The ancient riddle runs: “What’s a psychiatrist?” Answer: “a man who goes to the Folies-Bergère and looks at the audience.” A good deal of “looking at the audience” becomes inevitable when one contemplates the recent British movie Notes on a Scandal. Not that it is at all lacking in purely artistic merit. On the contrary, it is among Britain’s most powerful … [Read More]

“In countries where military service has been abolished,” my Russian gambling companion blurts out, his eyes taking on the glint of anodised steel, “young people should be sent to the casinos.  Compulsory draft, you see?  Two years minimum.  The state pays for the lot, of course.”  He is a celebrated photographer who lives and works in London, with many books and … [Read More]

The Smearbund is raging again; and as usual, its accusations against people whose views differ from its own tell more about the accuser than the targets of its defamation. On March 11, our college public relations office emailed me a feature story from the Las Vegas Journal, one that was receiving national online circulation. I, among others, was mentioned as someone … [Read More]

This is a grim time for those of us who would like to see Team America do well.  We are tied in Afghanistan, but we’ve been playing defense and have been pushed back to our own twenty-yard line since the start of the second half.  In Iraq we are two touchdowns behind at the start of the fourth quarter. We have … [Read More]

(Adapted from The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living) This year New York City is the scene of two competing St. Patrick’s Day parades. This in itself is not that surprising; many decades ago, the Italians who ran the Columbus Day Parade refused to accommodate the Puerto Ricans, El Salvadorans, and other Latin folk who wanted to take part in their … [Read More]

While hardly above criticism, former President Jimmy Carter’s bestseller Palestine Peace Not Apartheid offers Americans some useful insights into what it is like for Palestinians to live within the racial security state that Israel maintains in the West Bank. It’s equally important for us, of course, to understand why the Israelis feel driven to undertake such harsh measures against the Palestinians. … [Read More]

I saw her standing there giving me the once over. Or thought she did.  She was young and pretty and was smiling. Not for the first time I felt confident. The champagne was working, so I approached her amidst the bedlam. “Who are you?’ I ventured. “Who do you want me to be?” she countered. “The future Mrs Taki…” I tried, … [Read More]

Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid has been controversial not just for its puzzling lack of punctuation (Isn’t the title missing a colon and a comma?) but for its provocative title. When I heard it was being furiously denounced for anti-Semitism by all the usual suspects, I hoped that meant that the 82-year-old Carter had reached that highly entertaining stage … [Read More]

David Niven and I used to play a word game back in the Sixties. He was a new arrival in Gstaad—actually his chalet was at nearby Chateau d’Oex—whom I’d introduced to cross country skiing, and that wonderfully charming man had fallen head over heels in love with the region. So every day we’d meet for lunch at the Eagle club, or … [Read More]

They would, wouldn’t they? Politicians could be counted on to give a tepid response to King Abdullah II of Jordan, when before a joint session of Congress this week he made an impassioned plea for the United States to lead in an active pursuit of an Israel-Palestinian peace. Politicians, after all, know which side their bagel is buttered. It got quieter … [Read More]