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Articles of NoteBritish men and women are now the most sexually promiscuous people in any big western industrial nation, a new study shows... more» Jørn Utzon, visionary architect of one of the greatest buildings of the 20th century, the Sydney Opera House, is dead at the age of 90... Sydney Morning Herald ... Telegraph ... Art Daily ... NYT ... Australian ... London Times ... LAT Maybe it’s that mix of warm water and naked flesh. From the baths of Pompeii to Swiss spas, there’s something dirty about getting clean... more» Yiddish, a language once spoken by more than 10 million Jews, had a profound effect on American culture in the first half of the 20th century... more» When it comes to finding patterns of meaning in meaningless noise, human beings are incorrigible. Michael Shermer explains... more» Broccoli trees against a craggy backdrop of sourdough mountains, a lonely boat tossed on a red cabbage sea. Carl Warner’s edible fantasies... more» Manhattan is the capital of people who live alone. Yet are New Yorkers lonelier? Far from it: studies show urban alienation is largely a myth... more» We are immensely fortunate to have a critic of James Wood’s talent, erudition, and judgment. But if criticism follows his lead, it will end up in a desert... more» In web searches, scholars tend to follow one hyperlink to the next, in a journey that resembles a plunge down a rabbit hole. Is this any way to do research?... more» The history of the bagel is not just a history of Jews in America – it is a history of America itself. How else to explain a bagel with Swiss cheese and ham?... more» “Pick me as a mate,” says the peacock. “I must be a fit guy, since I carry this wild, colorful tail around with me and still survive”... more» George W. Bush’s nostrils always ran ahead of his mind, twitching like a bull in a rodeo or a frisking wild horse, hinting at danger to come... more» In meritocracy – or so it seemed fifty years ago – we would look up to the best of us. It turns out now, however, that we look up to celebrities. A big difference... more» John Milton, boring? Paradise Lost has a little bit of something for everybody. Hot sex! Hellfire! Some damned good poetry, too... more» Who’d want to make a movie that looked like a Thomas Kinkade painting? Thomas Kinkade, obviously. But who could possibly sit through it?... more» “I’ve seen too many peoples dismissed as not ready for self-government,” says Condoleezza Rice. Latin Americans, Asians, Africans – even black Americans... more» At a time when Chinese financial power is so strong, the U.S. government is – alas! – in no mood to hear about the murder of Falun Gong members... more» Distorting art market perceptions. The auction houses use one price for their presale estimates then inflate the actual sale results with their own premium... more» Greenland has rich deposits of oil, zinc, and diamonds. But will independence from Denmark do anything about its suicide rate?... more» The N-word is flourishing among young hip-hop Latinos. Should we care? Raquel Cepeda asks the question... more» An early rival to win the prize for a way to find longitude at sea was a chap from Yorkshire named Jeremy Thacker. Now it seems both he and his ideas were a hoax... more» Eat local? Cold storage for that local fruit may produce more carbon dioxide than shipping New Zealand apples to your market... more» Malcolm Gladwell, one critic fears, “has come to his own tipping point, or – to be fuddy-duddy – fork in the road. This way, guru. That way, serious writer”... more» Pairing writer with subject is an art, says NYRB editor Robert Silvers. Like the late Barbara Epstein, he feels an “intense admiration for wonderful writers”... more» A spur-of-the-moment decision to buy a wolf cub changed Mark Rowlands’s life. From that moment, human company never quite matched up... more» Avoiding clichés isn’t rocket science. At the end of the day, it’s a matter of just being your own fairly unique self. And not saying things you shouldn’t of... more» John Leonard, critic with a vast range and a wondrous way with metaphors, is dead at the age of 69... AP ... Chronicle Review ... NY Observer ... Wash Post ... Kansas City Star ... NYT ... Slate ... Boston Globe Michael Crichton, who delighted lovers of his fiction and enraged environmentalists, is dead at the age of 66... NYT ... AP ... Reason ... Wash Post ... James Fallows ... LAT ... NY Observer ... London Times ... NYT ... Bloomberg ... USAToday ... Wired ... Info Week ... Weekly Standard ... Crichton on Green religion “Poverty and disadvantage are a better preparation for success than wealth and capitalizing on advantage.” Malcolm Gladwell wonders... more» No