Why do you think those are most powerful influences on development of those genres, as opposed to African music? We can focus on jazz and blues because the rest were built atop those. At the essential core of those genres, at their earliest beginnings and beyond, is African music and improvisational freedom.

I’m in denial then, because most of the genres of American music are essentially Black music, rooted in African musical traditions, and the collision of that tradition with other forms of Western music caused a lot of wonderful sparks to fly, but the core of the thing is Black African music no matter what tones or…

Oh dear. Don’t want to derail this Wikipedia history lesson too far but have you heard of something called “blues” music? Perhaps it evolved from Gregorian chants and a freewheeling mixture of Beethoven, Chopin, and people blowing into jugs. Care to enlighten us on the connections between Byzantine monophony, Greek…

Sharapova wishes she was good enough to be Serena’s rival. That honor is probably held by Venus, but if we must go beyond that, there aren’t too many players in recent history who have presented a consistent challenge on her level. If you roll back the clock, maybe people like Martina Hingis or even Jennifer Capriati…

Except that the evidence they provided of this supposed impartiality was laughable at best. Ginsburg laid waste to the effort.

He refused to sell them any wedding cake, not simply a “custom” cake. It wasn’t like they got into a disagreement about the gay design of the cake that conflicted with the baker’s religious views, because they never went that far. If he can refuse to sell them any cake because he disagrees with the event at which the…

Yes, and thank you for explaining things much better in your summary than did most of the other coverage on this I saw today, including from fancy lawyer/scholars.

No, this is really not what the CCRC said at all. Please quote them. It will make more sense. The baker was not discriminated against because of his beliefs; the criticism was directed precisely at the claim that religious freedom should give cover to discriminatory practices. In addition, the majority didn’t even try…

This police department in Milwaukee has cost the taxpayers, since only 2015, about 22 million based on misconduct lawsuits. Think about what 22 million could have paid for in benefits to the city during those three years instead.

I can’t understand this. It’s like they wanted to punish innocent children because their father was killed. What kind of people could do this?

The example merely illustrates that a policy consistently applied to all women could still be a sexist one even if no men are involved for comparison. Policies about pregnancy based on misconceptions might fall into that category. Serena’s case is different because she had other complications, but her performance over…

“I’ll send my invoice to OVO.”

Dinesh D’Souza initially came to fame as a supposed intellectual champion of conservative values. He believed that liberals were dishonest and unscrupulous, and that their immorality was responsible for damage to the whole nation. He used his commitment to the law as a reason to argue against policies more generous to…

Like I said, your understanding of what sexism involves is too narrow. If we populated the moon exclusively with women and then said the women couldn’t drive moon buggys because they aren’t good enough drivers, even though no men were present, it would be a sexist policy. I don’t know why you are even arguing this…

Luckily I’m not counting on it. I do think it’s healthy that a dialogue on this topic has opened up, especially since a few of the highest-ranked players have expressed concerns about the policy. The interests of players ranked at different levels might vary on this point as well.

I think your understanding of sexism is too narrow, because you think it has to involve a situation where a man gets treated one way and a woman gets treated in another way. If we adopt your view of the matter, no policy having to do with pregnancy ever could involve sexism by definition, because men don’t get…

Policies that apply to all women in the same way can still be sexist policies. Now perhaps they’ll have to rethink the way pregnancy is being handled. Serena’s case is unusual because of the complications. Otherwise pregnancy is often treated as if it’s a medical disability even though it is not an illness and need…

No, he is mocking Drake for all of that.

Nope, no, this is not a celebration of the baby’s mother and her past professions.

That is not a straightforward recommendation.