Daily Archives: January 9, 2022

SAN DIEGO Wanted: Popular female-driven talk show dominated by intolerant liberals who preach tolerance seeks token "conservative" woman willing to be bullied, mocked, baited and talked down to on a daily basis by sanctimonious and condescending co-hosts. Ideal candidate should lean right, but not too far. Should hit back, but not too hard. Congeniality is a must, as long as it doesn't interfere with squabbling. Genuine conservatives need not apply.

I realize that ABC's "The View" isn't the place for serious social commentary. I never believed otherwise.

But it's much worse than I thought. The curtain has been lifted, and the show where five women sit around a table arguing about politics and culture has been revealed to be a full-blown comedy sketch.

Here's the latest bit: The producers who are hunting for a permanent "conservative" co-host to replace Meghan McCain, who recently stepped down are aiming impossibly high. Apparently, on that show, only the liberal co-hosts which include comedians Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar benefit from the bigotry of low expectations.

What producers want is what a former show staffer called a "unicorn." The former staffer told Politico: "They want someone who is going to fight but not too hard, because they don't want it to be ugly and bickering."

Catch that? The bosses at "The View" apparently want someone from the right who can throw a punch but who will also pull her punches.

Of course. They wouldn't want a conservative panelist to land a solid right jab now and then. One of the liberal co-hosts who will likely sign off on whomever gets the gig might get flustered.

Why not just be honest and say outright that you want someone who will behave herself, mind her manners and play nice in the sandbox?

That aspect of the unicorn search seems custom-made for folks on the right. I just can't imagine any producer on any talk show anywhere even on Fox News being so afraid that a liberal panelist might go "fully lefty" and cause an ugly scene that descends into bickering.

Let's be clear. No matter what the producers claim, they aren't really looking for a conservative woman. They're looking for a woman who fits their narrow and rigid idea of what constitutes a conservative. They don't want someone who is right-wing, they just want someone a little "right-ish."

Liberal co-host Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, told New York Magazine's "The Cut" in November that the new host should have a divergent point of view on most issues.

"Right now, we still do need a really conservative voice," she said at the time.

However, Hostin quickly added a qualifier.

"I also believe it's really important to not have someone on the panel who spreads misinformation, who adheres to the big lies, who is an anti-vaxxer, because I think that's dangerous," she said.

In other words: No Donald Trump supporters or anyone who thinks the 2020 presidential election was stolen. No one who is critical of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president. No one who questions the claims, sound bites and balderdash that sometimes flow from the Democratic Party.

I've watched the show. And I've done television commentary on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC for almost 30 years.

Make no mistake. The "conservative" seat at that table is a dangerous place to be no matter who sits in it. Whoever gets the gig will be picked on from the start from her "morally superior" counterparts. She can stand up to the bullies, but she had better do it with a smile. Only liberals can sneer.

For the most part, the co-hosts are likely to keep the conversation civil. Politics isn't everything, after all. Producers are likely to choose someone who can relate to her colleagues in other ways.

For instance, they're bound to look favorably on prospects who already live in Manhattan, where the show is filmed. Maybe she sends her kids to private school on the Upper West Side. Don't expect them to hire a conservative woman from Texas, Kansas or Georgia.

At the same time, because television is a strange beast indeed, the producers also don't want the new co-host to be too chummy with her colleagues. Audience surveys show that viewers like it when sparks fly.

In other words, producers of "The View" are looking for the television version of Goldilocks someone conservative but not too conservative. Someone just right but not too far to the right.

Sorry, folks. Didn't anyone tell you? That's a fairy tale.

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'The View' wants a conservative co-host. That's where it gets complicated. - Goshen News

Last night my son Matt and I had dinner with my favorite teacher from high school, a historian. We got to talking about war and nations, and I mentioned that Matt and I were startled to learn last summer in Hungary about how the decisive fact in Hungarian political thinking of the past century is the Trianon Treaty. Trianon, as they call it, was the treaty that dealt with Hungary after World War I. It reduced Greater Hungary to a rump state, taking away two-thirds of its territory. The Hungarians regard it as a national catastrophe, as I explained, though I pointed out to my teacher that the Slovaks, Romanians, and other minorities who were at the time living under Hungarian rule in those territories, and who were given by Trianon their own land, do not think it was a catastrophe at all. Matt, showing that he has mastered one of the basic principles of historical analysis, then said, You dont have to agree with the Hungarian point of view to recognize how important this issue is to them, and to factor that in when you are trying to understand why they think the way they do.

I went on to explain to my teacher that spending that time in Hungary was eye-opening because it revealed how willfully ignorant American governmental, policy, and media elites are about why the Hungarian government does the things it does and why replacing Viktor Orban with some EU-friendly liberal would probably make less of a difference than many Westerners think. Hungary, I explained, has been at the mercy of Great Powers for most of the previous century. Trianon was imposed by the victors, and divided the country. Then, after World War II, the Soviets colonized Hungary, and kept it prisoner for forty years. Every Hungarian, no matter what his politics, feels deeply in his bones the sense of humiliation at having no national agency. Even many liberal Hungarians eager to cooperate with the European Union have within them a sense of the precarity of their freedom and self-determination.

Matt added that it didnt start at Trianon. In 1848, Hungarian patriots cast off the Habsburg crown, and fought for Hungarian independence. Their initial victory was reversed when the Russians invaded at the Kaisers request, and restored Habsburg rule, though in modified form. The Habsburgs executed thirteen Hungarian generals who led the rebellion; they are remembered today in Hungary as the Thirteen Martyrs of Arad.

The point is that if you want to understand why Hungarians think the way they do about the EU, about immigration, and about many other things you have to be aware of this history: the history of a distinct Central European people, with their own unique language, having to battle constantly against being conquered and having their identity and agency subsumed by the invaders. This does not make the Hungarians right about this or that issue, but it does help you understand their perspective.

With that history in mind, take a look at this YouTube clip of a speech young Viktor Orban, sporting a mullet, delivered in 1989 at the reburial of Imre Nagy, the 1950s Communist leader of Hungary executed by the invading Soviets for resisting them in 1956. Orban was a staunch anti-communist, but in this speech delivered courageously in a ceremony attended by the Communist rulers of Hungary, who were still at that time in power he praises Nagy for being a Hungarian patriot, defending the sovereignty of the nation despite his communism. Turn on the subtitles to understand the entire speech:

Now, Id like to draw your attention to this new essay by Balazs Orban (no relation to the prime minister), the head of Matthias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, and a top adviser to the Prime Minister. In it, he discusses the differences between Hungarian conservative thought and Anglo-Saxon conservative thought. Consider this:

Anglo-Saxon countries, as a rule, have long coastlines. For this reason, throughout their history they have been naval and trading powers, and frequently established overseas colonies. One consequence of this was that they encountered foreign cultures more frequently, and, as a result, regularly had to define the relationship of foreign cultures to their own. Continental powers fundamentally fear the emergence of nomadic peoples, while maritime powers are themselves nomadic.

