I haven’t done a roundup in a while. For each blog (alpha-order) I’ve selected my favorite among recent posts.

• 3-Way Watch Blog – Mercs in a Corporate World
• AMERICAblog – Condi has to force State Dept. officials to Iraq
• Amanda’s Engima – More great Wallpapers from WallpaperStock
• An und für sich – The Complication of Nature and Grace in Aquinas
• Arianna Huffington – Midnight in America: the Mainstreaming of the GOP’s Lunatic Fringe
• Atheist Revolution – Christian Extremist Links CA Fires To Homosexuality
• Bitch PhD – Fatness as Metaphor
• A Blind Chihuahua Speaks – Processing
• Blog of a Bookslut – Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia
• Blog of Death – Winners of the Final Farewell Contest
• Buttrrflyyz – sometimes…
• Brainsnap – Ann Coulter Follows O’Reilly Playbook
• Bring it On! – FEMA: The Federal Editorial Management Agency
• Capital Hill Blue – America’s lost soul
• Cosmic Variance – Vice Vice Baby
• CounterPunch – So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness
• Crooked Timber – Facebook profiling
• Crooks and Liars – Dodd’s Speech on the Constitution & Rule of Law
• Daily Kos – “I Don’t Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier’s Life“
• Dante’s Virgil – Here’s Your Sign, Dad. And It’s Shaped Like A “D”
• Data Dome – Corporate Culture Comic Strips
• Democrats.com – Join our Impeachment Group on Facebook
• Discourse.net – Torture Charges Filed Against Rumsfeld in France
• Douglas Rushkoff – My Formula: Social Control as a Function of Media
• Ecstatic Days – Riley and Cat (photo)
• Ergo Dubito – Two Quotes
• Even the Devils Believe – Recap of last week (Washington)
• Everything Isn’t Under Control – Caught in the Wild
• Eyebeam reBlog – Kafka couldn’t make up something this absurd
• Faith In Public Life – God and Global Warming
• Frogs and Ravens – Terra Cotta
• Further Left Forum – Blackwater’s Run for the Border
• Gary-Philosophy.com – Foucault, surveillance, panopticism
• Georgia Politics Unfiltered – A Cleland-Chambliss rematch could be close
• Get Religion – Why does ‘evangelical product’ sell so well?
• Get Rich Quick! – Grate Fun! Child Franchise from China
• Godspy – I Was in Prison, and You Tortured Me
• Grateful Bear – Compassion Training
• infinite thought – blair and bartleby: the conditional as enemy
• Information Clearinghouse – Taxi to the Dark Side
• Inside Higher Ed – ‘Too Good’ for Tenure?
• Is America Burning? – Read It – Just Read It
• Jehovah’s Witnesses and Thought Control – Thought Control and Shunning
• Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation) – Five Years On….
• Language Log – Linguistics in the Funny Papers
• Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm – To fold or to roll when packing a suitcase
• Liberal Oasis – What are we, Americans, about?
• Liberty Street – Take A Deep Breath, Let’s Look Under That Rock
• Life Cycle Analysis – Google maps of Southern California
• Looking beyond the Cracked Window – I believe…
• Lord Matt – MySQL methods Get, Do, Show
• Love Ministries – The Book of Job
• Mad Kane’s Political Madness – Pondering Condi
• Makanani – Save the World with PB&J
• Mama Christy’s – Task Completed: Elephant Peeking at Me
• Mark Crispin Miller: News from Underground – Blackwater: America’s White Army?
• Mark Morford – Come see our giant toxic stew! 1,500 miles wide, floating in the Pacific, made of all your plastic crap. Bring the kids!
• Mary Pause1964 – The Cost of Recruitment
• Meditations on an Eyeball – Monologue on a leaf
• Metroblogging Atlanta – Atlanta Water Shortage Blog
• Michael Moore – US peace activist barred again from entering Canada
• My DD – GOP Presidential Candidates Shamed Into Acknowledging Disaster
• Neil Gaiman – to autumn
• Nonviolent Jesus – Head Bloody but Unbowed
• The Notion – Matthews on White House Crime & Media Failure
• The Ominous Comma – Blogging Week – Frumpy Friday
• The Onion – Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters
• The Online Rant – Does information naturally gravitate towards freedom?
• Open Letters to George W. Bush – Dear George Oct. 28 2007
• The Ordinary Mystic – Is Salvia Divinorum Really a Teacher Plant?
• Pandagon – Laugh of the day: Winger blog Red State bans Ron Paul supporters
• Panopticist – Lower-case N, Standing on a Hill
• Politics TV – Paul Wellstone on Iraq just before his death
• Postcards from Hell’s Kitchen – Gotta Have It! The Lost in Space Robot
• Professional Mirror, Ph.D. – One way to get tenure
• Prose and Thorn – Words Taken Down: The Murky Puddle Left Behind When Terrible Truth and Corrupted Consequence Collide
• Quod She – Help! I don’t want to be grad director any more
• Radical Druid – Thoughts on the Undertown
• Radical Goddess Thealogy – Goddess Perpetuations and America the Christian Nation (tie)
• Real Clear Politics – PM Line
• Reconstitution – Presenting the Other Side
• Religion News Blog – Marine’s Father Sues Church for Cheering Son’s Death
• The Revealer – Letting Jesus and Buddha Dance Together: Eve and the Fire Horse (by my former fellow grad student and always friend Brent Plate! Nice surprise.)
• reverend mommy’s random thoughts – I’m Shredding
• Rhetorica – Dumbness in Campaign Reporting
• Rudy Rucker – Kyoto #5: Enlightenment and Good-Bye
• The Satirical Political Report – Media Watchdog Group: ‘Fake’ FEMA Reporters More ‘Fair and Balanced” than FOX
• Street Prophets – Wanker Of The Day
• Sunrays and Saturdays – Thought for the Day 1
• Tapped (American Prospect) – Can We Please Stop Calling Rudy Giuliani “Pro-choice?“
• Telling it Like it is – You Just Can’t Please Everyone – A Rant
• Tenured Life – Things I’ve learned since I last blogged
• Think Progress – Military Strike On Iran ‘Would Lead Absolutely To Disaster’
• thinkBuddha – A Little Light Reading
• Total information Awareness – On Distinctions and Differences
• Unconfirmed Sources – Ann Coulter Denies Sexual Relationship With Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
• Uncyclopedia UnNews – In response to widespread devastation in California, Bush declares war on fire
• The Untraditionalist – All hell will break loose?
• The Vanity Press – What If They Gave an Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Nobody Came?
• Virtual Bourgeois – I’m Caught Up!!!
• Virtual Pus – Smart people can be morons too
• The Wall of Separation – Proclamation Consternation: Washington State Governor Gives Support To ‘Christian Nation’ Rhetoric
• Watchtower Quotes – Love Bombing
• What Now? – Stick a fork in me
• Whitehouse – President’s Remarks to Super-Stoked Troops During Mega-Secret Photo Op in Increasingly Ultra-Safe Iraq
• Wonkette – Rumors – Blackwater Is For Our Children’s Future
• Worldwide Sawdust – Hard Rain Journal: Asking the Right Questions

