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In January 1822 Haitis president Jeanne-Pierre Boyer sent a letter to a group of Paris-based intellectuals working to rally support for the Greek Revolution. Boyer connected the Haitians recent successful struggle against colonial tyranny with the Greeks own fight against slavery and despotism. In the revolutionary Greeks, Boyer saw the descendants of ancient Hellenes, the children of Leonidas, and the heirs of Miltiades. He registered his intention to offer monetary assistance while also noting the financial restrictions placed on newly independent Haiti.

The Haitian letter of support has, a little inaccurately, often been seen as the first formal recognition of the Greeks fight for independence. One myth still circulating in Greece even claims that Haitian soldiers joined the pro-Greek philhellenic legions. Yet Boyers references to the ancient world, and the parallels he drew between Greece and Haiti point to two key features of this moment: the mobilizing role of a particular version of classical antiquity and the wider transnational revolutionary context in which both events may be understood.

The Greek Revolution was far from a singular event. It accommodated different and, sometimes, conflicting political languages associated with Western, Ottoman, and indigenous political traditions. The revolutionaries ideas blended secular and Christian ideals; some even saw this as a redemptive millenarian battle in which the end of Ottoman control would coincide with the restoration of the Byzantine empire or in more extreme versions the Second Coming.

For a long time, historians regarded the Greek Revolution as essentially a story of the spread of ideas and practices from the center of the European enlightenment to the periphery. But in recent years, this paradigm is beginning to change. The Greek Revolution is now regarded as part of a wider global revolutionary context the moment of the liberal international.

The emergence of the Greek question in the 1820s mobilized public opinion across Europe. The mythologized ancient traditions of Hellas that Boyer invoked appealed to all manner of philhellenes: Christian humanitarians, abolitionists, Romantics, post-Napoleonic freedom fighters, and the radical followers of utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, to name but a few. Every such group saw Greece as the land of opportunity for the materialization of their political and aesthetic ideas.

Conversely, for those fighting on the ground, the European and, indeed, the global interest in the Greek cause legitimized their struggle ideologically and materially. The framing of the war of independence as a Christian struggle also became a means of entry into the European family of nations. The aid the Haitian president couldnt offer was to be secured in the markets of the City of London in the mid 1820s. By then, the Modern Greeks, who mostly referred to themselves as Romioi (Romans members of the Ottoman Rm millet, or Roman nation), had come to be seen as unworthy inheritors of the Hellenic past.

Writing to Latin-American revolutionary Simn Bolvar in 1825, Bentham summed up his own involvement as a constitutional adviser to the Greeks, emphasizing the sympathy toward their cause:

When the Deputies from that Country came I not only received them upon a hospitable footing; but at their instance, maintained for a length of time a copious correspondence, in the course of which their language to me as well as that of their constituents, was that of children to a father. At their solicitation, I endeavoured, but in vain, to keep them upon good terms with their generous benefactors here the Greek Committee as they are called, by whom the first loan for them was procured.

Yet, Bentham continued, keeping them on good terms had been harder than expected:

But from first to last, their behaviour, I am sorry to say it, has been such as to render it impossible. Such a compound of ignorance, groundless suspicion, insincerity, faithlessness, incivility, negligence, quarrelsomeness, weakness of judgment, pride, vaingloriousness, frivolity, and in the whole together incapacity for political business, I could not have conceived unless I had witnessed it a guerrilla warfare seems to be all they are fit for. They have been perpetually quarrelling with one another, as well as giving to everybody who has come to them with assistance from other countries, but too much reason to complain of them; so that nobody can so much as conjecture how this contest with the still more incapable Turks will end.

Bentham would live to see the outcome of the Greek fight for independence. Indeed, in 1830 a protocol signed in London formally recognized the independent existence of a Greek state. The diplomatic breakthrough relied on the earlier successful allied blockade and destruction of the Ottoman Egyptian fleet in the Bay of Navarino in 1827 an event that scholars regard as an instance of humanitarian intervention.

Yet, the politics of humanitarianism and the attainment of human rights do not evolve in linear ways. While the Christian public sphere was not keen to discuss it, the forces fighting for Greek independence also targeted Muslim and Jewish populations, in the Peloponnese and elsewhere. And even then, the Greek state that emerged in the 1830s was far from homogenous.

