Taki's Daily Blog
During the Cold War, conservatives rightly pointed out that the collectivist materialism of the Soviet Union was anti-human in the worst ways. It elevated the state to mythic proportions. It denied the value of individual human beings. It suppressed the human spirit and focused on minimal material comfort to the exclusion of other values. The state could undo social injustices, we … [Read More]
Some immigrants assimilate more slowly than others. My best friend from childhood had parents from Abruzzi who lived in NYC for 40 years and never learned English—the need for it never arose. I guess I’m another sort of “unmeltable ethnic,” having been for long periods of my life an expat New Yorker who wouldn’t (or couldn’t) learn how to drive. And … [Read More]
It was a balmy New England dawn, in that brief slice of the year when our clime is as mild as Malibu’s and the pine trees bend in sweet obeisance to the breeze…. On such a day, a man of my years climbs from the coverlets and thinks: “All shall be well….The perfect day for a colonoscopy.” Perhaps I view all … [Read More]
Like a catfish slipping off deck into cool, polluted waters, I’m back in NYC tonight—staying in an Orchard Street apartment rented off Craig’s List, taking a much needed vacation from hazardous trees, menacing highway entrance ramps, dour Yankees, and undergraduates. At long last, I can hear not a single cricket, bird, or bee—but instead the buzz of the street, and a … [Read More]
Tomorrow I take my first driving lesson: New Hampshire be warned! I did once drive, in Baton Rouge between 1994 and 1996, having almost achieved my lifelong goal of getting a Ph.D. before I got a license—which has long since expired. But I haven’t controlled an internal combustion vehicle in12 long years. In my brief tenure as a real American, I … [Read More]
I know this is supposed to be a lifestyle column, but each week I seem to find out that one or more of the habits which makes my life liveable could also possibly kill me. Last week it was eating and drinking. I responded by cutting my booze consumption by 5/7ths (e.g. I only get tipsy on weekends), and that’s working … [Read More]
The cultural contrast between intriguing guests and apparently brain dead yack TV hosts has John Derbyshire lamenting : “ It’s not the dumbing-down that bothers a lot of us fogeys so much, it’s the loss of interest in things and stuff.” I’ll say- gone are the days when Massachusetts and California overflowed with the not so wretched refuse of a domestic … [Read More]
There’s nothing to put a damper on your columns about food and wine like a grumpy old doctor who tells you have to lose 50 pounds. A dour World War II Navy veteran, he was the only Cigna doctor with an open appointment, and I had some symptoms that needed checking out. “I had a man in here last week,” he … [Read More]
Perhaps the greatest compensation for trading cramped digs in Rome for a spacious house in the U.S. is that I have my beagles back. Susie and Franz-Josef are out back now, sniffing the trails of long-scampered squirrels, and howling merrily for blood. One advantage of living in New Hampshire instead of New York is that “out back” refers to the spacious … [Read More]
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