he's published widely, a regular guest on the glen show with glen lawrie and a weekly newsletter in the york times he discusses race, language, politics, and even music and musical theater. i especially recommend his piece if from last year about steely dan. dr. mcwhorter will speak for 25 minutes and after way engage in a discussion with aei's only dr. joshua katz. john and joshua will converse for about 20 minutes and then we'll turn to audience questions. afterwards, i hope you'll join us for deep conversation and light refreshments in the adjoining gallery. but first, please welcome-- join me in welcoming john mcwharton discussing language and the left. [applause] >> thank you aei for inviting me. thank you. especially to chris scalia and joshua katz for wanting my company tonight, and i want to talk a little bit about what you could call an effort coming mostly from the left to create change through language, which can seem so wise at first, but also, of course, has pitfalls and probably frustrates a lot of us. one manifestation of that is that these days, especially over about the