More link laziness

I have a lot to do today, and won't have a substantive post until later this afternoon or this evening. To tide you all over, here are some links:

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• Did Texas Governor John Connally lure John F. Kennedy to Dallas in November 1963? Was LBJ behind the assassination? A History Channel documentary has made these allegations, and several former Johnson aides have now called for a probe of the show.
  
• One man, former Ted Kennedy aide Kenneth R. Feinberg, determines the monetary value of every life lost on September 11, according to this Boston Globe Magazine profile.
  
• What happened to the freed American slaves who moved to Liberia? One group of them, it seems, sought to replicate their life in the ante-bellum South, creating new plantations, naming their community "Mississippi," and even enslaving their neighbors.
  
• The Library of Congress has unveiled an exhibit on Winston Churchill.
  
• Georgia Senator (and Vietnam veteran) Max Cleland was beaten for reelection when Republicans questioned his patriotism. At The New Republic, Jonathan Cohn asks if the same thing could happen to John Kerry.
  
• The historian Alan Bullock has died at 89. So has the KGB archivist Vasilii Mitrokhin.
  
• Ron Suskind, whose book on former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill included several controversial revelations, is now putting the documents that led to those revelations online. (To see an entertaining note by O'Neill, go to this Wonkette post.)
  
• Brian Ulrich has written an interesting post about Bernard Lewis, Edward Said, and Middle Eastern history.
  
• Adam Hochschild has written a fascinating article on the history of the British anti-slavery movement for Mother Jones.
  
• Tomorrow's Moscow Times features several interesting articles on culture: a review of a newly translated book on the death of Marina Tsvetaeva, a description of the set used in the film version of a turn-of-the-century terrorist's autobiographical novel, and a column on Russian phone etiquette by Michele Berdy.
  
• The Exile, a Russian publication best known for its tastelessness, has published a long rant against Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. ("The charges: treason and sabotage. Jackson’s three Lord of the Rings films are designed to sabotage all the most noble and unworldly elements of Tolkien’s story, depriving poor Middle Earth disciples of their last dream refuge.") It's kind of entertaining at times, but it's so long that I couldn't reach the end.
  
• The Village Voice criticizes the "pale version of history" in Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain.
  
• Does chewing gum help you learn?
  

Another substantive post will come sometime soon--this afternoon, tonight, or tomorrow...

Update: I've just read this Josh Cherniss post on the death of Alan Bullock, which linked to several more obituaries (including those by The Independent and The Telegraph.) As usual, The Telegraph's obituary is the best written and the most charming; my sense is that it does the best job of assessing his work (describing it as workmanlike and competent but not the most imaginative), and it also does a nice job discussing his involvement in politics and his work in university administration. Bullock sounds like an interesting guy.

Posted by Ed at February 5, 2004 01:01 PM