Bob Jones University of Greenville, SC, famous for its long-time segregationist policies, has placed a statement on its website, apologizing for that history.
…for far too long, we allowed institutional policies regarding race to be shaped more directly by that ethos than by the principles and precepts of the Scriptures. We conformed to the culture rather than provide a clear Christian counterpoint to it.
Too little, too late, some will say. But I’m glad they did it.
Tip: WORLD Magazine.
James Lileks, the chariots of the Blogosphere and the horses thereof, has added a new section to his Institute of Official Cheer, over at lileks.com. It’s called Comic Ads in Comics.
In the past James has made us wince through revealing the amazing awfulness of pictures of food in old recipe books, and interior decoration as practiced in the 1970s (apparently entirely by blind people). But I think this new section may be the most painful of them all. Ugly, mendacious and pathetic all at once, the old comic ads from comic books are like one of those hypnotherapy sessions on TV crime shows, where the traumatized victim screams “No! No!” as the police hypnotist tries to pull some horrible, suppressed memory out of his subconscious, like a dentist yanking a healthy tooth. Anybody who spent any time with comics in their childhood (and I read a few, though only when they were given to me. The folks wouldn’t let us spend money on the things. I see their point now) will recognize those ads. Post-traumatic stress ensues.
I think I’ve mentioned previously that, before I set my personal sights on immortality through literature, I dreamed of being an artist. I drew incessantly as a kid. I had no high-brow pretensions. I wanted to draw stuff that looked like stuff. I wanted to be another Norman Rockwell or Howard Pyle. I thought I might be a cartoonist, or a commercial artist.
So I can imagine myself snagging an entry-level job with Marvel or DC, and being assigned to draw these abominations as part of my apprenticeship. It reminds me of something I used to say, when I was contemplating (theoretically) what it would be like to try to be a professional actor—“If you’re really lucky, you get to prostitute yourself.”
All in all, I think I prefer being a failed novelist to being a failed artist.
(I mean, “Captain Tootsie.” Nothing could justify that. Nothing.)
There’s a bit of truth in the thick of this self-loving opinion by a Guardian’s book blogger. “Because by choosing to write books, as opposed to becoming talk show hosts, or country singers, Palin and Wurzelbacher are tacitly endorsing two of the things that Blue America loves the most, and which Red America has often disdained: freedom of expression and reading.”
Sure. I’m a Republican, and I never read or write. I don’t give a rat’s rear-end about those things. I’d much rather picket my local learning establishment or fish in the river I polluted.
Jimmy Davis talks about the hard work of humble, silent service.
Sorry I missed last week. I hope this makes up for it.
And I earned about 88% on the American history and civics quiz linked from this post, but I confess I don’t think I would have gotten one of the questions if I had not read the post. Answer the 33 questions yourself and tell us how you do.
Ballantyne the Brave is the website and blog of Joshua T. Phillips, 15, who is dedicated to inspiring boys to read good books like those of G.A. Henty and R.M. Ballantyne. It was Robert Louis Stevenson who gave us the phrase “Ballantyne the Brave.” Phillips writes, “He did this to honor Ballantyne for his bold vision of manhood — a vision which influenced Stevenson himself.”
I see one of Ballantyne’s books is on Leif Ericsson, called The Norsemen in the West. Rife with errors no doubt, but hopefully fun to read.
Somehow, I think this is funny.
American writer Tobias Wolff considers conservatives (i.e., people not on his side) to be the rudest of Americans. He write, “When I see someone being rude to a waiter, or blocking the road in a Ford Expedition, or yakking loudly on a cell phone in a crowded elevator, I naturally assume they voted for George W. Bush.”
Give it up.
Anthony Sacramone, formerly of “Luther at the Movies” and “First Things” is back blogging at Strange Herring.
I suppose he’ll suddenly give it up again in a couple of weeks, but for now, our long night of the cyber-soul is over.
Tip: First Things.
Remember the Bower family? The missionaries whose plane was shot down over Peru in 2001, resulting in the deaths of the wife and daughter?
Turns out the CIA lied about the circumstances of the action.
Story here.