David P. Goldman

This just came over from the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith:A national campaign intended to educate the general public about Islam through a series of advertisements on buses, subways and billboards is tainted by the fact that a Web site related to the campaign links to sites that . . . . Continue Reading »

No, I am not being facetious. As I wrote in Asia Times Online this morning the Peter Pan syndrome among aging Americans is the source of the economic crisis, in two ways.Something astonishing had happened, compared to which the tulip bulb craze and the South Sea bubble seem like models of . . . . Continue Reading »

Writing in Newsweek July 9 Kathleen Kennedy Townsend argues that “Barack Obama represents American Catholic better than the pope does.” Of course, the pope is only the Bishop of Rome, whereas Obama is . . . . Continue Reading »

The American Jewish Committee’s latest press notes include the following item:July 3, 2009 - New York - AJC condemned the Spanish newspaper El Pais for publishing a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon accusing Jews of using their financial power to enable Israel to “violate...all human and . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter Oswald’s version of Friedrich Schiller’s “Mary Stuart,” whose run at New York’s Broadhurst Theater ends in mid-August, succeeds in making this 1801 warhorse of the German Classic crackle on a modern stage. Schiller (1759“1805) was guilty of historical distortions no worse than those in Cate Blanchett’s “Elizabeth” films, and his treatment of character is infinitely superior. At his best, no tragedian after Shakespeare surpasses him. “Mary Stuart” depicts the conflict between the Protestant Elizabeth and the Catholic Mary, quite differently from the two Blanchett films, which crawl with ominous Spaniards and lurking Jesuit assassins. It is noteworthy that the Catholic cause gets a more sympathetic look from a nineteenth century enemy of the Church than from twenty-first century Hollywood… . Continue Reading »

A few days before the appearance of the encyclical Caritas in Veritate, the following news item appeared:July 3 (Bloomberg) — Developing countries’ share of worldwide equity value climbed to a record as the fastest- growing economies lured investors amid the first global recession since . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonathan Swift proposed a profitable trade in the corpses of Irish children. That’s the rudimentary markets of the 18th century for you. Today we can do much, much better.Reuters ran the following item July 3:RIGA (Reuters) – Ready to give your soul for a loan in these difficulteconomic . . . . Continue Reading »

Having been trained as a musician, I am more suspicious of the arts in some ways than anyon else in this discussion, including David Layman. Arts depend ultimately on artifice, and the more one knows about the details of the artifice, the more tired it becomes. Once you’ve made the white tiger . . . . Continue Reading »

Diabolical! I hadn’t thought of this.Now that we have a viable hypothesis as to the nature of the problem, the question becomes: who invented this monster in the first place? Round up the usual suspects, say . . . . Continue Reading »

Rusty, I don’t think it is quite accurate to explain German anti-Semitism as a localist reaction to Jewish assimilation. You commented yesterday that Germans didn’t think assimilation “was possible, not because they denied that a stranger’s children and grand-children could . . . . Continue Reading »