Greeces formal independence marked the beginning of a protracted cycle of dependencies within the international system, as Russia, Britain, and France became its guarantor powers. The countrys political life coalesced around political parties bearing their name (the Russian party, the English party, etc.) and its heads of state were drawn from Europes courts. During the reign of Greeces first king, the Bavarian prince Otto, in the 1840s, it transitioned from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy, and embarked on a project of territorial expansion.

One of the first independent states of the post-Napoleonic period, Greece exemplified the limitations of the concept of sovereignty and the workings of imperialism in the European family of nations. In the nineteenth century and deep into the twentieth, it continued to be the site of foreign interventions. Famously, it was in response to a late 1840s quarrel with Greece over indemnities owed to British subjects that British foreign minister Lord Palmerston pledged to guarantee the protection of imperial subjects across the world.

A few years later, during the Crimean war, British and French forces jointly occupied Greeces ports to force its neutrality; by the end of the nineteenth century European financial controllers roamed Athens assessing the finances of an expanded, but bankrupt state.

For these reasons, it is tempting to see the emergence of modern Greece as a laboratory of sorts: a laboratory of ideas about Christianity, liberty, and antiquity in the early nineteenth century, and of techniques of international-imperial governance for most of the two centuries that followed.

The territorial boundaries of the Greek kingdom in the 1830s were a fraction of Greeces current territory. The expansion of the state in the course of the nineteenth century is a complicated story one driven by geopolitical realities, economic necessities, and national-imperial motivations. But World War I was especially decisive, and in 1921 the centenary of the Greek Revolution could be celebrated in Asia Minor (today, the Asian landmass of Turkey).

Through astute diplomacy and opportunism, Greece emerged from the war as a victorious power and was rewarded with a temporary mandate over a region around the Ottoman city of Izmir (Smyrna). It presided over Orthodox and Muslim populations on the other side of the Aegean Sea, in lands coveted by Greek irredentist projects.

Yet, this project of national-imperial aggrandizement proved short-lived. The ensuing military conflict with the Kemalist Turkish-nationalist forces rapidly turned the dream into a bloody nightmare. The state that had emerged in the crossroads of liberal and national ideals projected to the world the consequences of territorial nationalism: misery, destruction, and population transfers. More than a million orthodox Greeks from Asia Minor settled across Greece in a tense political and cultural landscape.

The leading philhellene of the day was Henry Morgenthau, an American diplomat and president of the postwar refugee resettlement committee. He recounted the situation on the ground as he traveled to inaugurate an orphanage in the new Athenian borough of Vyron (a settlement named after Lord Byron):

The streets of Athens were transformed by the surging multitude that now invaded them. The city had been almost somnolent before this eruption. It had been living the staid life of an orderly small capital, where business had grown into established channels, and where life had settled into an easy and familiar routine. Overnight all this was changed. Now the streets were thronged with new faces. Strange dialects of Greek assailed the ear. The eye was caught by outlandish peasant costumes from interior Asia Minor.

Despite the large-scale destitution it brought, the Greco-Turkish exchange of populations became, in the eyes of some commentators, a curious success story. Liberals invested in minority protection pointed to the easing of tensions between Greece and Turkey in the 1930s to argue that forced displacement could solve nationalist conflicts; Fascists and Nazists regarded it as workable precedent for their own ethnic cleansing initiatives; imperial administrators viewed the refugee resettlement efforts in northern Greece as offering a template for partitions and settler colonial projects.

Greek nationalisms failures prompted a fresh return to an idealized version of antiquity, also coinciding with the emergence of Greece (and its ruins) as a tourist destination. Greeces interwar version of fascist authoritarianism basked in the glory of an imagined Christian, Hellenic tradition and attempted the creation of a Third Hellenic Civilization a synthesis built on a racialist reimagining of the conceptual links between antiquity and Christianity.

Eventually this regime was felled in 1941, following a failed Italian invasion and then an imposing Wehrmacht offensive. The Axis powers occupation regime brought dilapidated cities, hundreds of thousands of dead, and devastated livelihoods. Many Greeks did fight back, in a resistance spearheaded by communist guerrilla forces. Yet today there is no formal commemoration of the end of the great patriotic war. With the helping hand of the British forces, a brutal civil war erupted and the partisans who risked their lives against the Axis occupation found themselves deprived of their rights in forced exile across eastern Europe or rotting in Greek prisons.

