When testing the instincts of police officers, subjects in Josh Correll’s test revealed that they usually saw young black men as threatening, but they did so much less often than civilians did. “’We’re more likely to shoot a black man with a wallet,’ Semien (a former officer) says, ‘and we’re less likely to shoot a white man with a gun.’”
With this background, we must ask why we perceive young black men the way we do (and other types of people as well) and how we can make better judgments.
The actor best known as Mr. Spock died today. Leonard Nimoy leaves behind many appearances in shows outside the Star Trek universe, such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Outlaws
Mission Impossible, where he played Paris from 1969-1971
On Perry Mason (spoiler) Continue reading Leonard Nimoy’s Other Roles
Scott Beggs looks at top-grossing films and says originality isn’t something Hollywood recently lost. He says it’s never been an original thinking place. It’s been a money-making place.
He explains, “The most original box office year was 1984 with 8 originals (Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins, Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose, The Terminator and Romancing the Stone). Note how many of those got sequels or were remade. The least original box office years were (of course) 2011 and 2012, although 1968, 1972, 2007, 2013 and 2014 all only had a single original movie make the top ten.”
Sam Tanenhaus answers the question of To Kill a Mockingbird‘s endurance.
“For all the merits of the latest criticism of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” its appeal never rested on its realistic picture of Southern life. It was anachronistic even in its day (one reason, perhaps, that Lee set the action much earlier). There were sit-ins in Nashville and in Greensboro, N.C., in February 1960, five months before “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published. Within a year the Freedom Rides had challenged Lee’s sorting of humanity into simple categories — the high-minded Finches and the humble, hard-working African-Americans who look to them for protection, both groups united against the ‘ignorant, trashy people’ who represent the true danger to the community.” (via Books, Inq.)
The Rifleman (five seasons from 1958-1963) is now out on DVD. Marvin Olasky writes that it isn’t only a great western, but has a unique leading man. “Lucas McCain was also a compassionate conservative, supporting a recovering alcoholic who became a marshal, giving an ex-con a job on his ranch, and helping a man from China open a laundry. In one episode McCain could not believe that an old enemy had changed and become a doctor, but he admitted his mistake after the former adversary helped him in a gunfight.”
“The structure of routine comforts us, and the specialness of ritual vitalizes us,” explains Maria Popova. “A full life calls for both — too much control, and we become mummified; too little excitement and pleasurable discombobulation, and we become numb. After all, to be overly bobulated is to be dead inside — to doom oneself to a life devoid of the glorious and ennobling messiness of the human experience.”
She rejoices over a book by Anne Lamott on organizing our chaos with hope.
Patrick Kurp remarks on the careful prose of Abraham Lincoln, whom he calls one of the greatest prose writers among U.S. presidents. And occasionally quite funny.
“In a letter he wrote from Springfield, Ill., to Mrs. Orville H. Browning on Jan. 27, 1838, Abraham Lincoln, then a member of the Illinois General Assembly, tells a tall-tale, purportedly true, worthy of Mark Twain. It involves the matchmaking efforts of another friend on behalf of her sister.” Read on.
James K. A. Smith spoke to a collection of writers and editors for small journals on his love of magazines and principles for their development.
I believe in magazines. You could even say my devotion to Stoke ‘zine was a kind of “common grace” expression of believing in the sacramental power of the Word. It’s like I had a inchoate sense of the unique grace and influence of a word become flesh.
All of that to say: I believe in what you are doing, and it’s an honor to think with you about this calling to publish our little journals. To be committed to such endeavors is to believe, as Raymond Carver put it, in “small good things.”
. . .
My colleague Fr. Raymond de Souza, editor of Convivium magazine, recalls a conversation he once had with Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, the founder of First Things: “‘Raymond,” he said, “if you want to advance an idea, write a book. But if you want to change a culture, you need a magazine. Because magazines are literally periodical, they create an ongoing community—readers, writers, editors, benefactors. And only communities can change cultures.”
He offers a few high altitude principles and some practical tips on getting the work done. (via Justin Taylor)
Anthony Sacramone is a friend of this blog, proprietor of the Strange Herring blog (where he’s posting again, happily), and an editor of the Intercollegiate Review. The IR has just released a new issue, and I thought I’d pass along Anthony’s pitch:
The Spring 2015 issue of the Intercollegiate Review has arrived. I don’t know how. It’s like a miracle.
Live on IRO are essays by Peter Thiel on “The Competition Myth” and Daniel Hannan on “The Privilege of Freedom.”
Soon to go live is Mary Eberstadt’s takedown of college bullying and its effects on the religious commitments of students (“From Campus Bullies to Empty Churches”) and an assessment of JRR Tolkien’s politics (“Lord of the Permanent Things”).
Also in the lineup is my own “The 12 Funniest Books Ever Written,” which, of course, was the only reason to publish this d*mn thing in the first place. There’s also an apologia for smoking, one of our counterintuitive reports on longevity, entitled “You’ve Lived Long Enough Now Please Move Along.”
Our friend Michael Medved also wrote the God on the Quad department this issue: “Vital Lessons in Vile Smears.”
You can find our entire TOC as well as the digital edition of the IR here.
As we’re trying to reach as many young minds as humanly possible in order to undo some of the damage done by their filthy communist atheist nihilist indoctrinators, I would appreciate it if you would share these links with every single person you know. I will be eternally grateful–within strict limits, of course.
I thank you. And America thanks you.
Anthony