A famous explorer, author, and geologist Clarence King (1842-1901), a white man, presented himself as a black railroad worker named James Todd in order to marry Ada Copeland. No one knew that the well-known and respected white explorer was also an unknown and married black man, not even his wife, until he died. The story is told in Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line by Martha Sandweiss.

Reviewer Elinore Longobardi writes:

Sure, Clarence King was a public figure with a generous paper trail, but what of James Todd? The great care King took to obscure that part of his life reverberates down the years, so that even an assiduous researcher (take a look at the rigorous footnotes) finds only small shards of information.

And so Passing Strange is dotted with lacunae, many of them marked with such phrases as, “No anecdotal stories from Ada’s own childhood survive,” or “It is not entirely clear just how Clarence King’s double life began.” …

The larger point, though, is that society, and thus history, values certain lives over others. Some are chronicled in newspapers, biographies, and archives; others pass into obscurity. The challenge to the present-day historian is to resurrect as much as possible of those rich, yet undervalued lives—and in Passing Strange, Sandweiss more than rises to the challenge.

Hugh Hewitt recommends, Work Hard, Be Nice, by Jay Mathews, saying it’s the best on teaching in America.

At first glance, I thought this book by Robert Kaiser was about the “stimulus” bill in congress, but I see it’s about the election process. The title and cover say it all.

I’m currently engrossed in David Michaelis’ Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography. I’ve rarely been so caught up in a nonfiction book, for reasons I’ll explain when I’m ready to write my review (which I expect will be a long one).

But one thing that grabbed my interest was all the places where Schulz’s and my paths crossed (disregarding the small matter of a few decades’ time). I lived for a while with my aunt in St. Paul, only a couple miles southeast of the corner of Snelling and Selby, where Schulz’s father, Carl, ran a barber shop for most of his life. I used to jog around Highland Park, where Schulz himself liked to play golf.

But the crossings weren’t only in St. Paul.

I worked several years in Minneapolis in the shipping and mailing department (known for some reason as the Service Section) of the headquarters of the American Lutheran Church, an organization which no longer exists (like its building, which was demolished a few years back to make way for the new city jail).

Just kittycorner across Fourth Street from our building was Art Instruction Schools (the people behind the “Can you draw me?” magazine ads). Schulz worked there for a number of years, before and after his service in World War II and up to the time when he became an established cartoonist.

Michaelis reports that he “fell in love” (from afar; he was desperately shy) with several pretty girls who worked at the school. One became the inspiration for Charlie Brown’s “little red-haired girl.” Another was the sister of the woman he eventually married.

Art Instruction Schools and pretty girls. That brings back a memory…. Continue reading Princess →

Author Larry Winget says people, generally speaking of course and not at all applicable to readers of BwB, are idiots.

Parents don’t talk to their kids or discipline their kids; give them everything they want and then wonder why their kids are a mess.

People barely do any work while they are on the job, then can’t figure out why they got laid off when times got tough for their employer.

People spend more money than they earn then seem to be surprised that the people who loaned them the money actually want to be repaid.

The majority of people can’t read and don’t read.

Winget has written a book about these problems, and I suppose hopes some of us will either skim it for knuggets or have someone who cares read it to them. Perhaps ripping out pages and stapling to them to foreheads would work for some too.

John V. Martorano, who confessed to killing for the mob as a plea bargin, has reportedly sold his story to a Hollywood producer. Some of the good guys who worked against him aren’t too happy about it, and lawman is trying to pass a state law against criminals profiting from their no-doubt-dramatic stories.