The Times has a good collection of documents regarding re-authorization.

I’ve long complained about the impossible situation librarians are put in within Philadelphia’s wonderful system of free libraries.  Here,a librarian from Salt Lake City lays it all out.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Mark Twain.
(digging for citation).

“Money can’t buy you class, character, or salvation.”

Realizing as I grade a series of midterms for a class where I did not assign a comprehensive textbook that a “bad” reading of a textbook produces much more than a “bad” reading of a monograph or a provocative article.

In other words, students still get something from the time they spend with a textbook — no matter how badly written or tediously designed — but it appears as though the rewards of genuine readings can only be realized if the “reading” is done well.
Scary, I think.  I hoped that giving provocative, well-written academic articles would create better discussions and lead to more interesting mid-term exams.

It appears that I erred.

“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, “Would an idiot do that,” and if they would, I do not do that thing.”

E.H. Carr, What is History 1961.

Much of what has been written in English-speaking countries in the last ten years about the Soviet Union, and in the Soviet Union about the English-speaking countries, has been vitiated by this inability to achieve even the most elementary measure of imaginative understanding of what goes on in the mind of the other party, so that the words and actions of the other are always made to appear malign, senseless, or hypocritical. History cannot be written unless the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those about whom he is writing.

Re-write 2007 ?
Much of what has been written in English-speaking countries in the last ten years about the Middle East, and in the Middle East about the English-speaking countries, has been vitiated by this inability to achieve even the most elementary measure of imaginative understanding of what goes on in the mind of the other party, so that the words and actions of the other are always made to appear malign, senseless, or hypocritical. History cannot be written unless the historian can achieve some kind of contact with the mind of those about whom he is writing.

Man, writing is hard.

Self: en dash is the short dash. It’s used for closed range things and for linking things together.

An em dash is the long dash. Quoting from the wiki:

The em dash indicates a sudden break in thought—a parenthetical statement like this one—or an open range (such as “John Doe, 1987—”). The em dash is used in much the way a colon or set of parentheses is used: it can show an abrupt change in thought or be used where a period is too strong and a comma too weak. Em dashes are sometimes used in lists or definitions, but this is not considered correct usage^{[citation needed]}: a colon should be used instead.

Russell Baker surveys Stephen Miller’s new book, Conversation: A History of a Declining Art, in a recent issue of the New York Review of Books, .

What I liked was his description of what makes a good conversation:

Both participants listen attentively to each other; neither tries to promote himself by pleasing the other; both are obviously enjoying an intellectual workout; neither spoils the evening’s peaceable air by making a speech or letting disagreement flare into anger; they do not make tedious attempts to be witty. They observe classic conversational etiquette with a self-discipline that would have pleased Michel de Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, or any of a dozen other old masters of good talk whom Miller cites as authorities.

This etiquette, Miller says, is essential if conversation is to rise to the level of—well, “good conversation.” The etiquette is hard on hotheads, egomaniacs, windbags, clowns, politicians, and zealots. The good conversationalist must never go purple with rage, like people on talk radio; never tell a long-winded story, like Joseph Conrad; and never boast that his views enjoy divine approval, like a former neighbor of mine whose car bumper declared, “God Said It, I Believe It, And That Settles It.”

I’d like to snip this and put it in the opening portion of my next few syllabi…

“Now it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.”