Arthur D. Hlavaty

Interview with Jill Lepore, one of our best popular historians. Here’s a particularly good part:

One of the really staggering things to me about the great “newspaper death watch” of 2009 was the jeering jubilance of disruptors, their astounding confidence in the genius and efficiency of a new system of communication that, at the end of the day, did one thing above all: it killed the editor. Here’s a way to think about that: what percentage of everything “published” in, say, 1952—that is, every radio and television broadcast, every magazine, newspaper, newsletter, book—was edited, in the sense that it passed through the hands of at least one person whose entire job was to consider the judiciousness and reasonableness of the argument and the quality of the evidence? Let’s say—wild guess—more than 98 percent. And how much of everything “published” in 2017—every post, comment, clip—is edited? Who knows, but let’s say, less than 2 percent

Thanx to Arts & Letters Daily

The real “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”

Thanx to andrewducker

Even Bill O’Reilly has noticed that Ronald Reagan was showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s through at least his second term.

Thanx to Charles P. Pierce.

I see that Niall Ferguson has begun a multivolume fellation of Henry Kissinger; Donald Trump might have enough money to pay me to read it. He once condescended to Jane Smiley for admitting that she writes historical fiction. She tells us about it.

Thanx to Metafilter

Even George Will has realized that Richard Nixon's meddling in the 1968 Vietnam peace talks was tantamount to treason.

Thanx to twistedchick

One of our greatest critic/historians, Louis Menand, reminds us how we got that Voting Rights law the Supreme Court says we don't need anymore.

Thanx to Serene Vannoy on Facebook

1951: IBM allows female employees to marry.

Thanx to andrewducker

Historian Newt Gingrich says that "Jefferson or George Washington would have strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana," presumably because they didn't want the competition.

Thanx to RAW Illumination.