In addition, Anglo-Saxon countries have at times pursued an expansionary foreign policy. This was, in part, to establish their values, including some form of their own social, political, and economic arrangements, in a given territory. There were economic and political reasons for this, since it enabled them to create a familiar environment, a semi-domestic environment within their area of influence. At the same time, these processes led politicians and thinkers in these countries to ideologize, to a certain extent, the particular merits of the British or American way of life, as well as their political and economic systems, and to argue that they should replace the customs and traditions of indigenous peoples.

This is why Anglo-Saxon traditions andvalues have increasingly lost their pragmatic character, becoming instead a kind of political ideology with expansive political aspirations.These ideologizing processes were present during the heyday of the British Empire, during the Cold War competition between the Soviet Union and the United States, and after the emergence of the post-1990 neoliberalworld order, and all have left their mark on Anglo-Saxon conservative thinking.

Look at this map of Central Europe, and where Hungary is located. Continental powers fundamentally fear the emergence of nomadic peoples, Balazs Orban writes (the Hungarians were themselves such a people when they first arrived in the Carpathian Basin that they settled). Geography goes a long way to explaining mindset:

This is crucial:

The guiding thread of Hungarian conservativethinking has always been to represent the Hungarian national interest, and thus the preservation of the countrys sovereignty andfreedomthis is understood to supersede any theoretical concepts.11The Hungarian conservative tradition is in this sensepragmatic, in that it makes flexible use ofthe means at its disposal to attain its ends. One might remark that there is nothingsurprising in this, since conservative thoughtis taken to be pragmatic in principle. But how does this attitude manifest itself inHungarian conservative thinking? In thefact that Hungarian conservative thinking is essentially defensive in character. If the central problem has always been theprotection of Hungarian sovereignty, nationaland individual freedom, and the attainment of the national interest, then the economic and cultural expansion which has come toseem natural and self-evident in Anglo-Saxon countries has here taken a back seat. Indeed, Hungarys experience has rather been one ofbeing conquered by foreign powers, and ofalien ideas and social phenomena entering the country despite having no organic roots within the local culture, meaning that the defence of Hungarian values and the attainment of thenational interest became the guiding motivesof Hungarian conservatism. As in the Anglo- Saxon example, it is also possible in the caseof Hungarian conservatism to outline in four regards why Hungarian conservative thinkinghas become essentially defensive in nature.

One of the most obnoxious tendencies of American mainstream foreign policy elites, of both the Left and the Right, is the assumption that American values are universal, and should be accepted as such. I had no direct experience of foreign peoples who viewed the US as a culturally imperialist country until I started going to the countries of Central Europe. Once you start seeing things through their eyes, its remarkable (or was to this American) how much of a bully we Americans can be. Its not that they reject all our values; in fact, they agree with most of them. What they resent is American arrogance in using our soft power and hard power to turn all foreign people into Americans. I used to think that this was pretty much a vacant leftie complaint, but when you experience it on your own, you realize that it really is true. Viktor Orban is the bte noire of the European Union, but it is crucially important to grasp that he does not demand that other EU countries follow Hungarys values and example; he only wants Hungary to be left alone to govern itself as it sees fit, within general limits. He is defending Hungarian sovereignty. If Hungarian voters turn the Fidesz Party out of office later this spring and overturn the law banning LGBT material aimed at minors, then fine: that is a decision that will have been made by the Hungarian people, through their duly elected representatives. It will not have been imposed on them by Brussels.

B. Orban explains that in the 19th century, Hungarys ruling class wanted to modernize the nation, but to do so on terms that suited Hungary. That is, they accepted the need to modernize, but wanted to do so in ways that preserved Hungarian sovereignty and traditions. The emphases are mine in this passage below:

In the first half of the 1870s, thethreat of state bankruptcy was a daily topic of conversation. It was in this situation thatJnos Asbth, a former government officialand Member of Parliament, published a book entitledHungarian Conservative Politics, which as the name suggestsemphasized the need for a conservative change in political direction.19The significance of Asbth and his work cannot beoveremphasized, as his ideas are, in a sense, echoed in Hungarian conservative thinking tothis day. The essence of Asbths critique isthat the bankruptcy of liberal politics stems from the fact that liberals consider theory more important than practice.20In other words, they are more interested in whether liberal principles prevail in a political decision than in whether thedecision is truly to the benefit or detriment ofthe nation, or in line with Hungarian interests.

It is worth noting that Asbths criticism is directed against the excessive liberalism of the governing elite. He criticizes the rapidly alternating liberal administrations for adopting Western patterns in the belief that these will bring automatic benefits, without considering their long-term effects on the life of the nation. For example, Asbth cites the regulation of economic conditions. Governments expected so much from free competition that they introduced all the elements of a laissez-faire economic system almost at once. According to Asbth, this was a mistake: at that time Hungarian economic actors were not yet ready to compete with better-funded Austrian and Czech industries, and the domestic economy, far from flourishing, entered a period of recession. This is a painfully familiar phenomenonwe need only consider the missteps of the Hungarian liberal administrations in the post-1989 period.

Think of what happened to Russia in the aftermath of the USSRs collapse. Following American advice, the successor administration of Boris Yeltsin tried shock therapy to establish a free market economy. It caused chaos and widespread despair, and led to the popular election of Vladimir Putin. Similarly, in Hungary, many of the state-owned industries were sold at fire sale prices to Westerners, leaving Hungary at the mercy of foreigners. When I first arrived in Hungary back in 2018, I think it was, my Hungarian friend showing me around told me that a big reason Viktor Orban became popular after his election in 2010 was that he repatriated many of those industries. She said that you could say that he put them in the hands of his political cronies, which might be true, but beside the point: Hungarians have the power to deal with that kind of thing through their elected representatives, but they were powerless when ownership was foreign.

