Nascar Culture: Boring, and Perpetuating Racial Inequalities

He's going to be in trouble with the NAACP for this one. Thomas Sowell says the cause of the black community's struggles is not slavery and/or racism, but resides instead in Southern redneck culture. One of the most telling phenomenon he points to is the fact that the Northern black community generally outperformed the Southern white community as late as WWI; can the answer to the question of current black underachievement be as simple as the North/South cultural divide?

--Josh

Re-Placing the Barnes

The Barnes Foundation is moving from its hideout in Merion to a new location along the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia. This is great news, because the Barnes collection is impossibly exciting, and will now be easily accessible to all. It will also mean that three world-class museums will now be within blocks of each other in Philadelphia (the Museum of Art and the Rodin Museum being the others.)

Of course, since we're building a new museum, there's all kinds of speculation going around about what the new building should look like. To get you in the mood, here's a sweet slide-show from Slate. Hopefully, the powers will choose the Philadelphia native, Robert Venturi.

Get to Know the People of Mound, Louisiana

Ever have a hard time telling whether a human or a computer wrote what you're reading?

Click here to get to know the people of Mound, Louisiana. Louisiana's richest "city," per capita.

I believe this may be one of the hilarious accidents of statistics.

The Wonders of Science

In light of yesterday's breakthrough with the popcorn kernels, I wish to report the following conversation from a "working lunch" yesterday, and hope that someone smarter than I can answer my query...

"Are you giving to the blood drive?"

"No, I don't weigh enough."

"Oh."

"Here's my question about blood drives..."

"Fire away."

"If they can grow a human ear on a rat's back, you'd think they could grow human blood."

"Yeah, you would."

"You could get the blood from an uber-clean donor, and then just make it, all O negative [universal donor] in big vats and distribute to everyone as they have need. It'd be considerably cheaper and safer."

I had no answer to my colleague's query, and hope someone in cyberspace will come to save the day. Why can't we manufacture blood?

AIDS, Cancer, and Unpopped Kernels: One of These was Cured Yesterday

Fascinating stuff from the world of science; while lesser men struggle to find a cure for AIDS and cancer, scientists at Purdue University may have discovered the solution to one of life's most vexing problems: unpopped popcorn kernels. MSNBC is all over this story and even managed to get an interview with the elusive Wendy Boersema Rappel, spokeswoman for the prestigious Popcorn Board , who produced the quote of the week when she conceded that unpopped kernels "[are] not rocking anyone's world." Follow the links to read in detail how the intrepid souls at Purdue pushed the frontiers of science and unraveled the mysteries of Zea mays everta.

--Josh

Wissy Tees

Here's you're last chance to order the upcoming fashion statement of the millenium, Wissahickon Baseball Tees.



In order to have yours for our Two Year Anniversary Softball Spectacular, order within the next 48 hours. Just click here.

Only $10. Available in all sizes. Choose wisely.

Concession: Their Logo Is Green

Tomorrow, 22 April 2005, as you may know, is Earth Day. Whether and how you decide to celebrate this momentous occasion will shed light on your political and economic leanings.

What you probably did not know, however, is that in Hawaii tomorrow is "Starbucks Earth Day." In all seriousness. Check out the press release.

--Ted

Ratzinger Readings

Responding to an ambitious news day, I've combed through my Bookmarks and come with this arrary of reading material about our new Pope, Benedict XVI.

If you only read one article, read this short overview from the Times, which discusses the general response to Ratzinger's election, with a critical bent. Apparently, after hearing the announcement, a teacher from Rome, Vincenzo Jammace, shouted: "This is the gravest error!"

Also from the Times, an article speculating about Ratzinger's plan for the church at large: '"He'll correct the lackadaisical attitudes that have been able to creep into the lives of Catholics...He's going to have a German mentality of leadership: either get on the train or get off the track. He will not put up with rebellious children."'

From the Washington Post, "Steadfast Beliefs in a Tumultuous World" focuses on Ratzinger's life and church activity.

