Richard Pennington (리처드 패닝턴)

• “Line-up for Yesterday”—basketball version

  

  In 1949, Ogden Nash penned his famous poem “Line-up for Yesterday” for Sport magazine. In it, he recalled baseball greats of the past in alphabetical order. I find the poem’s enduring cultural value rather puzzling. I am strictly a reader and writer of prose, but I know doggerel when I see it, and much of what Nash wrote was just that. To make matters worse, he inserted himself into the poem in the letter “I” since he was such a fan of the game. His “Q” entry was Don Quixote, which somehow… read on

• Lead Belly at UT, 1949

  

  Just 22 years before my matriculation at the University of Texas, a concert was given on campus that did not draw a lot of attention. It was summertime, June 15, 1949, to be specific, and most of the students were away. Appearing that night was one man with a 12-string guitar. His name was Huddie Ledbetter, more commonly known as Lead Belly (sometimes spelled “Leadbelly”). With a repertoire of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 songs, many of which he wrote himself or at least popularized, he… read on

• Archie Manning and other smug jocks

  

  I am writing this just a couple of hours after Eli Manning led the New York Giants to their second Super Bowl victory (21-17 over the New England Patriots) in four years. He was named the game’s MVP. I like Manning and his low-key demeanor, and he has really proven himself as one of the top quarterbacks in the National Football League. His more famous brother, Peyton, has won one Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts.

  I nearly met Manning eight years ago. My use of that adverb may be… read on

• H.V. Morton, travel writer extraordinaire

  

  A few months ago, while wandering around the used-book section at Amazon.com, I took note of a very cheap, out-of-print tome about London. Penned more than 60 years earlier, it was surely not up to date. The capital of England has changed a lot since 1950, but I looked closer if only because the customer reviews were so positive. The author, H.V. Morton, got warm accolades for his prose style and historical knowledge. A bit more research turned up quotes in which Morton was called the finest… read on

• Blood on the hands of Kim Jong-Il

  

  “Do not speak badly of the dead.” So we are told by the ancient Greek scribe Diogenes Laertius. These are wise words, and in general I try to adhere to them. But I wonder whether Diogenes ever came across a man so worthy of condemnation as the recently deceased Kim Jong-Il.

  Almost everything about him was fraudulent, starting with his father’s claim to be the kind-hearted founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The truth is that in the final weeks of World War II, Kim Il-Sung… read on

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