Joseph Bottum

Actually, Amanda, I think I said those lines from Robert Frost were hendecasyllabics , not hexameters . Or I may have misspoken. Regardless, hendecasyllabic they are, the eleven-syllable line passing into English ultimately from Latin. Here, for example is the meter of Horace’s alcaic stanza . . . . Continue Reading »

Sarah Palin was a nervy choice for John McCain’s vice-presidential nominee, and— nervy being right on the edge of the nerves—it makes me edgy. Palin has a lot of possibilities, which is another way of saying that the public’s perception of her could break either way. There is . . . . Continue Reading »

Last night, Ramesh Ponnuru made the interesting suggestion that Joseph Biden, the Democrats’ likely vice-presidential nominee, might never have been much of a pro-lifer. Yes, the senator from Delaware done some flip-flopping on related issues: “Years after supporting an amendment that . . . . Continue Reading »

I America was Methodist, once upon a time—Methodist, or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, or Episcopalian. A little light Unitarianism on one side, a lot of stern Calvinism on the other, and the Easter Parade running right down the middle: our annual Spring epiphany, crowned in . . . . Continue Reading »

My friend John Wilson, the editor of Books & Culture , knows about my recent obsession with Mars , and so he asked me to review a science-fiction book about a flight to the planet, which I was glad to do. I’m not sure, however, that he was glad to receive the review, since I used it as an . . . . Continue Reading »

My friend Stanley Kurtz writes about being locked out of the special collections at the library of the University of Illinois in Chicago. He’d attempted to look at open records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, as part of his quest to determine the connections between ex-Weatherman Bill . . . . Continue Reading »

National Review is reporting that officials in the McCain campaign are calling state Republican officials around the country to gauge how much support they would lose if McCain named a pro-choice politician as his vice-presidential running mate. National Review ‘s editorial today lays out . . . . Continue Reading »

A notice in the New York Times on Saturday: Correction: August 16, 2008. An article on Friday about the planned construction of two large solar power installations in California described incorrectly the operation of the solar panels in one, to be built by SunPower. Its panels pivot from east to . . . . Continue Reading »

I have spoken before about my friend, Manolo the Shoe Blogger . Well, I call him my friend, though, in fact, we’ve only exchanged emails. But he is a brilliant writer who has established, for his blogging, the faux voice of an Italian fashion obsessive whose English is much worse than he . . . . Continue Reading »

A belated note about fine reporting in the Boston Globe back in June: Alex Beam’s “Grave Schism on the Death Beat,” an account of the rival factions in the International Association of Obituarists. This year, the splinter group will meet in Toronto, while “the . . . . Continue Reading »