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Articles of Note“The most hideous aircraft ever.” Maybe. But will the Airbus 380 be the workhorse and money-maker its designers want it to be?... more» Criminal profiling is easy. James Brussel predicted it all, down to the criminal’s double-breasted suit. Well, kind of... more» GM foods are safe, healthy, and essential for a decent living for the world’s poor. Moralizing about them is costing millions of lives... more» Young academics who feel like frauds. They are teachers who live in creeping fear of being found out and sent packing... more» Men and women argue about everything from adultery to Zionism, but do so differently: submissive, passive, aggressive, abusive. Maybe... more» Forty years of work, millions spent on printing books and magazines, yet Lyndon LaRouche has had almost no effect on U.S. politics... more» Alcohol nannies on the warpath. Want to be forced to breathe into a tube just to start your car? Not drunk drivers, you... more» Narcissistic celebrities spiral out of control because they are buffered by people who always say yes to them... more» Mesopotamian scribes began 5000 years ago to catalogue their clay tablets with a reference system. So Google gets this idea... more» Is Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini a great opera, a good one, or just okay? Valery Gergiev’s answer had integrity... more» Vampires do not exist. In fact, it seems the nonexistence of vampires is necessary for human existence. Do the math... more» Counter-Virgin of Guadalupe, she is an avatar of liberty and guts, a deathless icon of Mexicanidad. Frida Kahlo... more» ... images At the age of only 3, little Morgan is not yet sure who Cinderella is, though she’s a big fan of cubism... more» You’ve taken LSD and are headed for a bad trip. Whose music do you seek as a quick antidote? Mozart or Haydn?... more» Foxes are moving into German towns, where food is ample and people mistake them for overgrown dachshunds... more» The brain is the final pathway of all action. You can’t do much without a brain, which is why decapitation tends to lower IQ... more» Katharine Hepburn chose not to have kids in order to focus on her career. These days, pregnancy earns an actress ink... more» “Excess” packaging? It is essential for a modern economy. It allows goods to be sold in bulk and keeps food fresh... more» The official media in China are no longer able to hide the rising number of incidents of social unrest across the land... more» There’s a rumor that Martin Amis has lost his marbles. Or maybe it’s worse: he has an actual alternative view... more» “To arrive at what one really believes, one must speak through lips different from one’s own,” said Oscar Wilde. Exactly... more» Live fast, love hard, die young. You might as well face it, guys: chasing females can take years off your life... more» Amusing ourselves to death – or maybe achieving real depth. Is The Onion our most intelligent newspaper?... more» The handbag: a shrewd device to enslave women. The dead white male who invented it knew they couldn’t resist... more» Edgar Allan Poe’s mysterious death. Was it a brain tumor? Now after these many years, new evidence... more» In search of the best cure. The red-legged ham beetle loves aged pork, but so do the human aficionados of ham... more» The Internet may be killing off pop CDs, but guess what it’s helping? None other than classical music... more» Overstimulated, overscheduled kids are getting at least an hour’s less sleep than they need. It’s lowering their IQs... more» “You know, if there was no such thing as the written word, I’d be telling stories on street corners,” said Harold Robbins... more» Vegetative patients. Brain scans are a way to differentiate those for whom there is hope from the hopeless cases... more» Doris Lessing, Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised, London-residing novelist, wins the Nobel Prize in Literature... NY Times ... AP ... London Times ... Guardian ... Telegraph ... LA Times ... WP ... Nation ... Open Democracy ... NY Sun ... The Valve Are gamblers responsible for their own behavior, or is gambling an addiction? One of gambling’s many questions... more» Sons are tough on mothers. Having one reduces the average mom’s lifespan by over half a year... more» Popular culture may be a filthy gutter, but philosophers can still lie there and look at the stars. Stephen Asma explains... more» As Baby Boomers’ taste buds slowly die of old age, so do the sales of hot sauces increase across the land... more» “The only way to tell the age of a Gabor sister is by counting the rings around her gums.” So how old is Zsa Zsa?... more» If Than Shwe stays in power in Burma, unchallenged by neighbors or by the UN, he will extend his control... more» Red sky at night, Sailor’s delight Red sky at morning, It’s global warming... more» How to alert average, card-playing GIs in Iraq to the sacred terrain around them and their responsibility to it? A deck of cards... more» Leonhard Euler: mathematician of the highest genius who lived nobly, calmly, cheerfully, and well... more» It’s an antidemocratic hell hole, to be sure, but Burma has now become a threat to its neighbors’ security... more» Displaced aggression: making others – no matter how innocent – suffer for the pain we feel... more» Religious fundamentalism may offer comforts, but it does not do much for creativity or social progress... more» Biblical archeology, says Eric Cline, is too important to leave to crackpots and ideologues. It’s time to fight back... more» Adventure travel: a whimsical, self-induced abstraction – a way to more keenly feel our home comforts... more» You can take the human being out of the savannah, but you can’t take the savannah out of the human being... more» Jorge Luis Borges knew the risks of perfect memory. He wrote of a man paralyzed by it. Google’s memory is perfect... more» Brooklyn: where the stories are half-baked, their endings bland and soft. The home of Wonder Bread fiction... more» Will exercise help you keep off pounds? It would be nice were it simply the truth. And it’s not exactly false. But, alas... more» Lucian Freud says he can tell when he is finished with a canvas: he gets the feeling he’s working on someone else’s painting... more» Italian olive oil is among the best in the world. When it isn’t Turkish hazelnut oil, or Argentine sunflower oil... more» “If my class at Yale ran this country,” Louis Auchincloss told his father, “we’d have no problems.” Alas, in the end his class did run it... more» Alex wasn’t the only avian genius. Bird life has a learned culture with technology. Birds solve problems that baffle chimps... more» H.L. Mencken never gave lectures. He wasn’t bad at it, but he despised the kind of people who showed up at lectures... more» In Sigmund Freud’s old age, Anna meant everything to him. So when on March 22, 1938 the Gestapo came for her... more» In 1961, Russia’s finest dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, slipped through his keepers’ fingers. But the KGB had its revenge... more» For Henri Cartier-Bresson, the Leica camera was like “a big warm kiss, a shot from a revolver, a psychoanalyst’s couch”... more» “Epidemiology.” Such a big, fancy word ought to stand for