Deprived of its progressive political forces, and its flourishing Jewish community, the Greece of the 1950s and 60s was a Cold War fortress on the edges of the West an anti-communist battleground marking the transition from British to American imperial hegemony. As President Harry Truman put it in his famous 1947 congress speech, Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting and self-respecting democracy. The imposition of a military junta in the late 1960s brought the country closer to its southern European and Latin American counterparts. It also revived a grotesque version of Helleno-Christian ideas and practices harkening back to the Greek Revolution and to their interwar fascist iterations.

The restoration of democracy in the mid-1970s followed a more predictable script: the rehabilitation of progressive politics, a homegrown version of social democracy, and occasional arguments with Turkey over Cyprus and the Aegean Sea. The pursuit of Europeanization became the holy grail of Greek political elites and they were largely successful in it. By the early 1990s Greece exuded the aura of a seasoned European partner: a pillar of stability and peace in the region.

It only took a few months after the collapse of communism in neighboring Yugoslavia for the aggressive display of idealized remnants of classical antiquity to reappear in the countrys northern border. The so-called Macedonian question (a diplomatic conflict stemming from North Macedonias claim to self-determination) became a landmark of a decade of culture wars and open racism against eastern European migration. This new populist nationalism continued well after the dawn of the new millennium. The 2004 Olympics marked the peak of this newfound confidence of a modernized European country ruled by centrist forces.

But once again, Greece was proclaiming its historical agency just when it lacked it. By 2010 the Greek question returned to the forefront of European and global politics: the failing Greek economy raised debates about European solidarity and responsibility. Hit hard by the sovereign debt crisis, Greece became once more a site of economic intervention and experimentation.

International debate mobilized all available tropes to describe the new politics of emergency, from Benthams paternalistic language to humanitarian and philhellenic precepts. Crucially, many progressives across the world turned their gaze toward Greece, regarding it as a laboratory for practices confronting the violence of neoliberalism. For them, the cradle of democracy and the bastion of freedom had now turned into a bulwark of resistance to capitalism.

That was not the course things took; and Greece today celebrates its bicentenary in a COVID-ridden, post-austerity setting. This is a largely symbolic event, managed by a political elite in search of a sense of purpose, spending money it doesnt have. The state is planning a series of commemorative events spearheaded by a military parade in the presence of representatives from its former guarantor powers: France, Britain, and Russia.

The dominant political forces are creating pedestals for their respective heroes. The complex and contradictory lives of nineteenth-century figures are reduced to simplistic narratives of bravery and freedom, of us versus them, civilization versus barbarism. But now is not the time for pedestals. It is a time to pause and hear all those voices lost in the course of Greeces modern history to explore the plural threads that constitute our modern Greek identity.

If the spirit of the Greek Revolution lives on today, its heroes are those who continue to regard Greece as their home despite being deprived of basic human rights and suffering decades of racist abuse for not being white or Greek enough. Such is the story of Giannis Antetokounmpo the son of Nigerian immigrants who grew up in Athens in the 1990s and spent most of his life under de jure statelessness.

Despite his harsh treatment by the Greek state, Antetokounmpo never lost his courage and sense of civic duty. This day belongs to him and others like him. Antetokounmpos Greece is not Europes Mediterranean border guard. Rather, it is a space of openness and freedom of movement. It upholds the anti-racist and emancipatory legacy of the Greek Revolution the same spirit that traveled across the Atlantic and resonated with the black Jacobins.

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Greece's Fight for Independence Was Part of a Global Revolutionary Movement - Jacobin magazine

Over the past five years, ideas from the left particularly on race, gender and the economy have become increasingly influential within the broader Democratic Party. But there has also been a growing backlash on the right against what some Republicans refer to as woke ideology and cancel culture.

In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with senior writer Perry Bacon Jr. about his recent reporting on the ideas that have gained currency on the left and how the right has responded to them.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the play button in the audio player above or bydownloading it in iTunes, theESPN Appor your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts,learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show byleaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for good polling vs. bad polling? Get in touch by email,on Twitteror in the comments.

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Politics Podcast: How The Culture Wars Of The 2020s Are Shaping Our Politics - FiveThirtyEight

To millions of Americans, how much meat one does or doesn't consume is merely a dietary choice; to some far-right culture warriors, meat consumption is a political statement. And Colorado, according to Politico contributor Nick Bowlin, has becomeGround Zero in the meat battleas right-wingers rail against Democratic Gov. Jared Polis for declaring March 20MeatOut Dayin the western state.

