Weekend Reads: Evangelicals & Trump, Jerry Falwell, Web Nostalgia, Racist Ice Cream Music
Recommended weekend reading material for August 15, 2020.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable articles. I hope they provide you with some good weekend reading material.
According to a recent poll, 82% of white evangelical Christians plan to vote for Trump in November. Why has this demographic aligned themselves so closely with a man so lacking in Christian virtues?
Evangelicals did not support Mr. Trump in spite of who he is. They supported him because of who he is, and because of who they are. He is their protector, the bully who is on their side, the one who offered safety amid their fears that their country as they know it, and their place in it, is changing, and changing quickly. White straight married couples with children who go to church regularly are no longer the American mainstream. An entire way of life, one in which their values were dominant, could be headed for extinction. And Mr. Trump offered to restore them to power, as though they have not been in power all along.
As a friend on Facebook put it, this article was probably intended to be a sympathetic portrayal of Trump supporters, but some of their quotes are pretty damning.
You’ve probably seen that disturbing photo of Jerry Falwell, Jr. with his pants unzipped, and you might’ve heard that he’s taken an indefinite leave of absence from being president and chancellor at Liberty University. But after years of controversial behavior, why was this photo the last straw?
“This upset a lot of Southern Baptist pastors,” said D.J. Jordan, a Liberty graduate with strong ties to the alumni community. “The visual is so stunning. And even more so to these conservative retired pastors and business leaders” who make up a significant portion of the board.
Via NextDraft.
David French examines the hypocrisy of Falwell’s behavior as Liberty University’s president.
The president lived life with greater freedom than his students or his faculty. The message sent was distinctly unbiblical — that some Christian leaders can discard integrity provided their other qualifications, from family name to fund-raising prowess, provided sufficient additional benefit.
The future of the Mozilla Corporation — the creators of the Firefox web browser — is looking grim. The company laid off 250 employees due to pandemic-related costs and their contract with Google to make it Firefox’s default search engine — a contract that accounts for 90% of Mozilla’s revenue — expires this year. Via Daring Fireball.
Travel back in time with me to the Dark Ages of the Web, when table-based layouts, Web 2.0 stickers, and Flash ruled the day.
It was the time when developers and designers only learn how to do web, collect and create a web experience from scratch — before landing pages, burger menu, Z and F-Pattern, adaptive design, flat design, eCommerce, functional animation and micro-interactions… Let's watch what we used in the past Web…
If you’re like me and started doing web development in the mid-to-late ‘90s, then brace yourself for a curious blend of nostalgia and nausea. Via CSS Layout News.
Speaking of Flash, Richard Moss looks back on the technology’s origins and impact on the web.
In recognition of its service to content creators and consumers of all stripes, of its contribution to the proliferation of online video and multimedia, and of that divisiveness that’s followed the platform around, the time has come to revisit the rise and fall of Flash — with a little help from its principal creator, Jonathan Gay; a raft of Web resources; and interviews with others who had a hand in its ultimate success.
Even though I was more interested in things like CSS and web standards than Flash, sites like Advanced Studios, Gabocorp, Orisinal, and Tokyoplastic were always cool and inspiring to look at. For all its downsides, there’s no denying that Flash played a critical role in the development of the web as a creative platform.
If you get tired of watching everything on Disney+, there are always Disney/Pixar mockbusters.
Mockbusters are cheaply made copycats of popular Hollywood movies that first got big in the 1950s with creature features and other B-movies… But the biggest mockbuster cash cow is ripping off Disney movies. There are two main ways smaller studios try to do this — sometimes, they’ll change the marketing for one of their existing movies to resemble something Disney is getting ready to release. Then, there are those that are seemingly made for the sole purpose of glomming onto the success of Disney’s biggest films.
Note: If you do decide to watch a mockbuster like Lion and the King or Ratatöing, I take no responsibility for any adverse physical or mental side effects that you or your family might experience. Via The Retro.
Mark Kozelek’s (Sun Kil Moon, Red House Painters) albums have long been typified by meandering, diary-like songs that draw deeply on intimate details from his life. Unfortunately, some of those songs’ details apparently include incidents of sexual assault and misconduct.
According to Andrea, who requested to be identified by a pseudonym in this story, Kozelek’s antagonism of women during the period immediately following Benji was not limited to members of the press. She claims that he exposed himself to her without consent in a hotel room in Raleigh, North Carolina, in September 2014, when she was 19 years old. According to Andrea, he also allegedly initiated sex that she wrote “wasn’t really consensual” in a series of Facebook messages to a friend the next day, which Pitchfork reviewed.
You know that ice cream truck jingle, the one that made you beg your parents for some money so you could buy a fudgsicle? It’s based on an American folk song titled “Turkey in the Straw” which unfortunately, gained some racist connotations in the 19th century. Which is why Good Humor teamed up with Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA to write a new ice cream truck jingle. Via Kottke.
From The Blog
I recently discovered the music of oliviaway, an enigmatic London-based ambient composer. She’s very prolific — over 200 releases since 2017 — and everything I’ve listened to so far has been lovely. Case in point, Origin Glow, which is one of the four releases she’s put out in August (so far).
When I think of my ideal ambient music, I imagine the sort of tones and atmospherics that drift through songs like “Sequoia” and “Soft Eyes,” i.e., rich synth chords that slowly unfurl, evoking a sense of vast (though not overwhelming) sorrow that fades away just as a slowly, making way for the next wave. This is ambient music that’s serene and composed, but still moves at an inexorable and emotional pace.
Donald Trump photo by Gage Skidmore.
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