real science. Alas, it is a source of endless illusory benefits and false scares... more» Why is there so little friction between mainstream U.S. culture and American Muslims? What can Europe learn from the U.S.?... more» For some people, Paris is a fashion show or a gourmet meal or a museum. For Alice Kaplan, it’s a library to wander through... more» At last the Democrats have a chance to become a party for grown ups. Kurt Andersen hopes they don’t blow it... more» The husband wants custody of the dog, but so does the wife. Which one does Fido prefer? Clearly, this dog needs a lawyer... more» Weary of global-warming hysteria, John Tierney needed a fresh view. So he went to the scourge of eco-catastrophism... more» ... more» Every president since Kennedy has faced unexpected, game-changing crises, sudden shifts in history. How ready is the U.S. for the next one?... more» “Very dull” was the Knopf editor’s verdict on Ann Frank’s Diary. Also rejected: Nabokov, Orwell, Kerouac, Tuchman, Richler, Plath, Nin, and Borges... more» The Joyce Hatto story is about more than pianists, lies, and audio tape. At its heart is failed ambition and deeply sweet revenge... more» ... audio Fun is our New Core Value! You will come to the office dressed as your favorite super hero! It’s the infantilization of corporate America!... more» Thomas Jefferson had a taste for wine, and bottles from his cellar still hit the market. At least they’re supposed to be from his cellar... more» Is obesity contagious? Could be. Just like the junk science that often passes for important medical research... more» Catherine the Great was a curiosity in her day, now bewitching, now confusing her critics and supporters. Oddly, just like Vladimir Putin... more» Luciano Pavarotti, King of the High Cs, is dead at the age of 71... NYT ... Phil Inq ... Time ... Chic Trib ... London Times ... IHT ... BBC ... AP ... Telegraph ... WP ... Boston Globe ... LATimes ... SF Chron Fashion: shallow, bourgeois, girly, elitist, unfeminist, conformist, and frivolous. But it attracts money, talent, beauty, and enterprise... more» Without books, without news and reviews of books – that is, without serious literacy – decent society vanishes and barbarism triumphs... more» “An unpretentious musician with no whiff of the formidable maestro about him.” Is this what the New York Philharmonic needs in a new Director?... more» The French once ridiculed smoking bans as typical Yankee puritanism. They viewed their packs of Gauloises as sacred... more» Many Western nations will face internal violence and insecurity in the future – and if they are not actually nations, they are in trouble... more» India’s 200 million-strong middle class is the most economically dynamic group on the planet. It is largely indifferent to social reform... more» Glenn Gould in love, and what an odd couple. She, socialite artist in pearls; he with his driving cap and winter gloves, even in summer... more» ... the next Gould? Leo Strauss, “an exotic plant” and maybe “an acquired taste.” But he was friend of liberal democracy – at least at the end... more» Matt Drudge craves attention but hides, is prurient and prudish, an icon of the right who seems obsessed with making Hillary president... more» Coal, oil, and nuclear are dangerous energy sources. Wind power, that’s harmless. Oh? Ever seen a wind turbine blow over?... more»... slide show America was a hotbed of literary piracy in the 19th century. It turned out poisoned foods and willfully mislabeled products. Rather like China today... more» Sarkozy as American manqué: in the normal run of things, his family – Greek Jews, minor Hungarian nobility – would have kept going west to New York... more» Okay, so men are better at direction finding in the open. But what about finding a food source that can’t run away? And what’s with women and pink?... more» China is the world’s leading producer of both carbon dioxide and air pollution. Does it have the will to clean itself up? Or must greed prevail?... more» The Man Who Would Be Queen, by J. Michael Bailey, was meant to explain the biology of sexual orientation to a broad audience. But the problems... more» Ralph Ellison left 40 years of scribbled notes, thousands of typed pages, and 80 computer disks toward a second novel. Now at last... more» Oil, copper, factories, houses, and roads make up some of a country’s wealth. But intellectual capital is the real source of riches... more» Strap on that iPod, if you must. But don’t you ever regret the loss of silence in modern life? Andrew Waggoner does... more» Summer camp horrors. The red-eyed hyena spider, Bruce McCall explains, prefers to hide in hiking boots. But the horned toilet beetle... slide show Cosmology is in big trouble. While there is in sight no alternative to the Big Bang, that is not an adequate reason to accept it... more» Now that the onion’s been peeled, many say that Günter Grass is no longer the conscience of Germany. Or rather that he never was... more» Arthur Miller not only erased his fourth son from the public record, he cut him out of his private life. The child had Down syndrome... more» “The intellectuals, lackeys of capital, think they’re the brains of the nation,” said Vladimir Lenin. “They’re not the brains, they’re the shit”... more» Consumerism is as American as cherry pie. Plasma TVs, iPods, granite kitchen tops: you name it, we buy it. And who finances this national pastime?... more» How do we buy happiness? Enforcing income equality is not the way, says Arthur C. Brooks. We need to create more mobility and more opportunity... more» The menial summer job was once an exercise in humbling self-discipline for college students. Now kids have internships, which they pay for... more» What do the Beatitudes mean? “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Is Jesus making a prediction or a promise?... more» Racial or religious prejudices, gender bias, ageism. All are strictly off the menu. But what about disparaging a man’s height?... more» Ethnic squabbles, inevitable in the zero-sum game of urban politics, can shape bad attitudes. Consider blacks and Hispanics in Los Angeles... more» Film noir was strangely at odds with the post-war national mood. Happy, optimistic people liked dark, morose movies... more» Racial and ethnic diversity is an enemy of civic strength. Robert Putnam’s discovery is bad news for the ideal of the melting pot... more» A faint heart never won a fair lady, though a soft heart may win a gentleman. And Geoffrey Miller has been busy proving it... more» Richard Wagner was larger than life in his own time, and is no smaller today. Millions love him, others loathe him – with intense passion... more» The Humvee was designed to haul bullets and bandages, not take on ambushes or improvised bombs. Yet more armor does not mean more safety... more» Record companies are aghast at the demise of what was of late their golden goose: the pop CD. But they killed it themselves... more» The free fall of love’s first rush happens at any age. But with older people, it is affected by memories of joy, rejection, or disappointment.... more» Fighting spam is a struggle, says Brad Taylor. You go on and on, till one side gets tired and gives up. “We just can’t let it be us”... more» Ingmar Bergman, perhaps