis."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Eisenhower-1956-Presidents-Crisis--Suez-Brink/dp/1439139334/
The writing is a little patchy but the story is fascinating. Amazing how the story never changes (although in those days they seemed more open to admitting it was all about the oil).
I also watched him on booktv today, which led to several more hours of viewing. I really have to be careful when I turn that channel on, because I love watching it. I watched an hour-long interview with Janny Scott on Obama's mother which I really want to read. The book on Area 51 sounds fascinating, too. (The Roswell aliens were really sent to America from Russia .... )
This is what I call a great cover for an academic book:
ReplyDeletehttp://press.princeton.edu/images/k9431.gif
How could you resist a book on the history of America indebtedness with a cover like that?!
Fun cover for a sad topic.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to reading it as dry as the topic may be. Seems like credit built the middle class in this country. If average people don't have access to credit, then only the very wealthy can own property, cars, etc. But this may not be his argument.
ReplyDeleteHave we lost Robert?
ReplyDeleteBob was having some troubles logging on and I think got fed up. I made the forum more accessible, but that didn't seem to help. Hopefully, we will be able to resolve this problem.
ReplyDeleteROBERT:
ReplyDeleteIf I'm totally logged out of the system, I have to choose the "comment as" tab, which is how you came in as anonymous. It may be as simple as trying "google" and seeing if your name comes up in the log in box. Even if it's blank, you might try reentering your name and password there.
(All this computereze sounds like we're speaking a foreign language at times, which doesn't help.)
This looks interesting ... I still haven't read a bio of Darrow, and would like to:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-06-05/great-weekend-reads-clarence-darrow-pete-hamill-camille-noe-pagan/
Nice to see some movement in this forum. Has been rather slow the past few days. The Darrow book does look good, but I'll leave it on my Wish List.
ReplyDeleteRecently finished Yuri Slezkine's The Jewish Century and provided a write-up for amazon,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1A535W556ROBQ/ref=cm_pdp_rev_title_1?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview#RV7FQKPG3Q9X0
Interesting review. And I never made the connection with Ayn Rand and Rand Paul. Her work is so far off my radar, I figured he was a Randy or something.
ReplyDeleteSorry I've been AWOL. Too much going on trying to get a first draft of the dissertation wrapped up. I even have _work_ which is a miracle these days.