"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
That's the first law of academic job talk as set forth by BU historian Bruce Schulman in an engrossing cautionary tale of a history department interview gone horribly bad.
Schulman is included in History News Network's roundup of Top Young Historians making a mark on the profession at a young age.
Not having read any of the books on originally seeing the film Master & Commander a few years back, I had no opinion on the casting of Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, a point of contention in some quarters.
Now, listening to Patrick Tull's outstanding audio-book readings of the series, I picture Aubrey in my mind's eye as a young Robert Hardy from his Siegried Farnon days on All Creatures Great & Small, before he went on to play Churchill.
As for Russell Crowe, he'd make a fine Richard Sharpe – an observation, come to find, that also has been made before at the Llamas'. On the Sharpe front, I checked out an episode of the Sean Bean series that ran on PBS and found it pretty much unwatchable: Heavy metal guitars do not a Napoleonic War saga make.
I did watch Master & Commander again a few weeks back and still found it entertaining – just not the Aubrey-Maturin of my imagination.
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I may have to try the Flashman series next on the recommendation of Man About Mayfair, whose fine blog is largely dedicated to staving off massed ranks of Dervishes and then dressing for dinner afterwards. Were my aftershave a website it would be Man About Mayfair.
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XX Ks: Twenty years ago today, some of my friends decided to head in to Fenway for the game. Did I want to meet them there? Nah, not that night. I came to regret my decision.
If you liked Monty Python's Minister for Running Upstairs Two at a Time, &c, you'll really like Matthew of the Holy Whapping's definitive list of papal nicknames. Among my favorites are Urban (VIII) the Guy Who Put Bees Everywhere, and Innocent (X) the Large Two-by-Four used to Whap People of Jansenism.
And while at the Whapping, be sure to check out Matthew's church drawings for his architectural thesis.
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My thanks to Richard Waghorne, of Sicilian Notes, himself a gentleman and a scholar, for his kind words. We Scoop Jacksonians must stick together.
He points the way to an interesting new pro-democracy initiative on the Left called the Euston Manifesto. The statement also is given play at Spinning Clio. Less than impressed is Reason's David Weigel, who sums up the idea thus: "We're liberals, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't nuke Iran."
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leafs a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
Our corner of New England is awash in forsythias. Their blooms are beautiful but only last a short while. What signal is it that tells all to flower at exactly the same time? The one above is in our backyard. Photo-bloggers at Flickr capture many more.
The foe long since in silence slept; Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
The bells in the First Congregational Church pealed today as the first runners in the men's race passed our vantage point in Natick Center, 10 miles into the Boston Marathon. I think eventual winner Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya, who went on to set a course record, can be seen in the middle of this picture.
Meantime, the Sox won the annual Patriots Day game at Fenway on a homerun with two outs in the bottom of the ninth.
Mother, why are people crowding now and staring? Child, it is a malefactor goes to His doom, To the high hill of Calvary He's faring, And the people pressing and pushing to make room Lest they miss the sight to come.
Oh, the poor malefactor, heavy is His load! Now He falls beneath it and they goad Him on. Sure the road to Calvary's a steep up-hill road -- Is there none to help Him with His Cross -- not one? Must He bear it all alone?
Here is a country boy with business in the city, Smelling of the cattle's breath and the sweet hay; Now they bid him lift the Cross, so they have some pity: Child, they fear the malefactor dies on the way And robs them of their play.
Has He no friends then, no father nor mother, None to wipe the sweat away nor pity His fate? There's a woman weeping and there's none to soothe her: Child, it is well the seducer expiate His crimes that are so great.
Mother, did I dream He once bent above me, This poor seducer with the thorn-crowned head, His hands on my hair and His eyes seemed to love me? Suffer little children to come to Me, He said -- His hair, his brows drip red.
Hurrying through Jerusalem on business or pleasure People hardly pause to see Him go to His death Whom they held five days ago more than a King's treasure, Shouting Hosannas, flinging many a wreath For this Jesus of Nazareth.
He was sometimes depicted with Native Americans in feathered headdress, apparently due to artistic confusion over the term 'Indian.'
His statue is seen in the ornate retablo of Mission San Xavier del Bac, founded in the Arizona desert by Fr Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit from the Tyrolean Alps who introduced Christianity to the Pima Indians of New Spain. A photograph by Ansel Adams captures the mission's arches.
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Thursday, April 06, 2006
Mazel Tov to Mr & Mrs RP & Family on the happy arrival of BC2!
Watching the pitching and hitting on game day, my hair damp underneath my cap, I hear the melody of bats. Baseballs travel through space, full of voice. Full of ghosts and sense-sound fantasy. For a moment, a homer hangs in the air, then sails past the old-timers. Past the rookies. The stadium can barely contain their youth.
His name is Charlie, and he's a two-toed sloth. He lived mostly in a box when we first got him. Now he likes to hang from the ceiling fan, and sleeps through it when the kids put him on low spin. He also likes to drink, mostly rum.
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