matter the money or effort you lavish on your body, regardless of pampering or cholesterol monitoring, it has no future. Your genes know this... more» The human moral sense is neither the one nor the other: it is, Jonathan Haidt can show, both biologically evolved and culturally sensitive... more» “I want to make damn sure there’s a tape recorder running for my last words.” No fake deathbed conversions for Richard Dawkins... more» Studs Terkel, “guerilla journalist” who turned the voices of ordinary Americans into a font of history, is dead at the age of 96... Chic Tribune ... Sun-Times ... LAT ... NYT ... Edward Rothstein A cache of the earliest ever classical music recordings, made in Russia by music lover Julius Block in the 1890s, have now come to light... more» Love and hate: the same brain circuitry is used in both extreme emotions – except that hate retains at least a semblance of rationality... more» Martin Luther sparked the Reformation in Wittenberg 500 years ago. While the city still uses Luther to attract tourists, only 10% of its people are Protestant... more» Do tales of witchcraft and wizardry, Harry Potter novels, for instance, have a negative effect on children? Richard Dawkins wants to know... more» At last, for a mere $100,000, you can clone your dog or cat, and own it – or a genetic Xerox of it – for the rest of your life... more» Ever since he could speak, Brandon, now 8, has insisted that he was meant to be a girl. So his parents decided to go with his wishes. An easy case? Not exactly... more» Pollsters take a lot of abuse, but polls are valid guides to the citizenry: not just in politics, but in life circumstances, priorities, hopes and fears... more» From Amazon.com directly to into your hippocampus. You won’t have to read War and Peace, you’ll just download it into your brain. Something like that... more» Catholic culture wars. As T.S. Eliot well knew, tradition can’t be blindly inherited, but has to be recovered for every age, at the cost of great labor... more» Over 900 died in the most infamous mass suicide in American history. Letters now throw light on one Los Angeles family’s Jonestown story... more» Odd entries hang their wikiexistence on “scholarly” notes to Dr. Who and Star Trek – TV shows Wikipedia folk dignify as the “canon”... more» Darwin might not have loved botox, but he would have understood why women in particular are keen to smoothe those wrinkles... more» Many scholars think media manipulate the masses, turning ordinary people into emotional mobs. They never see themselves in the mob... more» Well, Excuuuuuse Meee! Most murders begin with a trivial insult. Then there are political campaigns. Emily Yoffe explains... more» Trust and responsibility. With their mass readership drifting away, newspapers must focus on the “leadership audience”... more» Life without my noisy boy. “You can’t tell just by looking at us. There isn’t even a name for parents who have lost children”... more» Glenn Loury’s mother first explained to him how someone could be “black,” though they looked “white.” Race identity involved personal choice... more» Beneath the picturesque German landscape lie thousands of unexploded bombs, each more and more unstable with every passing day... more» The Dickinson sisters’ neighbor was quite shocked: “I went in there one day, and in the drawing room I found Emily reclining in the arms of a man”... more» Gordon Gekko no more lived on Wall Street than you live on Main Street. To work through the current mess, we need precise names and precise addresses too... more» Prodigies like Picasso may start with a clear idea of what they want and then execute it. Late bloomers like Cézanne grow into their art as into life... more» David Levine, whose brilliant caricatures have charmed readers of the New York Review of Books for 44 years, is going blind... more» Is the electorate stupid? No, just human, and thus predictably irrational. Of course, that in itself may be bad enough... more» Biodiversity. Life is more varied in the warm climes near the equator. Making sense of that has confounded biologists for 200 years... more» Does religion make people nicer? Only if they think Big Brother in the Sky is watching. Ronald Bailey explains... more» French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has won the Nobel Prize for Literature... more» ... more» ... more» If the Nobel Committee lived in an alternative universe... more» “This is the most important election in American history.” Yeah, they say that for every election that comes along... more» Bernard-Henri Lévy and his friend Michel Houellebecq have had enough: “France has vomited on us for too long”... more» In 1947, a Bedouin herder tossed a stone in a cave