How Scott Adams Made Me a Hero

In the fall of 1995, I was helping the company’s IT function plan for its annual conference in March. They needed a keynote dinner speaker, and they looked to me to see if it were at all possible to get Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic. 

It’s hard to understand now, but the Dilbert carton was growing in popularity, and Adams – himself a former IT person – was considered the patron saint of IT. He wasn’t as well known outside of the function, not yet, anyway. But he soon would be.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Illinois Teen Restores Civil War Graves for Eagle Scout Project – Kevin Damask at Military.com.

 

In This House, Robin Hood Is a Hero – Spencer Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

Iran’s uprising, and the moral bewilderment of Western youth – Brendan O’Neill at The Spectator.

 

Chaplin in the East End – Spitalfields Life.

 

A Brother’s Death, A Poet’s Muse: The Oates Brothers at Gettysburg – Lisa Samia at Emerging Civil War.

"Magna Carta" by Nicholas Vincent

If there is a document that is the fount of constitutionalism, it is the Magna Carta, or Great Charter, signed by King John of England and his barons at Runnymede, near Windsor Castle. Together with American Declaration of Independence, the Magna Carta became the inspiration for the idea of citizen rights and (eventually) constitutional government. 

 

The original Magna Carta, the one containing the seal of King John affixed in 1215, no longer exists. What happened to it is a mystery. Four original copies were made at the time of the signing. Two of those copies, one of which was badly burned, are held by the British Library. The remaining two are at Lincoln Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. Some 200 others, copied off and on during the Middle Ages, also exist.

 

For the 800^th anniversary of the signing of the document, Oxford’s Bodleian Library commissioned Nicholas Vincent, professor of Medieval History at the University of East Anglia, to write a history of the document – what led to it, what happened as a result, its tumultuous history, and its influence and legacy. The result is Magna Carta: Origins and Legacy.

 

Nicholas Vincent

The book is a well-illustrated, well-written account of the document. It’s a traditional historical account, but it’s also filled with facts and stories that don’t quit make the textbooks. Like how the Lincoln Cathedral original was loaned (after extensive lobbying) to the United States for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, not long before World War II broke out, and spent the war years under the protection of the National Archives in Washington, D.C. (it was returned after the war). 

 

Magna Carta is divided into two roughly equal parts. The first is the history and legacy. The second is the “Archival and Documentary Evidences,” reminding the reader that the volume is both a highly readable history and a research publication. Vincent also traces where all of the 200 copies now reside.

 

Vincent has published some 25 books and 150 academic papers in English and European history of the 12^th and 13^thcenturies. In addition to the Magna Carta and general medieval history, his areas of expertise include the Plantagenet kingship, Thomas Becket, and medieval relics. He’s taught at Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Poitiers and the Ecole des Chartres in Paris. Vincent is also a Fellow of the British Academy and a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. He’s taught at East Anglia since 2003.

 

Magna Carta tells a fascinating story of how feudal lords’ rebellious dissatisfaction with a profligate king would eventually influence and shape constitutional governments across the globe. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The paint was still wet: A closer look at three Van Gogh paintings heading to the Rijksmuseum – Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper.

 

Fallen – poem and artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

The Work of Spring – Hadden Turner at Heart and Field.

 

The Biggest Threat to America’s Liberty – Douglas Murray at The Free Press on a speech by Abraham Lincoln. 

Stone Cold Love – Brian Miller at A South Roane Agrarian. 

The Legacy of a Teacher

In 1983, a colleague at work suggested I might be interested in a new masters program at Washington University in St. Louis. It was the Masters in Liberal Arts, and it had been designed for “older students,” people who had been out of school and working. I looked into it, talked with the program coordinator, and decided to try it. It was only one night a week per class, and my employer generously subsidized college-level courses as long as they were part of a degree program. I figured it was extremely low-risk; if I didn’t like the program, I could simply stop.

The deal clincher was what my colleague said about the professors who taught in the program. They were among the very best professors at the university; in fact, there was something of a waiting list to teach MLA courses. The reason: the students were older, more experienced, firmer in their convictions, more inclined to challenge the teacher, and interested in the subject being taught for its own sake.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest. 

Photograph: Dr. Michael Friedlander, 1928-2021.