In the Atlantic article I discussed yesterday, a name on the first page caught my eye: Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the Iranian foreign minister at the time of the hostage crisis. Suddenly, although I hadn’t thought of him in decades, the memory … Continue reading →
One of my favorite authors is Milan Kundera. Yes, I know, I’ve said it before–I’ve discussed Kundera’s work here and here, as well as here and here. So, why Kundera yet again (and I doubt this will be the last … Continue reading →
Well, it’s the morning after (or, rather, the afternoon after). And in the sober light of a non-April Fool’s Day, as I reflect back on my little prank of yesterday, I’m chastened. Chastened, but still a neo-neocon. I had no … Continue reading →
Last night, as I was driving home at 7 PM in the dark and the cold, I saw some lights up ahead where there hadn’t been any lights for a while. It took a moment for it to penetrate my … Continue reading →
A while back, as I listened (or tried to listen) to the President’s State of the Union address, it struck me once again that I’m just not very good at listening to speeches. Unless it’s Winston Churchill, I much prefer … Continue reading →
In yesterday’s post about “The Road Not Taken,” the first commenter, “anonymous,” related the poem to the second-guessing of political and military decisions. Anonymous writes: Frost’s poem reminds me once again why I get so annoyed with those who demand … Continue reading →
What’s happening in this photo? Actually, it’s a photo of me, walking in the woods on a chilly day in early spring—that’s why I’m wearing a fairly bulky jacket. The place? The grounds of the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, … Continue reading →
A few years ago I saw the last few minutes of a TV documentary. Those moments made a deep impression on me, although I saw so little of it I didn’t really even know who or what it was about, … Continue reading →
A while back I received an e-mail from a reader who made the following request: I am writing to ask if you could use your insight to explore a subject that fascinates me, and that is leadership, and why, I … Continue reading →
Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran has scored a surprising amount of popular success, currently ranked around #300 at Amazon, and amassing close to 300 comments there as well. For a fairly literary and even somewhat didactic work subtitled “A … Continue reading →
As an inveterate Red Sox fan, last year was really the pinnacle—it just couldn’t get any better than that. So I have to confess that, although the Red Sox are doing fine this year, I haven’t paid all that much … Continue reading →
When I was in grade school, our entire class of thirty-odd marched more or less in lockstep from grades one through six. The community in which I was raised wasn’t very transient; people stayed put, and so we got to … Continue reading →