Abraham Lincoln's Affair With the Gray Lady
Philip Kunhardt III is working on a four-hour documentary series for PBS on the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. It will air in 2009 - the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. The Knickerbocker spoke with Mr. Kunhardt at a recent party for a book Harold Holzer and David Herbert Donald edited called, "Lincoln in the Times: The Life of Abraham Lincoln, as Originally Reported in the New York Times" (St. Martin's Press). He said the documentary will examine Lincoln's impact on every generation since his death.
Look next summer for Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton's documentary on the looting of Iraqi archaeological sites. Mr. Garen was working on the project when he was taken hostage in Iraq in August 2004. Mr. Garen and Ms. Carleton spoke recently at the Overseas Press Club about their book "American Hostage: A Memoir of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq and the Remarkable Battle To Win his Release" (Simon & Schuster). The OPC Freedom of the Press Committee was among those who wrote letters calling for his release.
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PARMET'S PARTY American labor leader David Dubinsky (1892-1982) led the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, but he was widely recognized outside of labor circles, according to Michael Nash, head of NYU's Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive.
Mr. Nash was praising Robert Parmet's book, "The Master of Seventh Avenue: David Dubinsky and the American Labor Movement" (New York University Press) at a book party on Tuesday at the SEIU Building on Sixth Avenue.
The Russian-born Dubinsky survived exile to Siberia in 1911 and immigrated to America, where he helped found the Americans for Democratic Action and was an energetic supporter of the young state of Israel.
The party's sponsors were the Tamiment Library, New York Labor History Association, the United Hebrew Trades, and the New York Jewish Labor Committee. Mr. Nash said the event had been relocated off campus in support of those graduate students who are on strike for the recognition of their union by the NYU administration.
Richard Strassberg, the director of Cornell University's Kheel Center for Labor Management Documentation & Archives, said: "We are the other labor archives - upstate. I'm here to bear witness to this extraordinary book." He added, "The mammal with the longest gestation period is the historian." Reading this book, Mr. Strassberg said he finally felt he was able to understand the ILGWU" and follow "the Byzantine politics of that union."
"My parents were ILGWUers," Mr. Parmet said. His father was a cloakmaker and his mother made undergarments: "So, yes, the ILGWU is close to me." He noted that his brother was even a busboy at the union's upstate "resort."
Among those in attendance were the daughter of labor leader Sidney Hillman, Philoine Fried; the granddaughter of Dubinsky, Ryna Appleton; Irwin Yellowitz, president of the New York Labor History Association; and professional freelance archivist Roy Felshin. Crumb cake was served in honor of the birthday of historian Bernard Bellush, who was unable to attend.
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POLITICAL HUMOR The Foundation for Economic Education, a non-profit devoted to individual liberty and freemarket principles, will celebrate its 60th anniversary next year. The foundation is located in a large house on a 19th-century estate in Irvington-on-Hudson, 22 miles north of Manhattan.
The president of the foundation, Richard Ebeling, introduced a lecture recently by telling a joke that went something like this:
A Republican entered a restaurant in a wheelchair one afternoon and asked the waitress for a cup of coffee. He looked around the restaurant and said, "Is that Jesus sitting over there?" The waitress nodded and said, "Yes." The Republican asked the waitress to give Jesus a cup of coffee, on him. The next patron to shuffle in was a libertarian with a hunched back who ordered a cup of tea. He too inquired, "Is that Jesus over there?" and asked the waitress to give Jesus a cup of tea, adding, "my treat." Next, a Democrat on crutches hobbled in and ordered a cold glass of Miller Lite. He likewise asked the waitress to give Jesus a free glass of cold beer. As Jesus got up to leave, he passed the Republican, touched him, and said, "For your kindness, you are healed." The Republican danced a jig out the door. Jesus next passed the libertarian and touched him, saying, "For your kindness, you are also healed." The libertarian felt his back straighten up, raised his hands, praised the Lord, and did a series of backflips out the door. Jesus then walked toward the Democrat, but before Jesus could say a word, the man jumped up and hollered, "Don't touch me. I'm collecting government disability."