I hope that you find a few interesting things to read here, but I remember now why I don’t do this very often. (smile)

Perhaps Robert George really did intend to write an article that would describe the Well-Lived Life of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, but the result leaves a sour taste in my mouth somehow. It misses something central about her.

Yes, she made a political turn into more conservative terrain. I’m not sure that everyone was so angry about it as the article would suggest. There is a wide spectrum of opinion about issues like abortion, gender relations, marriage, work life, and so on – even on the left. It seemed to me that the situation was a little more complicated.

I went to graduate school at Emory, but I never worked with Dr. Fox-Genovese, so my comments are based more on second-hand accounts from other students and faculty than on my own experiences (more’s the pity). Still, I got a very strong impression of her.

One of my best friends in the Emory community has worked for years on women’s issues. She is what I think of a real activist, not an armchair activist like myself. She doesn’t agree with Betsey on many of these issues, but she admires her a great deal and considers her a real friend. Their ongoing conversation on these issues has been valuable – and enjoyable! – for both of them.

Why is Professor Fox-Genovese so admired and respected? Certainly not because of some kind of dripping piety or even solely because of her take on what are very controversial issues. To imply that she was worshiped as some sort of a mommy-figure by orphan-like pits of need misrepresents the reality. She didn’t treat her students as children, but as younger peers. It makes a difference to be treated with respect. She stood up for and supported her students, even if they didn’t agree with her on specific issues. Unlike some others, she didn’t make a secret list of students to be rewarded or punished depending on whether or not they would become clones of herself. She didn’t infantilize anyone – she challenged and supported them. She respected individual curiosity and talent, and teaching was everything to her. She was an educator, in the best sense of the word.

She has a solid reputation as a scholar. No-one could fail to observe her intelligence and her passion, her willingness to engage in conversation and argument. I find it unusual and interesting that she had a willingness to reassess what she found important and worthy of analysis. Not everyone has that courage, flexibility and sense of integrity.

She continued to make every effort to come in and teach, despite her increasing frailty. She had great stories to tell. By all accounts, she had an amazing relationship with her husband. She had flair. She had grace.

I’m sorry that I didn’t get to know her better. I suspect we might have found some common ground somewhere.

Rest in peace, Professor Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Links:

• On the Square, Joseph Bottom, First Things
• Lioness, Wilfred McClay, Touchstone Magazine
• Interview with Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in The American Enterprise
• Fox-Genovese, Dept. of History, Emory University
• Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, R.I.P. by Charlotte Hays – Independent Women’s Forum
• Grant Her Rest at Feminine Genius

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