Is Quillette Left, Right, or Center (and Does It Matter)?
Designed as a forum for psychologists, "Quillette" soon became, as "Politico" put it, “the unofficial digest” of the “intellectual dark web.” The phrase added a thrill to my spy chase.
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Inventing Anna for Ourselves
"Inventing Anna" was a Netflix triumph, scooping up 77.3 million hours of viewers’ time the week after its release. Critics were lukewarm, but the show was crack. And I am still trying to figure out why.
Why Positive Thinking Is Useless for the Poor and Dangerous for the Rest of Us
Self-regulation starts to look trivial, even pathetic, when most of your life’s shape is already colored in by circumstances that lie outside your control, and the surrounding society has already left you behind.
2016 Documentary Pertinent to Ongoing Russian Invasion
Screenshot from ‘Oleg’s Choice,’ Java Films Oleg’s Choice: A Personal Look at the Conflict in Ukraine (Java Films, 2016) is an insightful profile of two young Russian men, Oleg and Max, who volunteered to fight without pay in the Donbas after conflict erupted there in 2014. It…
Pharewell, Phil: Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)
On this day, the fortieth anniversary of his untimely death, I come to praise Philip K. Dick, not to bury him.
Cold War Finally Made Hot, and Not By Proxy
Soldiers from the Minnesota Army National Guard on an exercise with British, Polish, and Lithuanian forces, in the Suwalki Gap in southern Lithuania, 2017. The Gap has been called the new Fulda Gap. (Photo courtesy of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, Minnesota Army National Guard Public…
Remembering Robert Lowell on His Birthday
I was seduced by the tautness of his language and the grandiosity of his worldview.
The Drumbeat of War
At the times we most need to communicate calmly and comprehensively, we blur and obfuscate, posture and lie, or package the news in clichés. That is a telltale sign that the speech serves a private agenda, not the common and urgent need for clarity.
John F. Kennedy, the Fair-haired Catholic Boy of American Politics
John F. Kennedy was a twentieth-century man and a twentieth-century politician but he seemed like fresh air and change because of his youth and verve. Logevall’s biography adds to the literature that students and history buffs can use to judge for themselves.
Nothing Works for Everybody
What is a “good” night’s sleep, anyway? Like pornography, we know it when we experience it, waking happy and bright, stretching luxuriantly.