Sandy Creek, Golden Dawn, Crazymeds, Kael On Godard, The Enlightenment
A Massacre In The Family
Michael Allen | Wall Street Journal | 24th November 2014
The author investigates his great-great-grandfather's role in the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, when volunteer US Cavalrymen razed a peaceful Indian village, killing 200, mostly women and children. The soldiers received a "hero's welcome" when they returned to Denver with trophies including a sole surviving child. "Cheyenne scalps are getting as thick here now as toads in Egypt", said the Rocky Mountain News (4,880 words)
Diary: Inside Golden Dawn
Alexander Clapp | London Review Of Books | 27th November 2014
The culture and methods of Golden Dawn, the Greek neo-Nazi party, described by a journalist who won the group's confidence by posing as an American fascist. "Dawners ambush immigrants about once a week. They call these raids krypteia, ‘secret things’. The party doesn’t go after the illegals in immigrant neighbourhoods; it targets those who have strayed into middle-class areas where residents are less welcoming" (3,600 words)
Crazymeds
Scott Alexander | Slate Star Codex | 27th November 2014
The "best psychiatric resource on the entire internet" may well be a site called Crazymeds.us, which provides "accurate and readable descriptions of the costs and benefits of every psychiatric medication, clearly written by someone with an encyclopaedic knowledge of every treatment’s strengths and potential pitfalls". So why isn't Crazymeds more respected? Because "the entire ethos of the site" is as cheesy as the name (1,900 words)
Bringing The New Wave To America
Pauline Kael | New Republic | 27th November 2014
Pauline Kael's 1966 essay on Jean-Luc Godard introduced the French New Wave to American filmgoers. "Godard makes it all seem so effortless — just one movie after another. Because he is skillful enough and so disciplined that he can make his pictures for under $100,000, and because there is enough of a youthful audience in France to support these pictures, he can do almost anything he wants. It is a truly heroic achievement" (3,825 words)
Jonathan Israel: The Enlightenment
Anthony Gottlieb | Five Books | 28th November 2014
Princeton historian discusses classic books about the Enlightenment. "What really counts in the 18th century is not atheism as such, but the rejection of divine providence and religious authority. If there is no divine providence guiding the course of history, the existing social order can’t be part of the divine plan. This is the connection between being revolutionary in religious matters and being revolutionary in social and political matters" (7,800 words)
Video of the day: Never Tell People How Old They Look
What to expect: Conversation about the embarrassments of looking much younger than one's age (3'13")
Thought for the day
If you're going through hell, keep going
Winston Churchill (http://www.thes-b.com/2014/11/today-im-channelling-winston-churchill.html)