Why I Am Cancelling Two Subscriptions to Smithsonian (Vanity)

Smithsonian Magazine ^ | 1-4-2017 | blam

[blam]

This 3,500-Year-Old Greek Tomb Upended What We Thought We Knew About the Roots of Western Civilization

The author of this good article, Jo Marchant did a very good job writing this article.

Now, at the end of the article she was unable to keep her political views and liberal opinion to herself. Below is the entry that offended me:

" The revelation is compelling for anyone with an interest in how great civilizations are born—and what makes them “great.” And with rising nationalism and xenophobia in parts of Europe and the United States, Davis and others suggest that the grave contains a more urgent lesson. Greek culture, Davis says, “is not something that has been genetically transmitted from generation to generation since the dawn of time.” From the very earliest moments of Western civilization, he says, Mycenaeans “were capable of embracing many different traditions.”

“I think we should all care about that,” says Shelmerdine. “It resonates today, when you have factions that want to throw everybody out [of their countries]. I don’t think the Mycenaeans would have gotten anywhere if they hadn’t been able to reach beyond their shores.”

To me, this is in reference to Trump's stated policy of enforcing the law against illegal immigrants and sending them back home.

I'm seeing these sorts of things in many articles these days with most making reference to Man-Made Global Warming.

I am not going to pay so that liberal writers can use these articles to spread their liberalism. Also, I'm guessing that the archaeologist involved were allowed to 'proof' the article and apparently agreed.So.....

I'm cancelling my subscription and a gift subscription that I give my son.

Make a stand somewhere!

[bmwcyle]

It took this long to stop?

[Huskrrrr]

Every few years my left leaning sister buys a subscription in my name to a leftist rag. First Mother Jones, then NewsWeak, etc. Her latest attempt to change my political viewpoints was Smithsonian. Global Warming is their religion, not even bothering to admit there is a credible argument against man-made climate change.

[alexander_busek]

Is any civilization of the era around today? You just didn’t ‘think’ at all.

My point is that, for all we know, the "openness" of the Mycenean Culture may have actually hastened its demise, and taking dead civilizations as exemplars is a tricky business.

Regards,

[tophat9000]

We need to look at the difference between immigration and colonization... there is a diffrence you could draw a graph

If we call an “immigrant” on one end someone that move in to a different culture and assimilate into that different culture but add some new album element to the cultural “DNA”...

And a “colonizer” some one that moves in replaces/assimilates a different culture

The point is number.

Immigration is a relatively small number add to the existing culture so the existing culture can assimilate the immigrants and the immigrants willingly assimilate into the existing culture but add some new elements to the cultural stew...(the melting pot).. this can be beneficial to the existing culture

Colonization is a large number add that disregards the existing culture and or is not willingly assimilating in to the existing culture but there to replace it. ( this is left concept of diversity... creating new culturally autonomous pockets .. also known as balkanization)..

We are not dealing with an immigration problem we’re dealing with the colonization problem

[OLDCU]

Sports Illustrated for me.

[\/\/ayne]

I faced retaliation, defamation, harassment, and a hostile work environment at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History that was designed to force me out as a Research Associate there. These actions were taken by federal government employees acting in concert with an outside advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education. Efforts were also made to get me fired from my job as a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Subsequently, there were two federal investigations of my mistreatment, one by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in 2005 , and the other by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform in 2006. Both investigations unearthed clear evidence that my rights had been repeatedly violated.

- Richard Sternberg - Smithsonian Controversy

[VanDeKoik]

Those guys too?!

Archeology, Military History, and History Today have so far kept it out.

But for how long these days?

[dsrtsage]

“I did the same with Wired, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics. They relentlessly pimped Gore-Bull warming, regardless of its relevance to the subject of any particular article.”

Me too especially with SciAm. They even made their politics blatant in “oh sooo subtle ways”. There was one article during the Bush/Kerry election that supposedly was comparing their environmental bona fides. Every single time Kerry was refered to, he was refered to “Senator Kerry”, every time Bush was refered to it was simply “Bush” with no “President”

I also have learned to turn off all nature shows before the last 10 minutes. No matter how mind blowingly awesome the show, the last 10 minutes are always dedicated to explaining how everything you just saw is just moments away from being rendered smoldering charcoal because of global warming

[mason-dixon]

The mags mentioned have turned into rags with articles generated to support Political Agendas. BYE!