So that's the word from the two East Coast journalistic giants. As usual, the more interesting reading is to be found elsewhere.

This page, from the Daily Standard, is my favorite, for it collects the editorial response to Ratzinger's election, and contains some juicy stuff. Check out this line from an LA Times editorial: "The church is sadly putting off a change in worldview and retaining its Eurocentric focus. By failing to pick a pope from Latin America or elsewhere in the developing world, the church reinforces the impression that it is a colonial enterprise, run in Europe by Europeans who see themselves as uniquely qualified to serve as God's interlocutor."

The Christian Science Monitor injects quiet criticism into it's report on Ratzinger--with the simple title "A Conservative Pope."

Of course there's a great article on Slate, written by an ex-Catholic Jack Miles, which concentrates on the contemporary Catholic church's response to the sexual revolution, and expresses disappointment with Ratzinger, who has come down very firmly on the conservative side. Whether they want to admit it or not, the church's stance on two issues, gender and sexuality, is more important than anything else, especially to the developing world.

The best (or, most fun to read) for last: Andrew Sullivan is livid. His whole front page is dynamite right now, but here's what I found to be his best insight:

I don't expect surprises from Ratzinger. And I think that's why he was selected. And, please, no one is asking or expecting the Church to revise or reverse over night its peripheral doctrines on human sexuality or even how to run the church (celibacy, women priests, etc.). What some of us were hoping for was more openness to discussion of the real problems facing the church, some attempt to square teachings with the actual experience of lay Catholics (the sensus fidelium, as the Second Council put it), and a spirit able to reach out to the poor, the marginalized and the faithless. I hope I'm wrong, but in Ratzinger, the cardinals have chosen someone who will make all these things much harder. This was a statement as much as a selection. And the statement is that the church is circling the wagons. They simply could not have picked a more extreme candidate. And that tells us something important.

There's plenty to be read. Hurry and get an opinion--everyone else is doing it.

EDIT/ADDITION: I realize the majority of the articles I posted were critical of Ratzinger--but that's mostly beacause the major news forces were. Here's one editorial from the Times, written by Michael Novak, that elloquently defends the new Pontiff.

And a tempered endorsement from the Post: Tests for an Unbending Pope . . .

At a moment when liberals and moderates in the church want to open questions (such as whether only celibate men may be priests), Ratzinger thinks it is time to end uncertainty.

--Ted

Newsflash: Writing Changes the World

A disappointing first news report on the PEN American convention in NYC. This article from Reuters is brief, and may be missing the trees, but it's a glimpse at least:

Authors Make Case for Power of the Pen at Panel

Apparently, a group of the world's best writers called a panel yesterday to congratulate themselves and once again come to the conclusion that what they're doing--viz, writing--can actually make a difference in the world.

The fact that they read Lydia Davis, when they could have read someone good, is regrettable--and so is this paragraph:

Atwood also read a poem entitled "A Poor Woman Learns to Write,'' in which a woman trying to start a business with the help of an economic aid agency must first learn to write, and starts by triumphantly scrawling her name in the dirt.

Brilliant. I hope, now that the authors have determined that the act of writing is a beautiful and worthy act, they will start talking about how they can get better at it. I admit I haven't read "A Poor Woman Learns to Write," but I sure don't want to after hearing about it.

There has to be something good happening up there.

--Ted

Cleaning out Hollywood's Mouth

I heard about this for the first time yesterday, and it's troubling, to say the least. Company's like Family Flix and CleanFilms have made a business out of editing the "troubling" parts out of successful Hollywood films. This ranges from language, to nudity, to violence, and even--in the case of Family Flix--"sexual innuendo."

You can read this article from the Washington Post to learn more.

I have no opinions on the legality of the matter, but I can say two things. One, I wonder why families who want their movies scrubbed want to watch the movies so badly in the first place. Clearly, their pop-culture addiction is no less than those of us who like our movies complete. Two, I think it's awfully lame to cut scenes from movies--it shows no respect for the artistic efforts of the hundreds of people who decided that they wanted the movie exactly the way it is.

