NYT: Is the National Anthem Racist?

NYT:  The continuing refusal by the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to stand during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before games has set off a debate about patriotism, protest and professional sports. But it has also raised another fraught question: Is our national anthem itself racist?

The journalist Jon Schwarz, writing in The Intercept, argued yes, denouncing the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key during the War of 1812, as “a celebration of slavery.” How could black players, Mr. Schwarz asked, be expected to stand for a song whose rarely sung third stanza — which includes the lines “No refuge could save the hireling and slave/From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave” — “literally celebrates the murder of African-Americans”?

That argument drew outrage from some conservative news outlets, as well as a more scholarly rebuttal from Mark Clague, a musicologist at the University of Michigan and the founding board chairman of the Star Spangled Music Foundation. We spoke with Mr. Clague, who is writing a book about the song, about the anthem’s history and shifting meanings. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Why do you think those who call the song racist are wrong?

The social context of the song comes from the age of slavery, but the song itself isn’t about slavery, and it doesn’t treat whites differently from blacks. The reference to slaves is about the use, and in some sense the manipulation, of black Americans to fight for the British, with the promise of freedom. The American forces included African-Americans as well as whites. The term “freemen,” whose heroism is celebrated in the fourth stanza, would have encompassed both.  (Link to rest of the interview)

"How Did the Practice of Women Jumping Out of Giant Cakes Start?"

"The use of actual live animals was a natural evolution from all the mimicry. The tradition of the entremet—a between-courses dish served more for entertainment than for eating—was in full swing by the end of the Middle Ages, with wine fountains, castles made of meat, and live actors and musicians rolled in on replicas of ships, re-enacting scenes from recent history. Living creatures, (especially birds and frogs) placed into giant pies became such a popular entremet that a recipe features in an Italian cookbook from 1474. Maestro Martino explains how to make a hole in the bottom crust of a pie, stuff it with a smaller pie, and then:"

…In the empty space that remains around the small pie, put some live birds, as many as it will hold; and the birds should be placed in it just before it is to be served; and when it is served before those seated at the banquet, you remove the cover above, and the little birds will fly away. This is done to entertain and amuse your company. And in order that they do not remain disappointed by this, cut the small pie up and serve.

The trend continued into the 1600s, with famous families like the de Medicis surprising guests with live birds in pastry crust for a wedding party. Robert May, author of a 1660 British cookbook, describes how the birds would tend to flap about and seek the light, extinguishing all the candles, and how the hopping frogs cause the ladies to shriek, creating “a diverting Hurley-Burley amongst the Guests in the Dark!”...

Even though the live-bird pie trend ultimately fizzled out, some royals hardly missed it, as they had already taken it to the next level... By the 1800s, the humans buried in pastry seemed to be limited to attractive women, as some of the most decadent parties of the era were those given by wealthy men to entertain other important males while their wives stayed at home. One of those hosts was Stanford White, a rich architect who threw a debauched dinner party in New York City in 1895 for a gathering of other distinguished men (including illustrator Charles Dana Gibson and inventor Nikola Tesla).

The feature attraction of the dinner party was an enormous pie, out of which, according to famed model Evelyn Nesbit, popped a 15 or 16 year old beauty...

"Why Men Always Think Women Are Flirting With Them"

"Error-management theory argues that men have evolved to overperceive sexual interest in non-familial female relationships so they don’t miss out on the opportunity to reproduce — at best, they get to pass on their genes; at worst, the woman ends up saying no and they move on. Women, on the other hand, have evolved to underperceive sexual interest, because sex with the wrong guy means risking pregnancy and child-rearing without the help of a mate, not to mention lost opportunities to procreate with other, less flaky men. In other words, the sexual stakes are higher for women than for men — or they were, at least, in the distant past, when evolution shaped behaviors that linger to this day." (read the whole thing)

"Why do GOP candidates keep stumbling on evolution?"

"Of course Republicans would be naïve to expect that will put an end to all questions. There will undoubtedly be questions designed to draw them into a detailed discussion of evolution and religion. A candidate will probably have a great majority of the public on his or her side if he shuts down those questions pretty quickly. The candidate could simply explain that there are lots of good people who have different opinions on this, and that for him, the key thing is believing that God guided our creation. Beyond that, it's not the role of the president of the United States to tell people what to believe about evolution."

"Candidates can give that answer secure in the knowledge that, whatever some reporters might think, evolution simply isn't very important as a campaign issue."

Tonette and Scott Walker take ice bucket challenge

Are We Evolving Into A Different Species?

Man cuts off penis and bins it after girlfriend dumps him for being bad in bed http://t.co/tXSNSyuTOC
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) October 24, 2014

"Man Allegedly Chokes Online Girlfriend Who Posted Fake Profile Picture"

"Hong Kong Protests Mark Twist in History of Umbrella Symbolism"

From 1930s England through the Kennedy and Nixon years in the U.S., to display an umbrella was to allege political softness, says Edward H. Miller, an academic at Boston’s Northeastern University. “If you are compromising, you are umbrella man.”

“It seems the umbrella is used for the opposite purpose (in Hong Kong),” Mr. Miller said in an interview with China Real Time. “It’s a symbol of strength, a symbol of defiance.”

When photos spread over the weekend of Hong Kong protesters unfurling umbrellas to protect against tear gas shot by local police, their protest movement earned the moniker “Umbrella Revolution.”

KLEM FM

I promised to go back to 1958, but I'm skipping back to 1956 first. This video shows (I think) the transitory nature of rock and roll in 1956. What's there in 1956 certainly wasn't there in 1951 (or maybe it was -- in pieces, constituted differently). And it wasn't like this in 1964. The late 1950's rock and roll was a transitory phase -- on its way to someplace else. Oddly, I thought the same way about the SS Great Eastern, the most famous ship to have sails, paddle wheels and a screw propeller -- literally the past, present and future of ship propulsion. I subsequently thought the same way about evolutionary "missing links." Their existence is so fleeting and chimerical that it's no wonder there is no fossil record of them.
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The video gives a great snapshot of the extant "lingo" in 1956.

dino bird

The mystery of Archaeopteryx dino bird's evolution solved.