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POPSHow the Irish were viewed in Victorian times
"These ideas were not confined to a lunatic fringe of the scientific community, for although they never won over the mainstream of British scientists they were disseminated broadly and it was even hinted that the Irish might be the elusive missing link! Certainly the "ape-like" Celt became something of an malevolent cliche of Victorian racism. Thus Charles Kingsley could write I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw . . . I don't believe they are our fault. . . . But to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; if they were black, one would not feel it so much. . . ." (Charles Kingsley in a letter to his wife, quoted in L.P. Curtis, Anglo-Saxons and Celts, p.84). Even seemingly complimentary generalizations about the Irish national character could, in the Victorian context, be damaging to the Celt. Thus, following the work of Ernest Renan's La Poésie des Races Celtiques (1854), it was broadly argued that the Celt was poetic, light-hearted and imaginative, highly emotion
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POPSJingoistic Conservative Talk Show Hosts Are Vile Conservatives who lambaste liberal media bias need to be as honest when conservative media bias occurs, especially when it occurs by conservatives resorting to the worst vitriol, the most-vile of stereotypes. Please read this article and give me your opinions. Thank you.
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POPSAnti-War Protests In Israel No organisation called for the demonstration – but more than a thousand men and women gathered spontaneously in order to protest in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel-Aviv, only a few hours after the murderous Air Force attack on the Gaza strip started. "I know there has been a lot of generalizations and criticizing of the Israeli people during these wars, so I figured I'd share with you another side of the story you wouldn't see on TV." (sean57, DP~Thanks)
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POPSThe positive effect of metal music on today's youth Metal music especially death, dark and brutal, but sometimes even heavy gothic and melodic are mistakenly confused for "evil music" This article tries to clean up metal's name by explaining some of the most popular misconception, wrong ideas and gross generalizations that are commonly associated with metal music thus giving it its undeserved bad name.
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POPSAugust 2nd, 2006 post -- A story for everyone It's not a "valid argument" to say a student would be prejudiced against a book simply because it was assigned in class. It's actually fallacious (specifically Dicto simpliciter fallacy, which is known as the sweeping generalizations fallacy). An argument is considered valid when it is backed up with proof, and the blog author's "valid argument" contains no proof at all. Stating that 30% of kids finished a classic book but 90% finished the book when offered a well-written young adult novel is also fallacious. Readers are not given any more details about this "study" (it's implied that it was an informal study conducted by the blog author), we do not know how many teachers were polled, how many students responded truthfully, or even anything else at all except the numbers that could very easily have been fabricated (since your study lacked proof of their veracity).
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POPSAugust 2nd, 2006 post -- A story for everyone That paragraph started off positive, even though I thought it was curious that she so quickly changed her mind about teachers directing their students towards the classics ("exposing kids to that area of literature is a worthy endeavor"). I actually completely agree with that statement, but then she followed it up with yet more negativity. Once again, more hasty generalizations about what is being "taught" (another oblique reference to teachers) in most of our schools ("only one type of literature" -- the classics). She also reiterated her assumption that teaching classics in school is "stifling and creates some unwanted effects," those "unwanted effects" being students that have stopped reading books after graduation because their teachers didn't do a well-enough job of engaging their interest in books. Which is an unfair criticism when most english teachers want nothing more than to encourage their students to be readers.
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POPSWhen in Doubt, Distort It's easier to distort, as A. McEwen notes in his post about the six distortion techniques of the anti-gay industry. (Just six?) Also, keep an eye out for this blogger's upcoming book which shares the same title as his blog: Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters.
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