Reviews and News:
Why is Florida so weird? “In his newest book, Oh, Florida! How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country, Craig Pittman tells those outside the peninsula: The deal with Florida is the charlatans and lunatics and Snapchat-famous plastic surgeons. It is the Ponzi schemes, the byzantine corruption, the evangelical fervor and the consenting-adult depravity. It is the seasonless climate. The lack of historical consciousness. The way in which this nation’s unctuous elements tend to trickle down as if Florida were the grease trap under America’s George Foreman grill. It is all of the above, and then some, and then more on top of that.”
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Unlike most humanities professors, classicists have a good relationship with high school teachers. Why?
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Michael Bible and the many strains of Southern literature: “A Hannah-disciple book has several distinct elements. It contains an evangelical’s rude energy. It views sex as the main freeway to the divine. Booze, or any other drug, is a form of Eucharist. The narrative itself is not necessarily linear, concerned with plot, ‘realism,’ or persuasive characterization; it is more about mood and the accumulation of verbal gestures. It is more about stunt and affect than it is about world-building or diagnosing societal problems. It might satirize aspects of our world, but it does so on the way to the party, not as the party itself. And it’s usually quite funny…As a general rule, the Percyites are attracted to, but ultimately frightened by, the Hannahs. The Percyites might compliment the fine filigree of wrought iron on the balcony in the Garden District, but the Hannahs are the sea-funk mildew growing on that wrought iron. The Percyites know that that these weeds will ultimately win, and they’re jealous of the Hannahs’ hearty blasphemy.”
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Shakespeare in London. The celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death is rather different from his 400th birthday 52 years ago.
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CEO and artiste provocateur Jeff Koons lays off painters who attempted to unionize.
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Debating the College Board’s new AP European History exam. (HT: Acculturated)
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Essay of the Day:
In National Affairs, David Azerrad asks: “How equal should opportunities be?”:
“In 1864, Abraham Lincoln gave a short speech to a sanitary fair in Baltimore. While the address itself is of little note, it does contain a passage that sheds much light on the character of political debates in America. ‘The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty,’ said Lincoln, ‘and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.’
“What Lincoln said of liberty applies equally to our other core political ideals. In America, we don’t disagree about whether equality, rights, and democracy are good. We disagree about what they entail. And so, when it comes to ‘equality of opportunity’ — perhaps the most cherished term in our political lexicon — nearly all Americans embrace the idea. About 95% of us agree that ‘everyone in America should have an equal opportunity to get ahead.’ But we don’t all understand this to mean the same thing. We differ widely about how to gauge whether opportunities are indeed equal, and over how much should be done — and by whom — to equalize opportunities. At its root, our ongoing debate about the vitality of the American Dream and the promise of equality of opportunity underlying it is really a debate over what life owes us and what we owe one another.
“Because equality of opportunity looms so large over our politics, it is crucial that we better understand its different meanings. Conservatives, in particular, need to gain clarity about the left’s expansive view of equality of opportunity as equality of life chances — arguably the central moral doctrine of modern liberalism. To be sure, it is a powerful idea because it appeals directly to our democratic prejudices. The challenge we face is how to resist this siren song and its damaging implications, while continuing to champion sound policies that can expand opportunity for those who were born into challenging circumstances.
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Image of the Day: Explosions
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Poem: George David Clark, “Poltergeists”
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