[Clive]
Not everyone approves of the old rebel. One reader points out that Terkel got into a nasty slanging match with Christopher Hitchens not too long ago. Yes, I should have mentioned that. Another adds that Studs has a leftist agenda. True. And this reader thinks the fireman’s comments were unfair to bank staff:
I’m also a public high school teacher, and I would never share the Studs Terkel quote from the fireman with my English classes. What a myopic view, a kind of reverse snobbery that shows how ignorant the fireman is about how our society works.
I’d better stress that the whole point of the "old" books choices was to gather a lot of different viewpoints across the spectrum. (For some reason, after I sent out the initial requests, I got more responses from conservative bloggers than from left-wingers.) As for me, I’m right-wing on some issues, left-wing on others. Like most people, I guess.
The Dish 