He was about to give a lecture in upstate New York when a man ran up to the podium and stabbed him many times. We haven’t been told Rushdie’s condition, but apparently he is alive. The attacker is in custody, … Continue reading →
From Newsweek: The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two … Continue reading →
It was Lenin (or Stalin, or Marx) who supposedly said: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Whoever really said it, it’s one of those pithy witticisms that encapsulate some sort of truth, in … Continue reading →
Paul Krugman is a case of someone who has no problem contradicting himself, saying inane things that defy common sense, and doing it all with no sense of shame or apology but on the contrary with a sense of proud … Continue reading →
Well, language changes and evolves, doesn’t it? Sometimes overnight, depending on political exigencies: Wikipedia has suspended the edit feature on its ‘Recession’ page after users flocked to amend it to concur with President Biden’s claim that the US isn’t suffering … Continue reading →
The Biden administration continues the Obama administration’s emphasis on labeling, as though calling something by a different name would fool people into actually seeing it differently. Why do they do this? The main reason is that they believe in the … Continue reading →
Let’s take a break from all the heavy politics, and talk about music. Have you ever noticed that certain songs dealing with the very same themes are very different? Love of course is one of the main topics of songs … Continue reading →
Since the Uvalde shooting, I’ve been reading statement after statement, as though it’s a proven fact, that school shooters and other mass murdering shooters are usually fatherless, disproportionately so. The people saying this don’t usually feel they have to prove … Continue reading →
First they came for the statues. Now they’ve come for the sonnets: The University of Salford, a public university in Greater Manchester, England, removed sonnets and other “pre-established literary forms” from a creative writing course assessment, The Telegraph reported. …A … Continue reading →
…not with a bang but a whimper: The smaller number of marching units, the absence of the “Z” sloganeering, any air units, and the elite of the Russian Army all gave the parade a more subdued air. It was not … Continue reading →
Long-time readers of this blog know that one of my favorite authors is Milan Kundera. Here are a few more Kundera quotes that offer food for thought: Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Here’s a slightly-edited version of a post I first published in 2014. I thought it might be good to put it up again, because it still seems appropriate.] The time was 1956, over 65 years ago. The place was … Continue reading →