Random stuff worth reading on the internet thread

[chrisrenrut]

Eminem’s Lose Yourself is great, although they skipped over “mom’s spaghetti”. The last line sounds like it could be part of a hymn:

when opportunities arise, take heed
and lose thyself in ev’ry worthwhile deed.

[Bo Diddley]

Read an article about Constitutional Scholar Noah Feldman the other day. I liked what he said about Lincoln:

“In order to fulfill an oath you’ve taken to the Constitution, you first have to interpret that document to know what it demands of you,” Feldman says.

That led Lincoln on a path of moral revolution. He went from defending the rights of slaveholders to unequivocally demanding the liberation of all enslaved people. He launched a military attack on the Confederate states. And in the end, Lincoln became a “figure for the ages,” Feldman posits, achieving “perhaps the greatest moral accomplishment of any one person” in the U.S. government’s history.

This lead me to read Lincoln's first inagural address. Love this part:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

When asked the greatest threat to the Constitution:

The biggest threat to democracy, in fact, is everyone in this room, when we fail to see the better angels in each other.

“The greatest danger is that people in your generation will look at the people in my generation, and cease to believe that ... what we’re trying to do is argue about what we believe the Constitution really means by our best lights,” he responds. Look at the Supreme Court, he says: We can view the justices as principled people who interpret the Constitution differently, or as radicals pushing personal agendas. The former fosters a healthy democracy; the latter tears it apart.

“If your generation looks at the deep disputes that we’re having,” Feldman continues, “and says, ‘You know what, this system is ridiculous — people are just pointing at this document and it doesn’t mean anything to any of them,’ that will cause a loss of faith in the core idea of the Constitution.”

“The core idea of the Constitution,” he continued, “is that we, the people, have enough consensus to live together.”

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is a fascinating article. The Academy just did a big event in September honoring her life and apologizing for not treating her better after her disruption of the Oscars. Turns out she is a complete fraud.

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[wuapinmon]

I agree that she was a fraud, all around. However, the article's author has a narrow viewpoint and interpretation of what it means to be "Indian" in Latin America. At that time (and somewhat still today), people don't claim "Cherokee" ancestry to seem cool, like every white person tries to in the South. Being "un indio" was seen as a negative. It's possible that this woman took a reaction against that part of her mestizo identity and turned it into a wish-it-were true narrative that wouldn't garner any support in Mexico or amongst most chicanos. That's not an excuse, but it might better explain what she was thinking, something I feel the author didn't attempt.

For examples, Vasconcelos's almost 100-year-old tome about the "Cosmic Race" still inspires controversy because many say that mestizo people claim that theirs is the race of which Vasconcelos wrote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_raza_c%C3%B3smica

[Jeff Lebowski]

I agree that she was a fraud, all around. However, the article's author has a narrow viewpoint and interpretation of what it means to be "Indian" in Latin America. At that time (and somewhat still today), people don't claim "Cherokee" ancestry to seem cool, like every white person tries to in the South. Being "un indio" was seen as a negative. It's possible that this woman took a reaction against that part of her mestizo identity and turned it into a wish-it-were true narrative that wouldn't garner any support in Mexico or amongst most chicanos. That's not an excuse, but it might better explain what she was thinking, something I feel the author didn't attempt.

For examples, Vasconcelos's almost 100-year-old tome about the "Cosmic Race" still inspires controversy because many say that mestizo people claim that theirs is the race of which Vasconcelos wrote. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_raza_c%C3%B3smica

You should write to the author and mansplain that to her. What would she know?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Keeler

[wuapinmon]

What would she know?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Keeler

Your unwarranted sarcasm aside, recognizing the complexity of an issue is not the same thing as advocating for it or excusing someone's misuse of it for their own gain (at someone else's expense).

[Jeff Lebowski]

Your unwarranted sarcasm aside, recognizing the complexity of an issue is not the same thing as advocating for it or excusing someone's misuse of it for their own gain (at someone else's expense).

Did you read the article? She lied about everything. She threw her family under the bus in the process and tried to parlay her actions into a modeling/acting career.

The author has every right to call that out.

[wuapinmon]

Did you read the article? She lied about everything. She threw her family under the bus in the process and tried to parlay her actions into a modeling/acting career.

The author has every right to call that out.

I have to imagine that in your career and ministry you've come across people who just made shit up. I said I agreed that she was a fraud. What she did was inexcusable. I don't want to excuse what she did; I'm talking about the author's failure to speak to what might have motivated the behavior, to what caused her to just make shit up. There are multiple cultural reasons why her mentioned searches of "Littlefeather's" ancestry in Mexico might not return any "Indian" ancestry that she would deem acceptable, not the least of which would be that metizaje isn't viewed the same way there as here. None of that gets commented on, and for a hit piece like that article (again, not unjustified), my point was that it would strengthen her argument to explore that, rather that just someone calling out "Pretendians," something you typically decry when done on Twitter et alia. I was trying to add to the conversation by pointing out that it's not a slam-dunk execution like the author wants it to be. There some nuance to it, which, again, doesn't excuse it, but does help explain it. I'm done arguing with you about this, as we mostly agree.