B. Orban says that what we now call national conservatism is an Anglo-Americanization of Hungarian conservatism:

This movement calls itself national conservatism, and, curiously, the views it espouses reflect presumably unintentionallythe principles of national Hungarian conservative thought. The movement is critical of globalization, encourages opposition to the unconditional enforcement of free trade, criticizes liberal politics for its lack of interest in practical results, and sees the pursuit of national interests and the preservation of national traditions as the primary task of politics. So what was new in the West in the 2010s is essentially the natural state of conservative thinking and politics in Hungary. It is not difficult to see why it has turned out this way. We Hungarians already had to deal with the problems currently faced by the Westand especially in the Anglo-Saxon worldin the nineteenth century. We were among those compelled to adapt to a changing world, rather than the other way around. We had to learn how to preserve our independence and how to assert our interests in a world where conditions did not depend so much on our will as on the limitations of our strategic thinking and room for manoeuvre.

Read the whole thing. Its really interesting. You dont have to agree with or support Viktor Orban to learn from this essay. One gets so weary of the mantras repeated by American establishment talking heads of the Left and the Right, about how Hungary is one step away from fascism, blah blah blah. It is demonstrably untrue, and reflects not only ignorance of the facts, but also the knee-jerk substitute of ideology for reality. I recall Peter Kreko, one of the foremost liberal critics of the Orban government, saying last summer at the Esztergom festival, when he and I were onstage together, that his allies in the West do the anti-Orban forces no favors by talking about Hungary as fascist, or near-fascist. Its simply not true, and as I see it, it is yet another example of arrogant Western do-gooders trying to impose their own ideological view of the world on peoples whose histories and values are different.

Last summer, I wrote an essay in The Spectator defending Orban from Western criticism. I said, in part, with reference to the new, highly controversial law prohibiting the dissemination of pro-LGBT information to minors and preserving parental authority when it comes to the sex education of their children:

Thanks to the newOrbn-backed law, Hungarian parentswonthave to deal with their kids coming home from school asking them what gender they are, really. Theywonthave to worry, like many American parents do, that their childrens school is conspiring tokeep their childs gender identity secret from them.Theywonthave to worry, like British parents, about a 4,000percentincrease in youth referrals for gender treatment in just a decade.

I imagine that most Hungarian parents will support this, and if not, Hungary remains a democracy; on July 21, Orbn announced an upcoming national referendum on the law. In the meantime, Hungary retains a free press, which is at liberty to criticize the supposed homophobia and transphobia of the government, and to call on voters to reject the law in the referendum and throw the bigots out in 2022. Hungarians remain free to protest the states policies, as thousands of Pride protesters did in Budapest in late July. Of course, everything came off peacefully; some Viktator, that Orbn.

This is how things are supposed to work in a democracy. But now a coalition of democratic European leaders are ganging up on Hungary, threatening to smash it for daring to assert its own cultural sovereignty. They are vowing to withdraw EU funding over Hungarys moves to keep NGOs and broadcasters from indoctrinating Hungarian children with cheerful songs featuring sexually mutilated beavers, in an effort to destroy what religious tradition, their mothers and fathers and common sense says is true about gender.

At the European summit earlier this summer, French president Emmanuel Macron, furious at Hungarys new law, lashed out at conservative central European for undermining what has built the core of our western liberal democracy for centuries. Macron called it a cultural, civilizational battle that we must fight.

The idea that the Blues Clues Pride Parade aimed at pre-kindergarten children is rooted in centuries of Western democratic thought is about as absurd and ideological a claim as is possible to make. This shows you how fanatical Western elites are when it comes to Hungary. Even if you dont agree with the Fidesz Partys policies, read Balazs Orbans essay to understand its roots. And if you are a conservative, read the essay to understand why some of us see Hungarian conservatism as a model on which to draw to create a new kind of American conservatism, one faithful to our own values and traditions.

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What Is Hungarian Conservatism? - The American Conservative

Apart from his bad luck in being struck twice by the need to go into isolation from Covid, the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer has a huge, indeed historic, weight on his shoulders. To put it bluntly: this government is so appalling that if, as it hopes, it is re-elected either this year or next, many of us will be seriously tempted to emigrate.

The sleaze that finally overturned one of the safest Tory seats in the land, namely North Shropshire, brought to mind a line in Imperium, a novel by my old friend Robert Harris: Cicero (for it is the fictional he) describes a dodgy politician as giving corruption a bad name.

The reaction to the Johnson government in the polls, and in voluminous acres of the hitherto supine Tory press, may be heartening to Starmer, but only up to a point.

What we are witnessing and, goodness, it has taken time is the eternal wisdom of that great observation attributed to Abraham Lincoln: You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

It is reassuring to those of us who are unrepentant Remainers that the wider public appears to be waking up to the economically and socially damaging impact of Brexit. This development, along with the chaotic sleaze of Johnsons government, is giving rise to open rebellion within the Tory ranks, and speculation about who will succeed him.

The problem is that the candidates are all of the same mould: in horseracing terms, they are sired by Brexit, and their dam is Austerity.

The point about Brexit, as emphasised in Lord Frosts resignation letter from his post as chief negotiator, is that it was a neoliberal coup to make this country a lightly regulated, low-tax, entrepreneurial economy, at the cutting edge of modern science and economic change.

No matter that Frost, before the referendum, was on record as acknowledging that we were better off within the EU; no matter that all that stuff about being at the cutting edge is so much cant; the main point is that in attempting, in Lord Lawsons notorious words, to finish the Thatcher revolution with Brexit, the Brexiters were opposing the social-democratic, interventionist nature of the EU in favour of giving free rein to market forces and English nationalism. But they were abandoning a market that really mattered: the single market, an enlightened intergovernmental creation championed by Thatcher.

What Starmer needs to do is stop trying to pacify red wall former Labour voters and get across to them that Brexit was essentially a war against them, and against the socially compassionate nature of the founding principles of the EU, principles that have been made a mockery of by the long squeeze on the NHS and social services generally.

In his magnum opus The Betrayal of Liberal Economics, Prof Amos Witztum laments the way that, because collectivism or state provision is associated with the political tyranny of communist regimes, there has been, since the collapse of the USSR, another form of unnoticed oppression: the tyranny of markets. He suggests: Instead of subjugating all public provision to the scrutiny of markets, we should subjugate markets to the scrutiny of socially constructed criteria.

Now, I have noticed that there have been many references recently to the debt we owe to Clement Attlee, Labour prime minister from 1945 to 51, by whose beneficent administration the NHS was founded. Starmer for one, has been singing his praises.

Attlee, like Franklin Roosevelt before him in the US, sought the right balance between private and public provision. The ideological Brexiters do not. One of the reasons Frost adduces for his resignation is that Johnson is going in the wrong direction by planning to raise taxes and increase public provision, even though this is the forced consequence of the costs of dealing with Covid. Chancellor Sunak has made it plain he wants to cut taxes before the next election. Johnson is actually unpopular among many of his colleagues for being a big spender.

