Ragbag #2

A modern version of The Faerie Queene, Wilberforce's adversary, and the reasons for political backlash

The Faerie Queene

Rebecca K. Reynolds (member of The Rabbit Room)¹ and Justin Gerard (artist) have launched the Kickstarter Campaign for their prose rendition of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (TFQ). Rebecca very kindly spoke last year to our #SummerOfSpenser group, which tackled TFQ, one of the longest epics out there,² in three months.

Rebecca’s knowledge of and ability to distill the epic work into readily understandable English is impressive and I’m sure the final result will be well worth the many years that this project has been brewing for. Justin’s art (viewable here) is phenomenal. My personal favorite is “Morgoth and the Simarils.”

Historical Trivia

The man believed to be Vice President Kamala Harris's great-great-great grandfather was a slaveowner named Hamilton Brown who fought against William Wilberforce's efforts to abolish the slave trade.³

• In an address before the Jamaican House of Assembly, Hamilton Brown called Wilberforce "hypocritical," "iniquitous," and said that Wilberforce had "shown his cloven foot" [revealed himself to be a devil] in his attempt to stop illegal slave-trafficking in the United Kingdom's colonies.

Musing on the Dobbs Decision

Scott Alexander on why conservative court victories (e.g., Dobbs) cause backlash in public opinion but liberal victories (e.g., Obergefell) don’t:

Maybe the public backlashes against conservative victories, but not liberal ones? Why would that be? Maybe because liberals control more of the media than conservatives; when conservatives win something, the media does a good job making everyone panic that conservative ideas are taking over, and convinces them to do a thermostatic reaction. But when liberals win something, most people either don’t hear about it or don’t hear anyone telling them to worry, so they don’t.

1. Founded by Andrew Peterson, whom you might know from Every Moment Holy or the Wingfeather Saga (children’s books and now a streamable series as well).

2. More than twice the length of the entirety of The Divine Comedy and more than three times the length of Paradise Lost.

3. While Harris’ father, Donald Harris, believes that the family descends from Hamilton Brown, there’s a gap in the records, making it hard to confirm or disprove with much confidence beyond Donald’s personal testimony as to who his great-grandmother is.