on the Dead Sea, and heard the shattering of pottery. This led him to some dark parchment fragments... more» The 9/11 Truthers have found some new friends, as the Russian government warms to their psychotic conspiracy fantasies... more» “Classical music audiences are going gray and will soon die.” Yeah, sure. And when was it not so?... more» ... more» What has long been known to all who pay attention is now official: the Nobel lit prize committee doesn’t have a clue... more» ... more» ... more» The idea of a pristine Amazon jungle, untouched by humans, is a myth, a creation of the Western imagination... more» Why does loneliness feel cold and sin feel dirty? Our inner emotional states touch deep metaphors that stretch across cultures... more» Yes, men are hopeless on dates, and tend to say the most idiotic things. On the other hand, women can be stupid too. Why not try a little humor?... more» We’ve been around for two million years, says Stephen Hawking. To last another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before... more» Nietzsche knew best. Morality comes not from society, not from pure reason. It is innate. To know it, we need experimental philosophy... more» Iliad and Odyssey: Homer’s tales of pride and rage, massacre and homecoming, have insinutated themselves in our minds and culture... more» It’s the office China’s writers and artists dread and hate most: the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department. Ha Jin explains... more» When you were a kid, were automobile headlights eyes for you? Was that chrome grill a set of teeth? You were not alone... more» Where do old clothes end up? They may not be worth much at the Salvation Army, but they are big business in Haiti... more» A scorched-earth policy toward museums and monuments of historic and artistic value is the Russian way in the attack on Georgia... more» Rupert Murdoch is utterly without charm. He does not do introspection. He’s right there before you: what you see is what you get... more» Do you hate those wretched, sweet floral perfumes? Try a dab of “Wet pavement” or “In the library” behind the ear... more» Philosophy is not for everyone, says Kelly Jolley. “It’s aristocratic in the sense that any selection based on talent is aristocratic”... more» Group cohesion may be one reason for the global reach of story telling. Another is that fiction is a proving ground for vital social skills... more» Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, with its statistics, anecdotes, and horror stories, still makes a compelling case... more» If there’s anyone unaffected by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it’s the Lehman family. They’ve moved on... more» ... more» Piano recitals in the 19th century often resembled The Ed Sullivan Show more than the serious, hushed concerts of today... more» Democracy on the wane? In country after country, democratic reforms are in retreat. Blame the middle class... more» The book business as we know it will not live happily ever after. Even this era of decline may one day look like the last great golden age... more» Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view, says the Royal Society of Great Britain... more» ... update ... Reiss resigns The more women and men have equal rights and similar jobs, the more their Mars and Venus personalities seem to diverge... more» First move for a con man: tell your victim a story that reveals your similar anxieties, and forge a “mutual understanding”... more» David Foster Wallace, writer of dark, manic irony, has committed suicide... NYT ... NYT appraisal ... WP ... LAT From Casanova’s first orgasm to Bob Hope’s last jokes, history is a series of landmarks, both inspiring and absurd... more» A Tiger’s Tale. In Texas, where you can own a pet tiger, the booming exotic animal trade has grim consequences... more» There’s a 1/1000 chance that you, your family, and the whole human race will die. So where’s the precautionary principle when you really need it?... more» Ben Franklin liked to present himself as a small-town boy bewildered in the big city. This urbane, highly intelligent man was anything but... more» South Bend, Indiana is an unlikely place for a thriving Russian community with a high percentage of piano virtuosos, but history has strange twists... more» Jimmy Slyde was not just a tap dancer: his slides were an expressive idiom for him to tease the beat, to delay and then catch up... more» ... video Beyond boozy comradeship felt toward strangers in bars, and a few moments of euphoria, what’s to be said for being a sports fan?... more» They don’t read Paul Theroux in English departments. “I’m too rude about people,” he says. We do live in a sensitive age... more» Behavioral