"The Lines Between Justice and Injustice Are Crisscrossed"

"'The Star-Spangled Banner' nevertheless shares its conceptual DNA with the United States as a whole. It is a product of a time when the stain of slavery was clear on the nation and part of US law. To understand the anthem and its legacy, we need to know more than just Key's words. We need to understand their author's feelings and actions about slavery."

Mark Clague in a 2016 CNN article defends "The Star-Spangled Banner."

"The Kind of Explanation That Could Only Be Offered by Someone Oblivious to His Own Advantages"

"For Brooks, the problem with poor people is that they’re immoral. It's not because they're structurally disadvantaged, or because their local economies have collapsed, or because jobs have been shipped overseas, or because they attended chaotic schools, or because their parents worked multiple jobs for unlivable wages, or because the material demands of existence occupy the bulk of their time. Nope, it's because of poor 'social psychology.'"


Sean Illing in Slate criticizes David Brooks's writing about Baltimore.

"Return to Backlash Politics"?

"More generally, Republicans everywhere may be tempted to exploit the reflexive support for police officers among white citizens that is beginning to exhibit itself everywhere black protests arise. As John Judis observed at National Journal this week, the likely election of Dan Donovan--the prosecutor who appeared to work hard to avoid any grand jury indictment of the cops who killed Eric Garner--to Congress in Staten Island next Tuesday may signal a new era of racial backlash, battening on conservative anxieties already aroused by the years of attacks on Obama and manufactured fears of his supposed mania for 'redistribution.' 
"If there is a supply of backlash voters, there will certainly be a demand, if only among the crowded GOP presidential field where the candidates will soon run out of ways to demonstrate their True Conservatism."


Ed Kilgore at Talking Points Memo wonders about the political impact of the unrest in Baltimore.

"It's a Much Bigger Deal Up Here"

"Britain doesn't seem to be planning much, probably because the War of 1812 was viewed as a distraction for a country focused on defeating Napoleon, historians said. Some Canadians worry that if they make too big a deal about repelling the American invaders, it could offend their southern neighbor.
"Then again, Americans may not notice."

Richard Simon in the Los Angeles Times reports on upcoming commemorations for the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

"It's Not a Legitimate Mark. Period"

"He's doing it with hopes of proving that Denise Whiting, the founder of Honfest, the city's annual homage to an apocryphal Baltimore gal known for her beehive hairdo and cat's-eye glasses, has no legal claim on the word."

Jill Rosen in The Baltimore Sun reports on a dispute in Charm City over trademarking the word "Hon."

Patient Zero

"There is no longer much dispute, however, about the broad outlines of what constitutes a case of autism. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—the so-called bible of psychiatry—draws a clear map of symptoms. And to a remarkable degree, these symptoms still align with those of one 'Donald T,' who was first examined at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, in the 1930s, the same boy who would later amaze a mentalist and become renowned for counting bricks.
"In subsequent years, the scientific literature updated Donald T’s story a few times, a journal entry here or there, but about four decades ago, that narrative petered out. The later chapters in his life remained unwritten, leaving us with no detailed answer to the question Whatever happened to Donald?
"There is an answer. Some of it we turned up in documents long overlooked in the archives of Johns Hopkins. But most of it we found by tracking down and spending time with Donald himself. His full name is Donald Gray Triplett. He’s 77 years old. And he’s still in Forest, Mississippi. Playing golf."

In The Atlantic, John Donvan and Caren Zucker visit "the first person ever diagnosed with autism."

Darkness There, and Nothing More

"'Anxiety,' though, 'was his childhood bedfellow,' Ackroyd says. Born in Boston in 1809 to Southern parents--traveling actors 'whose status was just a little higher than that of vagabonds'--Edgar was orphaned at age 2 when his father abandoned the family and his mother died of consumption; he was taken in and raised by friends of his mother. As a youth, he was described by some as having 'a very sweet disposition ... always cheerful.' It did not last long: 'Young Poe harbored a grudge against the world,' Ackroyd says."

Allen Bara reviews Peter Ackroyd's Poe: A Life Cut Short in The Baltimore Sun.