Shuffle

Article #1:

I liked my blog-friend Rose's essay on farming and family life in Central Illinois.

Article #2:

There was much discussion this week about the need for dialog about race in the U.S., so this article was interesting to me:

"The real fights within the black community — our internal culture wars — have been over which face we show white America. The legendary battle of ideas between Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois at the dawn of the 20th century was also a battle over masks: should we seem humble and modest or prideful and outraged? This “mask war” was vicious because group masks are mutually exclusive; each nullifies the other. Can’t be humble and outraged at the same time. One mask had to die so that the other might live. So the battle between Washington and Du Bois was winner-take-all. One man emerged the leader of his race; the other became a symbol of Uncle Tomism. "

This is an fascinating editorial by Shelby Steele that revisits the life of Booker T. Washington, and a debate that I, as a white person, never knew existed.

Article #3:

Finally, I'm having a great time reading the blog posts by Slate's David Plotz, Blogging the Bible. Plotz, attending a bat mizvah for a relative, picked up a Hebrew Bible (Genesis through the Chronicles), and, while thumbing through it, discovered stories he had never learned about in Hebrew school. He decided to actually read the Hebrew Bible, and blog about what he found there. The perspective is Jewish, and refreshing because it is just an ordinary person's gut response to what he reads. Always thought-provoking.