"That Retreat Is Shortsighted and, Ultimately, Dangerous"

"Free speech as a value has historically been the domain of the American left: In the 1950s, its archenemy was Republican senator Joseph McCarthy; Black civil-rights leaders saw it as essential to the success of their movement; and in 1988, Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush tarred his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, as a 'card-carrying member of the ACLU.' But over the past ten years, Donald Trump and other right-wing provocateurs have co-opted free-speech values to advance an agenda often at odds with liberalism and social justice (see Elon Musk's X), while Democrats, progressives, and, arguably, the ACLU have retreated from the ideal that free speech needs to be protected regardless of the viewpoint being expressed."

Jordan Heller at New York discusses if "there is truth in the depiction of the ACLU of the Trump era as prioritizing social-justice work over the viewpoint-neutral defense of civil liberties."

"They Have Sworn an Oath to Work on Behalf of the People of Florida, Not Political Interests"

"'By picking and choosing which of its faculty can testify in court as expert witnesses over voting rights, the University of Florida is violating these professors' constitutional rights in the place where their truthful views are needed most: a United States Courthouse,' said the statement from attorneys David O'Neil and Paul Donnelly."

Erin Brady at Newsweek reports on the academic-freedom controversy at the University of Florida.

And Dorian Abbot, Sergiu Klainerman, and Ivan Marinovicis add that college "[a]dministrators threaten academic freedom even more seriously, however, when they advance their own social and political agendas in the name of their institutions."

Wouldn't Back Down

"In that line resides the promise of America, and rock and roll, and the intercontinental railway, the interstate highway system, and Microsoft and Apple and Google and even Facebook. As I said, later Petty would sound pinched writing about women, and maybe he didn't understand what he was writing about them. But an American girl, raised on promises, is everything this country is about."

Bill Wyman at New York remembers Tom Petty.

"Unnatural Disaster"

"Soft rains, torrents and even hurricanes are part of that balance. Hurricanes are essentially giant engines that transfer heat from sea to atmosphere. Scientists are working hard to understand the extent to which global warming may fuel them. Yet at this most crucial time, the Trump administration has purged climate experts, research funding and even the science itself from public websites as if we were back in the witchcraft days."

In the Los Angeles Times, Cynthia Barnett provides perspective on extreme weather.

"Climate Change Denier Battens Down Worldview To Weather Hurricane Irma"

From The Onion.

"Why Did Houston Pave Over Their Floodplains?"

"In these acute crises, we see inspiring stories over and over: Communities come together. People risk their lives to save their neighbors as well as strangers. It is heartwarming. It reinforces everything that we want to believe about ourselves as Americans, as Texans, as Floridians, as Louisianans.
"But examining why these moments of heroism become necessary tells a darker story about America. People don’t just find themselves in places vulnerable to flooding. They are pushed there by racial injustice, economic inequality, and short-term, profit-driven development practices. The long-term decay of the nation’s infrastructure is a direct result of policy decisions that politicians and communities make time and again. The Gulf Coast is an extreme example of this, a laboratory for what happens when you combine lax planning policies, aging flood-control mechanisms, and a geography that channels storms from the warm (and warming) waters of the Gulf into the cities that line it."

Alexis C. Madrigal at The Atlantic interviews Cindy Ermus about her new book Environmental Disaster in the Gulf South.

The editors of The Washington Post take Texas public officials to task.

Steve Russell at Newsweek writes that "Houston Is Drowning--In Its Freedom From Regulations."

And Thom Patterson at CNN explains "How Houston's layout may have made its flooding worse."

"The Rigged 2000 Florida Recount"

"By the time Bush's aura of competence had dissipated in his second term, the recount had been long forgotten. Well-informed journalists and intellectuals who were too young to follow the episode closely generally have no idea how bad it got. At one point, officials in Dade County who were carrying out a legally mandated automatic recount were forced to stop by an unruly mob of Republican staffers who busted into their building—an actual case of physical intimidation preventing public officials from carrying out their election duties."

Jonathan Chait at New York reminds readers of actions by Republicans in Florida in the wake of the 2000 election.

