Back when our local newspaper, The News & Observer, was more of a going concern, I used to dig following the columns from Craig D. Lindsey. Lindsey, AKA Uncle Crizzle, had a keen eye for culture and finding overlooked treasures. When the paper let him go as part of broader cutbacks, I considered it a real setback to their coverage of the arts.¹

I remember reading on Lindsey’s Tumblr around the time of this dismissal from the newspaper that he was going through a time of real struggle. This was right around the time that the nation was facing a particularly strong sense of outrage about the treatment of minorites by the authorities. He felt a lack of self-worth. The demand for those in his profession was abating (at least in the sense that they could find paying work). Frankly, I was worried about the guy.

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One of my all-time favorite films is John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King. I was first introduced to the movie adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling short story from 1888 by my English teacher in my senior year of high school. Kipling’s novel encapsulates some of the folly and hubris of the British adventures in Afghanistan in the 19th century by infusing its characters with the attitudes of empire. In the film, Michael Caine and Sean Connery play British ex-military who dream much and doubt their abilities little. They set their sites on bringing the martial prowess learned in their earlier days to a remote area of Afghanistan known as Kafiristan to form their own kingdom.

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