Friday Night Lights v. Glee

In this past weekend's New York Times Magazine Heather Havrilesky tries to explain why Glee has become a phenomenon and Friday Night Lights struggled to find an audience despite FNL being a vastly superior show.

I like Glee (hey, I was a music nerd in high school, college, and beyond). But Friday Night Lights is one of the greatest shows ever to grace the small screen. In my ranking it trails only The Wire, and in many ways Friday Night Lights is as powerful and sometimes moreso.

The Ten Worst Men in Sports

Hate. Glorious, glorious hate.

FML in "A Merry Claremont Christmas" (Self Indulgence Alert)

I was touched to discover recently that my former Ph.D. advisor and my friend Alonzo Hamby recently included Freedom's Main Line in his contribution to the Claremont Review of Books' annual "A Merry Claremont Christmas" holiday book recommendations.

Pre-Holiday Links

Super-duper pre-holiday quick hits from things that have caught my eye of late:

I'm very much interested in reading John Milton Cooper's massive new biography of Woodrow Wilson.

If you want to get stuff you almost always have to pay for it. Taxes are not a form of creeping socialism. They are a sign of a responsible society. There is a huge difference.

Spin has a slideshow of its 40 Best Albums of 2009. Begin debating now. (I must be getting old. I sort of miss the days when reading a simple list, preferably with annotations forming some sort of argument, was enough to kickstart a debate. The slideshow googaw takles a lot of time, is inconvenient, does not actually facilitate anything, but it does have images. And it takes up more bandwidth. So that's something.)

Most of the climate change doubters are basically fools. But you knew that already. I hope.

The quality of Cornel West's work has, in the minds of many, gone seriously downhill. The trajectory pretty much is in direct negative relationship with his public fame.

Invictus was very good and reasonably historically accurate. I'm working on an essay on the movie, the book on which it is based, and another book on South African sport. Hopefully I'll have good news on that front down the road.

Feeling Old

Every year Beloit College sends out the "mindset list" which is, essentially, geared to make faculty members feel old. Here is this year's list (take your antidepressants now) of what this year's typical college freshman knows of the world:

1. Dan Rostenkowski, Jack Kevorkian, and Mike Tyson have always been felons.

2. The Green Giant has always been Shrek, not the big guy picking vegetables.

3. They have never used a card catalog to find a book.

4. Margaret Thatcher has always been a former prime minister.

5. Salsa has always outsold ketchup.

6. Earvin "Magic" Johnson has always been HIV-positive.

7. Tattoos have always been very chic and highly visible.

8. They have been preparing for the arrival of HDTV all their lives.

9. Rap music has always been mainstream.

10. Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream has always been a flavor choice.

11. Someone has always been building something taller than the Willis (née Sears) Tower in Chicago.

12. The KGB has never officially existed.

13. Text has always been hyper.

14. They never saw the “Scud Stud” (but there have always been electromagnetic stud finders.)

15. Babies have always had a Social Security Number.

16. They have never had to “shake down” an oral thermometer.

17. Bungee jumping has always been socially acceptable.

18. They have never understood the meaning of R.S.V.P.

19. American students have always lived anxiously with high-stakes educational testing.

20. Except for the present incumbent, the President has never inhaled.

21. State abbreviations in addresses have never had periods.

22. The European Union has always existed.

23. McDonald's has always been serving Happy Meals in China.

24. Condoms have always been advertised on television.

25. Cable television systems have always offered telephone service and vice versa.

26. Christopher Columbus has always been getting a bad rap.

27. The American health care system has always been in critical condition.

28. Bobby Cox has always managed the Atlanta Braves.

29. Desperate smokers have always been able to turn to Nicoderm skin patches.

30. There has always been a Cartoon Network.

31. The nation’s key economic indicator has always been the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

32. Their folks could always reach for a Zoloft.

33. They have always been able to read books on an electronic screen.

34. Women have always outnumbered men in college.

35. We have always watched wars, coups, and police arrests unfold on television in real time.

36. Brits have always owned The New York Daily News.

37. Amateur radio operators have never needed to know Morse code.

38. Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Latvia, Georgia, Lithuania, and Estonia have always been independent nations.

