Category: Good Stuff

I want to start out today by thanking Dave for the email that tuned me in to this book. I’ve never heard of Mary Lefkowitz before today, but after reading this review in the Wall Street Journal, I think I might just take some time to investigate more of her writings. They definitely seem to be worth the time.

For those of you who (like me) have never heard of her, Mary was a classicist at Wellesley College in the early ’90s, when she began to notice that some “Afrocentric” types were trying to rewrite history. This didn’t sit too well with Mary, what with her being one of those brick-headed “facts-are-good” types and all. Here’s a bit of what John Leo over at the WSJ had to say about it:

During this whirlwind of dubious scholarship, the academic world mostly remained mum, hiding behind the curtain of academic freedom and withholding its criticism lest a statement of simple truth be branded “racist.” For a 1991 column in U.S. News & World Report, I phoned seven Egyptologists and asked whether the ancient Egyptian population had been “black.” Of course not, they all responded, but not for attribution, since, as one said, “this subject is just too hot.”

The scholar who did the most to break this silence was Mary Lefkowitz, a mild-mannered classicist at Wellesley College. Without fully understanding the abuse she would invite by speaking out against Afrocentrism, she accepted an assignment in the fall of 1991 to write a long review of the second volume of Martin Bernal’s “Black Athena” for the New Republic magazine. She was shocked to discover that the Bernal volume, and a stack of other nearly fact-free books on Afrocentrism, had made headway in the schools and even in the universities.

She concluded that the Afrocentric authors regarded history as a form of advocacy: Like other postmodernists, they believed that truth is impossible to know — that all “narratives” are socially constructed and thus possess an equal claim to legitimacy. At the time, traditional scholarship was generally under assault, but the classics were particularly vulnerable, because they purported to study the foundational texts of the West. Attacking the classics as a complex system of lies was emotionally important to those who wanted to take Western culture down a peg. Feelings and politics mattered, not scholarship. As Ms. Lefkowitz puts it: “[Bernal] seemed to be saying that the most persuasive narrative was the one with the most desirable result. In effect, he was preaching a kind of affirmative action program for the rewriting of history.”

Read the whole review. I don’t know about you, but I definitely plan on reading this.

Yesterday, I posted the five YouTube chunks of part one of Ross Kemp in Afghanistan. Several visitors have pointed out to me that there’s a hell of a lot more than just what I put up. So, in the interest of not having my sorry arse nagged right off, here’s the second part of the series (again, in five YouTube chunks).

From time to time, it gets too easy for us to get tied up with what we’re doing in Afghanistan and forget that we aren’t the only ones there…

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It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, for one bigass tip of the hat to Fortitudine over at The Canadian Republic for cluing me on to this documentary in the first place in a post from yesterday. According to reports, the Brits have managed to blow the hell out of over 7000 of those Taliban turds since the 16 Air Assault Brigade first showed up in Helmand province in 2006. Not a bad damned record at all, if I do say so myself.

These clips come from a documentary by a fellow named Ross Kemp, who you can see more about here. The YouTube of the first episode has been broken up into 5 parts. Check them out below and enjoy watching our oldest allies at work (CAUTION: strong language)…

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This is the kind of stuff that I like to see. No time this morning for a long rant here, so just read it for yourself (taken from the CNW Group newswire yesterday):

Attention News Editors:
Commission Issues Statement on Decision in Maclean’s Cases
TORONTO, April 9 /CNW/ – The Ontario Human Rights Commission has decided not to proceed with complaints filed against Maclean’s magazine related to its publication of an article “The future belongs to Islam.” The complainants alleged that the content of the article and Maclean’s refusal to provide space for a rebuttal violated their human rights. The decision means that the complaints will not be referred to a hearing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Denying a service because of race or creed can form the basis for a human rights complaint. However, the Ontario Human Rights Code does not give the Commission the jurisdiction to deal with the content of magazine articles through its complaint process.

Even though the Commission is not proceeding with these complaints, it still has a broader role in addressing the tension and conflict that such writings cause in the community and the impact that they have on the groups that are being singled out.

While freedom of expression must be recognized as a cornerstone of a functioning democracy, the Commission strongly condemns the Islamophobic portrayal of Muslims, Arabs, South Asians and indeed any racialized community in the media, such as the Maclean’s article and others like them, as being
inconsistent with the values enshrined in our human rights codes. Media has a responsibility to engage in fair and unbiased journalism.

“Clearly more debate on this issue is required in Canada,” commented Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall. “That’s why we issued a statement today.”

To read the full statement, please visit our website: www.ohrc.on.ca.

Aussi disponible en français
For further information: Jeff Poirier, Manager, Communications Policy & Education Branch, (416) 314-4539

Time for me to give a tip o’ my toque to a fellow Blogging Tory — in this case, the lovely Spitfire over at A Step in the Right Direction. Let me start off by saying to her, don’t feel so bad; we seem to have been living under the same rock, so it’s definitely not just you. 😛

This guy is totally worth a read, though (especially if you have an abrasive sense of humour like I do). The blog root his here and and you can see his full list of Stuff White People Like right here. Grab a coffee, because it’s gonna take a while. 😀

…is definitely good for the gander. 😀

I knew there was a reason why I liked this gal; every now and then she manages to come up with something that just plain gets my laughing my dingleberries right off. Hey, if Babs can dish it out, she should be able to take it too; don’t you think?

Now I’m going to have to send this to all my friends in the ‘States…

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