Just Your Average Catholic, Communist, Gay Poet/Politician

Only in Italy.

OUP Gives Long Overdue Credit to Female Baseball Historian

"It’s taken 50 years but Dorothy Jane Mills, formerly Dorothy Z. Seymour, wife of the late baseball historian Harold Seymour, has received long overdue acknowledgment as coauthor along with her late husband of three seminal books on the history of baseball that are considered the scholarly standard in the field. In a formal announcement by Oxford University Press executive editor Tim Bent, Mills was given formal credit and her name will now accompany her late husband’s on the books' covers and title pages."

Pork, Pastors, and Prayer Breakfasts

Thirteen really Muslim things Obama has done.

Uncle Solar Wants You!

Clean Energy Victory Bonds.

US Navy Swastika Building Update

"A couple of years ago, the swastika-shaped building at the Naval Amphibious Base in San-Diego discovered by Google Earth became an Internet hit. The former U.S. resident and now Israeli citizen Avrahaum Segol got word from a friend in 2006 and made getting rid of the offensive symbol his own personal project."

Question

When is the New York Times going to run an obituary of Matthew Simmons? The longer they ignore his death, the more they fuel these kinds of conspiracy theories.

Axis of Social Media

North Korea takes its war against Yankee imperialism onto the battleground of facebook.

Pirate Defense Lawyers Take Note

The Law Library of Congress has digitized its collection of pre-1923 piracy trials.

Dean Vs. DFA

Is it weird that DFA is putting out this when Howard Dean is putting out this?

How Jimmy Carter Saved Craft Beer

One of the unheralded accomplishments of a misunderstood and under-rated president.

News flash! Journalists Prepared to Once Again Utterly Misread Annual Social Security Trustees Report

"Thursday's report will once again describe an essential program in admirable fiscal health. But every year, journalists twist the facts to fit a narrative favored by the political elite: that the program is in crisis. Rather than manufacturing a false drama that shakes people's confidence about their future benefits, two Social Security experts write, reporters should stick to the facts."

"Further and Faster Than Margaret Thatcher"

New Statesman looks at David Cameron's first 100 days.

How The One-State "Solution" Got Its Mojo Back

JTA:

In one of the more curious twists in Israeli politics, prominent figures on Israel’s right wing have begun pushing for a one-state solution with Israelis and Palestinians as equal citizens with full voting rights. The one-state solution previously had been the preserve of the post-Zionist left, Palestinian hard-liners and left-leaning European intellectuals who envisioned turning Israel proper, the West Bank and Gaza into a single state in which the Palestinians soon would become the majority and assume the reins of government. For the overwhelming majority of Israelis, the idea has been anathema because it seemed to spell the end of the Zionist dream of a sovereign Jewish state. So what has changed? In a word: Gaza.

Excited Delirium

Is 'excited delirium' an actual cause of death or is it a euphemism for 'death by Taser?'

When Politicians Pledge to Keep Jobs At Home...

... it's time to ask who's producing their campaign commercials.

Is Use of Facebook and Twitter a Campaign Expenditure?

"My name is Joe Candidate, and I approved this tweet."

Should Professors Be Allowed to Run For Office?

"Faculty leaders at Central Michigan University have rebelled against a policy that, they say, gives administrators arbitrary power to forbid them to seek public office."

Seeds of Change

"The Story of ACORN, America's Most Controversial Antipoverty Community Organizing Group." Book rec of the day.