3. The Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford has a collection of shrunken heads, called ____________, that were collected by English explorers between 1871 and 1936.
Scroll down for the answer, or find it here.
—Isabel Fattal
Answers: evil moskowitz / business / Tsantsas
Look Back
The novelist William Faulkner was born on this day 120 years ago. In November 2016, Ariel Dorfman imagined his reaction to our modern state of politics:
The sympathy that this extraordinary, sophisticated novelist felt for the less educated, religiously conservative inhabitants of his imaginary county of Yoknapatawpha and their sense of loss and disorientation, the fact that he preferred their enduring and dignified company to the abstractions and elitism of privileged intellectuals, makes him ideally suited for delivering a message that Trump’s devotees should try to heed, a plea against bigotry and dread and divisiveness that is not tainted with even a hint of paternalism or contempt.
Read more here.
Reader Response
After Graeme Wood wrote about a Swedish activist who posed as a sympathetic student to infiltrate white supremacist groups, these readers discussed: Was the subterfuge—and the potential damage it posed to real scholars’ safety and credibility—ethical? One writes:
I struggle with this one, because on balance I do think what he did was unethical. But I can’t help thinking a white supremacist movement gaining power in society and politics is enough of a bona fide matter of emergency to justify approaches we wouldn’t ordinarily agree with.
Another reader pushes back on that justification:
Lying is immoral. His organization also justifies his lies using classic “ends justify the means” rationale that has been used by zealots to excuse their bad behavior in allegiance to their cause at various times and places throughout history. The racists he is studying undoubtedly use the same flawed moral calculus to justify their toxic language and behavior. What I find strange about his deception is that he lied for what purpose, exactly? To alert the world that Nazis are racist? We know.
More reader discussion here.
Verbs
Fame lamented, courts politicized, Star Trek streamed, beans recommended.
Time of Your Life
Happy birthday to Grace’s daughter Lauren (born around the time East Germany left the Warsaw Pact); to June (a year younger than NASA); from Perry to Shayanne (twice the age of iPhones); to Oona (a year younger than Harry Potter); to Scott’s girlfriend, Brenda (born around the time British colonial rule over Hong Kong ended); to Millie (a year younger than Sesame Street); and from Susele to Eugene, who shares a birthday with Rebecca’s ex-husband, Steve (both are a year younger than Nineteen Eighty-Four).
From yesterday, happy birthday to Jatinder (the same age as the UN General Assembly); to Rich’s brother (twice the age of the World Wide Web); to Megan (twice the age of the iTunes Store); to Andy’s brother Jim (a year younger than car seat belts); to Bianca’s brother Anthony (the same age as Michael Sam, the NFL’s first openly gay player); to Nancy’s husband, Dan (a year younger than color-TV broadcasting); to Kathy (the same age as Bob Marley); and to Parvee’s son Navin (who was 18 when Mother Teresa was canonized as a saint).
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* This newsletter originally misstated Moore’s first name as Rob. We regret the error.