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Articles of NoteHugh Hefner likes a paisley robe and black silk pyjamas. Anyone else in pyjamas at 78 would look like an invalid. He just looks louche... more» He wants to be the guy who speaks truth to power, but Michael Moore finds it easy blame those less powerful than himself for his own failings... more» Was there a Trojan War? The answer is most likely yes... more». But neither it, nor Homer’s version of it, was much like Hollywood’s Troy. Law and medicine work with a sense of judgment toward a common good. Maybe that shows why management will never be a profession... more» Weight gain, weight loss, and regulation are marvelously complex, but simple principles stand out. Like CICO: calories in, calories out... more» Liar! How did Al Gore’s image shift from stiff but competent technocrat to serial exaggerator who’d say anything for votes? It’s no accident... more» Write a regional novel with advice from rainy Seattle. Don’t forget trees! Theft of a priceless whalebone? Chase scene on a ferry! Think salmon!... more» “Writing is a way of taming the world,” John Updike says, “turning the inchoate, often embarrassing stream into a package”... more» Jean Cocteau dined, fought, and even collaborated with the whole of avant-garde Paris. His own art was dismissed as the work of a frivolous queen... more» If creative destruction is the central fact of capitalism, then Las Vegas embodies the purest, and most vulgar, strain of capitalism... more» Smart birds. Who says our feathered friends can’t think, and don’t consider what other animals, such as us, might think about about them?... more» Sir Robert Baden-Powell’s initials became the motto of the movement he founded. He is easy to ridicule today, perhaps too easy... more» ... and in Iraq. On-line fantasy games have booming economies and citizens who love their political systems. Are such virtual worlds a good place to study the real one?... more» History conditions our idea of erotica: what would have shocked the 18th-century eye may seem quite tame, even quaint to us... more» Obesity epidemic? Killer fat? Relax: you’re better off with too much fat than not enough. It even lowers your risk for some cancers... more» Imagine waking up every morning thrilled it’s another day of fun and adventure. Not to fret, only to love. Imagine being a dog... more» Iraqis have both resources and will to create flourishing free media. So why is the Coalition pushing for state-owned media in Iraq... more» Why is there something, rather than nothing?, deep minds like to ask. But if there were nothing, they’d still argue and complain... more» Would you spot a gorilla that walked onto a basketball court during a game? Don’t be too certain. It’s an odd organ, the human brain... more» America has its enemies in Iraq, to be sure. But isn’t it clear, Philip Kennicott asks, that the U.S. is its own worst enemy?... more» ... more» ... more» ... more» Horrid diseases the world had forgotten are roaring back, thanks to our bone-head media, religious fanatics, and green nut cases... more» “The individual is foolish,” wrote Edmund Burke, “but the species is wise.” Tradition, Russell Kirk knew, protects us from our passions... more» Unflushed public toilets, flies in your soup, rotting meat, cockroaches: useful images for a philosophy of disgust... more» Bang, whimper, whatever. We are less interested in how the world will end than when. Will it be later, or sooner?... more» The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a novel firmly rooted in its time has, despite so much spilt politics, oddly not dated... more» The Middle East awaits its Martin Luther, says Francis Fukuyama. Liberal Arab and Muslim voices are so far being drowned out... more» The Big O. Pure pleasure for women, more reproductively useful for men. Anthropology, biology, and feminist ideology all have a take on it... more» Don’t miss the gift shop at the Spam Museum, where you can buy “I ♥ SPAM” bumper stickers, Spam watches, golf bags, and wine glasses... more» Are you smarter than most others? Excel in your ability to get along with people? But you’re being too modest, too fair. As usual... more» The demographic time bomb that faces us is not about sheer population. It is at least as dangerous: Asia’s boy bomb... more» Al Qaeda is but the lunatic fringe of political thought in Islam. A tiny minority of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims adhere to its doctrines.... more» Romantic and maternal love are viewed as worlds apart. Yet they possess a basic affinity: they banish critical