Reviews and News:
Oldest-known tablet of the Ten Commandments has been sold for $850,000: “‘The new owner is under obligation to display the tablet for the benefit of the public,’ said David Michaels, who oversees ancient coins and antiquities for Heritage Auctions. ‘The sale of this tablet does not mean it will be hidden away.’ Michaels said the tablet probably adorned a synagogue in Yavneh, in what is now western Israel. But the synagogue is believed to have been destroyed by either the 11th century crusaders or by Romans between 400 and 600 A.D.”
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Revisiting the American Revolution: A typical colonist in the revolutionary era was “filled with doubt and suspicious of both sides.”
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The factory of fakes: “How a workshop uses digital technology to craft perfect copies of imperilled art.”
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What will Trump’s attitude be towards the arts during his administration? No one knows: “Though he has been front-and-center in public life for more than four decades in the country’s cultural capital, Mr. Trump has left a meager trail to suggest what positions he might take on public arts funding and arts education, along with issues like censorship and economic policies that would affect creative industries, not to mention how he and the first lady, Melania Trump, might decorate the White House…’I don’t see anything apocalyptic with him coming in,’ said Rocco Landesman, the Broadway impresario and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.”
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The rise of the capitalist left: “The old left has been collapsing in the West for some time. Being of the left today is a consumerist lifestyle choice, a means of adopting a caring pose in order to mask or atone for one’s egocentric behaviour. The ‘metropolitan elite’ may better be described as ‘the capitalist left’. Champagne socialism was once considered an amusing aberration in Britain, but it is now the norm in a country in which to be of the left is a means of projecting one’s public good standing. Virtue signalling and protesting is a substitute for social action, not an expression of it. One puts up a ‘Vote Labour’ placard once every five years to atone for the fact that you aren’t remotely a socialist.”
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Russell Kirk and abnormity in literature: “An abnormity, explains Kirk, ‘in its Latin root, means a monstrosity, defying the norm, the nature of things.’ The foolish embrace of nonconformity within art is ‘monstrosity in the soul and in society.’ Man is shaped by the art of his age. ‘Art is man’s nature,’ Burke famously wrote; and Kirk provides the necessary foreboding corollary: ‘Personal and social decadence are not the work of ineluctable forces, but are the consequences of defying normative truth: a failure of right reason, if you will, resulting in abnormality. When we distort the arts of literature and statecraft, we warp our nature before long.'”
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Essay of the Day:
Over at The Washington Free Beacon, Bill McMorris surveys the problem of fake news and the tireless work of The New York Times to combat it:
“The New York Times exposed the threat of fake news even before the election of Donald Trump two weeks ago, arguing that spreading faulty information is a threat to the Republic.
“The paper highlighted alt-right conspiracy websites publishing outrageous lies masquerading as news in a piece headlined ‘Journalism’s Next Challenge: Overcoming the Threat of Fake News.’ The Times interviewed journalists and ‘longtime critic of fake news’ Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) about how credulous Americans often fall for narratives that confirm their pre-existing biases without proper vetting from objective reporters.
“‘If you have a society where people can’t agree on basic facts, how do you have a functioning democracy?’ asked one D.C. editor.
“The answer could be found on social media. ‘Folks, subscribe to a paper. Democracy demands it,’ one Times reporter wrote. Another added, ‘Or don’t. You’ll get what you pay for.’
“Times readers had the inside scoop that the nation was watching ‘Hispanics Surge to Polls,’ which would serve as the mortar in Hillary Clinton’s blue wall. The surge would not have been possible without the Clinton campaign, which was ‘Looking to Expand Lead With Hispanics‘ with Spanish-language ads and get-out-the-vote operations as the Times reported on Oct. 2.
“The New York Times‘ report on ‘dangerously fake news’ news ran alongside a report that ‘Hispanic America has been mobilized like never before in the 2016 election, and is emerging as a formidable force with the power to elect a president.’
“‘Energized by anger at Mr. Trump and an aggressive Democratic campaign to get them to the polls, Latinos are turning out in record numbers and could make the difference in the outcome in several highly contested states,’ the Times reported.
“The Times did not just rely on shoe leather, but hard facts so often missing from fake news sites. Without data, those susceptible to fake news can be led astray, such as the Pennsylvania voters who insisted Trump would win the state—a belief shared by only those trapped in a ‘bubble of such devoted [Trump] followers.’ If those Trump supporters ventured outside of their bubble they would have known that ‘Trump Can’t Count on Those ‘Missing White Voters.’‘
“Times subscribers were told the reports of a Latino surge were backed up by the data: ‘The Hispanic Voter Surge Was a Myth in 2012. But Not This Time.'”
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Image of the Day: Fall
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Poem: Robert W. Crawford, “The Snowstorms that Remain”
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