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Christmas Day, 2016
New York, the home of those who wander farFrom home, fleeing charming ghosts, or else inSearch of…
Political Animals
I heard about about Bernie Sanders’s November stop in Boston from my conservative friends. Asked by a…
Imposing Order
In his The Undoing Project (205-8), quotes two lengthy passages from a 1972 lecture by Amos Tversky…
Psych Tests
Two test questions from Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project (184-5, 192-3). Q. In a family of six…
The Iago Problem
Reflecting on Daniel Craig’s recent performance as Iago, Tamsin Shaw puzzles over the “Iago problem” in a…
Accidental Empire
In a TLS retrospective on Kipling, Michael Holroyd notes the obvious: “By the time he won the…
Shakespeare’s Oaths
In her TLS review of John Kerrigan’s Shakespeare’s Binding Language, Emma Smith calls attention to the liturgical…
Beware the Smuggler
A delicious 1964 poem from Norman MacCaig (Poems of Norman MacCaig, 165), entitled “The Smuggler”: Watch him…
Of Swedes and Indians
Religion News Service reports on a Pew survey of the religious makeup of the 115th Congress: “Nearly…
Irony of Episcopal History
Allen Guelzo observes in his history of the Reformed Episcopal Church that historians of American Episcopalianism are…
Distance and Decision-Making
Michael Lewis is the writer every writer wants to be. Every book since Liar’s Poker has been…
He Did Not Know Her
Joseph did not know his wife until she gave birth to a Son (Matthew 1:25). Why not?…
Shūsaku Endō’s Silence and Faithfulness
Readers of First Thoughts will know by now that Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Silence by Shūsaku Endō…
Urban Utopia
Eric Gilchrest (Revelation 21-22 in the Light of Jewish and Greco-Roman Utopianism) suggests that the conclusion vision…
Watchers
The angelic “guards” at the gates of the new Jerusalem are, argues Margaret Barker (Revelation of Jesus…
