In which the Bwog apologizes for getting a couple facts wrong:

– In the February issue, Brendan Ballou wrote that “Rebel With Uranium” Ken Hechtman and his merry band of anarchists “were the first to reach the Low Library roof, and as far as we know, the last.”

Correction: They were not the last.

– On February 4, the Bwog moaned about Jake Gyllenhaal’s fake alumni status:

He was supposed to graduate in 2004. He didn’t–he dropped out to play a gay cowboy. Which is fine, but it means he DID NOT GRADUATE, unlike, say, his sister or his uncle [Professor Eric Foner].

But, as Quick Spec pointed out this morning, Professor Foner is not
our fakest alum’s Uncle. He just used to be married to the gay cowboy’s mom.

The Bwog just couldn’t imagine that their superhero professor has an ex-wife. Discover the sobering truth after the jump.

To the Editor:

Thank you for running the “profile” of me (“Professor Eric Foner’s View From the Top of the Scholar’s Ladder,” Feb. 8, 2006) and especially for the accompanying antique photograph that makes me look twenty years younger than I actually am.

I do feel it necessary, however, to call your attention to an established principle of journalism: checking your facts. Contrary to what the article reports, I am not the uncle of Jake Gyllenhaal. His mother is my former wife, not my sister, and therefore I have no relationship to him other than as a movie-goer. Spectator corrected this mistake when it first appeared in your pages a couple of years ago, but I guess institutional memories are short.

There is a lesson here that all students should bear in mind—do not believe everything you find on the Internet. [emphasis added]

Eric Foner

DeWitt Clinton Professor of History

Don’t take his last bit of advice seriously. For our sake. Please.