Been so buried in work of late that I haven't been posting much. As I go into winter hibernation--in preparation for a very busy spring, of trusts and estates using a new set of statutes, talks on pieces of University, Court, and Slave (on Thomas Cobb and on abolitionists' legal thought), a couple of retrospective glances at work I did a while ago (Reparations Pro and Con), and a talk on monument law--I wanted to have a catch-all post on one-liners that have been thrown around some of late.
(1) I'll start with a phrase I've heard less about than I thought I would: "What was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa. " Where are the references to that? (Charles Erwin Wilson used the past tense; perhaps that was prescient?)
(2) I saw a bumper sticker recently that said "Jamestown, 1607. When Survivor Wasn't a Game." Always good to know that the insights of Edmund S. Morgan's American Slavery--American Freedom (and a lot of other historians) have made it onto bumper stickers.
(3) That bumper sticker goes great with the Jim Beam ads I've been seeing of late, like "When the Puritans reached America, the second thing they built was a church. The first thing was a bar." Pretty creative to link Puritan studies with advertising for alcohol! Yet another application of the myth and symbol school of American studies.
(4) My favorite librarian heard that Tom Cruise said he learned how to dance by watching "Soul Train." Her response: "That's an insult to Soul Train!"
And on that happy--or at least I hope amusing--note I'm going to depart the lounge to get back to grading and to writing. See you all again in the spring--when I'll talk about a bunch of things, including the most unusual covenant I've seen in a deed in a long time. My students know all about it already, because it was on their final exam. By then I'm sure there'll be a lot of news for Dan Filler's annual lateral moves list.
Alfred L. Brophy
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