judgment... more» Helping poor street kids in a dangerous foreign country might seem a fine idea. But if you’re Japanese... more» Edward Burne-Jones’s Amy Gaskell portrait is one of the greatest, most enigmatic Victorian paintings. What drove the artist?... more» The intense moodiness of Shakespeare’s palette is one clue to his greatness as poet and dramatist... more». Plus, you quote him all the time. “I know what these mothers are going through, and I try to watch over their children as they head home.” Tami Silico also photographed their coffins... more» Judge the aesthetic virtues of a painting by its price, or a film by its box office? The idea offends us. And yet... more» ... more» Stocks Up on Saddam News, says the A.M. headline, but Stocks Fall on Saddam News in the P.M. Two events, one cause. It’s absurd... more» “Tyrant” is from the Greek, and is an easy word to throw around. But democracy didn’t work well in Greece. Is Fidel Castro a tyrant?... more» If my mind is a tiny theatre I watch in my brain, then there is a tinier mind and theatre inside that mind to see it, and so on forever. Daniel Dennett explains... more» Sarah Cacciaglia is a good and conscientious worker. But she can’t cope with breaking routines. She’s a little slow... more» “Everything is based on the consumer first,” says an irate sociology prof. Not every shopper is happy with Wal-Mart... more» ... more» By emphasizing public works over piety, Hezbollah has wedged itself into Lebanese society. Its popularity grows... more» Squirrels a pest? Then eat them. Red squirrels have a gland that ruins their taste, but gray squirrels are sweet and succulent... more» ... Or try tasty cicadas. We wear designer clothes, so why not beget designer kids? How much easier to train them, once we’ve determined their genetic natures... more» Who needs professional book critics when there are all those eager Amazon customers and bloggers out there?... more» Is Lauren Slater the “smart, charming, iconoclastic, and inquisitive” author of a fine book on psych experiments, or is she a liar?... more» The single worst thing for the control of malaria in poor nations was its eradication in rich ones. What the world needs now is DDT... more» Democracy is inevitable in a web-dominated world. If you think that, try to access a few choice websites in Vientiane, Laos... more» Daniel Okrent, ombudsman for the New York Times, is so unpopular there angry staffers have issued fatwas. He’s much too fun to read... more»
Fatherless families are more likely to suffer pathologies of crime, drugs, and poverty. So government, you see, is trying to “help”... more» Michael Frayn: comic genius, deep intelligence, and humane values coupled with a certain aloofness – and impeccable courtesy... more» “I want to do what is right but I do not,” said St. Paul. “I do instead the very thing I hate.” And that was before Krispy Kreme and Internet porn... more» Deep Blue was not the end of the story for human chess. Computers have been getting better since then. And so have grand masters... more» The visual environment for students is confused and unstable. They grasp moving but not still images, says Camille Paglia... more» Arts journalism in the U.S. is shackled by a sense of civic responsibility: the arts must be supported. The Brits go for friskier criticism... more» Unlike salamanders, people cannot regrow severed limbs. At least, that’s been medical reality – up till now... more» A culture frantic to entertain, divert, and inform cannot drown out boredom. It’s still a part of our condition. Steven Winn explains... more»
Tall men get married sooner, get promoted quicker, and earn higher wages. Short men are unlucky in politics and in love. Height matters... more» Forget illegal immigrants. A new cosmopolitan class, young and mobile, move countries as easily as towns: citizens of nowhere... more» Human life is priceless. Well, not exactly. It’s actually worth $6.1 million per unit. Let’s stop kidding ourselves: we all have a price... more» Given all the hits a mother is liable to take, is motherhood worth it? Trouble is, you can’t know what kind of motherhood you’ll get... more» Eudæmonia, the good life, is not something we shall ever find in a drug. There are no easy shortcuts on the road to happiness... more» Alistair Cooke, whose Omnibus changed the face of U.S. television and whose Letter from America aired 2869 times, is dead... more» ... more» ... more» Rappers: “Monkey-moving, gold-chain wearing, illiteracy-spouting, penis-pulling, sullen, combative buffoons.” Says one critic, in a mild mood... more» How