November 01, 2004

Menand on J.F.K.

This week's New Yorker features an entertaining review, by Louis Menand, of a new book on John F. Kennedy's inauguration as president. My favorite passage:


At the inaugural ceremony, Cardinal Cushing, of Boston, delivering the invocation, notices smoke issuing from the lectern. Believing it to indicate the presence of an assassin’s bomb, the Cardinal slows down what is already being regarded as an interminable address, in the hope that, when the bomb goes off, his body will shield Kennedy from the blast. (The smoking stopped when an electrician yanked, more or less at random, one of the wires running under the lectern.)

In other fun New Yorker articles, Meghan O'Rourke looks back at Nancy Drew's "father" (Edward Stratemeyer) and Malcolm Gladwell revisits the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.

On a more serious note, Rick Perlstein has launched a new blog--Operation Eagle Eye. I don't know if it's a permanent new feature or just an Election Week look at voting chicanery, but either way, it's well worth a look. The blog's inaugural post explains the website's name and discusses Republican vote suppression efforts in 1964.

Posted by Ed at November 1, 2004 12:02 PM
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