A BRIEF THANK YOU
I asked a simple non-rhetorical question and got a number of extremely knowledgeable, helpful answers. They were, collectively, more than I ever knew about British politics. Thank you all. This blog really is like a grand faculty seminar.
One of the commenters on yesterday's post made reference to a TV show called "A Very British Coup". I actually saw that on television here in the States circa 1990. It's a weird happenstance that I managed to catch that when it was broadcast here, as I've lived my entire adult life without a television, so it was really a lucky coincidence that I happened to have been watching when something good came on.
ReplyDeleteThe main effect that seeing that show had on me was that I have, ever since, been working the phrase "yea, even unto the Middle Ages" into conversations whenever I get the chance. See, I just did it again . . .
It’s nice to be able to read thoughtful posts on it. Believe me, reasoned debate on Brexit is a rare bird at the moment.
ReplyDeleteTotally off point, but does anyone get the outsized outrage at Elizabeth Warren's DNA test? Okay, she doesn't separate herself from "racial science," and some native tribes think trading on her native connection in any way is racist, but are these really 8.0 on the Richter scale? She wasn't trying to comment on "racial science". She was answering Trump's charge that she lied to Harvard about being part minority. The flap sounds like a parody of academic discussions. What am I missing?
ReplyDeleteTom Cathcart,
ReplyDeleteI don’t see the big deal about it either. The fact that she had a native America ancestor was part of her family lore, not all that unusual. She might have handled Trump’s going after her about it differently, particularly skipping the DNA test. She might better have said something like, “It’s family lore and not unusual for that part of the country. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but even if it is true it doesn’t qualify me to be a member of a tribe. What it has done is make me more aware than I otherwise might have been about the horrible way native Americans were treated in this country by people of European descent, who were most, if not all, of my ancestors.”
David Palmeter
ReplyDeleteYes, that would have been smarter.