the greatest film artist of all time, has died at his home ... AP ... Time ... Telegraph ... Guardian ... Independent ... Wash Post ... Bloomberg ... London Times ... AFP ... Reuters ... NY Times ... BBC ... Guardian various ... Salon ... Independent ... LA Times ... Chic Sun-Times ... NY Post ... Guardian ... CanWest ... SF Chron ... Chic Trib ... Seattle PI ... Slate ... Telegraph ... Boston Globe ... London Times ... LA Times ... Newsweek ... NYMag ... The Age ... Economist ... Baltimore Sun ... Time ... NY Times ... He was a giant of the stage too. Who can forget the chess game with Death in The Seventh Seal or the dream in Wild Strawberries? Michelangelo Antonioni, whose difficult 1960s films spurred long nights of smoky argument at sidewalk cafes, has died in Rome at the age of 94... more» How will students know of America’s actors, writers, artists, or musicians if their history profs never mention them in class?... more» “The Soviet Union is a land of miracles, and from time to time the KGB likes to create reality.” In 1976, David Satter met two Estonian dissidents... more» Duncan and Blake: a glamorous, smart, and graceful couple who moved among rich, brainy art world people. Now they are dead... more» ... Duncan’s blog ... Body found That five-second rule for dropped food is idiocy, of course. But it’s complicated idiocy. Monica Hesse explains... more» The bonobo is part dolphin, part Dalai Lama, part Warren Beatty. The primate that we, its cousins, wish we might be. Maybe, or maybe not... more» Heinlein at 100: He sold his first sci-fi story in 1939 for $70, “and there was never a chance that I would ever again look for honest work”... more» ... more» ... more» “I am not afraid of death anymore,” says Alexander Solzhenitsyn. “I feel it is a natural, but by no means the final, milestone of one’s existence”... more» Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria has a mind and soul of its own, and is as much a character in “The Alexandria Quartet” as any person... more» In the age of the five and dime with its soda fountain, Woolworth was king – what Wal-Mart is today. But Woolworth had to die... more» The idea that parents should be playing with their kids is a modern invention, and not necessarily a good one... more» The violence in Iraq is without doubt still terrible. But it is slowly ebbing, says Peter Beaumont. There is something going on... more» What’s the relation between punch lines and laughter? Less than you might think. Robert Provine wanted to study humor, so... more» People viewed Richard Nixon as “cold and crafty.” This naturally hurt his feelings, so in 1970 he wrote a memo to Haldeman... more» ...original in PDF Bureaucrats of high-tax nations want tax “harmonization” rather than competition between tax systems. Call it an “OPEC for politicians”... more» Being a sports writer has never been just a job for S.L. Price. He’d know too much. Or maybe it was not enough... more» The university Jacques Derrida came to love in the last chapter of his life ended up suing his wife and children. “He would have been furious”... more» “Every private would tell me, the meanest drill sergeants in the Army were the women drill sergeants.” Dymetra Bass adds with pride, “We had to be tough”... more» What’s to tell between a banal work of art and one that takes banality as its theme? And where does Damien Hirst stand in regard to this?... more» Top wines need fine aromatics, ripe fruit, good structure, a sense of harmony, and a long finish. Top wine critics need the ability to taste all this... part 1 ... part 2 ... part 3 At $600 a pound, kopi luwak, a variety of coffee from Indonesia, had better be good. And it is: good in fact to the last dropping... more» Obese workers earn less per hour than their thinner colleagues. So why should thin people care a hoot about paying to cure the so-called obesity epidemic?... more» New Victorian couples are all over New York City these days, puttering about their brownstones, or pushing babies through Park Slope in gigantic prams... more» The Ratzinger Effect: more pilgrims in Rome, more Latin in church, more Gregorian chants, a bolder assertion of Catholic values, and much more money... more» Polygyny can benefit women, while men do well from monogamy. And beautiful people really do have more daughters: strange truths of human nature... more» For Richard Dawkins, people like religion the way moths like flames. But he misses religion’s real adaptive value, argues David Sloan Wilson... more» |
New BooksCissy Pascal was sexy, witty, and confident: all the young Raymond Chandler could want in an older woman... more» And the publishers spake, “Let us commission and publish many books sort of like Freakonomics, which hath so much money made”... more» The Mitford sisters were rich and famous, but they too fought about who their parents loved most, who teased whom the worst, who should do the family photos... more» Vietnam, black power, Dylan, Lennon, the Stones’ drug bust, sit-ins, the Maharishi, the Weathermen: emblems of an era... more» The Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran. Asked to review this sublime new edition, a humble academic is moved to poetry... more» Newspapers and coffee were joined from the start. The relation worked in the 18th century as it works for Starbucks today... more» With utter lack of self-awareness, but also great clarity, V.S. Naipaul shows us a world with its prejudices... more» In the face of endless change, Seth Lerer argues, there cannot be a proper English. Easy to say. Do we really believe it?... more» Gertrude Stein ran a salon at the heart of Parisian modernism, and was partner in a most curious and touching marriage... more» It is as if the French suffer from an eternal affliction, writes Pierre Rosanvallon, a need to exaggerate their woes, turn them into fantasies... more» Ervin Nyiregyházi was a piano prodigy with a taste for caviar and an unshakable sense of his own importance... more» ... more» He was hero, villain, chatterbox, saint: at least Socrates died with a sense of decorum. Unlike Cato the Younger... more» “We listen to music with our muscles,” Nietzsche said. Applies to pop songs, but better to late Beethoven quartets... more» St. Paul wrote, “when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Yeah, but bet he never made it to Woodstock... more» “Five principles of oppression,” says Alvaro Vargas Llosa, keep Latin America down. Above all: power over the truth... more» Pacific Asia often seems stuck in history, with peoples picking at old wounds, squabbling over old territory... more» A.J. Jacobs spent a year living by all the commandments of the Bible. For starters, no wool and linen in that coat... more» For Norman Mailer, literature is the highest calling. This puts him on a pedestal with the artist God... more» Bettina Aptheker says her father, Herbert, was abused as a child. So he abused her, but was very sensitive to slavery... more» Even Arts & Letters Daily readers need to be able to talk intelligently about books they’ve – shhh! – never read... more» Rather like some old duffer found dead in a chair at his club, nobody can say quite when the British empire expired... more» The young Thomas Jefferson was a kind of geek: insecure, self-absorbed, and