In today’s Washington Post, Dana Milbank cites the recent kerfuffle in the British press about a book purporting to reveal the tendency of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to “bully” his subordinates as a Milbankian way of suggesting that the problem with Barack Obama is that he’s not bully enough. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is accused, in…
Wouldn’t you just know it? Now that homosexuals have gone all respectable on us by wanting to get married to each other, we’re likely to see a return of sentimental, middle-brow drama as well, only featuring gay instead of straight couples in troubled marriages and having crises of middle-class conscience and so forth. Perhaps even…
Of heroes and historicists: which do you think we need more? — From The New Criterion of February, 2010
Intimidated by the difficulties of the art of the past, as of the past itself, a lonely nation turns to celebrity gossip — From The American Spectator of February, 2010
In real life, recovery from addiction is a great and inspiring thing; in the movies not so much
Walter Russell Mead’s piece in The American Interest titled “How Al Gore Wrecked Planet Earth” should be required reading for all the global warmist crowd — though of course they won’t read it. Or, if they do, they won’t take its lessons to heart. The very self-righteousness of which Mr Mead so eloquently complains will prevent…
In today’s Times of London you may find the following headline: “How to get the Lady Gaga look: At this year’s Brits, Lady Gaga was an impossible act to follow. But what would it be like to imitate her style?” That has been the standard come-on for the media when they are selling their access to…
“Homophobia is literally and figuratively killing our youngsters — especially young, straight boys whose lives, relationships and aspirations are cut short as they strive to be seen as ‘real men’.” So writes John Amaechi in today’s Times of London. In school, for a boy, being clever and interested in academia is gay; being kind and thoughtful…
Here’s an interesting example of what it means to be cut off from history — a subject I have recently written about here and here. Mr Damon Linker, writing in The New Republic online, has taken up the cudgels, as is his wont, on behalf of gay marriage and against Rod Dreher, his “old sparring-partner” on…
In today’s Washington Post, Kathleen Parker has the columnist’s bright idea of putting together the near-coincidence of the death of J.D. Salinger and the publication by Andrew Young of The Politician, a tell-all book about the former presidential candidate, John Edwards, and especially his affair with and child by a woman calling herself Rielle Hunter, for…
The latest thinking on why those with nothing but common sense to rely on should defer to their intellectual betters — From The New Criterion of January, 2010
