Leaving aside a discussion of hip-hop itself, I was fascinated to discover that the short, rhythmic prose we associate with rap music has a history going back to John Skelton in the 1500’s. Some examples of his work:

Or if he speaketh plain
Then he lacketh brain
He is but a fool
Let him go to school.

My name is Colin Clout.
I purpose to shake out
All my cunning bag,
Like a clerkly hag ;
For though my rhyme be ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely rain beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten,
If ye take well therewith,
It hath in it some pith.

see an article here: http://www.socialmatter.net/2017/02/04/poets-john-skelton/

So to summarize, it’s okay to lie as long as it’s for a good cause and we should all close our eyes to biological reality (assuming for the sake of argument Murray is correct) to make sure everyone feels good. Wonderful ethics you have there…

Also, any unironic suggestion that the Handmaiden’s Tale could become reality anytime soon suggests a dangerous detachment from reality. Can’t you at least come up with a non-trendy literary reference? Or, I’ll see your Handmaiden’s Tale and raise you a Harrison Bergeron.

Regarding positive readings for girls, Jane Austen is a cliched but very good answer. Her heroines are all devoted to their families and fathers in particular. The few female characters (never the main heroine herself) who “follow their hearts” and run off with a man whom their families disapprove of are always portrayed as selfish and wrong.

Of course by modern standards for female characters, some of her heroines (like Fanny Price in Mansfield Park) are extremely passive, but one must understand that Jane Austen was really a virtue moralist at heart, teaching that if someone does what is right and refuses what is wrong they will eventually be rewarded.

Beyond that, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is a bit like Pride and Prejudice but with more dark romanticism and hints of spirituality. Religious hypocrisy is consistently condemned but the climax of the book involves an answered prayer and Jane Eyre’s relationship with her love interest Mr. Rochester is one of service and devotion.

I would always recommend Charles Dickens for generally edifying entertainment. Everyone in high school reads his more “serious” works like A Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations, but his earlier works, like Nicholas Nickelby, the Pickwick Papers, and David Copperfield, are all touching and funny, though of course very wordy.

P.G. Wodehouse is also a wonderful writer who wrote a lot of truly funny short stories and novels. Any of the Jeeves stories, Blandings stories, or Mr. Muliner stories are outstanding. For stand alone works I’ve always enjoyed a Damsel in Distress, Uncle Dynamite, the Indiscretions of Archie, and the Girl on the Boat. Wodehouse was writing during a time period in which saying “that’s very white of you” was a socially acceptable compliment.

I’d also recommend any Sherlock Holmes mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle or Father Brown Mystery by G.K. Chesterton for general entertainment (the later is explicitly Christian in its theology of course).

There are BBC television adaptations of all the authors I’ve mentioned above, though I can’t comment personally on their quality. I realize I’ve focused more on general entertainment than history, but all of these works offer a window into time periods in which Christianity, family, and pride in one’s country and western civilization were celebrated. One could easily use these works as a starting point to discuss actual history if one wished.

If you want to go a really simple route, you could always just watch a couple of old sitcoms from the 1950’s-60’s or old movies like the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers Musicals (which feature some of the finest pop songwriting America’s known). Watching something as recent as the Andy Griffith Show feels like another world (though King of the Hill in the 90’s sometimes came close; especially the second half of the series which frequently pitted the conservative Hank Hill against liberal/politically correct characters, with Hank always being right). For both shows I’d skip the first season though, since in both cases, it isn’t as good as what came afterwards. Good luck!

So the core of her argument comes down to conflating “colored” statues with “people of color” and insinuating an appreciation for “white” marble is a sign of “white” supremacy. Wonderful. This is the sort of thing that would be laughed at if an undergraduate tried to turn it in, but gets praised because its written by a well-connected Jewish woman fighting for social justice.

As a Classicist myself, I’d agree there is a danger of superimposing our own vision of the past over what it was actually like. One of the British antiquarians in the 1800s who maintained the Elgin Marbles recognized a thin patina of what was probably remnants of ancient paint on the statues. However, he chose to scour it off because it didn’t fit what he thought ancient statues looked like. At best, he thought it was accumulated dirt and other weatherings. A great article could be written about how we project our own understandings of history back onto the past and ignore evidence that doesn’t fit, but of course such an article would be unexciting since it doesn’t advance social justice.

