Tag Archives: Dwight Sutherland

Dwight: The Coddling of the American Mind or…

How Good Intentions & Bad Ideas Are setting Up a Generation for Failure Of all the non-fiction books I’ve read on politics and social policy this one is at the same time both one of the most satisfying and yet … Continue reading

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Sutherland: The Definitive Craig Glazer Sendoff

I’ve spent some time thinking about the “was Craig Glazer really ‘Harley’” mystery… And I’ve come down finally on the “no” side of that argument after talking with several people who knew Craig well. First of all, the evidence for the … Continue reading

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Michael Lynch: Life Imitating Art

(Now it can be told…Michael Lynch – who died two weeks ago – is a Kansas City native and friend of Dwight Sutherland. He wrote this story two years ago but it was never published owing to a dispute over … Continue reading

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Sutherland: The Best Gift Ever

When I was 12 years old I stayed home sick from school one time… My mother brought me (along with hot soup and cold medicine) plenty of reading material.  I still have the books, which followed me through many a … Continue reading

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Sutherland: ‘The Phantom Thread’ – Masterpiece in a Minor Key

After a limited run in Kansas City, what Daniel Day-Lewis has said will be his final film has now been released on DVD… It’s his second collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson as director and with music by Johnny Greenwood, of … Continue reading

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Sutherland: Thought Police @ The Door (Or At least The Downtown Marriott)

Occasionally you’ll read something so powerful and timely it helps you understand things you only partially grasped before… I previously mentioned an essay by a retired Boston University professor,Angelo Codevilla. In the Fall 2016 issue of the Claremont Review of … Continue reading

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Sutherland: Pembroke, The Hilltop, Cool Guys, Class Acts & Ruling Class Heroes (Part Deux)

Every school has what the alums regard as a Golden Age… A period when students, faculty, and administration were working in unison to produce a good education for its graduates, with lasting memories and friendships as happy by-products of that … Continue reading

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Sutherland: (Democratic) Nightmare at 20,000 Feet

One of the all-time classic Twilight Zone episodes starred William Shatner, as a salesman who had suffered a nervous breakdown on a commercial airline flight… After six months’ confinement in a sanatorium, his wife arranges to have him released and … Continue reading

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Sutherland: The Intellectual Roots of Trumpism

There has been next to no explanation of where the Trump Phenomenon has come from as far as its ideological provenance goes… We have seen some commentators dismiss it as a classic anti-intellectual right-wing populist movement, akin to the George … Continue reading

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Sutherland: Living in the ‘Guilted Age’

I have been fortunate enough to hear Tom Wolfe speak in person about his writing several times over the last 40 years.  The first time was in 1970, when he gave the Carolyn Cockefair Benton Lecture at U.M.K.C. Wolfe talked about … Continue reading

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Sutherland: Fanfare for an Uncommon Man

Two months ago one of the most interesting people in Kansas City was laid to rest after a funeral “fit for a field marshall” (in the words of Alec Guiness from the 1959 classic “Tunes of Glory”)… The life of … Continue reading

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Sutherland: What’s Wrong with America?

People have been asking for my take on this year’s presidential race…  And as someone who’s been a political enthusiast for decades, I should be able to make an informed guess on what’s likely to happen in both parties, right? … Continue reading

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Sutherland: Trump, Sanders? Flip a Coin

The election prospects for this country a year out are appalling in both parties… Both the Republican and the Democratic races have been dominated, at least in terms of excitement and enthusiasm, by demagogues.  We have a Fascist (Donald Trump) … Continue reading

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Sutherland: No More Mr. Nice Guy; Steve Rose Bears Thorns

“Afterwards, you rue the fact that you’ve been so kind.” Adolph Hitler, April 27,1945. (Last recorded remarks) R. Crosby Kemper, III has done an outstanding job running the Kansas City Missouri Public Library. He’s overseen the upgrading of library facilities … Continue reading

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Sutherland: History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, But It Does Rhyme!

  The foregoing quote is attributed to Mark Twain… I’ve always understood it to mean that some events reoccur in history with spooky similarity, even though they are not exactly alike in all the particulars. See if you can tell … Continue reading

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Sutherland: An Unresolved Dichotomy @ 18th & Grand

During the Cold War, analysts at the CIA would parse every word in the Soviet Union’s official newspaper, “Pravda,” and in the Red Chinese counterpart, “The People’s Daily.” This was to search for subtle shifts in meaning and emphasis in … Continue reading

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Sutherland: World War I and The Rise of Modernism

The Nelson-Atkins Museum has another landmark exhibition to its credit… Not since the 1977 sensation, “Sacred Circles,” a tribute to the art of the American Plains Indians, has there been such a stand-out success that is entirely the Nelson’s doing. … Continue reading

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Sutherland: NC-17 Rated Urban Myths of the Heartland

Every culture has its myths and legends… These establish societal norms that are passed on from one generation to the next, reflecting the values which govern that particular community. In Kansas City, one of the most enduring popular folk tales … Continue reading

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Sutherland: When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Michelle Johnson, the Kansas City Star’s ‘Diversity Diva’, was able to put succinctly into words an idea that I had struggled with for some time… Johnson drew on her experience as an employment lawyer to explain why some types of … Continue reading

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Hearne: Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ Routine Getting Old @ Star

To be honest, I don’t spend much time pouring over what’s left of the Kansas City Star opinion section… Never did really. Except in the early 1990s when writers like Yael Abouhalkah loomed fairly large in helping shape local political opinion – or so … Continue reading

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