economics is not just a gizmo added to traditional economics; it is a big departure that will deliver a new way of seeing the world... more» After a full day at the office, Franz Kafka had dinner and got to writing about 11:00 PM. And what if he’d had more time?... more» Why are kids so unimaginative? Yes, that was the question Teresa Belton asked. For an answer look at TV and daydreaming... more» Otto Preminger, hearing a group of fellow émigrés speaking Hungarian, said, “Don’t you people know you’re in Hollywood? Speak German.” He had a point... more» Ossetian hero: Victor Kaloyev murdered the air controller he felt had killed his wife and children. Now out of prison, he finds new fields for revenge... more» International terrorism, for now, is but a puny apocalypse. But at any moment, with the right weapon, it could go from nothing to everything... more» In the 1949 Revolution, a few Americans went to China to help build the Maoist dream. Sixty years later, one of them is still there... more» Is there a performance drug that could actually increase the fairness of sports contests? Yes, there is. Carl Elliott on beta blockers... more» The Cuban judge sat with his feet up on the desk reading a comic book. The sentence for opposing the Revolution: thirty years... more» The mini-cow is the solution to rising food prices. No taller than a German shepherd, it gives 16 pints of milk a day. Plus, it mows the lawn... more» Hans Monderman loved cars. But he wondered if mature automobile societies could, in essence, act like adults. He was the Traffic Guru... more» Save the Males: feminism today has neutered men and deprived them of their noble, protective role in society, says Kathleen Parker... more» “She’s imaginative, clever, educated,” says Karl Lagerfeld, who has used Carla Bruni as a model. “She knows how to behave”... more» Human brains evolved to be belief engines: we want to explain everything, including our deepest mystical experiences... more» |
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New BooksMalcolm Gladwell: a walking Reader’s Digest 2.0 whose pop science anecdotes boil down to dumb, flattering, homespun homilies... more» “The ascent of money has been essential to the ascent of man,” Niall Ferguson says. It has taken us from poverty to the giddy heights of prosperity... more» American museums have their fair share of Rembrandts, Vermeers, Titians, El Grecos, and Raphaels. Yes, but it isn’t about what’s fair... more» Anti-intellectualism in presidential speeches is a serious problem because of the way it allows public discourse to be infected with demagoguery... more»
Thirty years since the revolution in Iran, and young Iranians burrow tunnels under the walls the regime uses to isolate them from the West. Consider sex... more» Kingsley Amis lamented the English village pub, where drink and tobacco brought people together in ways that respected and overcame their shyness... more» He has told of the “barbarism” of African societies and has fixated on public defecation when writing about India. V.S. Naipaul wants to wound... more» Who can take sex addiction seriously as a problem? Isn’t it a bit like tennis addiction? Maybe so, but this is one impairment that does sell books... more» Adamantine, hard from the start, John Milton’s English poetry aspires to biblical Hebrew and, for good or ill, succeeds... more» Flying ducks hung on flocked wallpaper: what do the material possessions of working-class people of London tell us about them?... more» Paul Auster’s narrative voice is as hypnotic as that of the Ancient Mariner. Start one of his books and by page two you cannot choose but hear... more» Connoisseurs take serious interest in the high arts of painting, music, and literature. Why is great perfume not seen in the same class?... more» Overparenting. Conservatives fear we’re turning our kids into pampered ninnies (i.e., Democrats); liberals think we’re raising selfish robots (Republicans)... more» Did Proust anticipate the course of 20th-century American literature? Edmund Wilson thought so, and that Thornton Wilder’s novels were proof... more» Franz Kafka was sufferer and victim, the tormented subject of nightmares. But also a master of nightmares, even a connoisseur of them... more» “And move next to some gay people.” Richard Florida argues it is not weather that maketh a city, but arts and culture and good restaurants... more» That Britannica set was to sit in your home merely as a reference tool. Those forbidding Great Books, however, were actually meant to read... more» ... more» China may be ugly and soulless, but Paul Theroux retains a sickened fascination for India, a land that is trapped between hypermodernity and medievalism... more» The