obsessed with the teen sister of a college friend... more» A.E. Housman was one of the great letter-writers of the last two centuries. But in this form he is an acquired taste... more» That pathetically neurotic, self-centered, wanly wisecracking pseudo-intellectual. It can only be Woody Allen... more» Arthur Schlesinger passes anecdotes around like canapés. What did Truman say to Picasso, or Al Gore think about “finding our place in the universe”?... more» By showing us our worst selves, Philip Zimbardo may stimulate the thinking we need to confront our inner demons... more» Most of us know losing better than we know winning. That is why as a comic strip, Peanuts was at bottom tragic... more» The suspense is over. It turns out that Alan Greenspan can express himself in clear English prose... more» Susan Faludi prefers to talk about our “terror dream” than about actual terror. You see, she had a dream herself on 9/11... more» Is modernity a kind of faith that depends on the very faith it has rejected? Many theists want to answer yes... more» Karl Popper wrote, “The attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell.” Brian Anderson knows this... more» The right wing in America likes to think that at its start, the U.S. was highly religious, Christian, even biblical. Not true... more» Wicked America may be punished by an inexorable fate. But we need less mythic ways to grasp the world situation... more» The Mars-Venus myth: women are more verbal, talk about people and feelings. Men talk about things and facts... more» Agatha Christie: the village, the country house, the poisoned chocolates, the gentleman’s gun collection... more» Mozart was a keen, empathic observer of mankind. What he expressed in his music was us, not himself... more» Arthur Schlesinger decided to give up going into churches, just as he had given up ballet, metaphysics, and linguistics... more» Hitler expected his entourage to like Wagner and Bayreuth, but they yearned for Carmen and fell asleep in Tristan... more» If the idea of progress is is given too much importance in music history, we lose a sense of music’s most lasting values... more» The inflation of scientific claims based on feeble evidence is an embarrassment to materialism. But the claims of the soulists... more» Todd Gitlin’s penetrating critique of the left is unsparing, and is made all the more memorable by his direct, clear style... more» How did Gertrude Stein survive the Nazi occupation of France? She was the pet Jew of a certain Vichy apparatchik... more» The Oedipuses: “A tense and peculiar family, were they not?” Joseph Epstein’s view of Freud is happily not unprintable... more» Rudolf Nureyev was surrounded by an entourage of yes-men and yes-women – a huge, effusive cliché machine... more» Henry Morton Stanley saw the Congo clearly: “centuries of pitiless persecution of black men by sordid whites”... more» Anatole Broyard, charming, erudite book critic for the NYT, was a “black who passed for white.” Race identity is a mare’s nest... more» The biggest threat to France? The Soviet Union, once, and before that Germany. But if we think back to Waterloo... more» V.S. Naipaul was raised in a disorderly, inefficient, and self-deceiving society. He longs for order and clarity... more» ... more» In her first assault on Hollywood, Joan Collins slept with so many men she was known as the British Open... more» Critics should make readers feel uneasy about their ignorance of art, music, or literature. Alex Ross is such a critic... more» Democracy is not a panacea for the poor of the world. Economic liberty first brings wealth, and then democracy... more» If his new novel shows us the mind behind it, Philip Roth’s angry, self-indulgent mind gets sadder by the decade... more» ... more» Foul language is a window into human nature but also into Steven Pinker’s nature: curious, fearless, naughty... more» Antonina and Jan Zabinski, who ran Warsaw’s zoo before the War, also ran a household that was a madcap bohemia... more» An open society has no choice but to concern itself with the harm people do not just to others, but to themselves... more» A spectre haunts global capitalism, and its name is Naomi Klein. Wherever globalists wander, she stands before them, sternly shaking her finger... more» The Duke lacrosse debacle cost three guiltless students a year of disgrace and millions in legal bills. Does anyone care?... more» That Clive James remembers so much so well is testament to what a passionate reader he is... more» The Clive James website Call it sperm, semen, baby gravy, jizz, cum, number 3, donut glaze, love juice, man cream, whatever. It makes a fluid poetry of its own... more» O.J. Simpson’s book is, ugh, only to be picked up with rubber gloves. Well, at least the Goldman family gets the money... more» A Faustian bargain lies at the heart of the life of Wernher von Braun, wunderkind who built both the V-2 and the Saturn V... more» Ryszard Kapuscinski’s life was a dense bramble of intense and fleeting experience – acquired not without cost... more» Garibaldi’s soft voice had immense power to persuade. Glory if you follow. Rome or Death! Before you knew it, you had volunteered... more» Luxury once meant Dior the dress-maker, Vuitton the trunk-maker, and men who brewed perfumes for kings. Now it’s all gone down market... more» Sure, he’s witty. But Steven Pinker is far more than a borscht-belt John Locke. He is the cognitive philosopher of our time... more» Privileged, rowdy white jocks at an elite university, a poor, young black stripper, and a cry of rape! What a juicy media story... more» In the first year of the German invasion of the USSR, the Red Army issued 800,000 death sentences to its own soldiers... more» The land of 246 kinds of cheese has not always been about liberté, egalité, and fraternité, nor even monarchy before that... more» “Truth,” Richard Rorty remarked, “is what your contemporaries let you get away with saying.” No wonder he was hated... more» Angels fly, Chesterton said, “because they take themselves lightly.” Maybe they provide an example Richard Dawkins could learn from... more» “Of the millions of things one might imagine, there’s evidence for trombones, pelicans, and electrons. But God?”