"He Was Barely the Weirdest Candidate on the Scene"

"Polling second coming into the convention, just ahead of McAfee, was a guy named Austin Petersen. Petersen's 35 and looks 14, but question if he's seasoned enough and he'll yelp, 'Tell that to the Marquis de Lafayette.' His go-to applause line: 'I want gay couples to defend their marijuana fields with fully automatic weapons.' Polling fourth, one slot behind McAfee, was a fellow named Darryl W. Perry, who accepts campaign donations only in the form of precious metals and cryptocurrency and who opted to have his nominating speech delivered by an 'erotic services provider' who goes by the moniker 'Starchild.' Perry’s most animated moment in the debate came when he slammed his fist against his lectern, forehead veins a-popping, as he insisted that 5-year-old children should have the legal right to inject heroin without adult supervision."

Seth Stevenson in Slate visits the Libertarian Party's convention.

"Disney World Opens New Ordeal Kingdom For Family Meltdowns"

"'We've considered every detail to ensure parents and their kids have the heated argument of a lifetime,' said Bartlett, explaining that the park was split into five themed 'lands,' including Fatigue Island and Hunger Lagoon, each of which can be reached by Mickey's Congestion Junction Railway. 'Whether it's the sheer distance between rides or the unspecified bathroom locations, every aspect of the experience is guaranteed to ratchet up the tension until you and your family are screaming at each other and saying you should never have come in the first place.'
"'No trip to Disney is complete without everyone in your party losing all emotional self-control,' Bartlett continued. 'And at Ordeal Kingdom, we promise that all your wildest family blowups will come to life!'"

From The Onion.

"Report: Rising Disney World Ticket Costs Prompting Many Parents To Leave Children At Home"

"'Just walking up Main Street, U.S.A. and seeing Cinderella's Castle in the distance—I would have loved to turn to my son at that moment and see him smile,' said Jessica Huebel shortly after hugging both Chip and Dale in Frontierland. 'But my husband says we'll barely have enough gas money for the trip home as it is.'
'I just hope prices don't keep going up too much,' she added. 'Otherwise, during the next visit I'll probably be riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad by myself."


From The Onion.

"The Philistines Are on the March"

"The culture wars over the humanities that dominated discussion of higher education in the 1980s and 1990s had enduring historical significance. Shouting matches about academia reverberated beyond the ivory tower to lay bare a crisis of national faith. Was America a good nation? Could the nation be good—could its people be free—without foundations? Were such foundations best provided by a classic liberal education in the humanities, which Matthew Arnold described as 'the best that has been thought and said'? Was the 'best' philosophy and literature synonymous with the canon of Western Civilization? Or was the Western canon racist and sexist? Was the 'best' even a valid category for thinking about texts? Debates over these abstract questions rocked the nation's institutions of higher education, demonstrating that the culture wars did not boil down to any one specific issue or even a set of issues. Rather, the culture wars often hinged on a more epistemological question about national identity: How should Americans think?
"But in our current age of austerity, Americans are not asked to think about such questions at all."


Andrew Hartman in In These Times argues that conservatives "have abandoned the humanities entirely."

The Selling of the Bennite of La Mancha

The New York Times reports the deaths of writer Joe McGinniss, announcer Hal Douglas, modeling agent Ophelia DeVore-Mitchell, journalist Joel Brinkley, Florida politician Reubin Askew, British politician Tony Benn, comedian David Brenner, and composer Mitch Leigh.

Where the Truth Lies

"'Victory at Olustee,' as title headings in history books call it, was conjured up a generation after the Civil War ended. State law ordained that all children be taught the fictional version, and a Confederate war monument was not erected in Olustee until 1912 at the insistence of white supremacist nostalgists. The 'reenactment' of the battle, an even more recent anachronism, dates back only to 1977.  Participants in the actual battle recalled how horrible it was; just getting there was an ordeal of mud and insects.  Today’s reenactors strut their stuff on a clear-cut parade ground. The murder of the wounded plays no role in the festivities. In most accounts the presence of black troops, let along their heroism, is never mentioned."


Upon the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Olustee, T.D. Allman at The Daily Beast disputes neo-Confederate memory of Florida's largest Civil War conflict.

