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Comments, possibly informed.

Tim Wilson
Daytona Beach, Florida, USA
timatollah@mackandtim.net
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Marcus Needs Links

Greil Marcus's "Real Life Top 10" column at Salon is worth a regular read whether one agrees with every last point he makes or not.

The most recent features this gem:

The great historical struggle to create that union was the subject of the [S. F.] Chronicle's broadside, which one can hardly imagine running in any other major daily in the country. It pulled no punches. "Ever since Sept. 11," the writer began, "President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have tried to quash dissent by questioning the patriotism of people who seek to protect our civil rights and liberties." The writer went on to trace the history of our best-known patriotic traditions, rituals, sayings and songs, from the Pledge of Allegiance to the motto on the Statue of Liberty to "America the Beautiful," noting that the latter was written in 1883 by Katherine Lee Bates, a feminist professor of English at Wellesley who lived "for decades" with "her life partner Katherine Coman, an economist and social historian. It's unlikely that those who sing the stirring words 'and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea' know that a progressive lesbian who agitated for a more democratic America authored these words." In other words, the writer was saying, the story of the country is a continuing story, and it starts again when you lift your eyes from the paper.

The entire Chronicle (or Comical, as my San Francisco friends say) editorial is still online -- for free, even (for a few more days) -- here.

Marcus is publishing in an online medium. He needs links. Someone get that man a blog.
posted by Tim Wilson at 11:47 AM