Polis isn't demanding that Colorado residents give up meat entirely or even for a week. Rather, he is urging them to refrain from eating it for one day, and even that is a request not a command. Restaurants in Colorado will still be free to sell beef, pork or chicken on March 20.

But to far-right Colorado talk radio hosts like Dan Caplis and Ross Kaminsky (both on Denver's KHOW-AM 630), Polis isn't merely making a request he is assaulting Colorado's core values. Caplis, Bowlin notes in an article published by Politico on March 17, has described the governor's request as a "traitorous attack" that is "vicious and callous."

Republican politicians are throwing a hissy fit as well.Colorado State Sen. Jerry Sonnenbergsaid of Polis, "We can't have leadership in this state throw the number two industry in this state under the bus." And U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a QAnon supporter who was elected via Colorado's 3rdCongressional District in 2020, is calling for a "statewide BBQ on March 20."

Bowlin explains, "Food has long been a front in the culture wars, and no option on the menu has been more fraught over the past several decades than beef which holds a singular spot in the iconography of the American diet and even the myth of frontier expansion. But a long-term slide in beef consumption has put the industry on the defensive. In Colorado, that perceived threat to one of its dominant economic sectors has been exacerbated by a rapidly shifting political landscape that features a widening divide between the rural, often red parts of the state and the bluer, booming metro areas on the Front Range of the Rockies, where economic and political power is increasingly concentrated."

Despite his support for MeatOut Day, Polis is not a militant vegan. In fact, Polis himselfeats meat, although his partner, Marlon Reis, is a vegan and an animal rights activist.

And Bowlin points out that that Colorado governor "has largely tried to move on from the Meatless Day ruckus, which he has framed as blown out of proportion."

But Colorado's right, according to Bowlin, will latch onto any Culture War issues it can find as the state continues to trend Democratic.

Kenneth Bickers, who teaches political science at the University of Colorado, Boulder, told Politico, "Colorado is increasingly a blue state.. The state as a whole has been trending in a blue direction for more than ten years."

Bickers cited the MeatOut Day controversy as an example of Colorado Republicans turning to Culture War issues to rally their base.

"It's a cultural symbol," Bickers told Politico. "Both parties have symbols. Symbols are powerful."

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How the far right is turning meat eating into a culture war battle - Salon

The movie Blazing Saddles debuted when I was a junior in high school, and the only thing I remember from that time is everyone talking about the campfire scene after all the cowboys had eaten beans.

Of course, this satirical spaghetti-Western film is so, so, so much more. According to Hollywood lore, it was one of the few movies of the 1970s to touch on racism. Sheriff Bart is Black and the people of Rock Ridge are aghast when the governor sends him to work in their town.

For years Ive watched Blazing Saddles whenever I find it on TV. Every time I laugh at the one-liners many racist and sexist and I think, Theres no way you could make this movie today.

Years later, director Mel Brooks addressed that very issue in an interview. I could barely make it then! he said.

Brooks wrote the script with Black comedian Richard Pryor, who insisted on the use of the N-word. All these years later, viewers are now warned about the language.

Culture wars, anyone? Cancel culture? Are we too sensitive or are we righting past wrongs?

I go back and forth on the issue.

Sometimes its just plain ignorance. I still remember the Rocky Mountain News editor who was horrified that I used the word Oriental in a story to describe a slain woman. Lynn! she said. The word is Asian.

Other times, its an attempt by someone to prove theyre not politically correct. A couple of years ago, I said, Happy holidays! to someone. Im not a liberal, the caller snapped. I say Merry Christmas.

The latest example of cancel culture, of course, involves Dr. Seuss.

Did you hear theyre banning Dr. Seuss books because some people think the books are racist? my brother-in-law asked.

Thats terrible, I responded. This political correctness has got to stop.

Then I found out it wasnt true.

Dr. Seuss Enterprises chose to no longer publish six books that included caricatures of people of African, Asian and Arab descent. I havent read one of Theodor Geisel's books in decades but I dont recall ever looking at them and thinking, Are you kidding? But times change and I cringed when I recently saw the images critics referred to.

Geisels stepdaughter, Lark Grey Dimond-Cates, told the New York Post there wasnt a racist bone in that mans body, but also said suspending publication of the six titles was a wise decision. The Guardian reported, The controversy left many perplexed, since the decision was made by Dr. Seuss Enterprises and not as a result of public pressure that has preceded other such decisions.

Enter Fox News.