... more» Ann Hathaway left a wife-shaped void in Shakespeare’s biography that later writers filled up with their own ideas... more» If Josef Stalin really believed his own propaganda, is he less evil? How about Mao? Or Hitler, who also wanted peace – after he’d won the war... more» “Wagner sums up modernity. There is no way out: you become a Wagnerian first.” Thomas Mann knew what Nietzsche meant... more» Charles Lindbergh teamed up in the 1930s with a brilliant surgeon in a spooky lab to unlock the secret of eternal life... more» “Objects bring philosophy down to earth,” says Sherry Turkle. “We think with objects we love; we love objects we think with”... more» Free will cannot be located in the brain, boiled down, and graphed. It’s an active, lived process that includes the human ability to interrogate nature.... more» Treating each patient as a unique case will increase errors. Jerome Groopman fails to grasp that medicine needs more science and less art... more» In Dante’s Paradiso, images are sublime: flames and roses, rivers and rainbows. Heaven’s light sparks “like liquid iron flowing from the fire”... more» Imagine a world in which all food is organic and local, air is free of industrial pollution, and physical exercise guaranteed. Sound idyllic?... more» “What is Painting?” is a bad question to pose as a grand problem of theory. The art itself is about its own endless little internal problems... more» Some scientific theories are beautiful in their elegance. The beauty of others comes from baffling us. Quantum mechanics... more» The only thing that will clear the air of Bayreuth is to break the stranglehold of Wagner’s works, and of the Wagner clan... more» Johann Winckelmann’s eye turned not only to great works of ancient art, but to tiny engraved gems, to exquisite coins with emperors and gods... more» The martyrdom of Sacco and Vanzetti “stabbed like a knife in the liberal conscience.” Passion has cooled, but the legend marches forth... more» “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Consider finance ministers... more» The President could have called it the “Truman Plan,” but to keep G.O.P. support he instead named it after his Secretary of State... more» A passionate affair between Nehru and Lady Mountbatten was but one of the scandals and outrages of the end of the Raj... more» Percy Shelley liked the Delphic slogan “Know thyself,” but in life went for the voluptuous self-pity that animates so many of his poems... more» A gang of neocons and religious believers has undermined the natural optimism of American democracy. Anyhow, that’s the idea... more» Long before Che Guevara shot his first counter-revolutionary, Garibaldi invented the idea of the modern freedom fighter. Unlike Che, he really liked freedom... more» Colin Powell once said of Iraq, “If you break it, you own it.” Maybe a nice epitaph for Condoleezza Rice’s career... more» Philip K. Dick went from genre hack to literary genius. He wrote his speed-fuelled novels in the 1950s, went mad in the 70s, and died at 53 in 1982... more» Katrin Himmler had just begun research on her monstrous great-uncle when she met Dani, an Israeli, with whom she had a son in 1999... more» Lousy batters are less likely to be hit by pitchers. Why put on base a guy who will have a tough time getting there anyway? Baseball economics... more» Why were Schumann’s late works so full of melancholy and a strange jerkiness? Yes, he was depressed, almost insane. But... more» Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and John Paul II. Like them or not, they were three people who changed their world, and ours, forever... more» Herbert Spencer may have coined the phrase “survival of the fittest,” but that does not mean he was a Social Darwinist... more» ... more» Whaling might have survived the Civil War, but beef tallow was cheaper than spermaceti in candles, and lard oil undersold whale oil for lamps... more» Mata Hari went before a firing squad and into popular lore for spying for Germany. Her real crime was being a “shameless” woman... more» People love biographies. They learn about themselves by reading about the lives of others. Besides, people are prurient: they lap up gossip... more» “If the Culture Ministry is nowhere to be found, cultural life is everywhere.” The vital life of culture in America can look strange to French eyes... more» Ineptitude directed British policy in India more than a cynical desire to divide and rule. Still, Churchill used Hindu-Muslim hatred... more» Looking for the real Abe Lincoln is like looking for Moby Dick, Rosebud, and the silver lining, all at the same time... more» Cheap sex, bought by girls with cheap clothes and cheaper liquor, at the price of self-respect. Wendy Shalit’s bleak view... more» Sen. Reuben Castle is a fiction, but with his charm, good looks, and an affability that appeases then disarms critics, he sounds familiar... more» Sylvia Kristel, Dutch actress who made much of her pert breasts and pearl necklaces, was once the last word in eroticism... more» Suicide terrorism is used by Al Qaeda to appeal to a new, global audience. But why is that audience impressed? What does it want?... more» Globalization is a new word for an old process. It goes back to the first people to walk out of Africa 60,000 years ago... more» Virginia Woolf needed a room of her own, but also a servant to cook and clean while she organized socialist meetings... more» “I painted the picture so that it would be refused. That way it will bring me some money.” Gustave Courbet knew what he was up to... more» “The bat flew out of my mouth.” The dicta and jottings of Robert Frost’s notebooks send us back to his poetry with new eyes... more» Nancy Cunard would not conform, and so was beaten, arrested, disinherited, and declared insane. She did not regret, nor explain... more» Newspaper reporters were once heroes of the culture, played in films by the likes of Clark Gable or Robert Redford. Not today... more» Sex is a risk that makes human contact complicated and intoxicating. Women should not be chastised for taking that risk... more» Is America the new Roman Empire? Sure. It dominates the planet with its armies, economy, language, and culture as much as Rome ever did... more» Books I haven’t read. Some things no intellectual will admit to. Such as, for instance, not having read Proust... more» Where shall we dine? Stockholm? Paris? Port-au-Prince? If you’re looking for a restaurant, choose the city with the biggest income inequality... more» Suspicion of the public and fear of the future underpin much political analysis these days, with Al Gore a prime example... more» The Congress of Vienna in 1814 put a lid on Germany and Italy, kept autocrats in Spain and elsewhere, and led to the wars of the 20th century... more» Political science has become too method driven: it needs to get back to the interests, motives, and actions of real people... more» Many economists have made careers out of finding “market failures,” cases where freedom has bad effects. Do their remedies work?... more» Digital technology will end the archaic film distribution system and hasten the decline and fall of the Hollywood empire. Maybe... more» His is one of the most impressive debuts of a young poet “in recent memory.” But how recent is that memory: hours? minutes?... more» The Golden Rule and the creation of human freedom and social goodwill are at the heart of the political teachings of Jesus... more» The logic of Lincoln’s speeches is a far cry from bullet-points – compared in particular to something like the oratory of Lyndon Johnson... more» The Bible was the world’s first Wikipedia article. So many later hands have edited the original texts that we’ll never know what they first said... more» George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” made the right argument at the right time and put him in the pantheon of American history... more» In 1875, Henry James moved from New York into an expensive flat in the rue de Luxembourg in Paris. His time there was well spent... more» Creative destruction was central to his whole idea of a capitalist economy. For Joseph Schumpeter, there was no alternative to it... more» |