39. It's always been official: President Zachary Taylor did not die of arsenic poisoning.

40. Madonna’s perspective on Sex has always been well documented.

41. Phil Jackson has always been coaching championship basketball.

42. Ozzy Osbourne has always been coming back.

43. Kevin Costner has always been Dancing with Wolves, especially on cable.

44. There have always been flat screen televisions.

45. They have always eaten Berry Berry Kix.

46. Disney’s Fantasia has always been available on video, and It’s a Wonderful Life has always been on Moscow television.

47. Smokers have never been promoted as an economic force that deserves respect.

48. Elite American colleges have never been able to fix the price of tuition.

49. Nobody has been able to make a deposit in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

50. Everyone has always known what the evening news was before the Evening News came on.

51. Britney Spears has always been heard on classic rock stations.

52. They have never been Saved by the Bell.

53. Someone has always been asking: “Was Iraq worth a war?”

54. Most communities have always had a mega-church.

55. Natalie Cole has always been singing with her father.

56. The status of gays in the military has always been a topic of political debate.

57. Elizabeth Taylor has always reeked of White Diamonds.

58. There has always been a Planet Hollywood.

59. For one reason or another, California’s future has always been in doubt.

60. Agent Starling has always feared the Silence of the Lambs.

61. “Womyn” and “waitperson” have always been in the dictionary.

62. Members of Congress have always had to keep their checkbooks balanced since the closing of the House Bank.

63. There has always been a computer in the Oval Office.

64. CDs have never been sold in cardboard packaging.

65. Avon has always been “calling” in a catalog.

66. NATO has always been looking for a role.

67. Two Koreas have always been members of the UN.

68. Official racial classifications in South Africa have always been outlawed.

69. The NBC Today Show has always been seen on weekends.

70. Vice presidents of the United States have always had real power.

71. Conflict in Northern Ireland has always been slowly winding down.

72. Migration of once independent media like radio, TV, videos and compact discs to the computer has never amazed them.

73. Nobody has ever responded to “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

74. Congress could never give itself a mid-term raise.

75. There has always been blue Jell-O.

I feel ancient, and to the incoming freshman, I probably am.

Fueling A Child's Imagination

Click here to see The 17 Least Appropriate Playmobil Sets For Children. My personal favorite has to be the cop arresting the bum on a bench, but there are lots of good options.

Canon Culling

There is so much out there to read and so little time. And very few of us, myself included, have come even close to covering the (mythical) canon of books that fill us with guilt for not having cracked their spines. The Second Pass has helpfully culled ten books from the canon and decided that you do not, in fact, need to read them. naturally there will be lots of debate as to their choices, but I think the larger point is that we do not have to feel bad about not reading or not liking books that have gotten the stamp of approval from whoever it is that establishes these sorts of things.

Box Office Reconsidered

For years I have argued that the foundational way Hollywood measures the success of a movie is fundamentally flawed. Box office may be what Hollywood is all about, but in trying to place movies within their context, the idea that box office totals, which go unadjusted for inflation, are even vaguely apt is just stupid. Of course box office records are going to be broken all the time when movie tickets approach (and in some markets have long passed) $10 a pop.

Finally someone has done the work to try to make sense of the figures. (Via Matthew Yglesias) Zachary Pincus-Roth has addressed this very vexing issue. Here is the adjusted list: (The movie title is given, then the abbreviation of the studio, the first dollar figure is the adjusted gross while the second is the unadjusted gross, a number that nearly across the board should reveal the absurdity of simply giving the gross and assuming that it tells us anything, especially since it is always invoked to try to make historical assertions. Finally the list includes the year of the film's release. let's hope cutting and pasting does not prove to be a formatting nightmare.)