easy for Europe if its Islamic problem derived being allied with the U.S. But this issue has a long past and ominous future... more» Need a critic be recognized as somehow professional to be taken seriously? What about Amazon’s reader reviews?... more» Shostakovich wrote a secret history of his private toments under Soviet tyranny into his music. Or is this idea now in doubt?... more» Protectionism would not solve U.S. employment problems. All benefit from free trade, of goods and of labor. As for outsourcing... more» Einstein was sure the only way to win in roulette was to pocket the money when the dealer wasn’t looking. That was before lasers... more» Birds do it, bees do it, and thanks to all that dopamine, our cousins the baboons do it too. Just like us, they fall in love... more» Philosophical method and rigor applied to life’s problems can lead to growth and freedom. But philosophy’s hard: you don’t learn it like kung fu... more» A brilliant Boston surgeon leaves his patient on an operating table to go cash a paycheck and a life of betrayal emerges... more» Fukuyama, Netanyahu, and Peres met to discuss the end of history. Is Israel an exception to Fukuyama’s thesis? Is the Muslim world?... more» |
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New BooksSure, you can let the music of Mozart wash over you in all its exquisite clarity. But if you’re lucky enough to have read his letters... more» It was Il vitio pessimo, “the worst sin” that brought down the Catholic order of the Piarists in the 17th century. It’s a sin that persists... more» That nice Mr. David Brooks. He is so pleasant liberals are sure he must be a deep-down liberal at heart. Maybe they are right... more» Alice Randall’s latest blather makes Alexander Pushkin, a great symbol of human universality, into one-track ethnocentrist... more» Does Osama play Robin Hood to America’s King John? “King John was not a democrat, nor Robin Hood a terrorist,” says Bernard Lewis... more» Contemporary novelists treat their pages like flypaper, ready for any floating bits of cultural debris: it makes for bigger, but more trivial novels... more» The Founding Fathers were deists: if Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Jefferson had a religion, it was a faith in reason... more» Chateau d’Yquem adds no sugar to ripe grapes, letting the fruit rot. The grape skins shrivel into brown pulp. It’s a noble rot... more» Would His Girl Friday, with its too-fast-to-translate word play, be made today? What do Batman and Matrix have in common? Banality?... more» We are deeply polytheistic, as even St. Paul knew. The idea of God, says Régis Debray, is a peculiar and recent one... more» Napoleon’s creative genius enabled him to write his vast novel upon the face of the earth, rather than on mere paper... more» The normal daily patterns of our lives, sleep and work, give us a glimpse into a vast world: the rhythms of biology... more» Abraham Lincoln’s single greatest act, one of spectacular political daring, is best known for what it did not do... more» The literary life is swamped by its epiphenomena: books’ blurbs and author photos are more important than their content... more» That Jose Padilla planned acts of terror with Al Qaeda may or may not be true. It’s only certain that he cannot defend himself... more» For Friedrich von Hayek, the technical turn that economics has taken would have been as much a misuse of reason as socialist planning... more» “To hell with the new society!” is an innocent enough thing for a teenage girl to write in her diary. But in Stalin’s Russia... more» Niall Ferguson recounts the virtues of British empire with the enthusiasm of a Victorian schoolboy. Why can’t the Yanks be like that?... more» Roger Scruton, a voluble, vocal, argumentative man, admires the silent authenticity of rural British folk. He wants to belong... more» As Tocqueville remarked, the French look up in anxiety while the English look down in satisfaction. A hidden rule of Englishness... more» Academics and policy wonks keep Orwellian memory holes, into which stupidities vanish without trace. Think of Soviet experts... more» For every rat seen in the city, there are ten unseen. Unless you see it in daylight: then the ratio is worse... more» Is our booze-sodden, AIDS-addled, traditionless, pointless life any better than that of modern Greenlanders? Well may you wonder... more» The idea that the free market and democracy go together was always pretty dubious, says Terry Eagleton. Fascism simply refutes it... more» George Orwell, far from being a good socialist, was a nark for established