Amanda Shaw

Last winter, Sarah Palin “had this penchant for really beautiful scarves,” recalls the woman who works down the hall in Anchorage. She was beginning her third trimester, and artfully concealing it from her colleagues and constituents. Maternity clothes can be cute, but Sarah . . . . Continue Reading »

In response to Keith in response to Stefan , on the rational moral efficacy of novel-reading, particularly in reference to men: “But you never read novels, I dare say?” [said Catherine] “Why not?” [replied Mr. Tilney] “Because they are not clever enough for . . . . Continue Reading »

A clever overview, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of last week’s poetry lesson . These amusingly mimetic lines are from ” Metrical Feet, a Lesson for a Boy “: Trochee trips from long to short; / v / v / v / From long to long in solemn sort. v / v / v / v / Slow Spondee stalks, strong . . . . Continue Reading »

I have to disagree , Joseph. Sarah Palin didn’t talk about abortion , and I don’t think she needed to. And it’s not just because everybody already knows her pro-life position (thanks, if nothing else, to the media’s harrumphing on that count), nor was it because she . . . . Continue Reading »

The 2008 Republican Platform was released by the RNC earlier this week, and it’s well worth skimming alongside the Democratic Platform for Change . Following are a few highlights on the life issues. “Maintaining The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life,” one section is titled in the . . . . Continue Reading »

She starred alongside Elvis Presley as the stunning teenage beauty in Loving You , and then again in King Creole , at the beginning of her short but phenomenal acting career. “Elvis was such a sweet, personable young man. He would always call me Miss Dolores. The only other persons who called . . . . Continue Reading »

Yesterday at the FT office, this Robert Frost poem came up in conversation. Technically masterful, with a regular but unusual metrical pattern, it is unrhymed and verbally simple yet laced together with a wistful lyricism that echoes between image and line. Joseph Bottum reads it as an uncommon . . . . Continue Reading »

When not editing an illustrious magazine, defining agenbites , or unraveling true-crime plots (cf. forthcoming FT), Joseph Bottum has been taking me through the history of the English novel. Pilgrim’s Progress (1676), Robinson Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722), Gulliver’s Travels . . . . Continue Reading »

From ZENIT this week, an interview with Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver on his new book, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life . “Nobody wants a theocracy,” says the archbishop, but if we do want democracy, we need a culture of . . . . Continue Reading »

The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at his moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, . . . . Continue Reading »