Down the (North Korean) Rabbit Hole
A couple of months ago I blogged about a news report that North Korea had bought some giant rabbits from a German breeder as seed stock, apparently in the hope of alleviating its dire food shortage....
View ArticleA Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing
Anti-Americanism is rife in the Middle East and in Europe, and even in the land of our mother tongue, Great Britain, it has grown remarkably intense. Why? Undoubtedly, the Bush administration must get...
View ArticleTwo Narratives
I was struck by the juxtaposition of these two recent articles, one in the New York Times and one in the Washington Post. The Post article describes how Vladimir Putin’s acolytes are rewriting history...
View ArticlePete Seeger or Philip Johnson?
A commentator on my recent post about Philip Johnson’s Glass House asks: “Can we enjoy the art and ignore the politics?” This contentions reader compares Johnson’s support of Nazism with the political...
View ArticleStalin’s Music Master
Press reports recently announced the death, at age 94, of Russian composer Tikhon Khrennikov (1913-2007). For four decades, Khrennikov headed the Union of Soviet Composers and advanced his own career,...
View ArticleNo Investment in Repression
The Washington Post has picked up the shocking story (broken by the New York Times and mentioned in contentions last week) of China Security and Surveillance Technology. This is a company that supplies...
View ArticleFascism Old and New
As the jury and contestants entered the second round of Stuttgart’s triennial classical song competition last week, organized by the Internationale Hugo Wolf Akademie, idealistic young singers and...
View ArticleBookshelf
• Last week Mary McCarthy, this week her ex-husband: I’ve been perusing two new Library of America volumes devoted to the essays of Edmund Wilson, who is now remembered chiefly by literary historians...
View ArticleThe Persian Version
Yesterday, Interfax reported that “several groups of suicide terrorists” are planning an attack on the life of Vladimir Putin during his oft-postponed visit to Tehran, which begins tonight. The Russian...
View ArticleBook Review: God and Gold
In God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World, Walter Russell Mead coyly claims that the originality of his interpretation of the roots of Anglo-Saxon primacy rests in its focus...
View ArticleHello, Arrabal!
I recently sat down for a chat with the Spanish playwright and filmmaker Fernando Arrabal, who was in town to give an October 31 lecture at St. John’s University and introduce his 1992 film Goodbye,...
View Article“Churchillian” Statesmanship
The Washington, D.C.-based Churchill Centre has just awarded the first Winston Churchill Award for Statesmanship to James A. Baker and Lee Hamilton. This is the same James A. Baker who, as Secretary of...
View ArticleA Response to Andrew Sullivan
In my article “The Case for Bombing Iran” (COMMENTARY, June 2007), in my book World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, and in various public appearances (including a televised debate with...
View ArticleBookshelf: The Best of 2007
I’ve been reviewing books in this space for the past year, and instead of telling you about a new one this week, I thought I’d remind you of five of the ones I enjoyed most in 2007: • Bill Bryson’s...
View ArticleStone Drops Rock on China
Today, Christian Dior announced it is removing its advertisements in China featuring Sharon Stone “due to some customer reaction.” The French fashion house also released an apology from the star: “Due...
View ArticleRidiculous Writings on Totalitarian Countries
I don’t know why, but I am still amazed by the credulity of some reporters. In researching my history of guerrilla warfare and terrorism (tentatively titled Invisible Armies), I have been running...
View ArticleReading Roger Cohen’s Mind Is Easier Than Reading His Columns
Back in November of 2007, not long after Roger Cohen joined the roster of op-ed pundits at the New York Times, Jack Shafer, the media critic at Slate, took the columnist apart in a piece in which he...
View ArticleSaudi Glasnost Cities Illustrate Tyranny’s Dilemma
Is it possible for a tyrannical system to modernize its society and economy while keeping its people in check? In the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev tried and failed to save the Soviet Union for Communism by...
View ArticleWhy Hitler’s Palestinian Ally Still Matters
WikiLeaks isn’t the only source of interesting government documents. On Friday, the National Archives published a report about American efforts to recruit former Nazis to help intelligence efforts...
View ArticleDoubling Down on the War on Ann Romney
Michelle Goldberg just doesn’t know how to quit when she’s behind. The Daily Beast pundit dug herself a deep hole on MSNBC on Sunday when she made an astonishing comparison between an innocuous Ann...
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