The thrust of the policies of such potential successors to Johnson as Sunak, or the one and only Liz Truss, would be the Brexit doctrine of low taxes and concomitant austerity. What they do not appear to take into account is that by knocking 4% off GDP with Brexit (the OBRs estimate), they have damaged prospective tax revenues so badly that their tax-cutting plans have horrifying implications for public services. Or perhaps that does not worry them.

Attlee must be turning in his grave. I am sure Starmer and his advisers are aware of the implications of all this. They should be championing the EU, and not be embarrassed by their association with the Remain campaign. Let us hope they can bring home the electoral bacon. I really do not wish to have to emigrate.

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Neoliberal Brexiters are no friends of the red wall - The Guardian

It was the first anniversary of the Jan. 6attack on the Capitol. Songwriter and playwrightLin-Manuel Miranda had joinedthe cast of his hit musical "Hamilton" to virtually performthe song "Dear Theodosia" at a congressional event. At a different time on thatsame day, President Biden delivered a historic speechin which he observed that Donald Trump and his supporters had placed "a dagger at the throat of democracy."

Both moments were powerful reminders of a terrible day in both American history and the larger story of democracy. Yet both alsomissed an opportunity to use both the day and their platform to remindAmericans about one of this country's most important founding documents. Well into the 20th century, it was routinely read by schoolchildren across the land, who were expected to be familiar with its contents.

That document is George Washington's Farewell Address, whichwas actually the inspiration for the song "One Last Time," from"Hamilton."Its lessons have never been more relevant than since Jan. 6, 2021 and that can be seen simply by contrasting its languagewith Biden's.

The common nameof Washington's "address"is misleading.Although the ideas were certainly his, Washingtonessentially co-authored the textwith Alexander Hamilton and James Madisonover the course of his presidency. He never read it aloud in public, and it was published in a newspaper on Sept. 19, 1796, six months before the end of his presidency.But in another sense the title is entirely fitting, since the Farewell Address became a central part of the first president'slegacy.

RELATED:George Washington predicted Donald Trump: Why doesn't everyone know this?

As Washingtonwritesin the introduction, he knew that Americans were concerned about whether democracy would keep on working after he left office. He had served for two terms with a national consensus behind him, but now he was choosing to retire. This meant there would be two tests for American democracy: Washington would have to step down peacefully(which he did), and voters would face the nation's first seriously contested presidential election between thetwo men who wanted to succeedWashington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Washington's message toucheson a number of subjects, and there's no use pretending that all of it fits with contemporary liberal or progressive politics. He firmly believed that religion was essential to public morality, for instance, and that it was crucial to balancethefederal budget. (Of course, modern-day "conservatives" only pretend to believe in that one.) Other sections ofthe address are prescient but not specifically relevant to Jan. 6 and its aftermath: Washington'swarning that America could become an empire if itgets entangled in overseas military adventuresmight have changed historyif Cold War policymakers had heeded it. There's also a passage on the dangers of regionalism that, though arguably pertinent today, was clearly composed with issues like slavery and 18th-century economic policy in mind.

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But there are also portions of the farewell address that speak clearly to the present moment, in the wake of the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack.Take this key passage, in which Washington reflectson the political violence that marked the early days of the American republic. Before this, he discusseshow America's original government, as established by the Articles of Confederation, had been too weak. Many peopledisliked the new Constitution for creating a more centralized state, and that led to serious friction andthreats of political violence. Washington understood that democratic governments needed to be accountable, but that didn't mean people could resort to violence over every grievance. He writes:

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

That's a more eloquent expression of the same thought JoeBiden articulatedwhen he said, much to CNN pundit Chris Cillizza's delight, that "you can't love your country only when you win." He added, "You can't obey the law only when it's convenient. You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies." Those words also echo Washington's from 1796:

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.

Washington then transitionsto a discourse on partisanship, fretting that factions led by "a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community" might lead a party to take over the nation through manipulative leaders and the support of a zealous minority. That's inconsistent with the true spirit of republican democracy, he argues, which is "the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests." Anti-democratic violence, on the other hand, serves as a potentengine "by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

This brings us back to Biden, who observed that the Capitol attackers"didn't come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage. Not in service of America, rather in service of one man. Those who incited the mob, the real plotters who were desperate to deny the certification of this election, to defy the will of the voters." He went on to praise those who heroically stood up for democracy, and especially those wholost their lives fighting the right-wingmob.

Washington, to be sure, did not compose the Farewell Address in responseto a specific, present-tense provocation. In his most famous passage heelaborates on a possibility that appears to have come true, 220-odd years later the pressure of extreme partisan division leading to tyranny and autocracy:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

That seems an entirely reasonable descriptionofRepublican plans forthe 2024 election, which they clearly intend to win by fair means or foul, including literally overturning the result if their chosen "chief" loses again. Until then, Republicans are largely relying on political paralysis, not out of any genuine conviction but, in Washington's words,"to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration." Such a partisan faction, he writes, will use all kinds of underhanded tactics:

Itagitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.

Presumably Washingtonfeared that American politics at the dawn of the 19th century could be torn between pro-British and pro-French factions. But he was clearly also aware of the the darker possibility that the danger of tyranny could come from within.

More from Matthew Rozsa on the pathways and corridors of American history:

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Why George Washington's Farewell Address has never been more important - Salon

The blind optimism shown by government ministers in their plans for the future of Englands farms could result in many small and tenant farmers being forced out of business, a parliamentary report has warned.

In the wake of Brexit, farmers in England are set to see direct payments worth 1.8bn in 2019/20 under the EUs Common Agricultural Policy slashed by more than half by 2024/25 and removed entirely in 2027 as the government shifts to a new regime intended to boost productivity and improve stewardship of the countryside.

But a House of Commons committee report said that George Eustices Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has not yet done enough to gain farmers trust initsability to successfully deliver the programme.

And it said ministers were over-optimistic about the likelihood of making English farms more productive.

The end result of encouraging farmers to free up land for environmental purposes such as woodland is likely to be that England ends up importing more of its food, often from countries with worse environmental standards than Britain, said the report from the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

This would not only force up prices in the shops, but also make Britain more reliant on food from abroad.

With the average farm making a net profit of just 22,800 a year without subsidies, the committee said it feared that many small and tenant farmers operating on wafer-thin margins could be forced out of business.