A fascinating question: what does the clean version of 'The Godfather' look like?

--Ted

Why We Shouldn't Hate Evangelicals

I'm becoming very convinced of abstinence being promoted well over condoms. I sat in a hot tub last night with Pastor Martin Ssempa from Uganda. In the NY Times Book Review, which was posted on the blog, Ssempa and abstinence is taken as silly evangelical conservative nothingness. However, if you look at where Condoms are most prevalent, AIDS is most prevalent- Botswana and South Africa. The increasingly alarming thing is that AIDS is only getting worse where condoms become greater. However, though Uganda gets a significantly low number of condoms- relatively, AIDS has gone from around 25% to 6%. Why are these numbers not significant? Partly because evangelicals are assumed to be irrational and wrong. Uganda is much poorer and has ongoing war. They should have more AIDS. But they don't. Abstinence doesn't fit well with our romantic, liberal movements to be sexually liberated, but it does allow people to be human, because it presupposes that people can change, whereas condoms assumes that people are out of control animals. We can't impose western romance in Africa culture when we do policy making. And, more importantly, we can't be so reactionary to assume our enemies wrong if our true goal is love and truth. Maybe the evangelicals in Uganda are on to something...

-D.R. Leonard

The Pope?

For those interested in the Conclave, the LA Times has the best article in today's major papers.

If you just want a chuckle, read this from USA Today: Gamblers bet on who will be chosen as next pope.

Since I'm predisposed to predict: Ratzinger will not be the next pope.

--T

Death Row Blogging

This is to date the best blog I have seen:

• Meet Vernon

The author, via editor, is Vernon Evans, who has been convicted to death in Maryland.

--Ted

We're Not As Sexy as They Think We Are

Great article from David Brooks in yesterday's Times: "Public Hedonism and Private Restraint"

Brooks posits that, though American mass culture--especially the parts of it aimed towards teenagers--is raunchier than ever, in actual practice highschoolers are not as sexually active as they were in the 1990s. Here's a summary sentence:

When you actually look at the intimate life of America's youth, you find this heterodoxical pattern: people can seem raunchy on the surface but are wholesome within.

He's got some stats to back it up. I think he neglects to consider the importance of Evangelical movements such as "True Love Waits," which arose as a response to the alarming sex-stats of the 90s, and have been very successful. On a more general level, he doesn't talk about Evangelicals at all--who are certainly, I think, having sex less than they used to.

--Ted

The 'Unacknowledged Legislators of the World' Meet in New York

I can hardly contain my excitement about an article from today's Times Sunday Book Review. The author is Salmon Rushdie, and the event is this week's PEN World Voices festival in NYC. PEN is the world's oldest literary organization, and the majority of the world's greatest authors are members.

In his essay, The PEN and the Sword, Rushdie (now the president of PEN) remembers the last such conference, which was held in 1986. Reading his tale is similar to reading a syllabus of Required 20th Century Reading: Bellow, Updike, Sontag, Vonnegut and Milosz all appear. The second half of the essay chronicles Rushdie's hopes for the coming meeting. Here's my favorite paragraph:

In 1986 it still felt natural for writers to claim to be, as Shelley said, "the unacknowledged legislators of the world,'' to believe in the literary art as the proper counterweight to power, and to see literature as a lofty, transnational, transcultural force that could, in Bellow's great formulation, ''open the universe a little more.'' Twenty years later, in our dumbed-down, homogenized, frightened culture, under the thumbs of leaders who seem to think of themselves as God's anointed and of power as their divine right, it is harder to make such exalted claims for mere wordsmiths. Harder, but no less necessary.

Indeed. I'll be keeping an eye on the proceedings as best I can from my desk in Philadelphia, and let you know if anything world-shaking goes down.

--Ted

Antique Romans, Danes, etc.

The readiness is all.

