I TOLD HER TO WRITE WHAT SHE WAS TELLING ME: And Kate Paulk did — thoughts on Mitt Romney’s character. Her new book ConSensual is just out. It continues her fun with Sci fi conventions. It has a vampire detective who bites hard and just won’t let go. You’ll come way dying fur more… er… (runs.)
LONGEVITY UPDATE: A Speculative Order of Arrival for Important Rejuvenation Therapies. All I can say is, “faster, please.”
OBVIOUSLY, THEY HAVE A DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Many California university leaders back Democrats. By a huge margin.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Happy Columbus Day!
In American history, the fight to make a holiday on Columbus Day actually had almost nothing to do with the actual arrival of Christopher Columbus in the western hemisphere. It wasn’t about celebrating the European conquest of the Americas or the extirpation of the native tribes.
The day was made a holiday after years of lobbying as a way of recognizing the contribution of Roman Catholics and immigrants generally to American life. It is a holiday to celebrate diversity, not to commemorate the imperial outreach of Ferdinand and Isabella, a deeply regrettable couple who were notorious oath breakers, inquisitors and anti-Semites.
You’d think the MoveOn crowd would be more supportive, then.
Meanwhile, here’s what I post every year on Columbus Day:
HAPPY COLUMBUS DAY: Many in the West will demonstrate their fierce originality and intellectual independence today by condemning Christopher Columbus using the same shopworn cliches they used last year. For those of a different bent, I recommend Samuel Eliot Morison’s Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus, which takes a somewhat different position. Here’s an excerpt:
At the end of 1492 most men in Western Europe felt exceedingly gloomy about the future. Christian civilization appeared to be shrinking in area and dividing into hostile units as its sphere contracted. For over a century there had been no important advance in natural science and registration in the universities dwindled as the instruction they offered became increasingly jejune and lifeless. Institutions were decaying, well-meaning people were growing cynical or desperate, and many intelligent men, for want of something better to do, were endeavoring to escape the present through studying the pagan past. . . .
Yet, even as the chroniclers of Nuremberg were correcting their proofs from Koberger’s press, a Spanish caravel named Nina scudded before a winter gale into Lisbon with news of a discovery that was to give old Europe another chance. In a few years we find the mental picture completely changed. Strong monarchs are stamping out privy conspiracy and rebellion; the Church, purged and chastened by the Protestant Reformation, puts her house in order; new ideas flare up throughout Italy, France, Germany and the northern nations; faith in God revives and the human spirit is renewed. The change is complete and startling: “A new envisagement of the world has begun, and men are no longer sighing after the imaginary golden age that lay in the distant past, but speculating as to the golden age that might possibly lie in the oncoming future.”
Christopher Columbus belonged to an age that was past, yet he became the sign and symbol of this new age of hope, glory and accomplishment. His medieval faith impelled him to a modern solution: Expansion.
Morison’s book is superb, and I recommend it highly as an antidote to the simplistic anti-occidental prejudice of today — which, as Jim Bennett has noted, has roots that might surprise its proponents:
This is primarily an effect of the Calvinist Puritan roots of American progressivism. Just as Calvinists believed in the centrality of the depravity of man, with the exception of a minuscule contingent of the Elect of God, their secularized descendants believe in the depravity and cursedness of Western civilization, with their own enlightened selves in the role of the Elect.
Indeed. Nonetheless, Bennett thinks that a different Italian deserves the real credit. (Reposted from 2005, but it still fits.) [Doesn’t this leave you vulnerable to charges of recycling too? –ed. I prefer to think of it as “They came at us in the same old way, and, you know, we beat them in the same old way.”]
I post this every year, as it’s evergreen. The original link to Bennett’s column seems to have succumbed to link-rot, but I believe this is it.
UPDATE: I haven’t read it, but a reader recommends Columbus: The Four Voyages, too.
CHANGE:
● To support then-candidate Obama as his vice presidential nominee, “I think the Democrats have some intriguing candidates, and [then-71 year old] Sen. McCain is going to have to find somebody younger.”
— Obama campaign finance committee advisor Steve Westly in May of 2008.
● “In 2008 the Obama campaign released an ad that mocked John McCain for his inability to send an email – which infuriated people, because the reason why he can’t send an email is because his arms have never really worked properly after the North Vietnamese got done torturing him. When Obama’s Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden dared mildly apologize for it, the Obama campaign humiliated Biden by having their lackey Bill Burton come out and retract Biden’s apology.”
— “Aww. Barack Obama *misses* the nice, civilized 2008 election cycle!” Moe Lane, June 2nd 2012.