weird world of art. How do so many different views and kinds of art jell into a rough consensus about what art is in the first place?... more» Are atheists nastier than religious folk? Some believers seem to think so. But maybe they are the very ones who make atheists nasty... more» Ludwig Wittgenstein was an arresting mix of monk, mystic, and mechanic. His family home in childhood is best described as a madhouse... more» Mortimer Adler and the Great Books. Yes, it was all rather earnest. But with humane studies having fallen to theory and politics, nostalgia is justified... more» V.S. Naipaul has always been a sadist and a smell-smock and a coxcomb, and he’s always enjoyed it. But why does he so want us to know it?... more» Geoff Nicholson likes walking the streets and lanes of London. Sure, but how can he also enjoy to walk the car-glutted streets of Los Angeles?... more» Samuel de Champlain never learned to swim, yet shot American rapids in bark canoes and starting in 1599 crossed the Atlantic 27 times without losing a ship... more» “A monster that must be put back in its place”? Heavens, no. Finance is a mirror that shows mankind its true face, warts and all... more» If there was ever a man who fit Comte de Buffon’s idea of genius as the capacity for taking pains, it’s Charles M. Schulz... more» “Oh dear, oh dear, how I sometimes wish I were respectable and dead,” he wrote. Now Benjamin Britten is both... more» Samuel Adams burned letters the British might use against him. He wasn’t playing for the history books, he was trying to plot a revolution... more» Loneliness: more and more people in the U.S. and across the globe now live alone and say they have no close confidant... more» ... more» Silent muses: three women who suffered immensely because they were tied to three men of artistic genius – Cézanne, Monet, and Rodin... more» Travel writing has often been a form of escape. Not so with V.S. Naipaul, who wants only to transform experience into art... more» Hollywood’s judgments on its movies have been as self-regarding and boneheaded as those of academics have been faddish. Then there is David Thomson... more» “Virginia Woolf’s public sympathy with the lives of poor women was always at odds with private recoil.” Consider her servants... more» ... more» Rimbaud, Hefner, Lennon, Eminem: how fascinating to watch these men, as they age, grow from being rebels to being rather lovable chaps... more» The Florence Nightingale of myth was gentle and gracious. In truth, she was acerbic and uncompromising in her fight for cleaner, better hospitals... more» Mia Farrow’s plan to get Blackwater into Darfur may look like an odd fantasy of a rich eccentric, but war-hungry celebrities are a serious threat... more» The massacre of Gen. Elphinstone’s army of 16,000 soldiers and camp followers in Afghanistan in 1842 prompted revenge attacks. They did not help... more» Charles Schulz’s one regret: he never once let Charlie Brown kick the football held out for him by Lucy. What was it about that unkicked football?... more» It is not just an idea, it can now and again be a real feeling: that English is not really your language; rather, you are merely its speaker... more» Han van Meegeren fecit. The spectre of forgery chills the receptiveness, the will to believe, without which the experience of art cannot occur... more» Paul Theroux has spent many a night trying to sleep in yet another smelly rail car shared with strangers. For his readers’ pleasure, of course... more» Katherine Mansfield’s moods went from feverish glee to raging discontent. She was vicious when cornered; her friends slipped in and out of favor... more» Thrasymachus thought it better to try to be happily unjust, than stupidly just. Does Raymond Geuss follow in his line?... more» Gore Vidal’s mocking, disenchanted patriotism will always be a resource for all who wish the American republic well... more» In 1885, Czar Alexander III gave the Czarina an astonishing Easter present: an exquisite egg of gold, diamonds, and rubies made by Carl Fabergé... more» When Keats wrote of “some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken” he meant Herschel. Science dazzled the Romantics... more» Emily Post’s own life story testifies to the redemptive power of repression. She became Emily Post by doing what Emily Post advised... more» Heston Blumenthal’s fiendish recipes will not be tried by many. Green tea and vodka in liquid nitrogen, snail porridge, smoky bacon ice cream... more» Knabenphysik: Heisenberg, Pauli, Dirac: none achieved anything as important after age thirty as they had before... more» Math wasn’t Einstein’s strong point, but how bad was he? Very, very bad, says a ruthless new book... more» Sam Johnson defined