This NY Times article profiles Princeton professor Harry G. Frankfurt, who is the author of the brilliantly named new book, On Bullshit, which was the subject of this earlier post.
On the author of “On Bullshit”
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Category Archives: Culture
Wiess Law gift to the Houston MFA grows
This earlier post noted the late Caroline Wiess Law’s bequest last year of almost 60 artworks valued at between $60-85 million to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.
In a remarkable development, this Chronicle article reports that the value of Ms. Wiess Law’s overall bequest to the MFA may end up generating more than $450 million, which would make the bequest one of the largest in the history of American philanthropy.
Mrs. Wiess Law, who died in 2003 at the age of 85, was one of Houston’s most generous donors to the arts and sciences. She was a longtime supporter of the MFA, the Houston Ballet, Houston Grand Opera, and the Houston Symphony, and also bequeathed $25 million to Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Mrs. Wiess Law was one of the three daughters of the marriage of Olga Keith and Harry C. Wiess, who was one of the founders of Humble Oil Co., the predecessor to Exxon Mobil. Mr. and Mrs. Wiess were founding members of the MFA, which has grown into the centerpiece of Houston’s Museum District just north of the Texas Medical Center.
Remembering Johnny
Don’t miss former Tonight Show writer Raymond Siller’s piece on Johnny Carson in today’s Wall Street Journal ($).
The risks of the Texas-Mexico border
This Washington Post article reports on a troubling development that many Texans prefer to ignore — that is, the increasing number of missing persons who are being abducted in the Mexican border towns along the border of Texas and Mexico.
21 U.S. citizens have been kidnapped or disappeared between August and December of last year. Of those 21, nine were later released, two were killed, and 10 remain missing. Moreover, law enforcement officials report an alarming rate of kidnappings that are occurring across Mexico, including what are dubbed “express” kidnappings that are performed for “quick cash” ransoms.
The Rio Grande Valley of Texas — or “the Valley” as Texans call it — has always been a fascinating and troubling part of Texan culture. Larry McMurtry portrayed the late 19th century version of the area brilliantly in his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Lonesome Dove, which was made into one of the best television mini-series of all time in 1989 with Robert Duvall and Tommie Lee Jones in the main roles. Filmmaker John Sayles provides an equally remarkable portrayal of the area during the 1950’s and 1980’s in his fine 1996 film, Lone Star, which includes Valley native Kris Kristofferson in the flat out best performance of his acting career. The area is among the lowest in terms of per capita income in the United States, yet even that chronically depressed economy is a fantasy of riches for many of those living in the poverty of the teeming Mexican border towns.
The region’s problems are complex and difficult, which makes the area prone to being ignored. The increased violence of late is the natural result of such neglect, and the usual response to such spikes in violence along the border — i.e., heightened law enforcement — is only a short term solution that often contributes to the animus that many of the Hispanic citizens of the area have toward the state. The area is desperate for leadership and a vision for solving its problems, yet those intractable problems tend to repel those in government who are in a position to do something about them. In short, the Valley needs statesmen, which are in short supply in the polarized American political landscape of the early 21st century.
Wishing you and your family Happy Holidays and Clear Thinking from the Kirkendall Family
Prairie Home Companion is 30 years old
“Kiddie Cocaine”
This Christian Science Monitor article reports on Adderall, the prescription medication normally used to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but which is now becoming the study amphetamine of choice on college campuses.
Peggy Noonan on Dan Rather
In this Opinion Journal piece, Peggy Noonan writes the best and most balanced epilogue on Dan Rather‘s career that I have read to date. Ms. Noonan, who used to write Mr. Rather’s daily radio commentary, has some particularly insightful personal observations about Mr. Rather, including the following:
Dan was a great boss. He was appreciative of good work and sympathetic when it wasn’t good. He was one of the men–Douglas Edwards and Dallas Townsend were two others–to whom I am indebted, for they taught me how to write for the ear, how to write for people who are listening as opposed to reading. He was generous with praise. Someone who did a good job on a story got flowers and a note. Someone in the newsroom once knocked Dan in a magazine profile, saying he was insecure, always sending too many flowers. Dan thought, Really? Life’s tough, you can’t send too many flowers! He was open to ideas, he was democratic and not hierarchical in his management style, and he tried to be fair in his dealings with people in spite of a personal emotionalism that was deep, ever present and not entirely predictable.
For three years, from 1981 through 1984, I wrote his daily radio commentary, a four-minute essay with a one-minute spot that went out to all the CBS affiliates and network-owned stations. It was a great job. We did some good work. Here’s how it got done: When I had been doing the show for a few weeks I could see that my work was not good–uneven, without voice, without a clear point of view. I thought I knew the reason. I had become increasingly a political conservative. Dan, it was obvious to me, was a sort of establishment liberal–not a wild leftist and not an ideologue, but whatever smart liberals thought was more or less what he wound up thinking, and saying. I couldn’t write his views well, because I didn’t buy them and didn’t fully understand them. I couldn’t write my views, because the show had to reflect his thinking. So I went to him and told him my problem. He was great. He said: On any given issue that we discuss, give the liberal point of view fairly and give the conservative point of view fairly, and then we’ll end it with my opinion, because it’s my show. I thought that sounded good.
And it worked. “Dan Rather Reporting” actually got something of a conservative following, not because it was a conservative show–it wasn’t–but because it actually put forward the conservative point of view in what might be called a fair and balanced way.
Thinking about the Second Coming
Check out these interesting thoughts about the Second Coming of Christ from J.D. Walt and a student over at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Web Parish blog.
And on a lighter note, my nephew Richard passes along an excellent and funny story about the Talmudist.
For Seinfeld fans
The Chronicle’s Ken Hoffman will like this — The Jerry Seinfeld Dictionary of Terms and Phrases. An example:
Must-Lie Situation – when a person feels that they cannot tell the truth to someone else for fear of offending them (ex #1 calling one’s baby “Breathtaking”, ex #2 not being able to tell someone that their hairdo is pre-1960’s or just plain hideous)