● “He’s somebody who’s at the end of his career. Eighty years old. I’m sure that — what he wants is to be able to — end his career with dignity. And my hope is that — it happens. ”
— “Obama: Time for Rangel to end career ‘with dignity,'” The Politico, July 30th, 2010.
● “They form what is perhaps the smallest and least influential voting bloc in the 2012 presidential race. But this campaign season, the nation’s oldest voters — 100 years, plus — are proving that they may have the most grit, and an affinity for President Obama.”
— ABC News, “Obama’s Edge With Centenarians,” today.
DISCRIMINATION: With affirmative action, “rich students routinely get preference over more accomplished poor ones who do not happen to belong to” the “backward castes.” Summary: “A NYT article displays sympathy to the victims of affirmative action… in India.”
Plus, from the comments: “The measures meant to do away with the caste system simply entrench a caste system with different winners and losers. As here.”
I HATE THIS IDEA TOO: Give Back! (I like the idea of paying it forward, for the help I got for nothing coming up. I do a lot of mentoring and teaching because of that. BUT I didn’t steal anything, so there’s nothing to give back. Yeah, I did build that!)
YEAH, AND HE COULDN’T SPEAK WITHOUT A TELEPROMPTER: Colo. Governor: ‘Lincoln Wasn’t a Great Debater’ Stop laughing. He’s my governor. (And I wanna cry.)
VIDEO: No, BuzzFeed and Mediaite, Paul Ryan Didn’t Get ‘Testy’ and End an Interview. Although the reporter was certainly doing his best to suckerpunch Ryan at the end with his biased opinion only vaguely disguised as a question.
THE PRIVATE SECTOR IS DOING JUST FINE: Food Stamp Participation Rises
IS LAW SCHOOL TUITION “TOO DAMN HIGH?” I think so, but shockingly some law deans disagree.
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: Obama Using IRS To Go After Enemies.
Well, after Obama joked about doing just that, it’s hardly a shock.
MARKETS: Mysterious Algorithm Was 4% of Trading Activity Last Week. “A single mysterious computer program that placed orders — and then subsequently canceled them — made up 4 percent of all quote traffic in the U.S. stock market last week, according to the top tracker of high-frequency trading activity. The motive of the algorithm is still unclear.”
LOWER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Education reform efforts favor girls, at the cost of educating our boys.
This is because of the massive underrrepresentation of men in the K-12 education world. We need Title IX-style requirements for equal gender representation among teachers and administrators. A military-veteran preference would help, too.
PERSPECTIVE: No Body Count from Watergate but Hundreds Dead from Fast and Furious. Then there’s that whole Benghazi thing.
THIS HAS TO BE WRONG: The Same SCOTUS that Upheld ObamaCare May Make it Harder to Sell Your Old Corolla I’m sure ours is not the only middle-class family making ends meet by buying non-essentials like videos and games used, and our electronics one generation old.
WELL IF COLUMBUS IS RESPECTABLE AGAIN: The Portuguese Columbus: Secret Agent of King John I No, it’s probably not true. (Although there was a DNA test sometime and now I don’t remember how it turned out.) But the thesis is fascinating for those interested in that sort of thing… or who might decide to write a book about historical conspiracies (I hear some guy called Dan Brown did pretty well out of that sort of thing) even if my parents laugh whenever the author is mentioned.
CHANGE: Pew poll: Romney erases eight-point deficit, now leads by four among likely voters.
Related: Was Romney’s Debate Win the Most Convincing in History? It Looks That Way. “Gallup’s latest survey shows just how overwhelmingly the American public thought Mitt Romney bested President Obama onstage in Denver last Wednesday: 72 percent of debate watchers gave the win to the GOP challenger with only 20 percent seeing the president as the winner. That 52-point gap was the largest the polling outfit has ever seen, topping even Bill Clinton’s 42-point margin over George H. W. Bush in 1992.”
Ah, yes, the once-popular President who turned out to be a one-termer when challenged by a successful governor during bad economic times.
BECAUSE RAPISTS RESPECT WEDDING RINGS OR WHY NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUALLY VALID: Girls should marry to avoid being raped, say Indian caste elders.
Girls should marry while they are children to avoid being raped, Indian caste elders declared after a 16 year girl killed herself following a gang-rape.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: How to set up your own slackline.
MICHAEL WALSH: Washington’s Shame, Mitt’s Opportunity. “The Taliban was quickly routed after 9/11 by a platoon of Marines and a set of steak knives, and the American forces since have distinguished themselves on the battlefield, tactically. But strategically — that’s a different story. Thanks to a total lack of understanding of the meaning of the word ‘victory,’ a failure to finish the job– a failure of will — has been the hallmark of both administrations.”
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Black Middle Class Loses 30 Years of Gains.
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