Essays and OpinionDon’t drink the label, drink the wine. Among the many unwritten rules of wine appreciation, this is easily the most important.... more» The hippies were utopian, deluded egomaniacs – and very stupid. Heather Mills is just part of a half-century tradition... more» A desire to live in the basement is part of the English nostalgia disease. Trapped in a sentimental fantasy of life below stairs, they pretend to be Victorian servants... more» The New Girl Order: long hours of office work, often in quasi-creative fields like media, fashion, and design, economic independence, delayed marriage... more» Auden’s “Under Which Lyre” reminds us that, when the generals and censors and other powers of the earth are forgotten, it is the mere poet who remains... more» To argue against rock ’n’ roll is now as quaint as arguing for the divine right of kings. But 20 years ago, when Allan Bloom first railed against it... more» Many years of training chimps, bonobos, and gorillas to press buttons or sign in ASL shows that human language really is unique after all... more» The worst of the storm has barely passed – 9/11, perhaps – and we are busy “moving on.” So we regild the clocks of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land... more» Celebrate diversity, if you will. But it’s only part of what it means to be a complete human being. There’s group and national pride... more» Greek religion turned away from unrealistic hopes that all will work out in the end. Such skepticism about human intelligence has never been needed more than today... more» When Lincoln said, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best, hope of earth,” the fate of liberty hung in the balance for Russia, Germany, and America itself... more» Beneath neo-atheism’s surface is the kind of fury an adolescent feels that his parents might tell lies or violate their own rules. “Religion spoils everything”... more» “Sixty years after Auschwitz, it’s still very painful for one who is not Jewish to be called anti-Semitic,” says Tony Judt. How must “Waltheimer” feel?... more» As drooling Baby Boomers watch reruns of I Love Lucy, they clutch the TV remote – and America’s fate – firm in their gnarled, arthritic hands... more» “The roar of time plunging unchecked through the sluices / Of the days” may one day sweep England away – but never her eternal poetry... more» Our kids, dumber than dirt. Yes, it may turn out that the next generation is the biggest pile of ignorant idiots in U.S. history... more» It’s easy to hate the Ivy League, and fun. When Malcolm Gladwell called for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to be shut down, hundreds cheered... more» He played Bach at a subway door and failed. She played Bach on a subway platform with success. What does this say about Bach? Subways? Classical music?... more» Women’s suffrage didn’t end war. Nor did it achieve equality for the sexes. It showed women are as diverse, incisive, and as fallible as men... more» Was Che Guevara “a truly religious man who believed in God and hated communism”? Just ask Hajj Saeed Qassemi, head honcho of suicide martyrs... more» George Bernard Shaw was like a precocious child, brought from the nursery to astound grown-ups. Unfortunately, he was often taken seriously... more» Four horsemen of our apocalypse: Efficiency, Convenience, Profit, and Security. Their crimes against poetry, pleasure, sociability are constant... more» Islam, says Mark Lilla, does not lack concepts of justice, tolerance, or separation of religion from politics. But the basis for these ideas is revelation... more» China is now doing what the U.S. did during the cold war: cozying up to the powerful, extracting resources, and buying influence... more» The Anglosphere: it’s not just soccer and a rude expression that will mark the British Empire. Ideas of 1649 and 1776 also spread across the globe... more» Talk of a velvet revolution in Iran only excites paranoia among the mullahs and in the state security apparatus, says Haleh Esfandiari... more» Victory at Sea commemorated a great war waged by a united people. Will we ever see the like again? Francis Fukuyama wonders... more» The emotional power of swearing, as well as the fact of linguistic taboos in all cultures, suggests it taps into ancient parts of the brain... more» “I had a hunch a woman living in England would win the Nobel Prize in Literature. But what a thrill it was J.K. Rowling!” Ted Gioia wonders, what if... more» An informational cascade is what you get when one expert after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong. Scientists call it “expert opinion”... more» The New Left Review has given much to British intellectual life. But it has never been able to act on a working-class challenge to capitalism... more» Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits right now in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. But protection is not cheap, so the Dutch government... more» ... more» ... more» Iraq has embraced democracy and avoided all-out civil war. Violence is largely local and criminal. The Sunnis want a deal. It’s looking like a win... more» Left-wing illiberalism does not come from a few left-over old-style Marxists, says Mitchell Cohen. It animates parts of the postmodern left... more» Some horrid creep gives speech at Columbia. So what? When it comes to free speech, we need to chill out, says Kurt Andersen... more» A Mexican migrant to the United States is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why? The answer is not the obvious one... more» What Christopher Hitchens wrote making the moral case for the war in Iraq deeply influenced Mark Daily. He went there to fight – and as it turned out, to die... more» The Book of Psalms is a great oasis where a desert people gathers to pour out complaints, fears, and hopes in prayer, song, and incantation... more» “If we can’t arrange our own happiness,” Alexander Herzen might have said, “it’s a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come after us.” So much for utopia... more» Autobiography as the story of a troubled, abused, and constricted childhood is not unique to our time. A century ago, Father and Son... more» Irving Howe knew Leon Trotsky never gave up the Leninism that led to Stalinism. But Trotsky appealed to intellectuals, rather than to the intellect... more» By selectively telling the history of WWII from below, by focusing on soldiers’ emotions, Ken Burns privatizes war... more» Relaxing with Mahmoud. So what’s next for Iran’s controversial president? A beach holiday? Well, with all those public hangings to attend... more» Religions need something to save. If souls won’t cooperate or aren’t available, they can always try saving the planet... more» “Female circumcision ceremony” is the lofty phrase used by the anthropologist. It’s actually a kind of white wedding, you see... more» West Side Story nods to the mambos and cha-chas of its day, but never sounds like 50s pop. It’s pure Bernstein: spikey, urban, tragic... more» “The Bible,” sighed Voltaire, “is what fools have written, imbeciles command, and rogues teach.” Was he being too rude?... more» Spring of ’66, and radios were blaring Bob Dylan’s song about “a minority of, you know, cripples and orientals and, uh, you know, and the world in which they live”... more» To understand Al Qaeda, we must come to terms with its rhetoric and internal theology – not just with the propaganda it aims at the West... more» Nostalgia is part of the appeal of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road today, but it was also part of its appeal in 1957. It’s not about the 1950s, but the 1940s... more» The word “friend” on social networking sites is a debasement. Having as many MySpace “friends” as possible is about status, not friendship... more» Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain was a joke – quite a good one the first time round, corny by the mid-20th century, and downright stupid today... more» Anti-Darwinism is dead science. It chews over ideas long abandoned, painting itself into smaller and smaller corners, skirting problems it wants not to face... more» Kyoto will save the lives of polar bears, but how many bears would it save in a year? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? Less than one-tenth of a polar bear?... more» Approach writing not only as performance but as if it constituted an ethically adequate object for your deepest ambition. Stephen Greenblatt explains... more» Pro-choice groups stand for women’s rights to choose how and when to have babies. Could this ever amount to old-fashioned eugenics?... more» As Martin Heidegger’s lectures drew ever larger crowds, intellectuals began to speak of “a hidden philosopher-king,” a genius from the Black Forest... more» Many of our best novelists may well be narcissists, or even, God forbid, pundits. So what? Let’s judge books by their contents, says Stephen Elliott... more» College is a disorganized reprieve between the hard work of high school and the challenge of a career. It should instead help students to tackle the big question of life... more» Pessimists, equipped with their Fodor guides and DVDs of Cecil B. DeMille movies, are convinced that America is Rome. So who are the Vandals?... more» The provincial theater critic’s dream: one day to be able to get drunk on martinis at Sardi’s after closing down a Disney-kitsch Broadway show... more» Shortly before she died, Joyce Hatto played Beethoven’s Les Adieux from a wheelchair at her Steinway. A brave spirit, perhaps. But also, alas, a thief and a fraud... more» Is there certainty in philosophy? “No,” says Ernst Tugendhat, “and we don’t need it. The desire to be on sure ground is the relic of an authoritarian frame of mind”... more» America spends one sixth of national income on medicine, more than on all manufacturing. This is too much. You could cut medical spending in half without much of a net health cost... more» The European Union may be seen as the last great world-historical achievement of the bourgeoisie, proof its creative powers were not exhausted by two world wars... more» Suppose a family cooks and eats its dog, after the pet is killed by a car. What’s wrong with that? Our moral intuitions are a morass of reason and emotion... more» Are quotation marks the new boldface? As with a cafe whose sign proclaims “FINE FOOD”? Yes, but don’t expect such usage to creep into respectable English... more» New forces, new energies, and new values strain for expression and release in the American body politic. We have come at last to the liberal moment, argues E.J. Dionne... more» ... Comment from Todd Gitlin ... Alan Wolfe ... Paul Starr How can the Arab left openly embrace the Muslim far-right? After all, says Hussein Ibish, such loving gestures are never returned except by a kiss of death... more» Al-Qaeda is losing the war in Iraq, so it’s moving the jihad to Europe... more»... Embrace Islam, Osama says, and you’ll get a hefty tax cut! Don’t rely on the wire services, read it for yourself. Women are wonderful. But men? Drunk and homeless on the streets, or filling the prisons – violent junkies and losers. Is there anything good about men?... more» From writing to print to video, ideas of authority change through history, says Régis Debray. From “God told me,” to “I read it,” to “I saw it on TV”... more» Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are the second most translated works of all literature. The Bible is first, Shakespeare third. Why does Andersen so appeal?... more» Jack Kerouac was a tormented soul. You must feel sad, says Anthony Daniels, for a would-be rebel who spent most of his life living at home with his mother... more» ... more» ... more» Feel guilty over your CO2-belching air travel? Why not hire little brown kids to pump water on “traditional” green treadmills? You fly, they get healthy exercise... more» A Gallup poll found that 80% of Americans think that learning a musical instrument will improve kids’ math and science skills. Okay, they’re wrong. Still... more» These days, people who used to pay attention to book reviews pay more attention to movie reviews. Literary journalism is sadly in decline... more» “A big twist, isn’t it? You go from knowing you’ll inherit money to wondering how you’ll support mom and dad through Alzheimer’s and a nursing home”... more» Bergman and Antonioni are cast down together into purgatory. “Karma is truly a bitch,” Antonioni says, “much like yourself, Herr Bergman”... more» James Wood’s immensely learned, barbed essays, utterly unbowed by conventional wisdom, have earned him ardent followers – and the ire of some novelists... more» “Turn-the-other-cheek pacifism,” George Orwell wrote, appeals most to the privileged classes. Well-off young people today are still suckers for the Peace Racket... more» Derek Walcott, “a young man like myself,” writes V.S. Naipaul, “carrying in his head the landscape I knew, able to fit words to quicksilver emotions”... more» ... Naipaul does get up people’s noses. What are the Enlightenment’s effects on the West? For five decades, till his death in 2006, Philip Rieff pondered that question intently, learnedly, and eccentrically... more» Christopher Hitchens: “You hear all the time that America is an intensely religious nation, but you don’t hear that there are almost as many religions as there are believers“... more» The genius of humanity is to establish an identity which lies at an ever-increasing distance from our organic nature. Technology can help us in this. Be not afraid... more» Vladimir Nabokov’s humor reflected his soul, and he fills a rare position in the annals of modern fiction: that oxymoronic creature, the happy writer... more» With all of the fear, loathing, and envy directed by Americans today toward China, it’s hard to recall that a few years ago we were all afraid of Japan. Japan?... more» For men of a certain age, used to ordering their coffee and getting it “twenty seconds later, tops,” that new coffee chain, Starbucks, can be confusing... more» Oscar Wilde, Conrad, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, Dickens, Waugh, Larkin, Amis: their genius shone through clouds of nicotine. And what now of English literature?... more» The coffeehouse: a place for bourgeois people to talk without an eye to church, family, or state. For Jürgen Habermas, the modern world begins here... more» The managerial and elitist project that is the European Union has, not surprisingly, failed to inspire the public. What passion does Europe offer the world today?... more» Art auctioneers have lots of money but no prestige. To be respected ladies and gents, they need to get into bed with