Saturday Good Reads

It’s the Fourth of July, and it’s worth considering the words of other Americans who marked this day and what it commemorates. 

Address by Frances “Fanny” Wright, July 4, 1828, New Harmony Hall, Indiana.

Address by Daniel Webster, July 4, 1851, on the laying of the cornerstone of the new Capitol Building. 

Oration by Frederick Douglass, July 5^th, 1852, in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York. You can also listen and watch the descendants of Douglass recite the speech.

Address I Didn’t Make But Planned To by Mark Twain, July 4^, 1899, London, England.

Address to the Nation by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, July 4, 1942.

Address by John F. Kennedy, July 4, 1962, at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Address by Ronald Reagan, July 4, 1986, to the nation on Independence Day.

The Declaration of Independence.

Matt Taibbi has all the right journalistic bona fides. He’s a contributing editor for Rolling Stone; he’s published books and articles; and his political leaning is to the left. He’s published a review of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility that is anything but admiring. If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s #2 on Amazon’s charts, and it was published two years ago. Taibbi calls it “pseudo-intellectual” and says it may be the first book ever to sell Hitlerian race theory as corporate wisdom. (The Washington Post was more content with calling it “flawed.”) DiAngelo likely won’t mind the review; she’s doing quite well, thank you. 

Queen Elizabeth is 94, and there are many of us who hope she’s on the throne for a good long time to come. Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy calls her “post-liberal;” she’s the only person in Britain who’s quite comfortable and allowed to get away with talking about God and faith. 

More Good Reads

Life and Culture

Our Politics Will Improve When We Turn Off Our Phones – Casey Chalk at Intercollegiate Studies Institute. 

Ahistorical Activism – Sohrab Ahmari at First Things Magazine.

Of Statues and Symbolic Murder – Wilfred McClay at First Things Magazine.

The Mark of an Educated Mind – Andrew Doyle at Standpoint.

Atheists in Praise of Christianity? – Jonathon Van Maren at The Stream (Hat Tip: Randy Mayfield).

British Stuff

St Mary Woolnoth – The Church with the Underground in the Crypt – A London Inheritance.

Dissolution of the Monasteries in England – Judith Arnopp on Momentous Events in History.

American Stuff

Gettysburg Sunday: Cavalry After Church – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

Faith

Mary Lou’s Sacred Jazz – Deanna Witkowski at Urban Faith.

MIT chaplain sacked for his thoughts, as a Catholic priest, on mercy, justice and George Floyd – Terry Mattingly at Get Religion.

The Spiritual Lessons of Table Reading – Sr. Carino Hodder at Mere Orthodoxy.

Why Read Early Christian Authors? – Michael Haykin at Credo Magazine.

Poetry

A Sunday Psalm – Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

Ecclesiastes 4, Recast in Classical Poetry – T.M. Moore at Society of Classical Poets.

'Cause You'd Be Here – Gleb Zavlanov at The Chained Muse.

Day 108 – Sonja Benskin Mesher.

Writing and Literature

Flannery O’Connor Didn't Care If You Liked Her Work – David Griffith at Church Life Journal.

Brideshead Revisited at 75 – Alexander Larman at The Critic.  

The Domestic Arts: Finding a Quiet Dignity in the Mundane – Barbara Castle at Front Porch Republic.

Sarah Jarosz Sings “Ring Them Bells” (Bob Dylan)

Illustration: The Declaration of Independence, approved July 2, 1776, officially dated July 4, 1776.