Hamlet
Philadelphia Shakespeare Company
April 15-29
2111 Sansom Street

Last night marked the opening of Hamlet at the Philadelphia Shakespeare Company. You should go see it because it's a pretty good production, because Claudius and Guildenstern are spectacular, because the Prince of Denmark isn't too bad himself, because Fortinbras swoops in with a military flourish and a deadly reminder, and because it's the centerpiece of Western drama, so you should see it every time you get a chance. You should also see it because Jim Bergwall, a Philadelphia treasure, is incomparably good as the Ghost of Hamlet's Father, the Lead Player, and the Gravedigger.

Go on a weeknight. It's cheaper, and you can think about it at work the next day.

The Heroic Travelogue

The April 18, 2005 "New Yorker" just arrived on my doorstep today. It's the "Journeys" issue, featuring a smattering of travelogues and travel-writing. I've not read it all, but I haven't found any duds yet. You might want to pick one up at the newsstand if you don't subscribe. Don't be swayed by the cheesy cover.

We here at "the Wissahickon," are pretty serious about the travelogue. Its on our unpublished top ten list of things that are necessary to the redemption of the universe.

And we've put our money where our mouth is. We've published quite a handful of travelogues over the years. Here's a listing of a few, with links.

Since Spring (as Jack Kerouac says) is the great season for traveling, perhaps you'll find something below to enjoy this April. If not, just pick up a "New Yorker," and if it disappoints, just read Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road," it never disappoints.

Shane Claiborne

Nomadic Solidarity, Part I
Nomadic Solidarity, Part II

Ted Howell

To Texas: A Travelogue

Daniel R. Leonard

A Letter From Abroad (I)
A Letter From Abroad (II)

Stephanie Scott

Compañero, pero ésto es Cuba!
Making Bread in Cuba
Never Judge a Book by its Cover
Tracing the Footsteps of a Revolution

Dane Shelly

India: Snapshots

Adam Woods

Bon Carnival
Bonum Otium
Two Thumbs Up
Weekending
Weekending II

Ian McEwan's Saturday

Powells.com is kind enough to provide this review of Ian McEwan's Saturday, originally published in the New Republic (so there's no need to subscribe to anything). The reviewer is James Wood, and he's magnificent.

Quite simply, this is what a book review should be. Not only does it provide an excellent analysis of the book's quality, and its place in the world of letters, but it uses the book as a forum for a critical theory. Here's what I mean:

Great historical events, such as wars and revolutions, refine this division between characters and history -- between history and inwardness -- by concentrating it to a point of irony: the gap between the public event and a fictional character's experience of that event may become comically or tragically acute. The novelist can disrupt the accepted record of a great public event by inserting his hero into it, and letting his hero distort that public record.

Wood then goes on to discuss the changes the events of 9/11 wrought in the consciousness of novelists and their characters, and then--having provided a lens--moves into his review of Saturday. Suffice to say that I've already read a handful of reviews of this book, and was not interested--but now I will most certainly read Saturday.

--Ted

Arts and Ideas

the Wissahickon, a Journal of Arts and Ideas
www.thewissahickon.com

First, an Idea...

"O, how full of briers is this working-day world!"

-- AS YOU LIKE IT (I, iii, 8)

Then, some Art...

DAYS OF 1901

This he had in him that set him apart,
that in spite of all his dissoluteness
and his great experience in love,
despite the habitual harmony
that existed between his attitude and his age
there happened to be moments - however,
rarest moments, to be sure - when he gave the
impression of a flesh almost untouched.

The beauty of his twenty-nine years,
so tested by sensual delight,
at moments paradoxically recalled
a young man who - rather gawkily - surrenders
his pure body to love for the very first time.'

-- C.P. Cavafy, 1927

-- Adam

Why You Just Might Name Your First-Born Son "Maximilian"

This is without a doubt the most fascinating set of articles I have read in weeks. It's a two-part from Slate (they've been doing very well lately) and is entirely about the names of babies, and how a family's race and economic standing influence the names of their babies.