1 Gone with the Wind MGM $1,450,680,400 $198,676,459 1939^
2 Star Wars Fox $1,278,898,700 $460,998,007 1977^
3 The Sound of Music Fox $1,022,542,400 $158,671,368 1965
4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Uni. $1,018,514,100 $435,110,554 1982^
5 The Ten Commandments Par. $940,580,000 $65,500,000 1956
6 Titanic Par. $921,523,500 $600,788,188 1997
7 Jaws Uni. $919,605,900 $260,000,000 1975
8 Doctor Zhivago MGM $891,292,600 $111,721,910 1965
9 The Exorcist WB $793,883,100 $232,671,011 1973^
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Dis. $782,620,000 $184,925,486 1937^
11 101 Dalmatians Dis. $717,405,900 $144,880,014 1961^
12 The Empire Strikes Back Fox $704,937,000 $290,475,067 1980^
13 Ben-Hur MGM $703,640,000 $74,000,000 1959
14 Return of the Jedi Fox $675,346,600 $309,306,177 1983^
15 The Sting Uni. $640,045,700 $156,000,000 1973
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark Par. $632,858,500 $242,374,454 1981^
17 Jurassic Park Uni. $618,957,900 $357,067,947 1993
18 The Graduate AVCO $614,402,600 $104,901,839 1967^
19 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Fox $609,049,300 $431,088,301 1999
20 Fantasia Dis. $596,252,200 $76,408,097 1941^
21 The Godfather Par. $566,664,000 $134,966,411 1972^
22 Forrest Gump Par. $563,957,500 $329,694,499 1994
23 Mary Poppins Dis. $561,345,500 $102,272,727 1964^
24 The Lion King BV $554,524,300 $328,541,776 1994^
25 Grease Par. $552,298,200 $188,389,888 1978^
26 Thunderball UA $537,064,000 $63,595,658 1965
27 The Dark Knight WB $533,345,300 $533,345,358 2008
28 The Jungle Book Dis. $529,021,800 $141,843,612 1967^
29 Sleeping Beauty Dis. $521,814,100 $51,600,000 1959^
30 Shrek 2 DW $510,145,700 $441,226,247 2004
31 Ghostbusters Col. $507,845,800 $238,632,124 1984^
32 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Fox $506,605,400 $102,308,889 1969
33 Love Story Par. $502,586,700 $106,397,186 1970
34 Spider-Man Sony $498,900,500 $403,706,375 2002
35 Independence Day Fox $497,350,500 $306,169,268 1996
36 Home Alone Fox $486,331,500 $285,761,243 1990
37 Pinocchio Dis. $483,955,900 $84,254,167 1940^
38 Cleopatra (1963) Fox $482,377,300 $57,777,778 1963
39 Beverly Hills Cop Par. $482,137,100 $234,760,478 1984
40 Goldfinger UA $476,034,000 $51,081,062 1964
41 Airport Uni. $474,679,000 $100,489,151 1970
42 American Graffiti Uni. $471,828,600 $115,000,000 1973
43 The Robe Fox $469,963,600 $36,000,000 1953
44 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest BV $464,031,700 $423,315,812 2006
45 Around the World in 80 Days UA $463,938,500 $42,000,000 1956
46 Bambi RKO $457,455,400 $102,247,150 1942^
47 Blazing Saddles WB $453,973,600 $119,500,000 1974
48 Batman WB $452,014,200 $251,188,924 1989
49 The Bells of St. Mary's RKO $450,509,800 $21,333,333 1945
50 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King NL $441,843,800 $377,027,325 2003
51 The Towering Inferno Fox $440,677,300 $116,000,000 1974
52 Spider-Man 2 Sony $431,939,800 $373,585,825 2004
53 My Fair Lady WB $430,800,000 $72,000,000 1964
54 The Greatest Show on Earth Par. $430,800,000 $36,000,000 1952
55 National Lampoon's Animal House Uni. $430,012,100 $141,600,000 1978^
56 The Passion of the Christ NM $428,680,800 $370,782,930 2004^
57 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith Fox $425,950,500 $380,270,577 2005
58 Back to the Future Uni. $423,983,700 $210,609,762 1985
59 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers NL $413,786,400 $341,786,758 2002^
60 The Sixth Sense BV $413,418,100 $293,506,292 1999
61 Superman WB $411,831,400 $134,218,018 1978
62 Tootsie Col. $408,570,300 $177,200,000 1982
63 Smokey and the Bandit Uni. $408,060,400 $126,737,428 1977
64 Finding Nemo BV $404,503,100 $339,714,978 2003
65 West Side Story MGM $401,866,600 $43,656,822 1961
66 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone WB $401,455,200 $317,575,550 2001
67 Lady and the Tramp Dis. $400,176,500 $93,602,326 1955^
68 Close Encounters of the Third Kind Col. $399,032,400 $132,088,635 1977^
69 Lawrence of Arabia Col. $397,653,900 $44,824,144 1962^
70 The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fox $395,398,500 $112,892,319 1975
71 Rocky UA $395,187,000 $117,235,147 1976
72 The Best Years of Our Lives RKO $394,900,000 $23,650,000 1946
73 The Poseidon Adventure Fox $394,196,100 $84,563,118 1972
74 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring NL $392,774,200 $314,776,170 2001^
75 Twister WB $392,660,800 $241,721,524 1996
76 Men in Black Sony $392,147,700 $250,690,539 1997
77 The Bridge on the River Kwai Col. $390,592,000 $27,200,000 1957
78 It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World MGM $386,825,500 $46,332,858 1963
79 Swiss Family Robinson Dis. $386,341,400 $40,356,000 1960
80 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest UA $385,460,900 $108,981,275 1975
81 M.A.S.H. Fox $385,452,600 $81,600,000 1970
82 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Par. $384,365,600 $179,870,271 1984
83 Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones Fox $383,903,600 $310,676,740 2002^
84 Mrs. Doubtfire Fox $378,273,900 $219,195,243 1993
85 Aladdin BV $376,536,100 $217,350,219 1992
86 Ghost Par. $369,520,300 $217,631,306 1990
87 Duel in the Sun Selz. $366,326,500 $20,408,163 1946
88 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl BV $363,659,100 $305,413,918 2003
89 House of Wax WB $362,819,100 $23,750,000 1953
90 Rear Window Par. $361,547,000 $36,764,313 1954^
91 The Lost World: Jurassic Park Uni. $358,353,400 $229,086,679 1997
92 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Par. $354,810,400 $197,171,806 1989
93 Spider-Man 3 Sony $351,204,600 $336,530,303 2007
94 Terminator 2: Judgment Day TriS $349,352,800 $204,843,345 1991
95 Sergeant York WB $345,524,500 $16,361,885 1941
96 How the Grinch Stole Christmas Uni. $345,407,000 $260,044,825 2000
97 Toy Story 2 BV $343,466,200 $245,852,179 1999^
98 Top Gun Par. $342,137,100 $176,786,701 1986
99 Shrek DW $339,546,800 $267,665,011 2001
100 Shrek the Third P/DW $336,792,000 $322,719,944 2007

