A collection of 201 posts
The abortion novels that proliferated in the late 1960s were filled with characters who are forced by carelessness and circumstance to make the most agonizing of personal choices.
On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine with the explicit goal of eliminating its existence as an independent country. Why was Russian President Vladimir Putin not deterred by the risk of a response from the West/NATO? This question requires a review of the fundamentals of conventional deterrence, neglected by the
I was a good friend of Harvey Weinstein during his early years as a concert promoter, before he became Harvey Weinstein, movie mogul. We subsequently drifted apart, and while Harvey went on to find astronomic success in Hollywood, I worked as the chief psychologist at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for
Encephalitis recovery often takes years, not months, and some patients never fully recover.
I have watched the culture here slowly change—the troubling values I fled so far from followed me like a sort of reverse Manifest Destiny.
History is complicated, people are complicated, and Schenker himself was a complex individual.
Sam Peckinpah’s ‘Straw Dogs’ at 50.
Frank Sinatra's “Come Fly With Me” was the best-selling album in the United States for five weeks in 1958, but the irony of its popularity (or, perhaps, the source of its aspirational appeal) is that practically none of us could take up the offer to "glide, starry-eyed&
A review of High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism by David S. Wills. Beatdom Books, 555 pages. (November 2021) I. In High White Notes, his riveting new biography of Hunter S. Thompson, journalist David S. Wills describes Thompson as America’s first rock star reporter and
Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.
A review of Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy by Batya Ungar-Sargon. Encounter, 312 pages. (October 2021) In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon, the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek (where, full disclosure, she has published two of my essays), argues that elite left-wing
Recent events in Nicaragua have caused stirrings of unease among many of Ortega's previously loyal US supporters, and in some cases, strident criticism.
Tech giants were slow to confront the regrettable purposes to which their platforms and systems were being put, preferring to single-mindedly pursue growth and profits.
It is unsettling to consider how similar today’s public cancellations are to those public executions.
Colorblind casting is precisely what it sounds like—the practice of filling roles in a play or film regardless of skin color.