Latest news with #H.L.Mencken
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Tired of put-downs, Tennessee town corrects the record with play about the Scopes trial it hosted
DAYTON, Tenn. (AP) — A small town in eastern Tennessee courted national publicity and attention a century ago when local leaders planned a test trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools. What they got from the eight-day Scopes trial was more than they bargained for. The trial of the century — and the first to be broadcast over the radio — inspired articles, books, plays and movies, including the popular 'Inherit the Wind.' It also characterized Dayton as an uneducated town of strident Christian fundamentalists, a narrative locals have spent decades trying to rewrite. For over 30 years, people in Rhea County have put on a play every July using the trial transcript, aiming to correct the record. In their own words, the actors and director of 'Destiny in Dayton' explain the complexities of the town captured by history. The director Dan Buck was a theater professor at a nearby private university when he got an email seeking a director for the play about the Scopes trial. Buck knew about the trial, but didn't know Dayton had its own play. 'The legacy of little towns telling their own story through theater is rich history, right?' Buck said, noting the tradition was playfully lampooned in the mockumentary, 'Waiting for Guffman.' Locals have put on the play to counter the stereotypes and creative liberties from 'Inherit the Wind,' as well as columnist H.L. Mencken's harsh critique of residents at the time. 'I quickly learned that the people of the town here are not real fond of the play or the movie,' Buck said. 'They call it the 'Scottish play,' which is a reference to Macbeth, the thing you're not supposed to say: the cursed play.' In truth, the story of the trial was more complicated and nuanced than most people think. John T. Scopes, the local teacher, was a willing participant in testing the anti-evolution law, and prosecutor William Jennings Bryan didn't die after the trial because he was defeated by defense attorney Clarence Darrow's arguments. In directing the play on the trial's 100th anniversary, Buck says he is working toward the same mission Dayton leaders had a century ago. 'I am building up the buzz about this town, getting people here to get them excited, putting Dayton on the map,' Buck said. 'Maybe we are trying to use this story and this trial to get a little attention to this specific place.' The descendant Jacob Smith, 23, didn't realize his connection to the most famous trial until he started studying history. His great-great-great-grandmother's brother was Walter White, the county superintendent of schools and one of the key figures who brought the trial to Dayton. Smith plays Dudley Field Malone, a defense attorney for Scopes who gave speeches as equally impassioned and memorable during the trial as Bryan and Darrow. One of Smith's favorite lines to deliver is a reference to the so-called battle between the two sides in court. 'He basically says, 'There is never a duel with the truth,'' Smith said. 'He said, 'It always wins. It is no coward. It does not need the law, the forces of government, or,' and he pauses, 'Mr. Bryan.'' Smith is currently the county archivist, and he delights in seeing people visit Dayton's original courthouse with its squeaky and shiny wood floors, tall windows and impressive stairs that lead up to the wide courtroom on the second floor. 'You can hold the handrails going up to that circuit courtroom, just like those lawyers would have done and all those spectators would have done back in 1925,' Smith said. The 'Great Commoner' Larry Jones has acted in community and local theater since childhood, so he thought he knew the story of the Scopes trial after performing in a production of 'Inherit the Wind.' He later realized the famous play was taking creative liberties to make the trial a metaphor for something else captivating the nation's attention at the time: McCarthyism. Jones plays the role of Bryan, a famous Christian orator and populist politician whose speeches earned him the nickname of 'the Great Commoner.' He says the hardest part was not learning the lengthy speeches Bryan gives during the trial, but rather the sparring he must do when Darrow unexpectedly puts Bryan on the stand to defend the literal truth of the Bible. 'I'm just having to respond spontaneously, and it feels spontaneous every time,' Jones said. 'So part of my mind is going, 'Oh my gosh, is that the right cue? Am I going to say the right thing?'' Jones said audiences still connect to the retelling of the trial a century later because these are issues they continue to deal with. 'People are still arguing the same case,' Jones said. 'What is the role of the federal government or the state government in public school systems? What should be allowed? What shouldn't be allowed? What can parents exert influence over for their children's sake? Whether it's evolution or whether it's literature or any of the political issues that are abundant today, it still is the same argument.' No conclusion The outcome of the trial was no great surprise. The jury found Scopes guilty after a few minutes of deliberation. The defense attorneys' goal all along, however, was to take the legal argument to a higher court. Today, Dayton embraces its place in history with the annual celebration of the trial. Businesses advertise and promote the 'Monkey trial.' And locals have adopted the phrase: 'Dayton has evolved.' 'We're dusting off a very old story, but it's very new,' said Buck. 'It's very, very right now.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
The Independent
