The NY Times weighs in on Bill Clinton’s memoir: “The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.” Ouch.

Apropos all the mania about James Joyce and the recent Blooms day, I think Edmund Wilson—over 80 years ago—got it exactly right, not just about Ulysses, but about Joyce himself: “Since I have read it, the texture of other novelists seems intolerably loose and careless; when I come suddenly unawares upon a page that I… Continue reading

While we’re at it, Allen also nicely points out some aspects of the Catholic Church’s real position on stem cell research which you won’t likely be reading about in the New York Times: —Pacholczyk organized his presentation in terms of what he called 10 “myths” in the debate over stem cells. They are: —1. Stem… Continue reading

John Allen, from Rome: “Resentment was compounded by perceptions of anti-American bias during the build-up to the war in Iraq. With Vatican Radio suggesting that the Bush administration wanted to expand American oil interests, and even the secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, asking out loud if the Americans had “learned anything from Vietnam,” some… Continue reading

I’ve enjoyed reading Mark Steyn in the past. But he has been known to play fast and loose with the facts. Dan Kennedy has caught up with him.