AGE should not matter, but when it comes to some cultural criticism there is such a thing as appearing over the hill. I still recall with a slight shudder of embarrassment a review of hip hop artist Childish Gambino/Donald Glover’s video, This is America, by a middle-aged critic who really should have known better. The piece was perfectly informative and well written, and it would have introduced a lot of people to something that might not have been on their radar. But it was like Mary Beard reviewing the latest Little Mix album, or Tom Devine deconstructing the Christmas Irn Bru advert. Some things are best left to the young.
The brutal reality of succession: what the Romans can teach us about Trump and Biden
Donald Trump and his hardcore supporters have exposed what the Romans knew all too well, that power is in some ways a fight to the end
20 January 2021 • 6:00am
The one question that as a classicist I have been asked most these past four years is which Roman emperor Donald Trump is like. And, with the recent US presidential election and Wednesday’s inauguration of Joe Biden, I am now getting the same request about him.
What I always reply is that we can learn about ourselves from thinking about Ancient Rome – but it doesn’t offer nice off-the-peg comparisons. So when I watch – with some trepidation given the events of recent weeks – the inauguration on a Capitol Hill full of classical resonances, I will be weighing up how a modern democracy like the United States deals with the inevitably messy, brutal business of succession next to how the Romans handled it.
clearly chicago, you deal with those guns that are brought in outside. i think father just started a lawsuit on. that you also have to deal with the inside culture. you have to deal with how the policing is in terms of how the community policing is or is not working. there s enough as i said blame to go around. and you got to deal with the fact that there s not the outrage both in the community and outside. two years ago i took an apartment. there we go every week and try to work with it. and i think that there are too many people blaming, you know the finger pointing. it s you. it s you. you ought to be doing more rather than everybody coming together. i think that at this 7-year-old s funeral tomorrow there is going to be a call for. that we have to stop the blame game and take blame. here is another story. new york times today, more than four million syrians fled their country s civil war with more than a million leaving in