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Tired of put-downs, Tennessee town corrects the record with play about the Scopes trial it hosted
A small town in eastern Tennessee courted national publicity and attention a century ago when local leaders planned a test trial over the teaching of evolution in public schools. What they got from the eight-day Scopes trial was more than they bargained for. The trial of the century — and the first to be broadcast over the radio — inspired articles, books, plays and movies, including the popular 'Inherit the Wind.' It also characterized Dayton as an uneducated town of strident Christian fundamentalists, a narrative locals have spent decades trying to rewrite. For over 30 years, people in Rhea County have put on a play every July using the trial transcript, aiming to correct the record. In their own words, the actors and director of 'Destiny in Dayton' explain the complexities of the town captured by history. The director Dan Buck was a theater professor at a nearby private university when he got an email seeking a director for the play about the Scopes trial. Buck knew about the trial, but didn't know Dayton had its own play. 'The legacy of little towns telling their own story through theater is rich history, right?' Buck said, noting the tradition was playfully lampooned in the mockumentary, 'Waiting for Guffman.' Locals have put on the play to counter the stereotypes and creative liberties from 'Inherit the Wind,' as well as columnist H.L. Mencken's harsh critique of residents at the time. 'I quickly learned that the people of the town here are not real fond of the play or the movie,' Buck said. 'They call it the 'Scottish play,' which is a reference to Macbeth, the thing you're not supposed to say: the cursed play.' In truth, the story of the trial was more complicated and nuanced than most people think. John T. Scopes, the local teacher, was a willing participant in testing the anti-evolution law, and prosecutor William Jennings Bryan didn't die after the trial because he was defeated by defense attorney Clarence Darrow's arguments. In directing the play on the trial's 100th anniversary, Buck says he is working toward the same mission Dayton leaders had a century ago. 'I am building up the buzz about this town, getting people here to get them excited, putting Dayton on the map,' Buck said. 'Maybe we are trying to use this story and this trial to get a little attention to this specific place.' The descendant Jacob Smith, 23, didn't realize his connection to the most famous trial until he started studying history. His great-great-great-grandmother's brother was Walter White, the county superintendent of schools and one of the key figures who brought the trial to Dayton. Smith plays Dudley Field Malone, a defense attorney for Scopes who gave speeches as equally impassioned and memorable during the trial as Bryan and Darrow. One of Smith's favorite lines to deliver is a reference to the so-called battle between the two sides in court. 'He basically says, 'There is never a duel with the truth,'' Smith said. 'He said, 'It always wins. It is no coward. It does not need the law, the forces of government, or,' and he pauses, 'Mr. Bryan.'' Smith is currently the county archivist, and he delights in seeing people visit Dayton's original courthouse with its squeaky and shiny wood floors, tall windows and impressive stairs that lead up to the wide courtroom on the second floor. 'You can hold the handrails going up to that circuit courtroom, just like those lawyers would have done and all those spectators would have done back in 1925,' Smith said. The 'Great Commoner' Larry Jones has acted in community and local theater since childhood, so he thought he knew the story of the Scopes trial after performing in a production of 'Inherit the Wind.' He later realized the famous play was taking creative liberties to make the trial a metaphor for something else captivating the nation's attention at the time: McCarthyism. Jones plays the role of Bryan, a famous Christian orator and populist politician whose speeches earned him the nickname of 'the Great Commoner.' He says the hardest part was not learning the lengthy speeches Bryan gives during the trial, but rather the sparring he must do when Darrow unexpectedly puts Bryan on the stand to defend the literal truth of the Bible. 'I'm just having to respond spontaneously, and it feels spontaneous every time,' Jones said. 'So part of my mind is going, 'Oh my gosh, is that the right cue? Am I going to say the right thing?'' Jones said audiences still connect to the retelling of the trial a century later because these are issues they continue to deal with. ' People are still arguing the same case,' Jones said. 'What is the role of the federal government or the state government in public school systems? What should be allowed? What shouldn't be allowed? What can parents exert influence over for their children's sake? Whether it's evolution or whether it's literature or any of the political issues that are abundant today, it still is the same argument.' No conclusion The outcome of the trial was no great surprise. The jury found Scopes guilty after a few minutes of deliberation. The defense attorneys' goal all along, however, was to take the legal argument to a higher court. Today, Dayton embraces its place in history with the annual celebration of the trial. Businesses advertise and promote the 'Monkey trial.' And locals have adopted the phrase: 'Dayton has evolved.' 'We're dusting off a very old story, but it's very new,' said Buck. 'It's very, very right now.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Spectator
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Is the Pope a Marxist?
