thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb What do recent declines in crime rates show about prophecies of doom heard on rightwing outlets like VFR? It’s not altogether clear. For reasons to think they don’t show there’s been a real turnaround, see Murder in America, which suggests the declines have been mostly due to underreporting, more efficient private protective services, and … More ...
We’ve mentioned the problems Mike Wellbeck, a novelist who for some incomprehensible French reason spells his name “Houellebecq,” has been having with the Muslims and with French law. For those interested here’s an interview that doesn’t go into his legal problems much but does give information about the man and his place in the … More ...
I hadn’t been tempted to watch the PBS special last night on the religious implications of 9/11. My only exposure to it had been a lead-in I heard on the radio with a woman complaining “where was that nice loving man [God] I had been talking to all those years … after that I couldn’t … More ...
This summary of the State Department Report on Global Terrorism offers some useful background information—in particular, numbers—mixed with ax-grinding. A difficulty understanding the current situation is the murky nature of terrorism and the difficulty of assessing how serious a threat it really is to the United States. What do you do when you’re attacked by … More ...
Meanwhile, here’s an account of Ducking the debate on immigration in the UK. Not that different from the situation in the US, or from any social issue in the West generally. Our rulers won’t discuss anything serious, and if you raise any issues you’re divisive and intolerant—after all, issues divide and they arise only when … More ...
Here’s what “Islamophobia” amounts to: Interest in Islam mounts after hijacking atrocity . Islam may not be the best religion in the world, but it’s something that evidently has to be taken seriously, and in a nothing world something attracts attention simply by being something. I remember after the September 11 atrocities reading an account … More ...
The future is notoriously unforeseeable. Current trends nonetheless seem discouraging in many ways, so much so that the brightest hope for a liveable world sometimes seems the tendency of contemporary liberal institutions toward corruption: Whistle-blower admits defeat on EU corruption. The tendency seems inevitable in a society based on individual self-seeking, affirmative action payoffs, … More ...
The Modern Woman is not always Mom, of course. Maybe there’s some law of compensation at work: turn the state into Mom and women restore the overall balance by becoming lean, mean and ruthless in their personal and professional lives. The author of the piece thinks that a triumph: it’s every man (or woman) for … More ...
Did John Knox have a point about the Monstrous Regiment of Women? It seems so, at least when it comes to ladies from small Northern European countries. We’ve spoken about the misdeeds of Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Another enemy of humanity is Gro … More ...
We visited the Brooklyn Museum yesterday for the first time in a while. It was a mixed success. The East and South Asian collections were much as ever. They’re small and have a bit of a backwater feeling, but they include some fine pieces—Shang jades and bronzes, Sung pottery, even some good post-Meiji prints and … More ...