Hitchens, making sense, as is his wont: She [Shaha] must indeed be happy to be dragged through the press as if she were some Levantine concubine or nontyping “secretary,” feathering a love-nest with ill-gotten gains. But that’s nothing to what Riza would have got if she had insisted on sticking to her original job, as… Continue reading
The Children of Hurin as it reads in the Silmarillion, is a great, dark, tale. Now, according to Salon, the full-length version finally put out by Tolkien’s son is well worth the wait: I came away from “The Children of Húrin” with a renewed appreciation for the fact that Tolkien’s overarching narrative is much more… Continue reading
Ralph Bennett at TCSDaily: Technology will always make it ever easier to live and die. And its “proper control” will continue to be the first refuge of those who find it difficult to believe, let alone deal with, the truth of an evil or demented mind, a dark heart, a hellishly bent soul and its… Continue reading
What a woman: She used to tend her garden in Connecticut wearing a bikini, without regard to ultraviolet rays and “those loathsome Lyme ticks.” Her husband — who, she said, “covers himself up as if he were going on a safari” — contracted Lyme disease anyway. Rest in peace.
Weekly Iraq update from Krauthammer: Fouad Ajami, just returned from his seventh trip to Iraq, is similarly guardedly optimistic and explains the change this way: Fundamentally, the Sunnis have lost the battle of Baghdad. They initiated it with their indiscriminate terror campaign that they assumed would cow the Shiites, whom they view with contempt as… Continue reading