Reviews and News:
Roger Kimball says that if Yale is serious about removing names of slaveholders from residential colleges, it should be consistent and change the university's name as well: "In the great racism sweepstakes, John Calhoun was an amateur. Far more egregious was Elihu Yale, the philanthropist whose benefactions helped found the university. As an administrator in India, he was deeply involved in the slave trade. He always made sure that ships leaving his jurisdiction for Europe carried at least 10 slaves. I propose that the committee on renaming table the issue of Calhoun College and concentrate on the far more flagrant name 'Yale.'"
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A closer look at the art of the Dura house church complex, the world's oldest Christian church: "The main assembly hall contains an armored lancer, who may have represented the feared (or admired) Persian forces just across the river. David with his sling might have brought to mind the Roman ballistics, 'the slingers,' once used against Persian archers. As other elements of the artistic program suggest, Christians looked to their God for protection and strength in this dangerous world. While most people today imagine a terrified Peter sinking into storm-tossed waves, the Dura baptistery has a very different image of Peter walking on water. He strides securely from the boat toward Jesus while the others look on."
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Degas's lost portrait revealed: "For decades, a mysterious black stain has been spreading across the face of an anonymous woman in Australia. She is the subject of a painting by Edgar Degas, the French Impressionist painter, and since the 1920s, the oil paints in her portrait have gradually faded, revealing the hints of another, hidden portrait underneath. Until recently, attempts to capture the image underlying 'Portrait of a Woman' with conventional X-ray and infrared techniques have only yielded the shadowy outline of another woman. In a study published on Thursday, however, a team of researchers reports that they have revealed the hidden layer underneath the painting, which hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, at a very high resolution. It seems to be a portrait of Emma Dobigny, a model who was a favored subject of Degas."
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"Less educated workers are suddenly hot commodities. San Diego-based Get It Done House Buyers, which buys homes to sell at a profit, began hiring salespeople without a Bachelor's degree eight months ago because of the tight labor market, says CEO Todd Toback. Turns out they're his best performers. 'They're really, really hungry,' Toback says. Now, instead of reviewing resumes, he says, 'We see how people act during interviews.'"
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The oldest museum of American art is not in New York. It's in New Britain, Connecticut: "The museum's roots go back to 1853 and the chartering of the New Britain Institute to help educate a large immigrant community. Between 1903 and 1905, John Butler Talcott gave $25,000 to acquire 'original modern oil paintings either by native or foreign artists.' Wise advisers suggested that American work would be less expensive."
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Essay of the Day:
In The American Interest, John McWhorter revisits the ragtime music of Scott Joplin:
"The elegant ragtime pieces Joplin wrote better than anyone else are as difficult to play as they are lovely to hear. This had kept them a minority taste among pianists even in their prime, and today they are even less accessible given that ever fewer people play the piano. For the amateur instrumentalist, the 20th century became the age of the guitar, and in a music history class of 23 I recently taught, not a single one of the students had ever played the piano. Moreover, Joplin's rags are gorgeous but not 'hot,' and the rock sensibility dominant since the 1970s makes it hard for most to connect with music that has so little 'swagger' as some might put it these days…
"In the end, the reason Joplin's music burned brightly only for a spell forty years ago is the same reason Joplin never found true success in his lifetime. Certainly, his being black in an America most of whose citizens saw black people as barely human didn't help. Yet a white Scott Joplin would have had little more success. Almost obsessed with fashioning ragtime as high art, Joplin was bested by two obstacles. First, high art is always a limited taste; second, even at its finest ragtime is an art of limited parameters, the musical equivalent of the miniature and the madeleine, incompatible with larger scale."
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Image of the Day: Transocean oil rig runs aground
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Poem: James Matthew Wilson, "For the Feast of the Assumption"
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