A serious question though, one that was raised in one of my classes but which no one could ever answer. Assuming that our “restorations” of the painted statues are accurate (and there is no guarantee they are), if the statues had survived in their painted state would we consider multi-colored statues paragons of beauty and plain white marble ugly? There is no clear answer of course but its a fascinating question that gets to the heart of aesthetics. Unfortunately there’s no way to tie it into race so it probably wouldn’t get published.

You’re certainly right about Cornel West, but why Robert George? He’s a devout Catholic conservative. True, he didn’t vote for Trump but he also refused to vote for Hillary.

I don’t agree with that perspective, but I can at least respect it. The real “conservative” enemies are people like the Bushes who actually endorsed Hillary. Anyway, George himself has done a lot of good despite that lapse in judgement.

The New Testament itself doesn’t advocate pacifism and very few Christian groups embraced pacifism until the Quakers (witness Constantine, the crusades, participation in the 100 years war, Civil War, WWII etc). Even Francis of Assisi, often held up as a “hippie Christian” ideal fully supported the crusades.

I’m at work, so I can’t dig up references, but I recall the scholar N.T. Wright offering evidence that the phrase “turn the other cheek” referred specifically to insults on one’s honor rather than threats to one’s safety (ie someone slapping your face with the back of their hand because they think they’re better than you, not someone trying to cut you with a knife).

This makes sense, since Christ himself embraced violence to overturn the moneychanger’s tables. If you want to dig even further, I can quote you Orthodox theologians who would argue that the phrase “love your enemies” referred only to loving personal enemies rather than the enemies of God (ie love your annoying neighbor who looks down on you, not the hordes of angry muslims who want to kill you). But Catholicism has had different interpretations.

I certainly agree that modern Christianity has embraced a warped, self-destructive version of these verses and a downright suicidal form of “love” than involves never saying a mean thing to anyone. However, that is not what historic Christianity practiced, nor what Christ himself actually did.

I’m afraid you are objectively wrong about Kerouac and the beat poets. Kerouac chose the name “beat” from “beatus” the Latin for blessed (it’s not widely reported by Kerouac identified as Catholic almost all his life). If anything, the beats were “Whitman’s wild children” to quote one article I recall from College; staring wide eyed at the stars, jazz, and sex. In the US at least, the post-WWII era was one of optimism, though Europe certainly felt differently (because they had experience such direct damage to their cities).

I would also object to claims that it’s becoming harder to believe in a creator God. More and more scientific findings have clarified just how unlikely a planet capable of supporting life really is (witness how recent frenzy over newly discovered Trappist I planets quieted down once it became clear they too were likely not habitable and much of the “earth-like” descriptions derived from an overly-enthusiastic artist’s rendering). The only way to dodge the seeming “fine-tuning” of the universe is to postulate a multi-verse; for which there is no evidence or justification except that it avoids bringing God into the equation.

Likewise, the “modified” Christianity you speak of sounds indistinguishable from Gnosticism, which has been tried and failed so to speak since it never created a successful civilization but only small cult-like enclaves. The traditional Theravada Buddhism is a religion of despair honestly, with no hope except release from life and the endless cycles of birth.

Look at the religion that is now most successful, Islam, and you find none of these things. Instead you see a religion that gives a good-evil narrative, belief in the goodness of the physical, a rigid set of guidelines to guide society and behavior, and absolute faith in the rightness of their beliefs. I would argue Christianity provides a better version of this narrative, but something like it seems the way forward, not the despairing faith you describe.

I’m going to repeat what I wrote under Steve’s open thread, but I’ll reiterate that I don’t think it helps anything to start shouting “Trump is no different than Hillary” after only one blunder; if anything seeing his loyal supporters disown him (as opposed to expressing their disappointment and criticizing the decision) is more likely to make Trump want the loving embrace of the Neocons and MSM :

I’m definitely disappointed by this, and I’ll admit it doesn’t look good. Still, this is just one incident and the first real disappointment of his presidency. Add to that the reports that Russia was notified in advance and you have some evidence that there was a deliberate effort to avoid the WWIII escalation some fear.

Still, despair accomplishes nothing. I’ll be willing to call Trump a fraud when he orders a full invasion of Syria and calls Putin a threat to civilization. Until then, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I understand why so many are upset by this; I too voted for Trump as a “peace president.” Nevertheless, its disheartening to see so many willing to write him off as a puppet. Nothing wrong with telling him and the world that you think this was a bad move, but hasn’t Trump earned a little bit of faith?