a lexicographer as “a harmless drudge.” He never foresaw the armed and dangerously funny Roy Blount Jr.... more» Much of the perfume-buying public sprays itself with high-priced smells that are the fragrance equivalent of airport novels... more» In the well-scrubbed West, it’s easy to assume that personal cleanliness is an objective matter. So try a visit to India... more» For the uninformed youngster who thinks easy sex was ever the way, Philip Roth’s strange new novel may be the perfect back-to-school gift... more» ... more» For Dostoevsky, murderers, suicides, child molesters, and blasphemers actually quicken the deepest Christian faith... more» Madame de Staël brought to the world a mixture of self-regard, self-delusion, and raw, overpowering intellect. And other charms as well... more» Patrons can make life easier for artists. But while the money may be good, it tends to come with strings, or even handcuffs, attached... more» Star, raconteur, mensch. Cheeta has at last told all, and you’ll never again think of Hollywood memoirs in the same way... more» Yes, he’s a celeb who wears pricey suits. But Bernard-Henri Lévy is a real-deal philosopher, too, one who gives us much to ponder... more» One of the saddest stories of the 20th century is the fate of air travel. In 1900 it was a dream. By 1999 it was a tedious chore... more» Can we ever know what was in the hearts of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, the man who owned her?... more» China was once thought to have no great tradition of science and invention. The reversal in thinking on this question is owed to Joseph Needham... more» “Libertarian paternalism” is a phrase with more than a whiff of paradox about it. Is it a third way for politics and economics?... more» Richard Rorty said no standpoint outside human descriptions exists from which to decide truth or falsity. He was a corrupter of the youth... more» A man must be adaptable to win in life, he said. Yet Niccolò Machiavelli, the ultimate expert in winning, lost it all... more» Simon Schama’s hero in his latest book is America, vindicated by history as a land of everlasting optimism... more» Han Van Meegeren: a second-rate painter who turned to forgeries for easy money in the 1920s. And what money he made... more» We live in an age of autobiography. Yet what twenty-something has earned the right to publish her spiritual journey?... more» In the summer of 1857, an emigrant wagon train from Arkansas was massacred as it crossed Utah. The killers were not Paiutes, but Mormons... more» Pompeii: a city where dogs howl, late-night drunks carouse, there are not enough lavatories, and everyone has bad breath... more» Oscar Wilde was a man made of books, from Plato to Pater. The story of his libraries is the story of his life... more» Proust can keep his madeleines. For some people, nothing brings back childhood like the inky smell of Batman comics... more» White Castle created the template in 1916 for all fast-food restaurants in the world. And thus was the hamburger born... more» Sushi is just what “White People” want: foreign, expensive, healthy, and hated by the uneducated. White People are not snobs or anything... more» It’s not enough to be antifascist; one must also be in principle antitotalitarian. That about sums up Bernard-Henri Lévy... more» In Heinrich Himmler’s view, Slavs were “Mongol types” to be replaced with blond Aryans in the east. Russians were mere “redskins”... more» Every unhappy book launch is unhappy in its own way, except when it involves Islam. Then the plot is rather familiar... more» Fables for children work not by pointing to a moral but by complicating moral thinking. Consider Babar the Elephant... more» In 1940, Churchill sent a group of young, handsome British officers to Washington to charm the power elite and... more» Feeling a sense of loss for a God you don’t believe in anyway? Isn’t the idea rather soppy, Mr. Barnes?... more» The entry of Britain and France into the Greek War of Independence is the first humanitarian intervention. It wasn’t the last... more» A black hole is a kind of one-way gate in the universe: Stuff can fall in, but nothing comes out. Easy, eh? Not exactly... more» Whatever divides religion and atheism, much more important is the potential of both to promote a sense of compassion ... more» Wittgenstein family: among the richest, most talented and eccentric in Europe, a family of geniuses and suicides... more» In 1904, Max Factor huddled in a forest with his wife and children, hunted by the Czar’s men. Hollywood was still a long way off... more» Intelligent Design tries with evidence and logic to show that life was designed by an intelligent agency competent to the task... more» Why are some countries rich, others poor? Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in England? Why is Africa still mired in poverty?... more» “Interface” for “meet”? Maybe soon the word it will become a synonym for “kiss,” as in: “Interface me, baby!”... more» What are lies, and what do they mean in political life today? Jacques Lacan has no answers, just dinner party anecdotes... more» A great contribution of the 20th century was to let the chaos and cadences of the world, the sounds of the street, into music... more» Josef Stalin hated genetics: if genes are physical structures passed down through generations then nature isn’t changeable... more» Except for issues of cleanliness, sex, and food, the British are just like Yanks. Oh, yes, and then there’s language... more» “Organic food” may bring to mind hairy people peddling goat cheese. But we also might think back to Edmund Burke and the 18th century... more» Bernard-Henri Lévy, a Sartre in billowy, unbuttoned white shirt, has his finger on the geopolitical zeitgeist like no other philosopher... more» Julian Barnes is not frightened about dying but not happy, either. “I don’t believe in God, but I miss Him”... more» Bacardi Rum had been a patriotic firm with a long history of supporting social welfare reforms in Cuba. Then along came Castro... more» When Giordano Bruno mounted the pyre, a crucifix was held to his face. A witness says that he turned away angrily... more» Emily Dickinson’s gnomic poems go down like shots of triple-distilled whiskey. After the jolt, they radiate... more» The tabloids create an alternative universe each week for four or five million people clutching their quarters at supermarket check-out racks... more» Most conquerors try to convert their subjects. Hitler’s empire was built on the idea of exterminating the natives... more» Going Off the Rawls. How libertarians have adopted the liberal left’s favorite modern philosopher... more» | |
Essays and OpinionMumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia. It means money, freedom, flashy cars and flashier women. That is why they hate it... more» ... more» ... more» ... more» Hitler and sex. The fixation on Hitler’s sexuality, on his alleged perversity, is the very apex of cultural stupidity. Ron Rosenbaum explains why... more» Anthropology is at war with itself, split into two schools: social anthropologists on one side, evolutionary anthropologists on the other... more» “We won’t need a guidebook,” he said, with an affected nonchalance. “These are look-and-do mountains.” But they weren’t, not in the least... more» The Dragon Well Manor restaurant in Hangzhou offers guests a kind of prelapsarian Chinese cuisine in this age of industry, food scares, and pollution... more» On Facebook, John McCain was a silly old geezer out of his depth in an alien milieu. But for people of any age, how serious are Facebook “friends”?... more» So many assumptions, agendas and, distinctly iffy data behind those ubiquitous words, “research shows.” Frank Furedi explains a few of them... more» Research shows use of the word “went” declined by 32% in the NYC press since 2000. Bad economy? Global warming? Are people just going less in the past tense? It’s really ironic... more» King Lear is one of the darkest plays ever, yet Edgar, Kent, and Cordelia show a miraculous, almost irrational fidelity: they repay brutal rejection with unwavering loyalty... more» A Wall Street firm pays an ignorant 24-year-old hundreds of thousands of dollars to give stock advice to grownups. That was in the 1980s. Michael Lewis is still watching Wall Street... more» Witch hunters in Africa lynch “thieves” who rob men of their masculinity. Many people’s grasp of economics is at the same level. The Edge economics course is a curative... more» ... Class no. 1 Scandal is permanent, frozen before us. Scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging cable news, the blogs, and the bookstores. Scandal everywhere... more» Magicians manipulate focus and intensity of human attention, controlling what we are aware of and when. Their illusions are useful for grasping neuroscience... more» Darwinian dating. We are all animals: manhood is alpha-style toughness and cool promiscuity. Woman are just as manipulative, calculating, and driven by self-interest... more» Onion editors think up the headline first, then write story to match: “California Courts To See What Else They Can Marry” or “Study Shows Bullies Enjoy Pain of Others”... more» Has our political life really changed very much since Shakespeare’s day? Maybe it has regressed back towards it, having moved away only for a century or two... more» Condoleezza Rice said that in the Middle East, the U.S. will do the cooking and