Helen Andrews

John Leonard, Reading for My Life : In 1947, a young American and a middle-aged Japanese climbed a tower in Tokyo to look at the bombed temple and the burned-out plain of the Asakusa. The 23-year-old American was the critic Donald Richie. The 48-year-old Japanese, wearing a kimono and a fedora, was . . . . Continue Reading »

The Moscovore has the buzz : Beekeepers throughout Russia are up in arms over the move of Moscow’s high-profile honey fair from prestigious Manezh Square in the capital’s downtown to a shopping mall on the outskirts of the city: a ruling that would appear to be yet another attempt by . . . . Continue Reading »

5. An IRA man named Ó Conaill always makes a point of drinking more whiskey than any Protestant he may be drinking with, but this policy makes him bad company: He has to go to the toilet every few minutes because he lost a bit of his bladder in a shootout with the RUC. 4. Kevin Myers, our . . . . Continue Reading »

There is a consensus that Reihan Salam is good at what he does, but what is that exactly? Take the blog that he writes for National Review , the Agenda . By what standard could we say that the Agenda is a good blog? You can’t go by accuracy, because Reihan assiduously avoids taking a firm stand . . . . Continue Reading »

A correction that the Harvard Crimson must be proud of: An earlier version of this article used the pronoun “she” to refer to Vanidy “Van” Bailey, the newly appointed director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life. In fact, Bailey prefers not to be . . . . Continue Reading »

Retired general Wesley Clark has been in the news twice this month, first for announcing his intention to  explore for coal  in Kosovo—the country he midwifed with bombs back in his NATO days—and now for agreeing to co-host an NBC reality show called  Stars Earn Stripes . . . . . Continue Reading »

How can you govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?  Cheese robots . Get on their good side now, or you’ll wish you had. . . . . Continue Reading »

John Huston’s long-suppressed documentary about post-WWII PTSD will finally be made available on the web today. When the War Department banned it from civilian circulation in 1946, James Agee wrote, “I don’t know what is necessary to reverse this disgraceful decision, but if . . . . Continue Reading »

This letter appeared in the winter issue of  American Speech in 1948, when Paul Fussell was 24 years old and a master’s student at Harvard. . . . . Continue Reading »

The editors of The Weekly Standard slapped the title “The New Phrenology” on Andrew Ferguson’s cover article debunking liberal psychopundits who claim conservatism is a DSM-grade mental disorder. Actually, Chris Mooney et al. are technically the New New New New Phrenologists, . . . . Continue Reading »