A dog looks out of a car window at the wintry conditions in Killeshin, Co. Laois

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People walk through frost and mist alongside a frozen lake during sunrise in Bushy Park, London

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A skier jumps on the slopes at Allenheads in the Pennines to the north of Weardale in Northumberland

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Freshly-fallen snow covers houses in Corbridge, near Hexham in Northumberland

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Dean Morrison, 13, receives his Covid-19 vaccine from student nurse Anthony McLaughlin during a vaccination clinic at the Glasgow Central Mosque

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Konastantinos Tsimikas of Liverpool with Chelseas Mason Mount during the Premier League match at Stamfrod Bridge

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New Years Eve Lasers, drones and fireworks illuminate the sky in front of the Royal Naval College in Greenwich shortly after midnight in London

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Competitors in fancy dress run across the Pennine tops near Haworth, West Yorkshire, in the annual Auld Lang Syne Fell race which attracts hundreds of runners every year

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Sunrise at Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland

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The Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, looks at Becket, a six month old red-billed chough as he visits Wildwood Wildlife Park in Kent on the anniversary of the murder of Thomas Becket

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Troops of the Household Cavalry are seen reflected in a puddle during the changing of the Queens Life Guard, on Horse Guards Parade, in central London

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People stand inside Kings Cross Station on Christmas Eve in London

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Christmas shoppers fill the car park at Fosse Shopping Park in Leicester

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The sun rises behind the stones as people gather for the winter solstice at Stonehenge.

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People take part in a winter solstice swim at Portobello Beach in Edinburgh to mark the solstice and to witness the dawn after the longest night of the year

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Governments post-Brexit farming plan will increase UKs reliance on food imports - The Independent

Unthinkable is the perfect title for this extraordinary book, because it describes a superhuman feat.

Jamie Raskin is a fine writer, a Democratic congressman, a constitutional scholar and a deeply loving father. When 2020 began, he had no inkling that just 12 months later his country and his family would face two impossible traumas.

On 31 December, his beautiful, brilliant, charismatic 25-year-old son, Tommy, took his own life. Six days later, a vicious mob invaded Raskins workplace, the cradle of democracy, leaving several dead and injuring 140 police officers.

Raskin suffered a violent and comprehensive shock to the foundations. Never had he felt so equidistant between the increasingly unrecognizable place called life and the suddenly intimate and expanding jurisdiction called death.

This is where the superhuman part came in. Instead of succumbing to unfathomable grief over the death of his son, Raskin seized a lifeline thrown by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and agreed to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump for inciting the riot which might have derailed the peaceful transition of power.

He found salvation and sustenance a pathway back to the land of the living.

Im not going to lose my son at the end of 2020 and lose my country and my republic in 2021, he told CNN, less than three weeks after Tommys death.

Raskins astonishing story of tragedy and redemption, of despair and survival, depended entirely on all the good and compassionate people like Tommy, the non-narcissists, the feisty, life-size human beings who hate bullying and fascism naturally people just the right size for a democracy where we are all created equal.

Tommy Raskin was the fourth generation in a great liberal family. His maternal great grandfather was the first Jew elected to the Minnesota legislature. His grandfather, Marcus Raskin, was one of the earliest opponents of the Vietnam war when he worked in the Kennedy White House. In 1968, Marcus Raskin was indicted with William Sloane Coffin, Dr Benjamin Spock and others for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft. When Raskin was the only one acquitted, he famously demanded a retrial.

Jamie Raskin taught constitutional law then ran for the Maryland Senate, with Tommy, then 10, his first campaign aide. In the state legislature, Raskin helped outlaw the death penalty and legalize same-sex marriage.

Tommy was a second-year student at Harvard Law School when Covid began. Like so many others with clinical depression, the catastrophe deepened his symptoms. His father described his illness as a kind of relentless torture in the brain Despite very fine doctors and a loving family the pain became overwhelming and unyielding and unbearable at last.

This is also a political memoir, of the Capitol attack and the second impeachment. Driving to the Capitol, Raskin spotted Maga supporters heckling a young Black driver and a car with a bumper sticker reading: If Guns Are Outlawed, How Am I Going To Shoot Liberals?

He realizes these fascist bread crumbs throughout the city should have activated some kind of cultural alarm. More chillingly, he reports the decision of some Democrats to cross their chamber after Congress was invaded, because they thought a mass shooter who entered would be less likely to aim at the Republican side of the House.

But Raskin was never afraid: The very worst thing that could ever have happened to us has already happened and Tommy is with me somehow every step of the way. He is occupying my heart He is showing me the way to some kind of safety My wound has now become my shield of defense and my path to escape, and all I can think of is my son propelling me forward to fight.

The most powerful part of Raskins book, the heart-shattering part, is his love letter to Tommy, a dazzling, precious, brilliant moral visionary, a slam poet, an intellectual giant slayer, the king of Boggle, a natural-born comedian, a friend to all human beings but tyrants and bullies, a freedom fighter, a political essayist, a playwright, a jazz pianist, and a handsome, radical visitor from a distant future where war, mass hunger and the eating of animals are considered barbaric intolerable and absurd.

Raskin realized that for the last week of his life, his son had made an effort to impersonate someone in perfect mental health, so no one would intervene. These were his parting words: Please forgive me. My illness won today. Please look after each other, the animals and the global poor for me. All my love, Tommy.

Raskin takes some solace remembering the story of Abraham Lincolns son Willie, who died of typhoid fever at the age of 12 in 1862, plunging his parents into depression.

It had been a point of pride that Raskin responded to every constituent, but a deluge of condolences made that impossible. There was also a call from Joe Biden, three days after Tommy died. The president-elect promised the day would come when Tommys name would bring a smile to my lip before tears to my eyes.

Eventually Raskin was convinced to write one letter for everyone sending condolences, one for everyone who wrote about impeachment and a third for everyone who offered condolences and political solidarity. One actually wrote: I was looking for a condolence card for the loss of your son which also said and thanks for saving our country too, but Hallmark apparently doesnt make those.

Naturally, one of Raskins sons heroes was Wittgenstein, who believed the truth of ethical propositions is determined by the courage with which you act to make them real.

On this standard, Raskin writes, there have never been truer ethical claims than the ones made by Tommy Raskin, because he was all courage and engagement with his moral convictions.

May this book and Tommys example inspire us all to rescue our gravely beleaguered democracy.

Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy is published in the US by Harper

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Unthinkable review: Jamie Raskin, his lost son and defending democracy from Trump - The Guardian

It's a law that has been described as "almost unintelligible," "arcane" and "extremely complex."

It's also the law that determines who will be president.

The Electoral Count Act of 1887 has been derided by legal experts almost since it was first written, and this week, members of both parties in Congress opened the door to updating the legislation. As the first bit of voting-specific policy to even get a sniff of bipartisanship in recent years, it's a notable development.