power, whose work was used to persecute honest lefties. Maybe... more» Great American Novelist is what James T. Farrell would have wanted to be known as. Today, genius aside, he has a faintly neocon look... more» Bruno wrote on magic and Egypt, Kepler had his mystic celestial harmonies, and Newton his alchemy. Then there was Galileo... more» Book publishing has been co-opted by gasbag talk radio, as rants by Ann Coulter and Michael Moore show. So along comes... more» What distinguishes gravitons that no possible experiment can show from gravitons that do not exist? Freeman Dyson knows... more» WWI was the first war with death depersonalized into statistics: it was the fountain of blood from which a century drank... more» Samuel Huntington may be right that ordinary Americans are more likely to be patriotic than are liberal elites. But it does not follow... more» On the day she was to be auctioned as white slave in a harem, Florence Baker spied a bearded Englishman in the room... more» The more African politicians extort and steal, the less there is to extort and steal. The fight for power becomes ever more desperate and violent... more» Dark eyed, / O woman of my dreams, / Ivory sandaled, / There is none like thee among the dancers, / None with swift feet... more» Shopping for cookies or pants should be easy. But what if there are 295 kinds of cookies at a supermarket? As for jeans at the Gap... more» George W. Bush has the power to reduce otherwise intelligent people to sputtering rage. Case in point: Peter Singer... more» ... more» Writing, some well-meaning but muddled persons think, is a path to mental hygiene and personal happiness... more» Stalin: nervy intellectual and manic reader of literature and history, thought the solution to every human problem was death... more» We are fascinated by falling and fear it, but may have enjoyed our first laugh by being tossed in the air and caught... more» Reason, resonance, research, real-world events, and resistance are Howard Gardner’s tools to change people’s minds... more» Was John Donne the first Englishman to propose going naked to bed? Well, if “naked” means not wearing your hat... more» “Policeman of the left” is a way to see George Orwell, who defended the power elite, his right-wing ideas dressed up in leftoid rhetoric... more» The title of Lucky Jim’s only scholarly article was perfect for its “yawn-enforcing facts, the pseudo-light it threw upon nonproblems”... more» Literature has its enemies, and pseudointellectual artists and critics who think their love of books is knowledge are among the worst... more» Why is Tocqueville’s so often woolly-headed work so highly praised? It is hugely flattering toward its subject... more» We all use stereotypes all the time, whether we own up them or not. Are we racists on account of this?... more» Affirmative action supposes all ethnic groups have equal talent and can perform with equal competence. Not true... more» They called him “Professor,” as he was always reading books. Cubs pitcher Jim Brosnan knew, however, there was a world outside baseball... more» A lot of people ought to burn in hell because of 9/11. And not all of them live in caves. Some might live in D.C.... more» From Sydney to Siberia, from Quebec to Patagonia, there is one sporting obsession that unifies the entire human race: America-bashing... more» We need not commit the ad hominem fallacy by wanting to know what kinds of people lurk behind “emotionally neutral” academic texts... more» Isaiah Berlin did not think he’d see the fall of Soviet power in his lifetime. On that issue, he knew no better than other experts... more» Atheists often think the case against God is so obvious that it does not need to be argued. Their best defenders may be believers... more» The first Catholic emperor of Byzantium slowly bled to death, arms and legs chopped off: one of many sticky ends in the Crusades... more» “Blackness,” indeed, the whole dictionary of race should be thrown out the window. Race no longer describes U.S. blacks... more» Are the French arrogant? It seems so, yet they consume more tranquillizers per head than any other nation... more» Gene McCarthy: sour, aloof, unfeeling, and inconstant, the hero of the anti-war Left who endorsed Ronald Reagan... more» Urban tribes. Gangs of friends are the new family for a nation of young office addicts and lonely shoppers... more» George S. Patton’s ranting, cursing, and juvenile political views were repugnant, even close to lunatic. But what a general... more» John Le Carré’s prose is now cartoonishly slack with its flowery clichés. He never