As clever columnist Mike Littwin of The Colorado Sun wrote: Dr. Seuss was not canceled in a box. He was not canceled with a fox. Thing One and Thing Two: Whatever you might hear on FoxNews, Seuss wasnt canceled with gall. His publisher withdrew six books with racist imagery, thats all.

My friend Deb Goeken once owned early editions of the Nancy Drew books, which included racial stereotypes. Over the years the language changed when the publishers republished editions about the young detective.

Cancel culture has also hit the food world. Long beloved and familiar brand names are gone or are going. That includes Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Buttersworth, Eskimo Pie and Uncle Bens.

Many of the announcements regarding new names and new packaging for these products were made in the wake of riots following the death of George Floyd, a Black man. His death in May 2020 at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement.

"The Mrs. Butterworth's brand, including its syrup packaging, is intended to evoke the images of a loving grandmother," Conagra said in a statement at the time. "We stand in solidarity with our Black and Brown communities and we can see that our packaging may be interpreted in a way that is wholly inconsistent with our values."

I never thought of those brand images as being racist, but when I googled Who is Aunt Jemima? the section People Also Search For popped up. It featured a photo of actor LeVar Burton with an iron collar around his neck. Kunta Kinte reads the tagline. Kunta Kinte, who was kidnapped from Africa and sold into slavery, is the main character in the book Roots. I was in shock.

How could that happen if Aunt Jemima has nothing to do with slavery?

A conservative recently posted this on Facebook: So, if the Redskins cant be red, and Aunt Jemima cant be on the syrup, what do we call the White House (for the next four years)?

I read it to my brother-in-law, who pointed out that cosmetic companies also havent been immune to the Black Lives Movement. I looked it up.

News reports show Johnson & Johnson will no longer sell two skin-lightening lotions. L'Oreal is removing the words "white," "fair" and "light" from its skin products. Nivea's parent company is removing "whitening" and "fair" from products and marketing. Unilever is renaming it's popular Fair & Lovely cream to Glow & Lovely.

Lets get back to Blazing Saddles. Pryor was to play the sheriff but the studio refused to insure him, so Pryor recruited actor Cleavon Little.

Brooks thought there was too much of the N-word, but Pryor disagreed.

Richard said, No, we are writing a story of racial prejudice. Thats the word, the only word. Its profound, its real, and the more we use it from the rednecks, the more the victory of the black sheriff will resonate, Brooks recalled, in an interview.

After a sneak preview of the film, the studio chairman ordered Brooks to eliminate, among other things, all uses of the N-word and flatulence sound effects. Brooks ignored him and Blazing Saddles went on to become the top grossing movie of 1974.

The film features an all-star cast, including Brooks, Harvey Korman, Gene Wilder and the amazing Madeline Kahn. She plays Lili Von Shtupp, the dance hall singer who lisps through the film and lusts after the sheriff. At one point she sings, "Hewe I stand, the goddess of desire. Set men on fire. I have this powah. Morning, noon, and night is dwink and dancing Some quick womancing. And then a showah.

Shtupp, by the way, is one of Brooks contributions to the film. Brooks is Jewish and schtupp is Yiddish for doing the deed. Mike Littwin turned me on to that delicious factoid.

Blazing Saddles fans went slightly berserk last year when what is called a trigger warning was displayed on the movie, warning of racist comments and such.

New York Post columnist Kyle Smith had a field day.

Ridiculous, unnecessary trigger warnings are getting plastered all over everything. Realtors are afraid to use the term master bedroom. But HBO Max seems to think we all live in kindergarten. What kind of melonhead doesnt realize the purpose of the slurs in Blazing Saddles is to make the racists look bad? he asked.

In this case, the culture wars have gone overboard.

As Lili Von Shtupp would say, Its twue, its twue.

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BARTELS | In the culture wars, common sense is a casualty - coloradopolitics.com

Michael Thompson knew his godfather as Uncle Ted.

But to many, many others, Theodor Seuss Geisel was best known by his pen name, Dr. Seuss.

Thompson, who now lives in Redwood City, said he was around 3 years old when Geisel dedicated his book "If I Ran the Zoo" to him.

That book is one of the six that the Seuss estate, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, announced on March 2 that it has decided to stop selling. "These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong," Dr. Seuss Enterprises said.

Specifically, some illustrations of Asian and Black people in those books are considered to be crude racial stereotypes. The other books that will cease to be published and licensed are "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street," "McElligots Pool," "On Beyond Zebra!," "Scrambled Eggs Super!" and "The Cats Quizzer," the announcement said.

