Here’s a fascinating account of the 1945 Yalta conference from the point of view of Robert Hopkins, son of FDR advisor Harry Hopkins, who attended as an official photographer.
(via Milt’s File)
History
New Criterion Looks at History
Mark Arkin, in the current (June) New Criterion, reviews David Hackett Fischer’s Liberty & Freedom: A Visual History of America’s Founding Ideas. (The review, “On the March”, is not available—at least yet—at the journal’s website.) This, the second in Fischer’s proposed series that began with Albion’s Seed (1989), is monumental–the review praises its power and breadth. He argues “one of the most successful parts” analyzes the various icons chosen by different areas of the country to represent “liberty”. Arkin has clearly found Fischer’s eye for the representative anecdote enjoyable and enlightening; these analyses shows us the patterns Fischer finds, ones in which the past & present intertwine. The work is intimidating; he argues “this is a work best dipped into at leisure, not read cover to cover” and concludes with a firm conclusion the work “is a monumental achievement and an extraordinary work of history.”
Long Live the King
King of Pop dethroned in bloodless coup. — Headline from The Onion
While laid up and channel surfing recently I flipped past a lot of celebrity-news shows. It seemed that every third time I did so the story was about some legal trouble caused by the celebrity’s extreme behavior. Watching all this weirdness it suddenly struck me that we could have it much worse than having to hear about the celebrity trial du jour. In a previous age, we would have had these nut-jobs ruling over us.
UPDATE: Sen. McCain’s Amendment to NAGPRA
John McCain has been trying to sneak in an amendment to NAGPRA, The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, that would effectively gut it for the benefit of a few Indian tribes. (Previous posts on this topic are here and here.) This is a big deal, because if the tribes get their way they will be able to veto the study of any prehistoric human remains found in the USA, even if those remains have no connection to existing tribes.
Moira Breen, who has been at the forefront of Internet efforts to block the hijacking of NAGPRA, reports that popular opposition to McCain has had some effect, but that McCain is not giving up and plans a stacked hearing to ram his amendment through. It is therefore important for concerned individuals to contact their Congressional representatives (again) ASAP and make their opinions known.
I repost Moira’s note in its entirety:
Status update on S.536 Section 108:
Thanks again to all of you who blogged on McCain’s stealth amendment to NAGPRA
(Section 108, S.536). A public hearing on this amendment is now scheduled
for 14 June. I heard through the grapevine that the decision to hold a
hearing on this deplorable “‘was’ vs. ‘is'” amendment was effected by the
number and variety of citizens who wrote in protest. I know many people
wrote to say they’d contacted their congressmen; I’d like to think the
blogosphere had a hand in getting this into the light.
Danish Wartime Photos
Erik Petersen, a Danish press photographer whose career began around 1939 and who died in 1997, left an archive of hundreds of films he had taken during the war but had never shown to anyone. Now some of these photos are available online and they are well worth a look. Not only do they provide new information and perspective on an important period, many of them are also quite beautiful as images. They are obviously products of someone who had an unusually good eye.
(This online discussion provides some background info. A book of Petersen’s work is also available.)