26 December 2020 #MAGAanalysis #Overturn

Underneath The News, Beneath The Blackout Blanket

I thought to call today's mediation, "The Death Of The News Cycle," but couldn't. It may be ill. One day it may die. But it's power remains vast, and we're going to discuss that first.

More from Pasquale "Pat" Scopelliti

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.@louiscasiano from @FoxNews reached out to ask if we are actually planning on contaminating the hotel rooms of Proud Boys with bedbugs. The short answer is no, we don't even know if that's possible. But here's our full response.


That post was clearly satire. We have no idea how one would actually go about the activity that was suggested.

What is not satire are the numerous death threats that were sent to us by Trump supporters in the lead up to the November election.

Here are a few tweets depicting detailed and credible death threats that you didn’t ask for comment on:
https://t.co/UiI12M0Aey.
https://t.co/PPe75XWImX
https://t.co/4Ia8659wK8
https://t.co/n5ov6R8Gyh


Each of those tweets includes the email address of the sender. We wish you luck in reaching out to them for comment.

Further, the hate crimes committed by the Proud Boys during their last visit to DC were not satire. A marauding band of drunk white nationalists stormed through our city, tearing down and burning religious symbols declaring respect for Black lives.

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x