The first article is subtitled "How do babies with super-black names fare?" and comes to the conclusion that names are not an indicator of future success, but are in fact an indicator of the socioeconomic status of the baby's parents.

In the second article, Trading Up, the authors notice the trend of baby names over a twenty year period, and come to this conclusion:

Once a name catches on among high-income, highly educated parents, it starts working its way down the socioeconomic ladder.

Fascinating. To make things even more intriguing, the authors use the same line of research to suggest the most popular names ten years from now. Here's the list:

Most Popular Girls' Names of 2015?

Annika, Ansley, Ava, Avery, Aviva, Clementine, Eleanor, Ella, Emma, Fiona, Flannery, Grace, Isabel, Kate, Lara, Linden, Maeve, Marie-Claire, Maya, Philippa, Phoebe, Quinn, Sophie, Waverly

Most Popular Boys' Names of 2015?

Aidan, Aldo, Anderson, Ansel, Asher, Beckett, Bennett, Carter, Cooper, Finnegan, Harper, Jackson, Johan, Keyon, Liam, Maximilian, McGregor, Oliver, Reagan, Sander, Sumner, Will

I don't believe it, either. But who would have predicted ten years ago that 'Madison' would be one of the most popular baby names in 2005?

--Ted

Camus' Essays from Combat

Last night I spent some time re-reading Albert Camus' essays from Combat. They are simply incredible. Camus' novels and essays are some of the best writing the twentieth century produced, and his brief editorials from his time at Combat (from 1944-1947, after the completion of the war) are of equal importance.

The problem of our day is not how to speak with words from the heart, but how to think clearly.

The editorials capture the spirit of the time, and show us what a true revolution could and should be. But what it most remarkable is the rigourous lucidity of Camus' thought and his writing style. He time and time again insists upon clarity and honesty, and delivers them in his own writing. We should all take his example and run with it. Here's the lines that jumped out this morning (the article from which they are taken is about the compatibility of justice with freedom):

There are still several words to be said about method. We believe that the difficult balance can be realized only in a continual state of intellectual and moral honesty, for only in such a state will we find the necessary clearsightedness. We do not believe in political realism.

Most days, I don't either.

--Ted

Gays in 'The Godfather'

In a classic case of poor criticism, David Thomson of the The Independent posits that Jake LaMotta from 'Raging Bull' and the Corleone brothers from 'The Godfather' are veiled examples of homosexuality in film. He cites a few other examples, and makes his main point thusly:

In nearly all of these films, the personality of the female is restricted, abused or mocked, while the culture of men is glorified and trusted.

Indeed. Now let's talk about what that really means.

--Ted

Dying a Media Death

Great op-ed today by Frank Rich in the New York Times, titled 'A Culture of Death, Not Life,' which analyses the media frenzy resulting from the deaths of Terri Schiavo and Pope John Paul II.

Rich, also citing Left Behind, and 'The Passion of the Christ' as examples, claims that, for all its insistence on calling itself a 'culture of life,' the Christian Right is more drawn towards death.

--Ted

AIDS and Abstinence

A fascinating and informative article in the New York Review of Books discusses the connection between three related factors in the fight against AIDS in Africa:

1. The fact that $1 billion of Bush's $15 billon AIDS intiative has been set aside for abstinence-only programs.
2. The overdue interest of the American Evangelical church in the African AIDS epidemic, combined with the increasing influence of Evangelical abstinence-only programs like "True Love Waits."
3. The explosion of Evangelical churches in sub-Saharan Africa.

The article is of special interest for Wissahickon readers, for it focuses on Uganda, the country from which Wissahickon correspondent Daniel Leonard wrote his "News from Abroad" letters (see the October and November 2004 Wissahickons).

I was particulary impressed by this sentence:

Human Rights Watch and other activists point out that every abstinence-only program that has ever been evaluated has failed to reduce rates of teen pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases, and they fear that the $1 billion abstinence earmark will have similarly dismal results in other countries.

The article, I believe, falters a bit at the end. Check it out and let us know what you think.

--Ted