The 11th anniversary of the war in Syria passed earlier this month with little notice, eclipsed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But the two wars are intimately connected. It was Russia’s entry into the Syrian war in 2013, at the …
Inside Ukraine’s Tinder war
If you are impatient with the calibre of potential partners in your city, Tinder has a feature for you. For £18 a month, you can “passport” to another place; that is, you can set your location to anywhere in the …
How Pablo Picasso abused his muses
“Are we to paint what’s on the face, what’s inside the face, or what’s behind it?” Pablo Picasso once asked. Through the intersecting planes of his Cubism, the artist achieved all three, portraying himself as a god-like, omnipresent creator. But …
Sanctioning Russia could topple the West
The West, following the lead of the United States, has reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by introducing a “crippling” regime of sanctions. It is a “total economic and financial war” aimed at “caus[ing] the collapse of the Russian economy”, …
The fictional world of trans activism
When people say things like “transwomen are women”, “transmen are men”, and “nonbinary people are neither women nor men”, what do they mean? In my book Material Girls, I suggested that many of them are immersed in a fiction.
Getting …
California’s progressives are in retreat
“I’m asking myself, ‘What the hell is going on?’” said Gavin Newsom to the assembled cameras, “It looked like a third-world country.” California’s progressive governor was in his state’s largest city because of a piece of viral content: images of …
What will Russia’s oligarchs do next?
Russia’s loyal oligarchs have always been liable to become chess pieces in political struggles. After the revolution broke out in Petrograd in February 1917, the long-despised Romanov aristocracy were ruthlessly stripped of their property and most prized possessions. The people …
Vladimir Putin’s war on chaos
The ancient Greek word “chaos” means a chasm or void, and its opposite is “cosmos”, meaning the exquisite design of the world. Modern astrophysicists are struck by what they call the “fine-tuning” of the universe, a place which looks as …
American education’s new dark age
Some years ago, I taught a course in public writing at the Claremont colleges, the consortium of elite liberal arts institutions in Southern California. My students were juniors or seniors, mostly humanities or social science majors, almost all smart, a …
Wheat has corrupted humanity
“Beef & Liberty”. Such was the slogan of the 18th century London dining club, The Sublime Society of Beef Steaks. The carnivorous Regency gentlemen were sensible in associating the scoffing of sirloin with freedom and the rights of Britons. Food, …
How gender self-ID is being abused
I assumed Harvey Marcelin was an elderly woman guilty of some sort of financial crime when I first read the charge sheet. The Department of Corrections website describes a six-foot, black female, born in 1938, charged with defrauding the government.…
How Hollywood destroyed Michael Cimino
Of all the downfalls in Hollywood history, Michael Cimino’s haunts me the most, destroyed by his artistic ambitions in a corporate town whose rules he didn’t want to play by. Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich may come close, but they …
How Hollywood destroyed Michael Cimino
Of all the downfalls in Hollywood history, Michael Cimino’s haunts me the most, destroyed by his artistic ambitions in a corporate town whose rules he didn’t want to play by. Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich may come close, but they …
How Russia’s sanction-proofing failed
“How could our government have been so stupid?” one Russian acquaintance of mine wondered, after the West imposed sweeping sanctions that froze around $300 billion of the Russian government’s foreign exchange reserves held in Western banks.
Over the past few …
The origins of Eric Zemmour
“Long live France anyway.” Even in front of a 12-man firing squad, Robert Brasillach was never lost for words. The author and journalist turned his dying phrase (“Vive la France quand même”) into a sort of “whatever…” quip on 6 …