But it's still far from a sure thing.

Here's a quick overview of what the law is and where things stand.

The Electoral Count Act came as a reaction to the presidential election of 1876, which saw Democrat Samuel Tilden win the popular vote but ultimately lose the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes because of contested election results coming from three Southern states under the control of Reconstruction governments: Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana.

The three states each sent in multiple competing electoral returns, and Congress had no rules in place to deal with such a scenario.

So, it created an ad hoc commission to decide the presidency, which ended up giving the states' returns, and with them the presidency, to Hayes.

Democrats at the time were furious over the decision and only accepted it in a deal known as the Compromise of 1877, which stipulated that Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction and withdraw federal troops from former Confederate states.

A decade later, Congress passed the Electoral Count Act into law to avoid similar situations in the future, but "the crafters of this law unfortunately did a terrible job," says Rebecca Green, the co-director of the Election Law Program at William & Mary Law School.

"Some of the processes just don't make sense in the modern world," she said.

The legislation is "extraordinarily complex" and "far from the model of statutory drafting," according to an analysis by the National Task Force on Election Crises (of which Green is a member), but the law does create a framework and timeline for when states need to have their election results finalized.

According to the law, the Electoral College is to meet in states across the country on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their votes.

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If a state has finalized its results six days before then, according to the ECA, then those results qualify for "safe harbor" status meaning Congress must treat them as the "conclusive" results, even if, for example, a state's legislature sends in a competing set of results.

But the law also allows members of Congress to easily object to results submitted by states and to prolong the counting process, even without legitimate concerns, and according to legal experts, it does not do a good enough job clarifying the vice president's role. Then-Vice President Mike Pence's role became the focus of efforts on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn the last election.

"In our view, modernizing the ECA may well be the single most important step Congress can take to prevent a crisis in the next contested presidential election," writes the National Task Force on Election Crises in its list of recommendations for updating the law.

For years, and especially since last year's attack on the Capitol, Democrats have been clamoring for Republicans to defend what they see as the fragile guardrails of democracy with federal legislation.

And this week, it seems as if for the first time, Republicans may be willing to play ball with regards to the Electoral Count Act.

"It obviously has some flaws. And it is worth, I think, discussing," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in an interview with Politico on Wednesday.

Moderate Democrats Joe Manchin, D-W.Va, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., also endorsed looking at the law, but a number of more liberal Democrats did not. Instead, they made it clear that they see Republican interest in reform of the counting process as a way for the party to avoid engaging with other structural protections of voting rights.

"Some scorekeeping matters little if the game is rigged," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Election experts, however, are urging Democrats to engage in strengthening the elections process wherever there is a glimmer of bipartisanship.

"It doesn't address the larger problems with how our elections are run, but that said, it seems like a fairly straightforward place to start," said Green, of William & Mary. "It seems to be low-hanging fruit."

It's especially important to do it this year, said Ned Foley, an election law expert at The Ohio State University.

"The time to address [these problems] is now," Foley said. "Now is the maximum veil of ignorance: where the two political parties don't know exactly what the lay of the land is going to be in '24 and '25, and so there's a greater chance of bipartisan consensus on the clear procedures for governing the process."

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Congress may change this arcane law to avoid another Jan. 6 - Wisconsin Public Radio News

By her own account, the 2016 movie "Hidden Figures" altered Colette Pierce Burnette's life.

"My husband and I saw that movie together, and I kept saying: 'That happened to me! That happened to me!'" the outgoing president of Huston-Tillotson University said about the lives of trailblazing Black women who toiled almost invisiblyin the fields of math and science.

Seeing "Hidden Figures" helped spark a "fire in the belly" to make sure that higher education became more equitable. She came to Huston-Tillotson at a time whenhistorically Black collegesweresteppinginto the national spotlight and she could do something significant about those inequities, some of which she experienced personally.

Burnette, who conquered the fields of engineering, information technologyand higher education management, had many times been theonly woman and the only Black woman in the room. Early conclusions were ignored; her work was discounted.

More: Huston-Tillotson University president to retire in 2022

Burnette, who just turned 64, is no longer a hidden figure.

In fact, the Austin Chamber of Commerce has named Burnette its 2021 Austinite of the Year, not only for her work in accelerating and expanding the city's historically Black university, but also for her citywide civic leadership, including crucial service as co-chair for the Mayor's Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities.

"In every room I've been with her, she has encouraged courageousleadership," said Nikki Graham, the 2021 chairwoman of the Austin Chamber of Commerce. "She's collaborative. She wants people to work together. But she's not afraid to push the status quoand make people see things differently. She has played a key role in this important time in our city's history.

Laura Huffman, president and CEO of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, said the Austinite of the Year Award is givento people for making outsizecontributions to thecommunity. She said she feels Burnette helped turn longtime talk on issues such as social justice, economic opportunityand affordability into action, especially by making Huston-Tillotson a locus of that action.

"In every sense of the spirit of this award, she has madeextraordinary contributionsin a very short time," Huffman said. "Her impact was felt immediately and deeply on the most important issues our communityhas been struggling with, and on the opportunities we have to fix those problems. ... She's practical, but she's also aspirational. She truly believes that Austin's best days are ahead of us and I love that about her."

Burnette gets choked up when she thinks about the new honor she has earned many which is often given to leaders who have devoted lifetimes to improvingAustin.

"When I found out, I was speechless," Burnette said."It's big. But not for me I mean, not just for me. It's big for a lot of people. I may be the face of it, but I'm not it. I am a vessel. People say: 'How do you do it?How do keep up the stamina?How do you keep up the energy?' It's just not me. ... I have an army of people behind me."

Burnette was born in 1957 in Cleveland, Ohio, where she also grew up. Her father, who moved to the North from Mississippi during the Great Migration, was one of 18 kids. He finished the sixth grade. Her mother, a Cleveland native, graduated from high school.

"My mom and dad are the smartest people I know," Burnette said. "But they didn't have the opportunities."

Schooling, therefore, was paramount for the Pierce children.

"I thought college was the 13th grade," Burnette said. "I did not know that it was optionaluntil I got to Ohio State, and then I realized that people were there by choice. My dad knew that my sister and I were going to college."

A child of the 1960s "protected from but not protected from" the great swirl of social changes Burnette attended the still-new John F. Kennedy High School, a Black public school in Cleveland with high standards.

More: A generation of civil rights pioneers left Austin a better place

"Education truly is the great equalizer," Burnette said. "In my school, there was no mediocrity. It was all excellence.

