Saturday, April 13, 2019

RP: A New "Kenan T-Shirt" and OTHER Surprises from the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University!!!

For WIDER GRAPHICShttps://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2019/04/a-new-kenan-t-shirt-and-other-surprises.html



Well, this is it -- and I don't know if it is REAL (and for sale), or just an illustration of this article where I found it: 


IN DEFENSE OF HISTORY

By Andrew Carlins on March 21, 2019


“We need to learn from several centuries of genocides, epidemics, enslavements, migrations and the like if we want to improve as a species. But I also think it’s more than that. Done right – accessible in writing and focused on those who are often unseen – history can be the best, most accessible record of humanity.” – Barry Yeoman, Durham Independent Journalist

Read the articlehttps://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/in-defense-of-history/



Andrew Carlins is a "T-21 Undergraduate" at Duke (I think that means a sophomore this year) -- associated with Kenan Institute for Ethics where he's a frequent blogger!!!: https://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/author/carlins/



Andrew's first posting that I read was "In Defense of History" -- currently KIE's FEATURED posting of several of their regular bloggers, using this Kenan "disappointing my parents" T-shirt as illustration -- and of the theme of his examining the importance of learning one's history -- personal and societal -- with sojourns with a fellow student to an Air B&B in Badin, North Carolina -- and a longer trip to New Orleans, LA, to a Duke Program there.
Mr. Carlins recounts:

"The next day, I found myself on a plane to New Orleans with Kenan’s Living Learning Community. Our trip focus: environmental and racial justice in New Orleans. Throughout the trip, we spoke with accomplished figures ranging from activists and city councilmen, to a professor specializing in New Orleans’ architectural history, to the current Rabbi of a New Orleanian Jewish congregation founded in the 1840s, to the Ms. Leona Tate (quoted above), to countless strongly opinionated Uber drivers. 

I made sure to ask each of them questions about why they thought history was important and how history shapes contemporary New Orleans. Each gave a similar, but slightly different answer. It reminded me of Badin again. I was still unsure why I thought history was important, what role narratives play in shaping identity and how to reconcile different histories."

And the REASON Andrew ends up defending History is because he breaks to his family that his major is now to be History -- except that it is also still ECON -- so the reader knows where his HEART IS -- but he's keeping the practical door open, which helps his parents accept it, which they MUST, as they are Liberals (but Liberals are Liberals until tested, and he avoids putting them to the REAL TEST).

When I was a Sophomore at Denison University 1970 - 71, I changed my major from Chemistry (I had the highest Math/Science College Boards of my High School), to Art (which I had nearly no experience in), and I don't know HOW my parents were able to handle that -- they so fundamentally conservative and small-minded, they HAD INSISTED while I was in high school that I had to go into ACCOUNTING -- and FORBID ME to consider my desire of Architecture, which would have used BOTH sides of my brain. And totally crest-fallen, I chose Chemistry because it was easier to test chemicals than to figure out differences in too many organic tissues I'd looked at under microscopes.

We moved to Columbus, OH the summer before my senior year of high school -- so that my parents could live across the street from Coach Lou Holtz and his wife Beth -- planning the NAZI TAKEOVER of the USA by the Republican Party and Catholic Church -- we having Swastikas on our dinner plates then. The whole of Whetstone High's territory we lived in was WHITE and REPUBLICAN and the TWO blacks in my high school were CONSTANTLY TORMENTED by the overwhelmingly Republican and Christian Students.

The year before, Basketball Coach Jim Ferrell caught the ENTIRE Varsity team in the showers in a GAY ORGY -- and the Star Center and his point-guard boyfriend were forever trying to get me to have sex with them in a three-way!!!

Well, I went to Denison, and even won a US State Department Art Contest my senior year and my Art Prints were hung in 30 US Embassies and Consulates -- so I did GREAT!!!





After graduation in 1973, I co-founded www.WhalesTaleCapeMay.com with Chuck Pritchard and Hilary Russell -- also Denison Grads -- but in 1978, Mom -- working with Chuck and Hilary -- committed me to a Mental Hospital because I would NOT SHUT UP about the Swastikas and daily beatings -- and because in 1976, my mother and Hilary's mother made a DEAL that Hilary and I would GET MARRIED and Hil's Mom Barbara Russel blabbed it ALL AROUND TOWN!!!

Of course everyone in Cape May knew I was GAY -- but I was the oldest son of America's TOP NAZI and Hilary's DAD was a DRUG COMPANY EXECUTIVE!!! 

Hilary's face was "off-center" and her mother and grandmother had despaired since her birth how they would ever marry such an ugly girl off (and she's pretty flat as well)None of that mattered to ME -- Hil and I were REALLY the partners that made Whale's Tale work -- Chuck just wanted to putz with old wooden boats and had no interest in the business.



Hilary is in center (this taken about 12 years ago), her mother "Ultra-Presbyterian Barbara" on right, her father Kenneth (Yes, "Ken and Barbie" -- LOL!!!), on the left. Here is better of Hilary's face:



Surprising that Chuck is so homely when his Dad and brother Chip were so HANDSOME!!!




Here I am with both my parents -- after the month in the NUT-HOUSE in 1978 -- when I was diagnosed Bipolar and put on Lithium Carbonate to soft-lobotomize me so I didn't CARE about my family's NAZI and other crimes.


And in 1980, I fled to Key West to manage a restaurant and then worked for Tennessee Williams (and stayed OFF THE LITHIUM the whole two years I lived there -- but in 1982 was forced BACK ON Li2-CO3 until early 2009).



After TEN YEARS OFF psych drugs of all kinds -- me (on right) with a TALLER GUY I met last weekend at the Wilmington, NC Azalea Festhttps://theweathercontinues.blogspot.com/2019/04/scott-kenan-is-topped-by-three-guys-on.html


So, today, I wanted to send KIE blogger Andrew Carlins my chapter of being shown New Orleans by Tennessee Williams when we landed there on a very soggy Ash Wednesday of 1982:





But I did NOT see Mr. Carlins' email address anywhere -- and exploring their site, I realized how much MISSED THE FINE PEOPLE I met there in 2016!!! I need to get BACK (and they keep GROWING THEIR PROGRAMS -- FAST!!!).



Aziz and Vahdat Ahmadieh were who I have spoken with the most -- over an hour!!!
















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