This year's quackademic nerd prom of the 140-year-old American Historical Association (AHA) featured 3,000 assorted eggheads and a contentious debate over how history should be taught. On one side were the hard core young radicals who seek to politicize everything past and present. Standing in opposition were the traditional old-fashioned liars and ignoramuses -- who have no desire to disrupt the embedded lies and mythologies of the past by injecting what they refer to as "a trend toward presentism" into the subject -- such as the irrelevant discovery of this or that "racist" or this or that alleged anal poofter from decades or centuries gone by. Absent altogether in this great "binary" argument, of course, are folks like yours truly, who propose the really radical concept of objectively digging out the TRUTH of history and faithfully reporting it in a manner such that people can understand the present much better. Imagine that.