3 April 2010
by andrew
Comments Off on seeing and believing
Alana Newhouse’s article about photographer Roman Vishniac, his photographs, the stories he told with and about those photographs, and the evidence that challenges those stories, is really kind of fantastic. Never heard of Vishniac? (I hadn’t.) Not sure you’re interested? … Continue reading
29 December 2009
by andrew
Comments Off on no donuts, though
I wonder how many Americans experience their ethnicity most clearly through food. Ok, I’m not sure what it means to say that one is experiencing ethnicity, or what it means for that experience to be clearer, but in a social … Continue reading
18 December 2009
by andrew
2 Comments
You know those stories about immigrants having their names changed, not by their own choice, upon arrival at Ellis Island or other points of entry? I hadn’t given them much thought, but it turns out that most of the stories, … Continue reading
18 February 2009
by andrew
Comments Off on lactose prejudice
I used to have dairy products all the time as a kid: milk with cereal, milk with cream of wheat, ice cream, milk with cookies, and less often, milk on its own. Then I noticed that drinking milk by itself … Continue reading
16 February 2009
by andrew
Comments Off on outside the lines
This biography of Clarence King, geologist, geographer and more, sounds fascinating. I don’t know why it takes the New York Times review (via) so long to reveal that: What they did not know was that when King was not living … Continue reading
24 November 2008
by andrew
Comments Off on the fabric of society
It seems like Cory Booker is channeling Randolph Bourne (via): [vodpod id=Groupvideo.1793410&w=425&h=350&fv=autoPlay%3Dfalse] From Bourne’s “Trans-National America” (in the July 1916 Atlantic): The foreign cultures have not been melted down or run together, made into some homogeneous Americanism, but have remained … Continue reading
2 September 2008
by andrew
Comments Off on stand out
This remarkable story comes towards the end of Bob Herbert’s recent column about Obama’s convention speech: P.T. Cochran would agree. Mr. Cochran, 88, a retired appraiser for the city of Detroit, recalled a day in 1944 when he and a … Continue reading
12 July 2008
by andrew
5 Comments
Reading this, it occurred to me that the rich really are different from you* and me: they can afford to stay out of sight. Russ Alan Prince and Lewis Schiff describe a similar pattern in their book, The Middle-Class Millionaire, … Continue reading
16 June 2008
by andrew
Comments Off on history: older than it looks
If you’re reading this blog, you probably have already seen Rick Perlstein’s posts on Box 722. If you haven’t, they’re fascinating and you should go read them. I was struck by this statement in the second post: One thing to … Continue reading
10 April 2008
by andrew
3 Comments
Of the three articles linked here, I thought the New York Times one, which doesn’t really try to do much more than provide some information about people of mixed racial ancestry, was the most worthwhile. One of the things I’ve … Continue reading