"When I goback to my high school reunions, I have judges in my class, a college president myself doctors, very successful entrepreneurs. So even though wewere quote-unquote 'low income,' you don't know it until you look back on it."

Early on, the girl from a large, strong family was good at math.

"My grandmother used to get butcher paper from the local deli, which was owned by Italians there were very few stores that were owned by Black people in my community," Burnette recalled. "She'd paste the butcher paper up on the walls around the kitchen. WhileI waseating, I'd recite my times tables all the elements of math and my spelling words, etc."

At Ohio State University in the 1970s, she was the only Black engineering studentin hergraduating class, and also the first Black Ohio State student to intern at an engineering job.

"When I walked in my chemistry class, the only thing I recognized was the beakers and the Bunsenburners," Burnette said. "I was the only girl in that class and the only Black. But my upbringing made me know that I could do anything. I was a bit fearless."

More: 'God of aerospace engineering': Hans Mark, former UT chancellor who fled Nazis, dies at 92

Minnie M. McGee, an administrator who had attended a historically Black college in the South, had been hired to recruit and retainBlack students in Ohio State's engineering program.

"She built a cocoon where I could just be me," Burnette said. "Where someone was pouring into me and making me proud of who I amso my own gifts could come out, without me apologizing."

After earning a Bachelorof Science degree, she took a job asanengineer at Proctor and Gamble, running the computer labat a plant that made Tide and Crest.

Soon after, Burnette met and married now-retired Air ForceLt. Col. Daarel Burnette, who had attended Morehouse College, a historically Black college in Atlanta.

"I knew absolutelynothing about active-duty military life," she said. "I knew he was cute. He is from the South, and I am from the North. He is introverted, and I'm extroverted."

The couple raised two children, Daarel Burnette II, a journalist now working in Washington, D.C., and Daana Burnette, a producer in Los Angeles.

"We got married in July, and we got orders to movein August to Warner Robins, Georgia," Burnette said about a place not unlike the setting for "Hidden Figures." "I had to get 20 references for a job. I interviewed with an older white guy all of them wereGeorgia Tech graduates. ... They called me the 'sassy Negro.' ... But I come from bigfamily in Cleveland. That did not intimidate me."

She faced another hurdle when she went to pick up an application for the officer's club.

"She told me: 'There is criteria to join this club,'" Burnette said. "'Well, my husband is an officer, is that criteria?' She didn't believe me. My husband had to come back that afternoon to pick up the application."

While there, she earned her Master of Science degree in administrationfrom Georgia College, a public liberal arts schoolin Milledgeville

The Burnette family moved often, living across thecountry and abroad.

"My husband's career was good to me," Burnette said. "I would have stayed in Ohio for my whole life. I'm from Cleveland, went to schoolin Columbus, and took my first job in Cincinnati. I'd still be working for Proctor and Gamble."

Among other jobs, Burnette worked for The Washington Post as a systems analyst, and she ran her own computer consulting firm,CompuMent.

While her early adult career was spent in the corporate world, she moved over to education when her husband retired.

Burnette started by teaching community collegeand thenearned her Ed.D. in higher education administration from the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. She isalso a graduate of the management development program at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

Before coming to Austin, she held numerous administrative positions at universities across the country.

"We learn backwards to live forwards," Burnette said. "Everything in my life has prepared me for my journeyin Austin and for my presidency of Huston-Tillotson. I am praying and hopeful that my journey at Huston-Tillotsonwill now prepare me for my next chapter and I don't know what that is."

Burnette joined Huston-Tillotson as president and CEO on July 21, 2015, the first woman to hold that position since Huston and Tillotson colleges merged in 1952.

Many Austinites don't know that Huston-Tillotson was the first institution of higher learning in Austin, established in 1875, two years before St. Edward's Universityand eight years before the University of Texas.

The school's rich history though often hidden in the heart of the city attracted Burnette. So did the community that surrounded it.

"As I drove around East Austin and saw the remnants of it you'd see where there used to be a barbershop, but now there's just a sign ... or a school that is not in the best condition anymore," Burnette said. "It really reminded me of the community that I grew up in.I had the feeling that I was home in a very odd way in East Austin."

Although she did not attend ahistorically Black college herself, she had long been a proponent of the schools. Amember of Delta Sigma Theta, a historically Black sorority witha strong presence at Ohio State, she remains very engaged with the organization.

During the past couple of years, the general public has learned more about the reach of historically Black colleges and historically Black sororities and fraternities because ofinterest in Vice President Kamala Harris, a graduate of Howard University and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.

"HBCs have been important since their inception," Burnette said. "The world is finally recognizing the beauty of these schools and how they built the middle class."

Huston-Tillotson, however, was financially fragile when she arrived.Enrollment was down. As president, she gave speeches about perseverance.

"Not using as an excuse that you came from a quote-unquote 'underprepared' high school," Burnette said. "Preparation is relative. Grit is a good part of preparation. It is sometimes even more so than the reading, writing and arithmetic part of it."

She credits her predecessor, Huston-Tillotson President Larry L. Earvin, withsetting the stage.

"When I arrived, I read something in the Statesman about the college not facing outward," she said. "I only knew about facing outward. ... If Cleveland had had a historically Black college with such rich history in the middle of my community, how wonderful that would have been."

More: 'We should honor all parts of who we are': Nichole Prescott on reviving indigenous cultures

Injured at the airport early inher tenure, Burnette took Uber back and forth to Huston-Tillotson. She always chatted with the drivers.

"Eight or maybe nine of the first 10 didn't even know the university existed," Burnette said. "I could not understand that in a city like Austin with a university in the heart of the city and people didn't know it was there."

That has changed substantially during the past seven years.

"Colette has transformed Huston-Tillotson," said Graham, formerly with Bank of America, now the head of Hector and Gloria Lopez Foundation, which supports students who identify as Latino, low-incomeand first-generation in their pursuit of higher education."She has increased HT's endowment, made it a centralfocus of the community, and made clear the needs ofcollege attainment for young men of color in order to build the highly skilled, talented workforce weneed in Austin. She has put a finer point on the needs of HBCs in keeping with a trend we see nationwide.

Huffman goes even further in her assessment.

"I believe that Dr. Burnette has made the students and the institution of HT part of the economic success of Austin," she said. "I do think part of growing the university is making sure that economic opportunitiesare availableto the students, to the teachers, to thestaff and that they are helping drive the success of the community.I think she's done that."

"Austin is such a magical city," Burnette said. "There is so much opportunity here. There are so many things my students have been able to do, and be a part of, and to be able to blossom. We have a long way to go as an institution, but we are at that stage."