hoity-toity museum curators... more» It was a severe stroke, but Paul West had seven decades of writing going for him: he had forged in his brain dense thickets of neurons for language... more» Stick with physics, he told Francis Crick. The young Freeman Dyson was sure Crick had no future in biology. Yet another scientist trying to predict the future... more» Abolish the SAT. He used to think of the test as a friend of the little guy, as did James Conant, who urged it on the country in the 1940s. But today... more» Religion is not primarily about God, but about the human need for the sacred, argues Roger Scruton. It is not the cause of violence, but the solution to it... more» Europe, please take your avant-garde. U.S. opera companies prefer to appeal to opera-lovers, not spit on them, and American audiences have grown 46% in twenty years... more» ... Reminder: earlier link “There is a far better way to fight Holocaust denial than to rely on the transitory force of law,”says Deborah Lipstadt. We must appeal to objective historical truth... more» He was a psychoanalyst for his age – but, alas, not ours. By the time Erik Erikson died in 1994, his fame and reputation had evaporated... more» Say what you will about his drunken antics, Boris Yeltsin’s Russia had independent TV and no political prisoners. He did not send goons to crush peaceful protests... more» With over a billion Muslims living in lands rich in resources, why is the Islamic world so distant from science and discovery? Pervez Hoodbhoy wonders... more» Over 3,800 people in the U.S. died last year waiting for a kidney transplant, and over 1,000 became too sick for one. It’s a grim picture and getting worse... more» Between the nuclear threat from hostile Iran and the deadlocked peace process, we may ask, can Israel survive? But also, has it a right to?... more» An achievement of civilization has been to put in place the rule of law, and to humanize animal realities with manners and rituals. The rule of law fares poorly in rap... more» American prisons employ more people than Ford, G.M., and Wal-Mart combined. With 5% of the world population, the U.S. has 25% of its prisoners... more» Should we fear or cheer for a world whose kids have derived elements of their childhood morality from Harry Potter’s Manichaean realm?... more» “France and the French left will not surrender to any competing social or economic model. France will never become a carbon copy of any other country”... more» In the arms race between doping and detection, the winner is he who takes the most drugs and gets away with it: the luckiest cheater... more» Marching under the banner of old-time religion, mid-century conservatism made the world safe for the secular, hedonism of Aquarius. Republicans joined hippies... more» For the fine arts to revive, they must recover their spiritual center, says Camille Paglia. “Profaning the symbols of other people’s faiths is boring and adolescent”... more» Edward Rothstein refilled his cup, drinking with his fellow Cokatarians in faithful communion. He was visiting Coca-Cola’s very own museum... more» Verdi’s Masked Ball with simulated sex, nudity, masturbation and, uh, a row of men sitting on toilets. So what? Don’t you go to the opera?... more» Ms. Wagner’s new Meistersinger Vladimir Putin can’t grasp Britain doing harm to its own interests over one human life. An alien concept to him, says Garry Kasparov... more» ... Trickle-down crime How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran? No, not the guys back in the 1970s, the ones being held right now. Haven’t heard about them?... more» Five days on a Baltimore city jury is a little bit like five days in a life-boat with the same people. Mute attachments tend to form... more» Africans appreciate help from the wider world, says Uzodinma Iweala. But every time some rich white celebrity tells us how much he’s done for starving Africans... more» Aristotle understood friendship, its uses, its pleasures, and its ultimate good. He would also have understood how email can keep it alive... more» Henry de Montherlant’s view of France in the early 20th century is as acute as earlier portraits by Balzac and Maupassant. Yet who knows him now?... more» End of dreams, return of history. With the Cold War over at last, many thinkers blissfully hoped that conflict between nations would fade to a memory... more» Dangerous ideas: science has a habit of turning them up, and the internet has a habit of blowing their cover. Let’s face them squarely in open debate, says Steven Pinker... more» Richard Nixon’s final campaign is for vindication by history. It’s not going well, if you ask academics, but his ability to win never hinged on the faculty vote... more» Antigovernment activists of the right and the antiwar activists of the left have some beliefs common, and maybe a presidential candidate too: Ron Paul... more» Brussels should accept its fate as an international city and switch to English, like a kind of European Singapore – although with waffles, frites, and dirty streets... more» Despite their social deficits, autistics can be fine systematizers. They are also, Simon Baron-Cohen observes, more honest than other people... more» “I often have to arrange talks years in advance,” says Noam Chomsky. “Asked for a title, I suggest The Crisis in the Middle East. It has yet to fail”... more» Call them “scum.” After all, that’s what they are. Why do we mince words in talking about terrorists? Afraid they’ll hate us even more?... more» Tides of opinion about Alger Hiss have ebbed and flowed since he left jail, writes Ron Rosenbaum. Yet another rehabilitative moment is now upon us... more» “How do you like Harry Potter?” It’s not really a question, it’s a demand to recite a loyalty oath. As for Ron Charles and his ten-year-old daughter, they’ve had it... more» English may be the language for science in Europe, but people are 10% dumber working outside of their native tongue. Why not German science in German?... more» ... auf Deutsch America has a long obsession with road travel and road books. Jack Kerouac is part of this picture. So, fifty years before, was Jack London... more» Muslim ghosts are large in number and perfectly wicked. They are old, and thus used by New Orientalists to produce nightmarish readings of history... more» British writers dislike both Blair and the Iraq war. But scarcely a single major poet or novelist looks beyond such issues to the global capitalism that underlies them, says Terry Eagleton... more» “Going into Iraq was, in effect, punching our fist into the largest hornet’s nest in the world.” Final thoughts on Bush’s war from David Halberstam... more» Cant, n. Expression of conventional, trite, or unconsidered ideas, opinions, or sentiments; esp. insincere use of pious phraseology. Laugh if you will, but... more» It is 18 years since tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square. Yet every year since, tens of thousands gather in Hong Kong with lighted candles in memory of those who died... more» The absent-minded professor was once a kindly if unworldly figure. Now we’re shown the prof as failed writer and sexual predator. Has eros no place in the relation between student and teacher?... more» |
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