Go to your Barnes & Noble’s mag racks and guess how many of these won’t be around in 5 years. BYE!

[HotHunt]

I am letting my National Geographic magazine subscription expire after receiving their January 2017 issue. The subscription was a college graduation gift from my parents and I have kept it up for 50 years. But after seeing this issue, no more.

This issue has absolutely nothing to do with geography. From the cover, which is some pink clothed girl/guy/whatever to the entire inside contents, it is about gender issues and pushing the LGBTXYZABC movement. These sexually miscreants make up about 1-2% of the total US population but we are being force fed this agenda everywhere, including National Geographic.

I am not interested in their liberal agenda. They should stick to geography and stay out of political discussions. I tolerated the global warming crap over the years but this issue is over the top. It used to be a great source of information and photos from different parts of the world. It made a nice coffee table magazine. No more with this cover. It went directly into the trash as soon as I saw it. Disgusting.

[aquila48]

ALL the publications have been completed taken over by the left. Like daily newspapers they’re nothing more than propaganda organs. That includes all the science mags and business mags.

Cancel subscription to all of them.

[NativeSon]

The "moments away from destruction" unless increased funding to prevent/stop/reverse/preserve closing has unfortunately become part of the template.

After coming across the funding pitch several times in Archaeology, I noticed that the tone became demanding & condescending. One particular article bemoaned the lack of funds for field work that was so import.

If it's so darn important, why don't 'they' work for free? Spend vacation on a dig instead of spending my money.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Thanks! I will try them.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I'm told by my scientist friends that many are including agreement to the Global Warming gobbly-gook in their articles because if they don't, they don't get grants.

They're also threatened with losing their jobs.

[VanShuyten]

“My point is that, for all we know, the “openness” of the Mycenaean Culture may have actually hastened its demise, and taking dead civilizations as exemplars is a tricky business”

The Mycenaean, Hittites, Assyrians, and Egyptians were in a Golden Age of trade and relative peace when the Sea Peoples (possibly the ancestors of the Palestinians) started their raids and invasions, causing the fall of the Mycenaeans and Hittites, and greatly weakening the Assyrians and Egyptians. These Sea People created the Philistine state (and possibly Carthage) that has done nothing but cause trouble for 3000 years.

[Pontiac]

Me too especially with SciAm. They even made their politics blatant in “oh sooo subtle ways”.

Or not so subtle.

I quit Scientific American back in the 1990’s when they ran an article supporting the UN Small Arms Treaty. .

That was it and I haven’t looked back. I first started reading that magazine in junior high school and was in love with the magazine. But that article was about as scientific as astrology.

[elcid1970]

NatGeo’s without topless native babes are just boring lectures on the evils of Western Civ.

The last babe pic I recall was a Yapese girl. Naked to the waist, but the look on her face said, “Go ahead and take your picture, you white sexist pig!”

[Boogieman]

I note they never talk about “enlightened Greek (or Roman) views on pedophilia” though. Probably coming in a few more years.

[Verginius Rufus]

She's quoting the views of Davis and Shelmerdine...but obviously finds them congenial.

Why are they praising the Mycenaeans? The Mycenaeans practiced slavery (see Achilles and Briseis) and waged a war of choice over a Spartan hussy.

There is an interesting discussion of the Minoan and Mycenaean inhabitants of Greece in Jean Manco, Ancestral Journeys: The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings (rev. ed., 2015). It appears that attempts to extract ancient DNA from Greece and Crete from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages have been largely unsuccessful, apart from some mitochondrial DNA from bones buried in Grave Circle B at Mycenae (they found haplogroups K and U5a1--which could come either from the Indo-European-speaking invaders of Bronze Age Greece or from groups there before the Proto-Greek speakers arrived).

Manco concludes that modern Greeks are, like all other European nations, a mixture of the three main components that contributed to the European genetic heritage: the Paleolithic/Mesoplithic hunter-gatherers, the Neolithic farmers (immigrants from the Near East--Taurus Mountains/Zagros Mountains areas of eastern Turkey and NW Iran), and what is called "Ancestral North Eurasian" which spread westwards from Siberia, bringing in the Y-DNA haplogroup R, which is very widespread in Europe today.

[Verginius Rufus]

“Mesoplithic” should have been “Mesolithic.”