Taki's Daily Blog
A few weeks ago I attended a most wonderful party, with music, pretty girls, lotsa champagne--and even some people who did not move their lips while reading the labels of the expensive bubbly and scotch whiskey they were imbibing. Namely Tom Wolfe, Lewis Lapham, Graydon Carter, Edward Jay Epstein and other such New York swells. The occasion was Lapham’s Quarterly “About … [Read More]
It is indicative of the disastrous social trends that began in the 1960s, that we are now faced with the most odious kind of snobbery, that of celebrity, namely that of Barbara Walters and her memoirs. The fact that someone taught her to act--her mother or her public school teacher--constitutes child abuse to the nth degree. This Walters woman is the … [Read More]
NEW YORK--So there I was, at the Waverly Inn, Graydon Carter’s little toy that is the hottest ticket in the Big Bagel since two years, when the booth next to mine filled up with young people, all of them scruffy and dressed like the homeless, their girls rather plain and some of them even ugly. Par for the course, I thought … [Read More]
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the two main reasons for anti-Semitism in America are Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman. No sooner had an American, Ben-Ami Kadish, been charged with providing military secrets to Israel while he was serving in the United States army 23 years ago, Foxman expresses surprise that Uncle Sam would go after a spy and traitor. … [Read More]
The New York Times is not very pleased that the three Noo Yawk cops got off. I sympathize with the old bag. There’s nothing those pseudo-eggheads at the Times like better than seeing cops go to jail for defending us from the bad guys. The trouble is justice was served. I don’t wish to bore any of you who have read … [Read More]
NEW YORK—It obviously came from above, the order that is, because I have never seen such perfect temperatures and clearer skies than for the Pope’s visit. And this wonderful Pope, who believes in the strictest doctrine for the church, was greeted by the faithful like a rock star, cheered and applauded everywhere, with people yelling “Wilkommen” in Brooklyn accents and thousands … [Read More]
It was looking good, the merry month of May, forty years ago. I had been living in Paris for ten years, had just moved into a beautiful small farmhouse 10 miles west of the city, had recently become a bachelor again age 31, and had given up competitive tennis for polo and the Bagatelle polo club in the Bois de Boulogne. … [Read More]
“Unprecendented Israel snub for Jimmy,” screams the New York Post. Echoed by all three candidates, I might add, all three with a crippling and chronic reluctance to let Israel feel the rough edge of their tongue. It is called Realpolitik--utter a word against Likud policy and retire to your farm for the duration. This applies to all politicians in the … [Read More]
NEW YORK—Their memorials were held five days apart, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues, each one attended by more than two thousand worshipping fans, both attracting A-list mourners as well as the poor and the humble. William Buckley and Norman Mailer had great send-offs, the former, as a devout Catholic, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, on 5th Avenue, the latter, … [Read More]
Here’s how to win the war on terror. The British way. One of the world’s most dangerous terrorists is living on benefits (welfare) in Britain making close to two thousand dollars per month. Abu Qatada is one of Bin Laden’s favorite ambassadors to Europe, and his once-upon-a-time right-hand man, yet is now enjoying freedom and a life of Riley in merry … [Read More]