the Europeans can do the dishes. Imagine how the French, so proud of their gastronomy, took that... more» Typically full of himself, brilliant, and taking some risks, Leonard Bernstein 22 years ago delivered a rambling late-night talk on terrorism and truth... more» Marc Chagall plundered his sexual experience for raw material. Maybe that’s why his artistic style changed every time he changed women... more» So when did public intellectuals start dying out? With the invention of the Web, or was it in the days of John Stuart Mill – or ancient Athens?... more» For decades, poetry has been a way of losing money for trade publishers. Then Camille Paglia’s Break, Blow, Burn became a hit. Why?... more» “We blew it.” A bitter P.J. O’Rourke looks back in remorse on the historic chance that conservatives have taken 28 years to squander... more» Books have an almost sacred quality: only to imagine someone ripping the pages out of a book or, worse, buring it, causes a shudder... more» Barack Obama’s win marks the third straight defeat of a candidate who served in Vietnam. Clinton beat two veterans of WWII. It’s the end of war-veteran politics... more» Barack Obama’s America: richer, smarter, less white... Daniel Finkelstein ... Louis Henry Gates Jr. ... Sara Hebel ... John McWhorter ... Laurence Tribe ... Elizabeth Wurtzel ... Frank Furedi ... Anne Applebaum ... Robert Fulford ... Richard Cohen ... Joel Kotkin ... Gerard Baker ... Brendan O’Neill ... Roger Cohen ... Michael Gerson ... Ward Connerly et al. ... John Dickerson ... Irwin Stelzer ... Maureen Dowd ... Shelby Steele ... Alan Wolfe ... David Brooks ... Dissent roundup Why do Fred Astaire’s old movies still shimmer with glamour and enchantment, why do so many still find that the sight of him casts a lovely lilting glow?... more» Was Percy Shelley a co-creator of Mary’s great story, Frankenstein? Co-opter of her genius, perhaps? Her Svengali, her Max Perkins, or merely a good copy editor?... more» George Bailey (James Stewart) saved his bank by explaining to fearful creditors that banking depends on faith in your neighbors. Think that might work today?... more» It has a familiar ring: excess speculation, political mischief, and financial disaster. Defaults multiplied, banks failed. Soon troubles spread beyond real estate. The year was 1836... more» The booboisie, idiots whose primitive emotions are those “of tabby-cats rather than of men,” are the very people who elect politicians H.L. Mencken felt he knew them well... more» The Medici Bank in the 15th century had tenuous cash reserves that were usually well below 10% of total assets. Lack of liquidity was an issue for banking from the start... more» Frankenstein. A late Faust myth, or an early mad scientist story? Proletariat running amok, or the id on the rampage? Maybe the perils a man trying to have a baby without a woman... more» “Anti-Semitism has no fixed pattern. It’s like a virus that changes,” says Bernard-Henri Lévy. It is forever trying to tie itself to more acceptable beliefs... more» Libertarianism is finished. The financial collapse proves that its ideology makes no sense, argues Jacob Weisberg... more» Oh, yeah? Richard Epstein has another view. Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson put out a report in Caracas last month showing how Hugo Chávez has undermined human rights in Venezuela. When they returned to their hotel ... more» The Torture Colony. In a remote part of Chile, an evil German evangelist built a utopia whose members helped the Pinochet regime perform its foulest deeds... more» Pope Pius XII suffered moral agonies over his failure to do more against the Nazis. He did much to help the Jews, but hardly with enough courage to be a candidate for sainthood... more» Britons abroad belch, vomit, copulate, litter, and barge their way through foreign lands, dressed like hookers and louts: overpaid, oversexed and over there... more» Term paper mill. Need $100 by Friday to keep the lights on? No sweat, if you’re a writer. Plenty of kids need ten pages on Hamlet by Thursday... more» Picasso’s staccato performance never missed a beat: squiggle, snatch, scrawl, grab, jot, pinch, doodle, filch. A woman turned into a goat... more» The Starbucks predictor: the more frappucinos to be had in a country, the more likely that it is now facing a depression. (Well, the McDonald’s theory didn’t work either)... more» Swearing, says Steven Pinker, is a kind of word magic. People believe that some words can corrupt the moral order (foul language advisory)... more» Universities admit and take money each year from hundreds of thousands of students who are destined to fail. Is this right? Marty Nemko asks... more» Speed is but one part of the motorcycle |