"Bad Things Happen Everywhere"

"So after scripting a story set there ('Escape' also includes flirtatious French teenagers, a possibly demonic child and a mad scientist straight out of the 'Lost' mythology, all in the service of indicting Disney's culture of forced cheer), he began figuring out ways to shoot it. He scouted locations by bringing his own children to Disneyland, then cast-no name actors—Roy Abrahmson, a man who just last month was serving as a limo driver at the Emmy Awards, plays the lead—before he began shooting in Anaheim and Orlando. Production often involved guerrilla tactics, such as scattering his iPhone-enabled crew throughout the park so the whole thing didn't look like a movie shoot. Moore was so scared that Disney would catch on that he edited the movie in South Korea."

Steven Zeitchik in the Los Angeles Times talks with John Sloss about Sloss's new movie Escape from Tomorrow, made surreptitiously at Disneyland and Disney World.

"A Blunt Reminder of the Limitations of Our Justice System"

"What the verdict says, to the astonishment of tens of millions of us, is that you can go looking for trouble in Florida, with a gun and a great deal of racial bias, and you can find that trouble, and you can act upon that trouble in a way that leaves a young man dead, and none of it guarantees that you will be convicted of a crime. But this curious result says as much about Florida's judicial and legislative sensibilities as it does about Zimmerman's conduct that night. This verdict would not have occurred in every state. It might not even have occurred in any other state. But it occurred here, a tragic confluence that leaves a young man's untimely death unrequited under state law. Don't like it? Lobby to change Florida's laws."

Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic reacts to the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.

The New York Times prints President Obama's July 19 remarks about the trial.

"The Most Dishonest Convention Speech ... Ever?"

"I’d like to talk, instead, about what Ryan actually said—not because I find Ryan’s ideas objectionable, although I do, but because I thought he was so brazenly willing to twist the truth."

Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic reacts to Paul Ryan's speech at the Republican National Convention.

As does Ed Kilgore at The Washington Monthly.

Jonathan Chait at New York writes that Ryan's "deep dishonesty largely reflects the fundamental gap between the radicalism of his agenda and his need for public acceptance."

Postscript:
NPR provides transcripts of Paul Ryan's and Mitt Romney's speeches at the convention.

And Rick Perlstein in The Nation writes about his time at in Tampa.

Sun Bloc

"It was Reagan whose election as president seemed to mark the coming of the political age of the Sun Belt, but also of what Kenneth M. Duberstein, the White House chief of staff for Reagan, referred to as 'the lock': the notion that the Republican Party could consider the Sun Belt in the political bank. As late as 2002, Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to George W. Bush, was arguing that California was fertile ground for Republicans.

"'Reagan in many ways seemed to be the beginning of the wave, but in retrospect, it’s going to be remembered as the peak of the wave,' Mr. White said."

Adam Nagourney in The New York Times argues that Republican dominance in the Sun Belt is slipping.

Gimme Three Steps

The Los Angeles Times runs obits for singer Eddie Fisher, writer Jill Johnston, and high-school gym teacher Leonard Skinner.

Vice City

"Maligned by critics, the Fontainebleau instantly became a lively hangout for card sharks, mobsters and movie idols. Frank Sinatra performed there regularly for 20 years—free, according to Gaines—and in return got unlimited use of a penthouse suite. Gaines asserts, 'The only thing Sinatra paid for was his hookers.' Well, at least he didn’t forget the little people."

In The New York Times, Carl Hiaasen reviews Steven Gaines's Fool’s Paradise: Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach.

Giving Thanks

Karl Jacoby in the Los Angeles Times traces the history of various Thanksgivings.

Kenneth C. Davis in The New York Times discusses the first Europeans looking for religious freedom in America: Huguenots from France.

John Nichols in The Nation revisits Frankin Roosevelt's Thanksgiving messages from the 1930s.

Hulu.com has Saturday Night Live's "Nikey Turkey" with Chris Rock.

And Youtube hosts Eli Roth's fake trailer from Grindhouse.

Say Hello to My Little Friend

"Piece of art, did he say? The same movie where Al Pacino buries his face in pile-high drifts of coke and emerges looking like a white-nosed coati? The movie with that trashy robo-disco Giorgio Moroder score that already sounds as dated as the theme from 'Love Story' and the tapestry of profanity so dense you can actually watch a two-minute version of 'Scarface' consisting entirely of the word "fuck" and find it every bit as intelligible as the full-length film?
"Oh, sure, have your laugh, says Tucker. '"Scarface" absorbs ridicule and overexposure and just keeps on going.'"

Louis Bayard in Salon reviews Ken Tucker's Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and How It Changed America.