Professional golf and other sports sometimes have unadjusted historical money lists, but they also have other, more important, and more germane measurements -- tournaments won, Major titles, and so forth -- that the effrontery of the money list is far less problematic.

Keele Diary #16

Well, I guess today is a social day on campus here at Keele. I was invited to coffee by one of the senior historians whose classes I sat in on, and who chaired my research seminar, and when we got there we met a gaggle of other members of the faculty, which got me a lunch invitation for next week. I just got back from visiting with another of the professors, the head of the Bruce Centre, who has been in Germany for the last fortnight. We made plans for him to show me some of the local sights that I still have not gotten to. That will also give me the chance to buy a nice gift that will allow me back into my house back at home.

When I got back form Oxford I was in a bit of doldrums, I must admit. But suddenly just a few days later I realize that I am a short-timer here at Keele. One week from today I will be on an American Airlines plane bound for the United States. (Just as a courtesy -- if you are flying internationally, I'd avoid American. It is a terrible, terrible international airline. And I have flown a lot of different airlines, so I do have a broad basis for comparison. Come to think of it, I'd avoid American domestically as well, but given that my choices on the domestic front flying from Midland-Odessa tend to be Southwest or American first and foremost, I just have to live with American's awful, awful, bad, terribleness. Have I mentioned the awfulness?) Given that my calendar is beginning to fill up, my guess is that the next few days will fly by fairly quickly.

With a week to go, here are seven things I am very much looking forward to:

1) Seeing Mrs. dcat. These long trips were a lot easier when I was single, as there was no one to miss back home. Damn her and her ways!
2) My shower. I am really seriously sick of taking baths every morning.
3) Wearing shorts and a t-shirt. They say here that rainy Mays equal great summers. Good for them. I want to see some sun. To hell with the UK summer!
4) Mexican food (4a) My kitchen. I am going to cook a fifteen course meal (give or take) my first day back. I've been able to do some decent cooking in my flat, but ingredients are of necessity limited, the space is tiny, and my tools are fairly shoddy.
5)TV. Or not just tv, but my tv, and especially sports plus my accumulated tivo fare plus bucketloads of digital cable channels.
6) Different clothes. I get sick of the same suitcase load of options, even if I packed reasonably thoroughly enough.
7) My bed. Queen size, nice pillows, a good mattress. Oh -- and a warm body. (See #1).

Oh -- did I mention that it's rainy again today? Did I really need to?

Winningest Sports Cities?