Charleston, South Carolina H.L. Mencken, long a hero of mine, wrote: 'Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.' That surely explains the apparent surge of Americans who have been enquiring into the possibility of emigrating to Britain. I wish them well. I have no wish to leave America myself, but fully understand the motivation causing this surge. It is, of course, because the common people wanted and are receiving Donald Trump good and hard. Years from now, probably when I am gone, a fortunate historian will describe the Trump era in the detail and with the skill with which Robert Caro is describing the career of Lyndon Baines Johnson. It will make for astonishing reading, but from my lowly perspective – a citizen of the United States who assiduously follows the news – it appears to be an administration that is flailing crazily. Harvard is being persecuted, presumably for the sin of being elitist; the EU will suffer steep tariffs one day, which are semi-abrogated the next, presumably for the heinous sin of having 'ripped off' the US, and so it goes on. Ukraine, we are assured, began the war with Russia, a war, we were told, that would be ended in one day by the Great Helmsman who vouchsafed to us that Vladimir Putin is 'crazy'. By those standards Poland began the second world war, though few would disagree that Hitler, whose playbook Putin is following, was batshit crazy. The US will probably survive the chaos. Yes, many brilliant scientists will emigrate and their work will improve our lives, whether they work in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or Cambridge, England.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tariffs Raise Prices, Spark Conflicts, and Make Everyone Poorer
Back when conservatives championed ideas rather than outsourced their thinking to their leader, they touted a simple saying: "Ideas have consequences." Conservatives also understood that while people should always be free to make their own choices based on those ideas, they should be responsible for the consequences of their decisions. By all means, follow the advice of that YouTube quack who argues that vaccines include microchips that control the population. But when your kid is hospitalized with measles, that's on you. Unfortunately, in a democratic society, the population must endure the brunt of ludicrous ideas imposed by elected officials. (Check out my columns about the awful ones in California.) We're now at the "good and hard" part of H.L. Mencken's definition about democracy being "the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it." That's certainly the case with economic policy. If you occasionally check your retirement accounts and did so after the last two times President Donald Trump imposed 25-percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, you will have noticed that they dropped precipitously. The markets understand the basic truth about tariffs, which are taxes consumers in our country pay for imported goods. They raise prices, reduce our access to foreign goods and spark reciprocal tariffs that then punish our country's farmers and manufacturers. They lead to less growth and more unemployment. They increase bureaucracy by requiring officials to calculate duties and enforce them. They create hostilities and have led to actual war. As economist Robert Higgs explains, "Fiscally, protectionism is a poor source of government revenue that dries up completely as tariffs are increased so much that they reduce trade flows to zero. Morally, protectionism is vicious because it coercively substitutes the ill-informed and ill-directed judgment of government officials for the judgment of people making deals with their own private property." Given MAGA is an emotional movement based on resentment rather than a precise set of policy ideas, it's no surprise the president's ardent supporters dodge and weave alongside his ever-changing justifications. Our nation has some serious disputes with Mexico involving immigration and drug smuggling, so I'll focus instead on our government's juvenile trade war with Canada. Trump threatened them to gain ill-defined concessions from our friendly, highly developed and peaceful allies to the north. Then, after it was clear Canada had already conceded to whatever it was our president demanded, he suspended them. His supporters claimed tariff critics didn't understand that this was just a brilliant negotiating tool. But then this month the president imposed them anyway. True to form, MAGA shifted back to arguing that tariffs are great policy in and of themselves. Some of the more unusual MAGA folks don't seem to care about inflation or the stock market, but are mainly concerned about crushing satanic pedophiles in the deep state. But most people care about the economy. After the tariff announcement, the Atlanta Federal Reserve revised its annualized growth predictions to "a stunning -2.8%, down from +2.3% last week," according to Reuters. Then again who can trust Reuters, when you can get your information from Newsmax or TASS? Last week, the administration suddenly exempted certain agricultural products and suggested that it might broadly suspend tariffs again. Who knows where things will stand by the time you read this. But markets hate uncertainty. This yo-yo effect is rattling them. It's hard to understand the idiocy of picking a fight with Canada, except in the context of an administration that likes to punch down. Don't Americans realize the blessing of sharing the world's largest undefended border? Canadian provinces are pulling U.S. products from store shelves. Yet the Trump administration and GOP lawmakers are right on cue echoing anti-Canada taunts. This is sillier than the 1995 John Candy comedy, Canadian Bacon, where American hockey fans started a war after insulting Canadian beer. We rely on Canadian energy and lumber, and Canadians rely on our products. It's the proverbial win-win. Any infinitesimal issues between our countries can easily be handled through diplomacy. Canadians are infuriated, and rightly so—not just by tariffs but by the administration's disrespect toward their sovereignty. Serious nationalists should respect the national aspirations of others. By constantly referring to the Canadian prime minister as "Governor Trudeau," Trump has given new life to the Liberal Party, which is now competitive after having recently been down in the polls by 26 points. During her visit to a library that straddles the Quebec and Vermont border last week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem kept stepping over the line into Canada and saying, "The 51st State." Canadians shouldn't be dogged by such imbecility. When we're at war with another nation, we impose trade restrictions to punish the other country. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to punish ourselves for no apparent reason? It's a disastrous idea. Then again, voting has consequences. This column was first published in The Orange County Register. The post Tariffs Raise Prices, Spark Conflicts, and Make Everyone Poorer appeared first on
Washington Post
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
P.J. O'Rourke, you are missed. America really needs to lighten up.
On Feb. 15, 2022, America lost one of its most brilliant and hilarious writers. Our culture lost one of its most perceptive critics. Me, I lost a friend, and a good stiff drink. Patrick Jake 'P.J.' O'Rourke — even the name said 'Irish wise guy' — had millions of us laughing aloud in 1974 with a high school yearbook parody for National Lampoon, and thinking anew when he reported for Rolling Stone on foreign affairs. But his long suit and legacy were as the heir to H.L. Mencken and Will Rogers as the foremost fun-poker at the American political scene and the people who inhabit it. Three years after P.J.'s passing, we're still awaiting, and in serious need of, his successor.
