Hello, Young Lovers, Wherever You Are

With the appearance of the pseudonymous "C. Van Winchell" at Nothing Recedes Like Success, the history blogosphere has gotten more interesting since your favorite Radical left the country. Just when you thought the Decline and Fall of the History Profession would lack it's own Gibbon, "he" has appeared, Facebook page and all, cleverly wreathed in allusions to a Yale connection that probably doesn't exist.

Vann Winchell's emergence even goaded Ambrose Hofstadter Bierce III out of retirement ever so briefly, with a clever poem saluting fellow history bloggers in the new year. Thanks for the shout-out, AHB.

I keep meaning to extend my own welcome. But this post about two of our colleagues playing a vigorous game of hide the salami (as a hilarious and path-breaking feminist literary scholar used to put it during wine-soaked Zenith dinner parties) at Doug Manchester's hotel in San Diego is sure to win a score of new readers, with or without me.

It's Just A Little Peyton Place

Well, since this story has already been picked up by the Chronicle of Higher Education, here's something to take your mind off Doug Manchester and the American Historical Association Meeting. The Radical's venerable Zenith University (allegedly) got Madoffed!

Well not exactly Madoffed: the methodology was different, and the sum Zenith is seeking to recover is a mere smear $3M. Read the full story, as scooped by the campus newspaper here. It's pretty good.

Here's a hint. When you get an email that someone at a very high level is leaving the university for any of the following reasons:

To pursue other opportunities;
To spend more time with his/her family;
To attend to personal affairs;

What you are smelling is a fish.