met an adverb or adjective he didn’t like... more» Vladimir Horowitz said there are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists. Then there was Glenn Gould... more» Occidentalism was a term that had to be coined for the idea that the villainous West is the fount of war, racism, bigotry, etc.... more» Grouchy old Cézanne was unhappy with modernity. He’d not be pleased to hear that he is viewed as the first modern painter... more» W. Somerset Maugham was posted as Britain’s man in St. Petersburg in the Bolshevik takeover. He came close to being executed... more» Waterloo became an instant tourist attraction. Bones of the dead were crushed as fertilizer, teeth recycled as “Waterloo dentures”... more» With rock and pop seeming to be exhausted, music needs a new sound. It could do worse than recover the style of Woody Guthrie... more» “My books are water,” wrote Mark Twain, “those of the great geniuses are wine. Everybody drinks water”... more» The personal, intellectual, and political faults of Sartre are obvious today. Yet how much poorer we’d be without his oeuvre... more» The feeble-minded gullibility of consumers is at the root of much unhappiness in that dogs us, argues Clive Hamilton... more» Marcel Proust’s celebration of the imagination had to include a sexual truth that is normally hidden in darkness... more» “Petty-bourgeois fascist,” full of a “rancid philistinism,” and a “smelly masculinity.” Is this Philip Larkin?... more» Playwright Arthur Miller does not question reality so much as observe it to explain how people delude each other and themselves... more» | |
Essays and OpinionCubism disturbs us not because it is abstract: it is descriptive. Were it abstract, we could relax. But Picasso and Braque did not want beauty, they wanted truth... more» The fight for tolerance within Islam will be long and painful. But one day the beheading of gay men in the Middle East will be regarded the way we regard the burning of witches today... more» Have Robert Silvers and Barbara Epstein been “radicalized” by George Bush? Maybe not, but the New York Review of Books has lately been breathing fire... more» We prefer our Hitler as a yokel, a barbaric bumpkin. It’s off-putting to be reminded he had taste, loved the opera, was a designer with good aesthetic instincts... more» 
The Day After Tomorrow is a global wake-up call. The science is bogus, but who cares? Raising awareness of climate change is, uh, a good thing... more». Another prophet of doom. Sure, Jon Katz wanted a dog that would brave miles of snowdrifts to save him. He got one that would make it to the nearest deli and stay there. Dogs have a life too... more» David Enders says that while he does not look much older than when he arrived, age 23, in Baghdad a year ago, he certainly does feel older. Who wouldn’t?... more» A Microsoft employee puts up with the fact that Bill Gates gets $80 billion. But if the idiot in the next cubicle makes $5/hour more, there’s indignation. Are people crazy?... more» Barbara Ehrenreich hoped women would change the military, adding respect for peoples and cultures. If the presence of women soldiers on Saudi soil insulted fanatics, so what?... more» Both D.J. Thomas and his wife were raised to speak Welsh and English, but they never thought to pass Welsh on to their children. Dylan didn’t speak a word of it... more» Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s hatred of communism was never a defense of individual freedom. He still wants collectivism: ethnic, religious, and traditional. As for the Jews... more» Samuel Huntington’s new crusade is aimed against Mexico and those Mexicans who live, work, and enrich life up north. Carlos Fuentes is on the case... more» The best poker players have qualities we’d wish for in father figures: mental toughness, boldness, steadfastness. Of course, true poker champs may be weakling computer nerds... more» Howell Raines underestimated the intensity of staff unrest, the “guerrilla war” in his newsroom. Here is his own account of his downfall in the uncut version. The daring, high-speed, racy prose and restless energy of Augie March was Saul Bellow’s great Yes! to America. Now it’s clearer that the Yes! came at a price... more» Pnin is Vladimir Nabokov as he might have turned out in U.S. exile: an odd, eccentric, sad figure, doomed never to grasp the society in which he finds himself... more» The anti-American abuse heaped on Elinor Burkett by her students in Kyrgyzstan felt oddly empty and passionless, having more to do with envy than the cold war... more» The Statue of Liberty up to her armpits in water