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Home » Open thread 7/11/2026

Open thread 7/11/2026

The New Neo Posted on by

My freshman year in college I took an art history survey course that focused quite a bit on the art of very ancient civilizations, by which I mean pre-Roman and even pre-Greek art. For me, the work shown in these videos was most memorable. I could hardly believe how sophisticated it was. In particular the dying lioness, with her paralyzed hindquarters, was powerful, frightening, and yet sensitive and touching, all at the same time:

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Open thread 7/11/2026 — 16 Comments

  1. An interview with the author of Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind.

    https://www.wsj.com/opinion/gad-saad-on-suicidal-empathy-and-western-decline-cdae269f?st=fu7DNj

    Mr. Saad calls postmodernism “the granddaddy of all parasitic ideas.” That would make the great-granddaddy cultural relativism, the brainchild of German Jewish anthropologist Franz Boas (1858-1943). Boas and his acolytes argued, in Mr. Saad’s summary, that “there are no human universals. Every culture has to be judged in its own idiosyncratic reality.” For the West to “impose absolute deontological statements on a culture”—to hold a normatively ethical view of civilization—“is racist. Who are you to judge female genital mutilation? Honor killings? Child brides?”

  2. “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”

    – Sir Charles James Napier

  4. Not a soldier myself obviously but I have played with bayonet equipped rifles. My father was “captured” during escape and evasion training prior to deploying to RVN. He said the bayonet equipped “guards” were very convincing and had the “POWs” tried to escape they would have been stabbed.

    Frankly, I think the commie protesters attacking courthouses and such need to face the 7th Cavalry (part of the 1st Cavalry Division) with fixed bayonets. Shooting them is too deadly and dangerous but a poke with a bayonet is a motivator.

    We Were Soldiers
    7th Cavalry in the Ia Drang valley “Fix bayonets”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5F9eGdStm8

    My great-grandfather

    Born in New York in 1850. In the 7th Cavalry from 1872-1877 and 1878-1883. Part of the Black Hills Expedition of 1874. Took part in the Little Bighorn fight and other Indian fights. Protected construction crews for Northern Pacific Rail Way in Montana. Discharged as a Sergeant of excellent character.

    Attended the first state convention for South Dakota in 1889. Appointed sheriff of Campbell County 1890. Appointed aide-de-camp and Colonel on the staff of Arthur Mellette first governor of South Dakota 1893. Moved to Spokane, Washington 1899. In charge of a Washington Water Power Co. substation 1906-7. Died 1907 Spokane.

  5. I have been to the British Museum several times, but do not remember seeing this exhibit. I do remember the very large sculptors though. These are simple amazing. I would like to see them sometime, but I don’t feel welcome in todays Britain.

  7. Holy @#$& Senator Lindsey Graham dead at 71! Man the news stream is a firehose death anymore.

  9. I was expecting a death announcement for McConnell; Lindsey Graham is a total surprise.

  11. KInd of telling. The murder of Ann Widdecombe in the UK got some ink recently. She was a prominent Christian activist and a climate change skeptic. The cops arrested a guy pretty quickly but found there was nothing to go on, so he’s out now. Last report, haven’t gotten anybody else.

    What is interesting is that the initial police report on the arrest specified that the suspect was a “white man”. Had to put in the race. Formal or informal but very likely universal tactic to forestall the presupposed suspicion. Why would the cops think the public might, absent evidence to the contrary, that it absolutely, certainly, wasn’t a white man. Gonna have to think about what the cops are thinking and whether, on the off chance they arrest a white guy in some other jurisdiction , they do the same thing.
    But, now that they’re out looking again, the suspicion in question might reappear. Funny.

  12. Just sayin’.

    It is being reported that there was a thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump while he was in or returning from Turkey.

    An apparently fit Lindsay Graham just gets back from Turkey, and a few hours after having an apparently normal, unremarkable phone conversation with President Trump, he’s dead.

    If I were Lindsey Graham’s family, I would be sure to get a very thorough autopsy, and especially the broadest panel of tests possible for toxic substances.

  13. Suppose there’s an anonymous note to his family telling them to let it be? Is that only done in the movies?

  14. They just don’t make ’em like Napier anymore. In addition to his famous quote on abolition of suttee, he was a staunch opponent of slavery, and particularly of female sex slavery, where the daughters of the lower caste members would be abducted and put into harems of the upper caste grandees. In the words of Mrs. Bunker, “Mister we could use a man like C.J. Napier again.” Or something along those lines..

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