Trump is only human, but let’s not forget he played a difficult game and managed to kill the two biggest and best funded political dynasties with no prior political experience. It’s possible there’s a long-game we aren’t seeing; it’s possible Trump made a dumb decision and will reconsider after seeing how his supporters and people like Coulter are reacting; it’s possible he’ll smell a rat when he realizes all the Democrats and Neocons are applauding this. Let’s see what happens next before giving up on him.

As insufferable as this kid’s article was, I did get a genuine laugh out of how he managed to plug his own website and life story even while claiming to be selflessly concerned about the well-fare of those more oppressed than he is.

The self-promotion is so transparent and shameless it can’t help but be funny. How can anyone take something like this seriously?

I’m definitely disappointed by this, and I’ll admit it doesn’t look good. Still, this is only one incident and the first real disappointment of his presidency. Add to that the reports that Russia was notified in advance and you have some evidence that there was a deliberate effort to avoid the WWWIII escalation some fear.

Still, despair accomplishes nothing. I’ll be willing to call Trump a fraud when he orders a full invasion of Syria and calls Putin a threat to civilization. Until then, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I understand why so many are upset by this; I too voted for Trump as a “peace president.” Nevertheless, its disheartening to see so many willing to write him off as a puppet. Nothing wrong with telling him and the world that you think this was a bad move, but I think Trump has earned a little bit of faith.

Trump is only human, but let’s not forget he played a difficult game and managed to kill the two biggest and best funded political dynasties with no prior political experience. It’s possible there’s a long-game we aren’t seeing; it’s possible Trump made a dumb decision and will reconsider after seeing how his supporters and people like Coulter are reacting; it’s possible he’ll smell a rat when he realizes all the Democrats and Neocons are applauding this. Let’s see what happens next before giving up on him.

Edit: Puebla is misspelled as ‘Pueblo.’

There was a population crash after the 1521 landing the Cortés in Mexico because one of the crewmen had smallpox and the natives had no immunity. It started in central Mexico and spread in a few decades through to Argentina and Alaska. The generations that survived were smaller and culturally transformed by the sudden mass death.

The Mound Builders of the central Midwest left some pretty big and impressive monuments. Their society collapsed with smallpox and they were never encountered by european settlers. We’re not really sure if they’re even related to any modern tribes. Their works were covered by dirt and growth over the years. Unlike the Mexicans, the US authorities haven’t seen fit to dig ruins out from under their mounds and promote them.

Note that the mass emigration from the Southwest desert to central Mexico after the 1276 drought started included the Mexica tribe, also known as the Aztecs. They started their Mexican conquests in 1325 after arriving in Mexico City.

As for the Four Corners region, many of the settlements there were obviously built for defensibility against conquest. Cliff dwellings exist to keep residents safe, not to show off their appetite for risky derring-do to tourists. Those ancestors of the Aztecs lived in a violent culture. The scarcity of reliable water in dry years may have driven fierce battles for the best real estate.

Even today, there is a saying in the region: Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.

"I'm a gay race realist…"

As am I. I have family in Baltimore and the last time I visited that terrible city I was chased by a barking mob of black teenagers through the Inner Harbor. Yes, they were barking at me as if they were dogs and their barks were being answered by another unseen group who barked in return a street or two over. We ducked into a Subway restaurant, told the employees what was happening, and waited until the group had cleared.

I was laos threatened by a young black man in Baltimores Penn Station for daring to look in his direction while searching for my brother who was picking me up from the train. We requested a police escort to the parking lot.

Baltimore is finished.

You better back it up!

Check your ad providers. An ad on this page tried to prompt me to download malware (Firefox 4.0.1, Mac OS 10.6.7)

Wait, electrons are a “subset” of atoms? Call me a moderate, but don’t you mean component? Maybe protons, if you allow a charge.

@Chief Seattle:

I enjoy your posts Sir, but may I explain something to you about teacher union power, at least in California? I used to be a trial lawyer in CTA's group legal services program. This is the central feature of union membership. When I was participating, any certificated educator was entitled, without cost, to the services of a first-rate, really crack attorney in challenging any termination or other significant discipline So, if some administrator, doubtless prompted by the complaint of a parent or "community" group, were to make a politically incorrect observation, such as the ineducability of many of the students, that administrator and her district would have one hell of a tough and expensive legal fight on their hands. The first thing that these very talented (often Jewish) lawyers would do is assert the First Amendment. An administrative law judge (the first step in the process) would likely be very responsive to such a claim, and would invalidate the termination. The district would then have the burden of overturning that decision in the courts under an "arbitrary and capricious" standard, which is very tough to scale. In short, what you describe has virtually no chance of occurring in a state with a seasoned teachers' union.