Category Archives: Uncategorized

Both The Americans and The British love to wallow in the bathos of ‘high toned’ entertainments:  The Pallisers, Upstairs Downstairs, a bit of an anomaly, but still within the nostalgia parameters? And Downton Abbey. Wistful nostalgia for another age, refracted, … Continue reading →

Nikhil Krishnan reviews three books in the May 15 , 2020 issue of the  Times Literary Supplement: The Philosophy of Isaiah Berlin, The Cambridge Companion to Isaiah Berlin, In Search of Isaiah Berlin: A Literary Adventure After an introductory paragraph … Continue reading →

Does the word quixotic define Mr. Ganesh extended exercise in typing, that comes to rest in this sentence, and two paragraphs, that acts as an indictment of both ‘Right’ and ‘Left’? On their ‘cultural declinism’ presented as ‘stark news‘? Yet the … Continue reading →

The defenders of Bret Stephens, in the American Political Gossip sheet Politico, are not just one of the authors of ‘Coddling’, but his fellow travelers, who inveigh against homegrown enemies ,of an enlightened political present, and the political cowardice of … Continue reading →

M. 37% has an ally in The Financial Times, and its reviewer Ben Hall. Mr Hall presents an argument about the ‘baffling’,  ‘sheer opprobrium’ that French citizens hold for this arrogant little enarque: The sheer opprobrium many French citizens hold … Continue reading →

The  ‘as if’ of his the latest political/economic intervention with the comic bellicose frame of ‘It’s time for a liberal fightback’ signals the abandonment of Liberalism’s revered rationality? Two books, in the political worldview of Mr. Rachman, do not exist: … Continue reading →

How opportune! As Senile Old Joe marinates in his cognitive decline , sequestered from public view. His campaign, such as it is, carefully managed ‘interviews’ with friendly media, and short videos. Curtis Sittenfeld’s ‘Counter Factual Biography’ of Hillary Clinton, to … Continue reading →

Freudian ‘Science’ won’t go quietly! Professor Cohen considers  ‘pondering the tastelessly funny, improbably Freudian coincidence of the centennial of Beyond the Pleasure Principle with a deadly global pandemic.’ Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst in private practice and Professor of Modern Literary … Continue reading →

It isn’t only Mr. Luce that is suddenly concerned with the welfare of ‘the less well off’. The Economist has just as suddenly come to a realization about ‘young minds’ : ‘If schools don’t open soon the effect on young … Continue reading →

The opening paragraph of this essay reads, in part, as if were written in an American newspaper, during the the height of the McCarthy Purges, in its first sentence, while subsequently  critiquing it: call it maladroit framing, or pastiche journalism, … Continue reading →