"It's Necessary to Stand Up for the Values of Secular Education, Academic Freedom and Rigor, and Intellectual Inquiry Whenever They Face a Threat—Whoever That Threat Comes From"

"I realize I sound like a crotchety old conservative here, but college classrooms should not be 'safe spaces.' They can't be safe spaces. They should be respectful spaces, and professors and students alike should treat each other with consideration, but 'cause no emotional harm' is not, in fact, a value to which academic institutions should aspire, or an ideal they can ever realistically reach—especially when 'this is harmful' has become an easy cudgel to use in order to get one's way."

Jill Filipovic at Slate reacts to the art-history controversy at Hamline University.

"His Biggest Political Battle of His Life with Weapons That no Longer Worked"

"Four years later, Michael Dukakis declared that 'this election is not about ideology, it is about competence.' In the next cycle, Bill Clinton declared himself 'a different kind of Democrat' and jettisoned some of his party's positions about crime and welfare. Al Gore began his political life as a centrist, much in the model of Clinton."

Jeff Greenfield at Politico calls Walter Mondale "The Last Old-School Democrat."

"This Is the Largest Mass Execution in US History. It Was Also the Largest Act of Executive Clemency in US History"

"If he had been guided by short-term political calculations, Lincoln would have had every reason to simply allow the military tribunal’s order to execute all 303 Dakota men to take place. Lincoln was aware of the backwardness and racism that existed toward Native Americans, just as he was of racism toward blacks. Yet he did not make concessions to these tendencies, even within his own party. Lincoln's larger strategy involved elevating the consciousness of the population. His aim throughout the war was to tactfully mitigate the powerful racist tendencies that did exist and that were an objective block on his war policies."

Renae Cassimeda at the World Socialist Web Site tells the story of Abraham Lincoln and "the Dakota 38."

"Faced With This, America's Military Establishment Chose a Side"

"Now, as 50 years ago, the national guard were called out to face down the demonstrators, although this time it was also to stand guard over the violent dispersal of a legal and peaceful protest to provide a photo op for Trump. Now, as then, the president accused 'outside agitators'–Trump called them terrorists–of stirring up trouble.
"But this time, voices from the American establishment spoke up in support of those demands, and warned that the US is at an inflection point."

Chris McGreal at The Observer depicts the "week that shook a nation."

"An American Crucible"

"This week has become a grotesque object lesson in gun culture, one that points to a conclusion that we could have and should have drawn long ago—that the surfeit of weapons at our disposal and the corresponding fears that they induce create new hazards. There is no telling how any of these specific horrors will be resolved. But here is what we do know: we live in an age of open-source terrorism. Our inability to respond to mass shootings has meant that, eventually, even law enforcement would fall victim to one. The context of the conversation about police accountability has been irrevocably changed."

Jelani Cobb at The New Yorker reacts to "Three Terrible Days of Violence."

"The Enormous Shadow the Purple One Cast"

"As music critic Michaelangelo Matos notes in his recent retrospective on the classic album Dirty Mind (No. 45, 1980), the young Prince demanded to be signed not to Warner Bros.' R&B division but its pop division. But it took some years for the industry to get the message—for his first four albums, Prince was marketed harder at black radio, scoring much bigger hits on Hot Soul Singles such as 'I Wanna Be Your Lover' (No. 1 R&B, No. 11 pop, 1979) and 'Uptown' (No. 5 R&B, No. 101 pop, 1980). Prince's forward-thinking insistence on marketing himself across genres only really began to pay off when his masterpiece 'Little Red Corvette' not only broke into the pop Top 10, beating its black-radio peak (No. 6 pop, No. 15 R&B, 1983) but also made the rock chart Top 20 (No. 17 on Top Tracks, the predecessor to today's Album or Active Rock chart). Indeed, even amid their rivalry, Prince and Michael Jackson were a two-front superforce busting down the doors at both rock radio and MTV—'Corvette' and 'Billie Jean' were shoved into rotation at the video channel virtually simultaneously, and 'Corvette' and 'Beat It' debuted on the rock chart literally the same week."
"As if all this appreciation for Prince’s core output weren't enough, there were the hit sounds and hit songs Prince just gave away."

Chris Molanphy in Slate looks at the impact of Prince during the 1980s and beyond.

And at Michael Hann The Guardian discusses Prince's connections to L.A.'s Paisley Underground.

"Consistency Was Not Their Strong Suit"

"It is also true, however, that the Replacements actively cultivated their reputations for bratty insouciance. 'Westerberg would say, as a cockeyed boast … that there wasn't a drivers license or a high school diploma among them,' Mehr writes. Wracked by self-doubt and substance abuse, they often seemed incapable of letting themselves catch a break. The group finally had a chance of earning greater mainstream success in the summer of 1989, when they landed a coveted spot opening for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but they botched that opportunity as well, performing lackadaisically nearly every night. When the tour reached Nashville, Paul announced from the stage, 'Tom Petty says if we fuck up one more time we're fired. Well, fuck you Tom Petty, and fuck you Nashville.'"

John McMillian at Creative Loafing reviews Bob Mehr's Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.

Something I Learned Today

"The climax was the band’s now legendary cover of 'Eight Miles High,' which transformed the Byrds’ gentle paean to the ­chemical-technological sublime into a roller coaster lifted screaming off its tracks—bruising and exhilarating, leaving the rider both very and barely alive. Three dec­ades later I still feel lucky to have experienced that transmutation of wrath into flight. Not only did Hüsker Dü generate an impressive recorded legacy during their eight years on earth, they were ferocious live—as memorable onstage as Nirvana or the Rolling Stones. They deserve one great book, not these two mediocre ones."

Robert Christgau in The New York Times reviews Bob Mould's See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, and Andrew Earles's Hüsker Dü: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock.

The Sons of No One

"'They laughed in the face of stardom,' says their A and R guy at Sire, 'yet got really pissed off if you didn't treat them like a star.' As the divine nobody tasked with holding it all together, Westerberg appeared to be splitting at the seams. He was a fuck-up; he was a striver. He was the sensitive one; he was the asshole who drove the lighting guy to tears. Jim Walsh, the compiler of All Over but the Shouting, describes a bootleg video of the 'Mats playing 'Bastards of Young,' their own blank generation anthem, at a speedway arena. At the end of the song, Westerberg says either 'I love you' or 'Fuck you,' you can't tell which. Exactly."

Stephen Metcalf in Slate praises the Replacements.

Rats

"Schulz was no philanderer, though he was prone to crushes on 'distant princesses' (c.f., Charlie Brown's little red-headed girl). Rather, it's learning about the depressive, anxious, detached, resentful, self-defeating and self-deceiving personality of the comic strip's creator that's likely to puzzle and sadden some of those who grew up with 'Peanuts.' (And, really, what American child didn't grow up with Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Peppermint Patty, as well as Snoopy?) I realized, reading this book, that it's as impossible for me to be objective about 'Peanuts' as it is to be impartial about my own parents; like Mom and Dad, Schulz's characters had always been there, four panels every weekday and in color on Sundays."

Laura Miller in Salon reviews David Michaelis's Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography.
(As does John Updike in The New Yorker.)

And Brian Doherty provides a Peanuts slide-show in Slate.

Your the Man Now Dog proves that Charlie Brown is a racist.