The Toronto Star produced the following map (accompanying this article) showing the "winningest sports cities" in North America:

Now I fully expected Boston to rank at the top -- I could not even think of a city that would come close. So how to explain the methodology, and therefore the results, whereby Indianapolis (with exactly one championship during the time period under discussion, the period since 2000) ranks number one and three Canadian cities are in the top ten? (With Vancouver being ranked #3 -- do they count the Grizzlies, who did not leave town until after the 200-2001 season, in which the Grizz had a .280 winning percentage? Or the second half of a 1999-2000 season when they were slightly worse?)

First, they are going solely by winning percentage. Which is just inane -- in the time that Indy has won one title between its two teams that count (the Pacers and the Colts) the Boston teams IN THOSE SAME TWO SPORTS have won four championships. And the Red Sox have added two. Winning percentages in sports with actual championships are fairly meaningless as anything other than a rough aggregate. North America isn't the freaking British Premier League. And thank God for that, though relegation in our sports leagues would be awesome.

But how to explain the Canadian presence? Well, despite not counting Major League Soccer -- an exclusion I can live with, though why include the NHL in that case? -- the survey counts THE CANADIAN FUCKING FOOTBALL LEAGUE! That's right -- Vancouver's football team counts as much as the Cleveland Browns just because they are in the position every year of winning their Gray Cup. Any of the worst Cleveland Browns teams of any one of the last ten years (which provides a bevy of options) would take an all star team drawn from the best Canadian Football League team of the last ten years and would rape, pillage, plunder, and rape that team again. This is not even an argument I will have. I am simply right.

Look -- no argument drives me insane more than when some nimrod claims that a great college sports team in any given year would beat the worst professional team in that sport. The best team will have ten to twenty guys become professionals, not all of whom will pan out. The worst professional team still consists of much more talented players all of whom, tautologically enough, managed to become professional football players. Last season's historically woeful Detroit Lions would beat last year's Florida Gators by fifty every time out. But I will make the claim that the collegiate "national champion" (fuck the BCS) in any given year would easily be able to compete in the CFL, which draws its talent from a pool that does not include the 250+ new players drafted into the NFL. The talent disparity so clear between even the worst (real) professional team and the best college team in that same sport is fully mitigated when talking about the talent level in the CFL.

Anyhow, the upshot: The Toronto Star sports section is clearly populated by ridge-browed asstards.

This is why we should probably just take over Canada.

Git Yer Hot Dogs Here!

MSN has one man's opinions on the seven best hot dog places in the country. I cannot vouch for any of them, but any time we can talk about hot dogs is a good time here at dcat. Indeed, we had a great conversation on this topic when I raised a similar issue, listing some of my own favorites, at the late great Rebunk.

Ranking the Presidents, Again

Over at Cliopatria KC Johnson brings his insight to C-SPAN's second survey of presidential leadership. He is particularly interested in exploring why there was so much relative volatility in the assessments from the last survey to this one. Some of his examples do not bother me: Why did President Clinton leap past George H.W. Bush? I dunno -- probably because by just about any measure he was a more successful, a better, a more important president? But his larger point about the temporal, indeed presentist, nature of these rankings is well worth remembering.

These exercises, however methodologically sound or flawed, are best viewed as parlor games and cocktail party fodder and are not worth much more. I've always been more interested in presidential impact than on presidential "greatness." That said, here is my "top ten" list, with all of the vagaries that term implies, with the recognition of my own clear biases -- I am a 20th century historian and I am a liberal and a Democrat -- and which could be different tomorrow and may have been different yesterday:

1) Abraham Lincoln
2) Franklin Roosevelt
3) George Washington
4) Harry Truman
5) Theodore Roosevelt
6) Lyndon Johnson
7) Woodrow Wilson
8) Thomas Jefferson
9) Dwight Eisenhower
10) Andrew Jackson

One lesson I draw from coming up with my own list is that the depth chart for United States Presidents does not go all that deep. That surely speaks to the nature of the job more than it does to the men who have held it. The presidency is a position almost built to conquer those who attain it.

Holidays to Avoid

Feeling wanderlust? In the Times of London Sam Jordison (author of the book Sod That! - 103 Things Not To Do Before You Die) has an amusing annotated list of "twenty holidays you should never take."

The C's Top Ten?

