Murray offered his challenge in an interview with me in 2003 about his book “Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950:”

“I think that the number of novels, songs, and paintings done since 1950 that anyone will still care about 200 years from now is somewhere in the vicinity of zero. Not exactly zero, but close. I find a good way to make this point is to ask anyone who disagrees with me to name a work that will survive — and then ask, “Seriously?” Very few works indeed can defend themselves against the “Seriously?” question.”

I collected readers’ suggestions for potential survivors here.

Now, Thursday, who has much better taste than me, offers his list here.

You can make your nominations in the Comments at ISteve.blogspot.com.

Just remember, after each one, you have to wrinkle up your brow and raise your eyelids and say, “Seriously?“

It’s the 66th anniversary and Michelle Malkin has a post with many links.

Here on VDARE.com, check out December 7th, September 11th And Immigrant Assimilation,by Lance Izumi, and Breaking News: Japan, Not America, Guilty of War Crimes 60 Years Ago, by Steve Sailer, and As 66th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Approaches, Democrat Calls For WWII Action On Immigration., by Donald A. Collins.

Nicholas Stix is reprising his support for our fundraising appeal in The Price Of Real Journalism on his blog. (See also VDARE: America’s Finest Political Webzine Needs Your Support.)

And read what Nicholas Stix wrote about a real crime and non-crime on our site. The difference between the Mainstream Media Treatment of the two crimes is one reason why I think our survival is important.

Gads! Where did this Ivory Tower twerp get her degrees? From one of those diploma mills that used to grace the covers of matchbooks?

In her Dec. 6 guest opinion, “Where is the civility? Chris Simcox crosses the line,“ that was published in the Arbiter, the student newspaper of Boise State University, American Literature Professor Marcy Newman (e-mail) shrieks about Minuteman founder Simcox’s appearance on the campus she says prides itself on, well, you know, respecting the other fellow’s opinion.

Here’s a sample:

.” . .one might wonder how it is that Chris Simcox, Founder and President of Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, was invited to speak on campus. His vigilante organization is founded upon violent principles that target Latinos crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. According to human rights organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, since October 1994 there have been 10,000 people who have died crossing in order to work low-wage jobs in the U.S. or to reunite with family members. That figure reached record levels in April 2005 when Simcox founded his militia. Mexican deaths on the border are due to vigilante shootings as well as deaths related to people being forced to cross under more extreme conditions in order to avoid militias like the Minuteman. A lack of water, food, and extreme weather have contributed to these deaths as well as fear of vigilante groups detaining, harassing, and shooting them.”

Actually, I’m left wondering more about whether these days “professors” are selected from among those educators who prove they do the best job of lying to students searching for what they think is the truth. The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps are “vigilantes?” They are shooting and killing Mexicans attempting to enter this country illegally? (I’m still looking for those news stories that support statements like these made by Newman and others who think nobody is watching and listening when they shoot off their mouths about a subject they know little or nothing about.)

Newman then offers this approach to discussing our immigration crisis in order to ensure that the student body gets the whole truth and nothing but the truth:

“It is perfectly appropriate to discuss issues related to the U.S.-Mexico border on campus, but it should be done in an academic context with non-white scholars or artists who are capable of engaging with the facts and who use research rather than weapons to make their points.”

Memo to the lying Prof. Newman: Would your non-white discussion group include “scholars” like Charles Truxillo, professor of Chicano studies at the University of New Mexico, who in 2000 said it is inevitable that the American Southwest will become a new Aztlan and that Mexicans should create it “by any means necessary?”

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has been paying attention to the U.S. presidential campaigns, and is not pleased with what he sees.

In a radio interview, Calderon complained thusly:

“Mexicans in the U.S. have become hostages to politics. The only theme in the electoral campaign is to find out who is the biggest braggart, the most macho, and the most anti-Mexican.”

The candidates, says Calderon, “are mistaken in their diagnostic”, and “painfully, the internal party campaigns are blaming somebody who is innocent, that is, Mexico.” [Candidatos luchan por ser antimexicanos | Felipe Calderón criticó aspirantes de EU, Univision.com, December 5, 2007 ]

I think that Calderon’s squawking is a good sign–he realizes something’s afoot. Finally, immigration is becoming a campaign issue.

Calderon did admit there are Americans who will do his bidding:

“I find the greatest sensitivity in the U.S. government, some in Congress” but he decries the “total lack of understanding and aggravation, hostility toward Mexico” in the general American population.

In the same interview, Calderon fell back on the time-honored Mexican custom of blaming the gringo for Mexico’s problems. The Mexican president said the U.S. has a “serious” problem and is infecting Mexico with “its fevers.”

In regards to the pending “Merida Initiative” in which the U.S. is to provide Mexico with a 1.4 billion anti-drug cartel aid package , the Mexican president wants the money with no strings attached. Calderon sounded quite defiant and childish:

“I cannot accept any submission or subordination. I need that technology. Give it to me. And give it to me without conditions.”[Mexican president accuses US candidates of being "anti-Mexican", AP, December 5, 2007]

Sounds rather bossy, does he not?

Last year, after Calderon’s election and before he took office, I made a prediction about Felipe Calderon’s administration:

“Calderon’s agenda is clear. Mexico’s president-elect plans to keep his northern border open and to attain veto power over U.S. immigration policy.”

Well, that’s exactly what’s happened, isn’t it? Another reason VDARE.COM is needed, and that your contributions help.

Recently, in the Boston Herald:

“A Boston firefighter is mending from what could have been deadly stab wounds he suffered early yesterday morning when he was allegedly jumped in East Boston while off duty by a group of Hispanic males who told him they ‘don’t want any gringo here.’

“Though police are not classifying the incident as racially fueled, the Boston Police Department’s Community Disorders Unit is investigating. The 32-year-old jake, whose name officials were not releasing, is white.” [emphasis added]

Read all nine paragraphs: Off-Duty Boston Firefighter Stabbed Outside Station, by Laurel J. Sweet, December 3, 2007.

Of course, it’s not just the Boston police bureaucracy that are a bunch of doofi (my preferred plural for “doofus”). This eclectic article by John Derbyshire provides grit-your-teeth-amusing accounts of the metastasizing uselessness of American government at all levels. In particular, read the gems under Derb’s subheads “Upright Abe’s Gettysburg Address,” “Early drop-out,” and “Nightmare on 21st Street.”