and monster tornados in L.A. Special effects in The Day After Tomorrow are great, but the science is garbage... more» If Troy turns moviegoers on to the glories of Homer, it is worth it. It’s already persuaded Brad Pitt to read the book... more» ... more». It’s yet another big fat Greek toga party. Imagine cultural future where the needs of the body rule, mind and soul are discredited, a world where executions are its tragedies, pornography is its romance... more» Commencement speakers: watch your references. They’ve never heard of Walter Mitty or Rube Goldberg, sounding like a broken record is not their technology, and banana republic is a store... more» “Jews and bicyclists are behind all the world’s ills,” so an old joke goes. “Why bicyclists?” you ask. “But wait a minute – why Jews?” Alas, were it only a joke... more» Islamic law and tradition can be conducive to democracy, says Bernard Lewis. Government is consensual in Islamic thought, a contract between ruler and ruled... more» The simple article of Marxist faith that capitalism is absolute evil, incarnated in the U.S., is the central idea of the current anti-globalizers. Jean-François Revel explains... more» The modern liberalism we know flows from an ancient source: agriculture, which led to a settled life, trade, and the encounter with strangers... more» The concept of “woman” is no longer meaningful. “There is not even such a thing as “being” female. Or so a certain line of postmodern patter goes... more» Plastic surgery can turn Michael Jackson into his own sister but could not help Cyrano de Bergerac It was eloquence, not looks, that was his weapon... more» NYT reporters: when he fires you, expect your boss to sit with open posture, arms relaxed. He’ll “understand” your anger. Just give him your ID card... more» Writing the book is the easy part. Then you start signing your name. Over and over, on book after book, again and again and again... more» Blogs: meta-comment by bright young men who never leave their rooms. There is something tired and stale about this latest form of the art of pamphleteering... more» Adjunctification is an ugly word for an ugly phenomenon: a second-class slave professoriate, exploited to keep students happy and colleges solvent. Now there is one less adjunct... more» Offal is on the comeback trail. But why are four-star chefs working so hard to make intrinsically bad ingredients taste good?... more» Great science writers neither fall for oversimplication nor apologize for elitism, says Richard Dawkins. They want their readers to join the elite... more» American destiny is a series of crackpot schemes foisted on the populace for partisan expediency. Americans are pure optimists... more» In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth learns that laughing-at is cruel. But falling in love is a turn from laughing-at to laughing-with: an equality of laughter... more» With a philosophy degree you can ask such difficult questions as “What is truth?”, “Can we know the good?”, and “Do you want fries with that?”... more» It’s a shotgun marriage between the old Philadelphia Orchestra and its jet-setting conductor. “There’s no goodwill they can fall back on. It’s getting ugly”... more» Between Shakespeare, Sikh theatre, and The Simpsons, Britain’s museums have taken the dogma of different-but-equal in arts and culture right over the edge... more» Smoking in movies once meant rebellion, coolness, and sex appeal. Now it is merely shorthand for “loser,” laments Zoe Williams... more» How to solve an intractable problem in mathematics? Formulate an even harder problem and apply yourself to it, says Robert Osserman. It’s a strategy that can work... more» In their pursuit of a better, more enlightened world, architects of political correctness let abstract moralism triumph over realism, benevolence over prudence... more» Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: “ham-fisted, shallow, bombastic, and laughably overrated,” says one critic. “But don’t get me wrong”... more» ... It’s the first Playstation ad to be called the greatest film of all time... more» The Arab world’s quiet tolerance of acts of terror is a sign not of its strength, but its weakness, says Mohamed Sid-Ahmed. It will make for more violence... more» “Was I wrong about Iraq?” asks a sullen Johann Hari. A pained and humble David Brooks is still a hawk. Paul Berman says the U.S. needs allies. Mark Steyn is unrepentant, while Greg Sheridan has been walking the halls of the Pentagon. No easy way, says Christopher Hitchens. Several big publishers have jumped onto the gravy train, launching