The announcement has triggered an uproar. Some have decried it as an example of "cancel culture" run amok while others have argued that Seuss came from a culture that was white supremacist, and that children's books today should not just avoid containing harmful racial stereotypes, but should better represent positive protagonists from different races.

In the meantime, some of the titles to cease publication have skyrocketed in demand and price. Amazon now lists copies of "If I Ran the Zoo" selling between $500 and $800.

In an interview with this publication, Thompson shared his memories of the late children's author and how he's feeling about the Seuss estate's decision to no longer publish the author's book dedicated to him.

"I'm sad I can no longer wander into a bookstore and take a copy off the shelf and see my name there, but that's OK," he said.

Thompson said he has fond memories of his godfather.

His parents were friends with Geisel and his first wife in Manhattan before the couple moved to La Jolla, and the two families maintained a long-term friendship despite the distance.

Geisel would regularly visit New York City to meet with his editors and publishers at Random House, and one evening while out at dinner, Thompson recalled Geisel criticizing the publishing house's books for early readers. Geisel had said at the time that he believed he could come up with better stories using limited vocabularies, and that's how Seuss' foray into writing "Beginner Books," which would come to include his famous "The Cat in the Hat" book began, Thompson said.

As a child, Thompson also recalled Geisel saying his full name Michael Gordon Tackaberry Thompson and telling him that it "scans." Thompson didn't know what that meant at the time, but later learned that the term applies to how the stresses of each syllable are distributed a relevant observation by someone so well known for his rhyming abilities.

His godfather encouraged him to travel by land. As a college student, Thompson said he took a trip to California to visit friends and made a stop at the Geisels' home. His godfather asked him how he planned to return to New York City and Thompson replied that he planned to fly.

"He said, 'Hmm, you know, you don't really get a sense of the United States just by flying over it. Let's see if we can't set you up with something better,'" Thompson remembered Geisel telling him.

So Geisel called his travel agent and booked Thompson a seat on the train from Seattle to Chicago, and then Thompson flew the rest of the way home.

"I'll never forget that trip," he said. "That was the kind of person he was. I just knew him as a kind, loving and obviously immensely talented person."

"He's had a big impact on my life and I'm grateful that I knew him," he added.

While Thompson can reminisce fondly of his godfather, he can also see the point the Seuss estate is making by discontinuing to publish or license certain books.

His godfather did do propaganda work during World War II, and as was not uncommon during that time period, he said, "it was very anti-Japanese propaganda."

One 2019 study found that only 2% of the human characters depicted in 50 Dr. Seuss children's books were characters of color. They were all male and were "only presented in subservient, exotified or dehumanized roles," the study stated.

Thompson said he's come to think about the situation as something like a #MeToo reckoning in recent years at his former boarding school. As he described it, a previously well-liked headmaster was found to not have taken appropriate measures when a teacher was rumored to have sexually abused a student. In response, the school erased the headmaster from public recognition.

"My feeling was, while it made me very sad, if by taking that action, one or more victims might feel that they had been listened to or heard, or apologized to, then it's probably worth it."

"If there were aspects of Ted's books that caused offense to people today which they probably do then this is probably OK."

It might be an easier attitude for him to simply say that Dr. Seuss Enterprises is overreacting, but, he said, "I don't think that's an honest view. We have been so insensitive to so many people for so many years, we have a long way to go before we overreact."

"I don't think it's enough to say that when they did these things, there was nothing wrong with them," he added.

Still, he said, there will be some loss, especially of the pride he used to get from being able to point out his name in a Dr. Seuss book. One time, he said, he went into Linden Tree Books in Los Altos, a local children's bookstore, and mentioned that Dr. Seuss was his godfather.

"They just about swooned," he said. "Who doesn't take some joy and happiness from that?"

Of his godfather's literary creations, he added, "I think they're wonderful, and how widespread they've been is a testament to that. The rhyming is so amazing, and a fun aspect of the way he told the stories," he said. "But the flip side is, if it made parents or children uncomfortable, or made them angry or hurt or something, then maybe their time is past."

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story inaccurately indicated that Dr. Seuss was Thompson's uncle. While he called the author "Uncle Ted," they were not related.

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Dr. Seuss' godson weighs in on the 'culture wars' uproar over decision to stop publishing several books - Pleasanton Weekly