I am behind on reporting on my reading list for 2013 - for that, I apologize, but what that does mean is that you’ll see at least two andprobably three new blog posts this week as I catch you up on my experience with the books on my list. First up is the anthropologist Marvin Harris‘s classic explanation of our […]
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S&R Honors: Ivan Toms and Lawrie Schlemmer – what we were we still are
Waiting for a miracle “How long are you prepared to wait?” I asked. It was 1991 in the Eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth and I was in my final year of high school. Nelson Mandela had been released in 1990 with me hovering over the television, my camera on a tripod, in a futile […]
Playing with pain: RGIII and the challenge of The Sport Ethic
It’s not often you get to see one of your research interests play out in real-time. But last night, during the Seahawks-Redskins playoff game, we saw The Sport Ethic clearly illustrated. Quick refresher: The Sport Ethic is a concept from sports sociology (Hughes & Coakely, 1991) in which they found four traits that elite athletes believe. One […]
Telling History vs. Making Art: Fictions and Histories
Final part of a series “[H]istory and historical fiction,” says historian Paul Ashdown, “are alternate ways of telling stories about the past.” In that context, Ulysses S. Grant spoke more truth than he realized when he said “Wars produce many stories of fiction.” Aside from yarn-spun anecdotes about apple-tree surrenders and lemon-sucking generals, war also produces “stories […]
Telling History vs. Making Art: Fictions told until they are believed to be true
Part eight in a series “Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true,” Ulysses S. Grant said in his Personal Memoirs. Grant was specifically referring to a fiction “based on a slight foundation of fact” from Appomattox Court House, where Robert E. Lee’s army surrendered. The formal surrender […]
Telling History vs. Making Art: The Civil War’s great storyteller
Part six in a series. No written work embodies the tension between art and history more fully than Shelby Foote’s mammoth three-volume The Civil War: A Narrative. Few people realize Foote was a novelist before he became the “warm and folksy raconteur” of anecdotal Civil War history; his novel Shiloh sits almost forgotten in the shadow of his magnum […]
Telling History vs. Making Art: “Frankly, my dear….”
Part three in a series As the horn section carries Max Steiner’s score from its overture into the sweeping, now-iconic strings of its main theme, Gone With the Wind opens with haggard-looking slaves returning from a hard day’s work set against the first of many sunset backdrops. On-screen text immediately evokes a romanticized antebellum past: There was a […]
Telling History vs. Making Art: The ways we remember the Civil War
Part two in a series “We may say that only at the moment when Lee handed Grant his sword was the Confederacy born,” wrote Robert Penn Warren during the Civil War’s centennial; “or to state matters another way, in the moment of death the Confederacy entered upon its immortality.” Writer/activist Albion W. Tourgee, however, considered that moment […]
Was there a Mrs. Jesus?
In case you don’t regularly visit the “Entertainment” section on the main Google News page, you may have missed the article published yesterday afternoon with variations on the headline, “A Faded Piece of Papyrus Refers to Jesus’ Wife.” Harvard historian, Karen L. King, presented her findings yesterday at a conference in Rome. Dr. King has […]
International community: Zombie apocalypse not likely
Daniel Drezner’s visit to Graceland a few years back taught him something important about writing about zombies. Fellow tourists seemed to fall into two contingents: The first contingent was thoroughly, utterly sincere in their devotion to all things Elvis. They were hardcore fans, and Graceland was their Mecca, their Jerusalem, and their Rome…. The second […]
Cop Killer 2011: Police, power and the case of Lt. Pike
I think at some point in our lives, most of us imagine that it might be cool to be famous. But perhaps…perhaps not like this.
Empowerment and education: Why young people don't vote
by Matthew Record “In the immediate aftermath of the Twenty-sixth Amendment’s passage, nearly eleven million new voters joined the general electorate.
The Painted Kipper: Reith, the BBC, Facing Modernity – full download now available
Editor’s Note: Earlier this year, S&R ran a five-part series on Lord John Reith, the iconic architect of modern broadcasting in the UK. The series, authored by the University of Colorado’s Dr. Michael Tracey, one of the world’s most distinguished media critics and analysts, explored the complex and controversial Reith, who managed to be at once […]
Rand and objectivism: Are rationality and consistency the hallmarks of good philosophy?
by Matthew Record “I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there’s something wrong, pass a law and do something about it.” — Milton Friedman Objectivism is the philosophy developed and espoused over time by Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead and […]
S&R Honors
Click here to learn more about past honorees...- Denver FOX News affiliate caught making shit up
- IRS/Tea Party controversy: progressive groups “targeted,” too, and corporate media once again refuses to tell Americans the whole truth
- “Useful Enemies”: U.S. admitted not just Nazis after WWII, but their sadistic collaborators
- The time a source has to respond to request for comment? Virtually none.
- Profiling the Tea Party: In defense of the IRS. Sorta. Or not.
- Mystery Unraveled: How a white, moderate, married, churchgoing, middle-class, middle-aged woman could vote for Obama
- An open letter to Burt Rutan, regarding his WSJ commentary on human-caused climate disruption
- Meet the men of Match.com: Really, guys, are you serious?
- Climate scientists still besieged
- Pelosi on Bush: “He’s not worth impeaching”
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Samuel Smith: The left? Really? Can't say I ever noticed that. M…
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elfkat: Reblogged this on Adventures and Musings of a Hedg…
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Bret Higgins: Just one point to note. FOX 31 isn't owned by Fox …
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Frank Dilatush: Interesting but I don't read any hint of reciproci…
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Brian Angliss: That would be the same Fox News that won a lawsuit…