In an early effort to place the Celtics' recent title in historical perspective, Bob Ryan ranks his Top Ten Celtics teams of all time. Not surprisingly, the 1985-1986 team tops his list. Surprisingly this year's team gets number two. But most shocking to me is that of his top ten, three did not win the championship, and one did not even make the finals. Bob Ryan may be the most respected basketball writer in history, so I will tread lightly with my criticism, but it seems a dubious decision to argue that the team that has the most NBA titles has three teams that were better than ten championship teams. I am firmly of the belief that "better" being subjective, winning it all is a better sign of greatness than whatever we project onto teams that did not win it all. Still, the whole excercise is thought provoking, serves as a reminder of the storied history of the C's, and is fully worth it if only for this picture:

The Arms Race

Sports Illustrated has a photo gallery of the 15 best seasons by a pitcher since the expansion era began in 1961. they cop out without ranking them, but rather provide the pictures in chronological order, earliest to most recent. Argue among yourselves.

The best I have ever seen when he was in his prime?

Overrated Movies

This list of overrated movies is, like most exercises of its ilk, intended to provoke arguments. Of the ten films included here, all have rated as all-time greats by critics or awards or box office or reputation or some combination thereof, and there should be plenty to inspire debate or disagreement. Let me state that I wholeheartedly agree with the inclusion and placement of the number one (that is to say "worst") movie on this list, which I find to be categorically awful.

New Year Wishes

8 things that I hope to see happen in 2008 (tagged by koplobpobajob via Iain Dale) not necessarily in any particular order:

1) The addition of a little dcat progeny (and no, this is not a subtle attempt to make an announcement).
2) The publication of my Freedom Ride book. This should happen in the fall. I hope.
3) 19-0, Celtic Pride in June, a Sox repeat.
4) Tenure.
5) A Democratic victory in November (preferably Obama, but I have not 100% committed).
6) Resolution to crises in Darfur, Zimbabwe, Somalia.
7) An alternative to Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki in the South African succession struggle. (Cyril Ramaphosa, are you listening?)
8) The chance to return to South Africa.

And as an added bonus: A happy, prosperous New Year to all of my readers.

Literary Forays

A few bits and pieces on literature and public intellectuals have cauight my eye in recent days. here's a rundown for your reading pleasure. After poring through them I feel a bit guilty about not providing some deep thoughts and well-constructed insights, but sometimes it's ok to let the work speak for itself.

At The New Republic Christopher Benfey reviews two vital Library of America collections of Edmund Wilson's work. Benfey describes Wilson as "a marmoreal figure, a sort of jowly Supreme Court justice of the literary imagination" in this long and often insightful review essay. The Library of America has been for a long time now creating an indispensible, well, library of American writers and their works with far-ranging tastes and interests. These two volumes fit perfectly into the LOA mission.

At the Chronicle Review historian Michal Kazin wrestles with living in the shadow of a towering figure in American intellectual life. I am far more familiar with the work of the father than the son, so the whole thing seems a bit dynastic for my decidedly not to-the-menner-born background, but Kazin treats his subject, which is in some ways himself, with honety and verve and in so doing tells us something about the changing nature of the American life of the mind in the past half century and more.

In the most recent New York Times Sunday Book Review Gil Troy reviews (Williams alum) Edward Larson's new book on the 1800 election, A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign. The review and the book now have me thinking about an op-ed I might write comparing the 1800 election to a more current affair.

Finally, for those of you into lists (and the untilately false but reassuring hierarchy and order they provide) the Sunday Book review has also provided lists of 100 Notable Books of the Year and the ten best books of 2007. I'd be interested to hear your choices for 2007's best books given that I am voting for just such an honor in the next few weeks and would like to be reminded of some of the good stuff, from all genres, that came out in 2007.

Ten Stories You Missed

Foreign Policy has a list of the top ten stories you missed in 2007. Naturally I'd like to point out that we almost always "miss" stories on Africa, and as if to prove my point, notice the paucity of Africa-related stories on this list of what you missed in 2007. That's, like, irony or something.

Most Walkable Cities

The Brookings Institution has ranked America's most walkable cities. The top five are Washington, DC, Boston (some Bostonians are miffed about coming in second to DC), San Francisco, Denver, and Portland, Oregon. I'm pretty ecumenical about the DC-Boston walkability debate. They are two of my favorites cities in which to walk,and as with just about any sort of ranking like this one, it's all pretty capricious so that the difference between, say, number one and number 5 seems pretty meaningless.