Although here for just seven years, Burnette has put down deep rootsand has served on numerous citywide boards and committees, despite holding down a daunting day job.

"I am a self-proclaimed lifetime member of the Austin community," she said. "Nobody can take that away from me. ... You are not going to get rid of me."

As Austin looked once again for answers about social justice and equity in light ofthe Black Lives Matter movement, Burnette discoveredmany others in Austin who shared her passions.

"I've always been a social justice warrior," Burnette said. "I met people who really leaned into wanting Austin be a beloved communityas Dr. King defined it."

More: Texas History: Notable Texans recall growing up in the Lone Star State

As Mayor Steve Adler put together theMayor's Task Force on Institutional Racism and Systemic Inequities, he sensed that Burnette fit the job of co-chair of the task force, along with Paul Cruz, then chief of Austin schools.

"I am not a token," she said. "I am unapologeticallya Black female. I was hesitant to do it, because my job was so complicated."

Improving Austin's effectiveness at social equity helped her day job. She discovered that she could not recruit effectively for a historically Black college if the city's reputation was not inclusive. Also, she could draft local leaders in her efforts to build up Huston-Tillotson.

"It put me in a position to meet more people and share the gifts of the institution in a more public way," Burnette said. "I met the movers and shakers and thought leaders in the city."

As a result, enrollment is upand Huston-Tillotson is no longer fiscally fragile.So why leave her position at the college?

"I have stood in my purposeaspresident of the university,'" Burnette said. "And my purpose in the community. A mentor once told me,'You always leave the party when you're having fun.' The university is in a really good place right now."

She hasbut one regret regarding her Huston-Tillotson tenure: She did not build more buildings.

"We have the land. We need a new academic building, and we need a new residence hall. Our gym is not air-conditioned.We don't have a student union," she said. "I kept looking for a private-public partnership. ... That's not going to happen by June 30. But the next person is going to get that done. You rarely get to see the tree from the seeds you plant. I want to come back for the ribbon cutting, and I hope I just get to touch the scissors."

In the near future, Burnette will continue to teach a course in social justice in higher educationleadership at the University of Texas. She has thought about running a nonprofit that has social justice and higher education as part of its mission.

"Look, Colette has the energy, the intellect and the influence to make sure Austin achieves its fullest potential," Huffman said. "She's also someone whose enthusiasm is contagious. You find yourself wanting to work with her."

"She has a background in business and a unique set of skills that help her relate to elected officials, business peopleand academics alike.She's a unifier," Graham said. "She brings all people to the table at HTwhile shining a light on the needs of the surrounding community.

"She's transformed our community for the better."

Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at mbarnes@statesman.com.

Continued here:

EXCLUSIVE: Colette Pierce Burnette, president of Huston-Tillotson University, named Austinite of the Year - Austin American-Statesman

Submitted by Jim Wozniak

GREENEVILLE Tusculum University faculty members and students are inviting residents of the Horse Creek community to share their stories as part of an update to a 1980s research project on that section of Greene County.

The research team is scheduled to begin the new interviews in February. The oral histories, which will pay special attention to the subjects of land, community and sustainability, will supplement interviews the last academic group compiled 35 year ago and will be part of public presentation at Tusculum and Rural Resources at the conclusion of the research teams work.

We are thrilled to enter this next phase of researching this wonderful community and learn from those who intimately know Horse Creek, said Dr. Katherine Everhart, an assistant professor of sociology at Tusculum, who serves as the initiatives principal investigator. Horse Creek has a fascinating history, and we welcome the opportunity to hear firsthand accounts from those who live there.

Horse Creek residents who are interested in being interviewed can contact Everhart at keverhart@tusculum.edu or 423-636-7472. To see a list of those who were interviewed in the 1980s, visit https://bit.ly/3q642Jd.

In addition to Everhart, todays research team consists of Dr. Peter Noll, associate professor of public history and museum studies, who is serving as the projects archivist, and Wayne Thomas, dean of the College of Civic and Liberal Arts. Everhart and Noll also picked two students to assist with this project: Samantha Nelson, a sophomore history major, and Maggie Vickers, a junior, who is pursuing bachelors degrees in history and English.

This will be Nelsons second research project in Greene County. As a member of the 2021 class of Ledford Scholars, a prestigious program of the Appalachian College Association, she studied burley tobaccos impact on the countys economy and identity.

I like learning new things, so I feel like there is a lot to explore in the Horse Creek project that I wasnt previously exposed to, Nelson said. Like always, my goal with this project is to look for new perspectives and learn something new. I look forward to participating further as we discover more about the Horse Creek community.

One element of the project is particularly appealing to Vickers church history. She said she has learned about the pre-Civil War and Reconstruction eras of church history and found that enjoyable. She is excited to now examine history in more recent times.

Im really interested in church history right now, she said. Its a broader scope of religious history in America that I am focusing on. I just wrote a paper about church history in East Tennessee, and Im going deeper into it. This project is just another piece to that. Horse Creeks church history is really interesting because its unique, and its unique in the way that they built their community around the churches.

The Horse Creek project, formally called Horse Creek Then and Now: Comparative Oral Histories from Rural Appalachia, became possible through a $10,000 Humanities for the Public Good grant Tusculum received in the spring from the Council of Independent Colleges. The initiative is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with supplemental funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The research group met weekly during the fall semester and participated in multiple workshops, including one about Appalachia led by Dr. Angela Keaton, professor of history at Tusculum. They also mapped important places in Horse Creek, such as churches and schools.

The team also digitized the archive and transcribed some of the 30 oral histories conducted during the 1980s research. Those earlier interviews covered the way of life for community members from Horse Creeks inception in the late 1700s to a more commercially driven and manufacturing economy after World War II. Nelson and Vickers will finish the transcriptions during the spring semester.

A national grant funded the earlier two-year project, which Dr. Donal Sexton, professor emeritus of history at Tusculum, directed with assistance from students. Wess duBrisk, associate professor emeritus of communications, served as the photographer, and Clem Allison, professor emeritus of art, led exhibit design and construction.

In preparation for the next phase of the research on Horse Creek, Everhart, Noll, Nelson and Vickers visited the community on Dec. 16.

Our project is tremendously exciting and is enhanced greatly by the rich archival material we have from the 1980s research, Noll said.

We welcome the opportunity to build on that excellent work and examine the new developments in Horse Creek in the 35 years since. All of this will produce a comprehensive history of this community and provide insight into what makes Horse Creek so special.

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Horse Creek residents invited to share their stories with Tusculum team - Johnson City Press (subscription)