@ReviewsPossum When I was an exchange student I had a friend who was into weed and banging chicks. I asked him how his parents let him behave this way and he said as long as his room was clean and he did the dishes everyday they never looked into anything else he was doing. Lesson there.
12,000 ANCIENT ARTIFACTS SEIZED.
@CBP agents in Tampa intercepted thousands of ancient items believed to be stolen from the eastern Mediterranean including vases, age-old pottery, and archaic coins — with some dating back more than 4,000 years.
@HSITampa is now investigating and working to authenticate and return the priceless items to their rightful owners.
@GreenspansWager Because Vance is not, has not been, and likely never will be running against Marco Rubio. He is running against himself. Against the doubts, expectations and competing images that Americans project onto him.
@Babygravy9 The important part of pendulum theory is the point of suspension not the path of the bob. That’s the point that needs to be controlled to contain the path.
@TonerousHyus They did this to @phil_lyman in Utah. Bribed a poor guy with a steak dinner to register as a write-in candidate for governor. More than one way to rig an election.
I never met Gordon Wood, but I have a story about him.
In one of my grad school seminars, we read Wood’s Creation of the American Republic. The sheer erudition and evidentiary depth of the book bowled me over.
Back then, before kids and before life accelerated to warp speed, I used to call my mother every Sunday to catch up. Lots of times, we ended up talking about what I was reading that week in my grad seminars or for leisure. Mom had an omnivorous mind, and she was always looking for something else to read. She was a true intellectual—curious about almost everything, always eager to integrate new arguments or ideas into her existing schemas of how the world worked or to have those schemas challenged and changed.
When we talked that particular Sunday, I think I tried to describe to her part of Wood’s argument about the relationship between the state constitutions during the Articles of Confederation era and the federal Constitution. Maybe I was tired, maybe I didn’t completely understand her questions, but the end result of the conversation was that Mom had questions about Wood’s argument that I didn’t answer satisfactorily. I told her that she should probably just read the book, and we said goodbye.
She did eventually read the book, but the next Sunday, Mom started our conversation by saying, “Well, I had a lovely conversation with Gordon Wood this week.” For a split second, I thought she was joking, but then I remembered who I was dealing with. I started to sweat. “How?” I asked. A whole variety of unlikely scenarios in which the foremost historian of the American Revolution and my mother, who lived in Wichita, Kansas, might have met ran through my mind. “Oh, I just looked up his office phone number on Brown’s website and called, and he picked up!” Mom said. I decided I would have to find another profession.
As it ended up, Gordon Wood spent about an hour on the phone with my mother answering her questions about the Constitution. Ever since, I’ve had a soft spot for the man when I imagine him picking up the phone in Providence and finding Becky Elder from Wichita on the other end of the line. His generosity in that moment spoke very well of him.
Rest in peace, professor.