[Non Sequitur]

I have to imagine that in your career and ministry you've come across people who just made shit up. I said I agreed that she was a fraud. What she did was inexcusable. I don't want to excuse what she did; I'm talking about the author's failure to speak to what might have motivated the behavior, to what caused her to just make shit up. There are multiple cultural reasons why her mentioned searches of "Littlefeather's" ancestry in Mexico might not return any "Indian" ancestry that she would deem acceptable, not the least of which would be that metizaje isn't viewed the same way there as here. None of that gets commented on, and for a hit piece like that article (again, not unjustified), my point was that it would strengthen her argument to explore that, rather that just someone calling out "Pretendians," something you typically decry when done on Twitter et alia. I was trying to add to the conversation by pointing out that it's not a slam-dunk execution like the author wants it to be. There some nuance to it, which, again, doesn't excuse it, but does help explain it. I'm done arguing with you about this, as we mostly agree.

If we all dismissed everyone who made shit up, we'd all be wearing red on Saturdays.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have to imagine that in your career and ministry you've come across people who just made shit up. I said I agreed that she was a fraud. What she did was inexcusable. I don't want to excuse what she did; I'm talking about the author's failure to speak to what might have motivated the behavior, to what caused her to just make shit up. There are multiple cultural reasons why her mentioned searches of "Littlefeather's" ancestry in Mexico might not return any "Indian" ancestry that she would deem acceptable, not the least of which would be that metizaje isn't viewed the same way there as here. None of that gets commented on, and for a hit piece like that article (again, not unjustified), my point was that it would strengthen her argument to explore that, rather that just someone calling out "Pretendians," something you typically decry when done on Twitter et alia. I was trying to add to the conversation by pointing out that it's not a slam-dunk execution like the author wants it to be. There some nuance to it, which, again, doesn't excuse it, but does help explain it. I'm done arguing with you about this, as we mostly agree.

Sorry, I think you are grasping at straws here. Her sisters insist there never was any claim in the family to Indian ancestry.

“It’s a lie,” Orlandi told me in an exclusive interview. “My father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard.”

“It is a fraud,” Cruz agreed. “It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just … insulting to my parents.”

Littlefeather’s sisters both said in separate interviews that they have no known Native American/American Indian ancestry. They identified as “Spanish” on their father’s side and insisted their family had no claims to a tribal identity.

“I mean, you’re not gonna be a Mexican American Princess,” Orlandi said of her sister’s adoption of a fraudulent identity. “You’re gonna be an American Indian princess. It was more prestigious to be an American Indian than it was to be Hispanic in her mind.”

^There is your psychoanalysis in the last line.

Hey, if we want to dissect Littlefeather's motivations, have at it. What really puzzles me in your responses is how you go after the author, calling it a "hit piece" and "just calling out 'Pretendians'". I think the term "cultural appropriation" gets grossly overused, but I can't think of a more egregious kind of appropriation than this type of thing. Especially when Littlefeather trotted out all the worst native American stereotypes ("my drunken father beat me") in the process. I am really scratching my head as to why you would be so critical of the author for exposing such a blatant fraud.

[Jeff Lebowski]

If we all dismissed everyone who made shit up, we'd all be wearing red on Saturdays.

Fist of all, oh brother.

Second, funny you should go that angle. The author of the article is the head of a lobbying group to remove native american names as mascots.

[Northwestcoug]

This is a fascinating article. The Academy just did a big event in September honoring her life and apologizing for not treating her better after her disruption of the Oscars. Turns out she is a complete fraud.

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Wow that's crazy. I had no idea about her life after the Oscars appearance. All I knew was that one snippet of her life that goes around twitter.

"It's not a lie if you believe it"

[Northwestcoug]

Half an hour well spent:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...e=articleShare

[beefytee]

That was a good article.

This could go in the pet peeves thread, but I hate the nytimes scrolling setup, mostly because it often doesn’t work. Reading the article on my phone, as I scroll through it, it often jumps to different parts of the article. Makes it really difficult to get through.

[Jeff Lebowski]

That was a good article.

This could go in the pet peeves thread, but I hate the nytimes scrolling setup, mostly because it often doesn’t work. Reading the article on my phone, as I scroll through it, it often jumps to different parts of the article. Makes it really difficult to get through.

I like it.