My preferred candidate has dropped out of the presidential race. So now I'm left to look through the remaining options for a suitable option. While I haven't had the annoyance of anyone trying to recruit me to another candidate, this pretty much sums up my current feelings. Key phrase:

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson. (Amazon, B&N, Powell's) This one is pretty much exactly what the title says: a very thorough, detailed, researched telling of the aftermath of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It's really more about John Wilkes Booth's flight than it is about the hunt for him, but there's plenty of detail about his pursuers. And let's face it -- Booth was fascinating, and became ever larger than life every day he eluded capture. He and his co-conspirator David Herold, who was on the run with Booth, are especially well-developed, but Swanson provides many asides about the other characters in this drama.

I think the Lincoln assassination still reverberates partly because the entire event was so dramatic -- literally staged. It was the stunning climax of the nightmarish Civil War. I also wonder if the Lincoln assassination helps make it easier for modern-day nuts to believe conspiracy theories. Lincoln's murder, of course, really was part of a conspiracy -- first to kidnap the President, later to murder him -- arranged by a small group with limited resources, and actually only part of an attempted coup. Of course, things were a little different then. Still, I think there's something there. It's not really part of the book, but it's interesting to see how close the conspirators came to pulling off their plan.

Finally, one quibble that almost rises to the level of a criticism. Swanson a couple of times refers to a rebel soldier who betrays Booth's location as "Booth's Judas." I thought it was a little curious to essentially compare Booth to Jesus, but I wrote it off to an overcooked literary device. But then Swanson relates that Herold denied being a part of the conspiracy when he was captured, and in fact claimed a few times not to know Booth at all. Swanson alludes to Peter denying Christ three times. That was enough for me, but Swanson tops it off by explicitly equating Booth to Jesus when he asks for water after being shot by Union cavalrymen. Come on! One or two of these allusions might have been forgettable, but together they seemed jarring and took me out of the climax of the book. Swanson clearly reveres Lincoln, so it's an odd choice in an otherwise fine book.

Anyway, I liked Manhunt, and despite the wealth of detail, it's quite readable. But it's probably only necessary for big Lincoln or Civil War completists.

(Previous 50 Book Challenge reviews)

A few days ago I wrote about this ongoing controversy in the golf world over an announcer making a jesting comment that golfers should gang up and "lynch" Tiger Woods. Woods, for the record, is clearly ready to let it go, saying everything is "said and done."

My question regarding that fuss was whether the punishment(s) -- the suspension of the announcer and later, the firing of a magazine editor who illustrated a story on the situation with a picture of a noose -- fit the crimes. Now I have another test case:

If you don't care to watch the video, I'll summarize. It's a clip from just after mediocre Maryland had upset #1-ranked and undefeated North Carolina in a basketball game last weekend. The Tarheel fans are clearly distraught (a major overreaction, of course, although the Maryland celebration -- not shown in this clip -- was a little excessive too). About four or five seconds into this clip, the microphones pick up a woman's voice yelling "Go back to the ghetto!"

Presumably, the speaker is a UNC student, and her target was the predominantly black Maryland team. How serious is her crime?

Let's assume we could identify this woman. What should happen to her? Ostracism? Mandatory sensitivity training? Suspension? Expulsion? Should Al Sharpton be invited to speak at the UNC commencement? If she has a part-time job or an internship, should she be fired from that position? Should this comment be attached to her name forever, like another line on her resume? If you knew she said this, and she applied to you for a job after graduation, would you hire her? What if it turned out that she was jokingly yelling at a good friend? I'm not saying your answers have to be the same as they would be for Kelly Tilghman, the golf announcer (and Woods's friend) who made the "lynch" comment. But if they're different, why, and how much?

(Hat tip: The FanHouse.)

UPDATE, 1/29: One of the Maryland players responds:

"It wouldn't be nothing for me to go back to the ghetto," said Osby, who said he grew up in a violent section of Richmond. "That's where my mom lives, so if [the fan] wants to come on down, she can join me. It's just ignorance."

I don't like very much about Maryland, but this was nice.

Via De Novo, I see that today was "Blog for Choice Day," an initiative of the group Pro-Choice America. Of course, I already mentioned that today is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Because it's an election year, I suppose, the folks at Pro-Choice America are asking us what it means to vote pro-choice.

I don't have a comprehensive answer to this. The decision whether to have an abortion just won't affect me as directly as it does a woman. For me, I suppose I use abortion as an election shorthand: I assume that candidates who support abortion rights share my feelings about liberty and equality, as that one aspect is a pretty major bellwether. And in converse, candidates who oppose abortion rights tend to have disparate views from my own about sexual freedom, especially women's sexual freedom. In short, opposition to abortion rights seems to be part and parcel of a broader effort to punish women for their sexuality, and I disagree with that (whether it's based on paternalism or misogyny). Plus, it bothers me that women in some places have easy access to clinics, and women in others have next to none. That's really more about federalism and poverty, I guess.

I respect the beliefs of people who think abortion is a tragedy, and I agree that sometimes, though not always, it's a bad choice. But I still think women should have that choice, and that's why I support abortion rights.