imprints that churn out only chick lit. Score one for the ladies, right? Not exactly... more» In 1916, a story called “Lolita,” about an older man’s love for an underage girl, was published in Germany. Vladimir Nabokov was living in Berlin at the time... more» Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s high-flying prose can be as clunky as Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Not that his fans are going to complain. They never have... more» As a son of liberal Jews, Adam Shatz’s brand of Zionism was rooted less in Herzl and Ben-Gurion than in Woody Allen, Franz Kafka, and Bob Dylan... more» If the history of folklore aspires to be a history of the human mind, it must collect obscene, disgusting, and blasphemous jokes, putting them into print... more» The fate of Islam will be that of the Church of England, says Theodore Dalrymple. The fanatics and bombers are not its rebirth, but its death rattle... more» The true writer must write not what is merely acceptable, but what is true. What then is the truth about women? David Mamet has an unpopular answer... more» Pop culture now hates high culture so much it sets itself aggressively against it. High culture, for its part, now fears pop. Anne Applebaum on another culture war... more» Stalin jolted Shostakovich out of banal avant-garde conventions, forcing him to find his real subject: the tragic history of tyranny... more» Hindsight distortion is likely to undermine analysis by the 9/11 commission. Nassim Taleb on the expected, the unexpected, and the unexpectable... more» If the French had lost to the invading Muslim army at Poitiers in A.D. 732, the Koran might be a central text studied at Oxford today. What of Europe in 100 years time?... more» Great violinists of the 20th century include Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, and Louis Kaufman. Louis who? A violinist we have all heard, but not heard of... more» If whores, razzled by drugs and disease, with crumbling bones and wrinkled skin, must now be called sex workers, what are pimps? Sexual liaison co-ordinators?... more» America’s elites are out of touch with public feeling over the importance of nationalism, says Samuel Huntington... more» The fall election will turn on the parties’ contrasting aesthetics: cheerfulness of the Right versus the sobriety of liberalism’s cold glare... more» Americans: heedless of the past, no respect for tradition, wasteful, consumed by hope and optimism – the irresistible locomotive of the world... more» Halls for public lectures used to be empty. In Britain today, advertise a debate on, say, “Eating Mussels: the Issue of Our Times,” and you will pack the house... more» Georges Bataille, self-professed disciple of the Marquis de Sade, wrote sadomasochistic classics. Under a false name, of course, to protect his job as a librarian... more» Liberals take a rosy view of human nature, said Carl Schmitt. “All genuine political theories presuppose man to be evil.” That’s why liberals lose, conservatives win... more» ... more» If all we understand about survival is that it’s a TV game show, how can we grasp true victimhood? Or is even the cult of the Holocaust victim ripe for a little cynical comedy?... more» “When you say a man writes badly, you are trying to hurt him,” observes Clive James. “When you say it in words better than his, you have succeeded.” That’s criticism... more» The city of Madrid stands against the tribal fundamentalism, religious and political, that hates mixture, diversity, tolerance and, above all, liberty, says Mario Vargas Llosa... more» The Wrong Stuff: it may stir our sense of pride to send people into space. The idea makes sci-fi possible. But really, robots are a cheaper, better choice... more» A woman may sleep with one man without being a trollop, but let a man cover one little war and he is forever a war correspondent. Thus with A.J. Liebling... more» Anti-Semitism and prejudice against black Africans are two of the uglier maladies in the history of the West. Shakespeare knew this evil... more» Italy had thrice civilized Europe under Augustus Caesar, the Medicis, and the Borgias. So why not under Benito Mussolini? Ezra Pound asked... more» Where did musical quality disappear to in the last century? Down the black hole of atonality? Was it hiding out in Hollywood? Erich Korngold’s score for Robin Hood... more» Unwanted advances often border on the ridiculous. Instead of responding with damsel-in-distress stories, how about laughter? Women’s weapons include a sense of humor too... more» |
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