This article was first published in The eXile on October 4, 2007 Robert McCrum’s biography of P.G. Wodehouse was published in 2004. At the time, I ignored it. I know the formula for these bios. You won’t catch me sanctioning…
Posted on: November 12th, 2011 | Comments (7)
The first rule of debate: Never accept your opponent’s characterization of his own position. But for decades, liberals–in their perpetual Nerf-war against conservatives–have done just the opposite. While conservatives bloviate about traditionalism (Buckley), skepticism (Burke), sobriety (Taft), and order (Mill),…
Posted on: November 1st, 2011 | Comments (95)
There’s a book out about Rin Tin Tin, the old dog-star of Hollywood, by that stuck-up New Yorker hack Susan Orlean. She’s best-known for writing the bestseller The Orchid Thief, which got adapted by lofty screenwriter Charlie Kaufman into a…
Posted on: October 28th, 2011 | Comments (54)
My idea of a Norwegian was always some cheerless Social Democrat in a knit sweater whose greatest joy in life was comparing the price of beer in Prague (cheap) to the price of beer in Krakow (even cheaper). Then I…
Posted on: July 23rd, 2011 | Comments (90)
I’ve often wondered why the American Right has been so quiet about V.S. Naipaul. He’s easily the most talented reactionary writer in the English language–maybe the only living talent left in the right-wing zombiesphere. The American Right devotes an insane…
Posted on: July 1st, 2011 | Comments (95)
I’ve decided to write a sequel to my piece about DFW and American drug lit, and talk about how five Aussie writers have handled the same topic. But don’t worry, most of these people have been published in the US…
Posted on: June 8th, 2011 | Comments (29)
From The eXiled’s Special Australasia Correspondent PERTH, AUSTRALIA–First, the Right accused WikiLeaks of endangering US soldiers and Afghan informers. Then after “Cablegate” the neocons conceded to the lack of evidence and switched to the opposite tactic: insisting there was nothing…
Posted on: March 2nd, 2011 | Comments (73)
Listen to the Radio War Nerd podcast [subscribe here] with guest Gunnar Hrafn Jonsson of Iceland Public Radio on the massacre in Orlando and how online Islamic State jihadis are dealing with battlefield defeats and the shrinking caliphate. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd through the show’s Patreon page.
The political establishment’s racist, authoritarian reaction to the 1992 LA riots—blaming broken black families, massing cops and troops, and Ron Paul’s advice to his family on how to kill black “animals” and get away with it…
You’re gonna have to give me the weekend off. I moved yesterday. To a new town, new job. Trusted Google Maps to get me there. Don’t ever do that. That’s what I think must have happened to that famous lost…
Something’s been going on in Syria for a while now. I’ve already written about the Deraa protests as an example of the big role guerrilla funerals play in irregular war, but it’s time to look at the more general prospects…
Years ago I got an angry email from somebody claiming to be in one of the Baltic militaries. Whoever he was, he wrote in grammatically perfect English so he just had to be from Northern Europe. We can’t talk English…
Before I confess how wrong I was about a big issue, I’ll give myself a little pat on the head for being right about a much smaller deal, the Afghan jailbreak I talked about two days ago.
There are times when you look back and wish you’d had the courage to say what you were thinking. With me it’s a spotty record: Sometimes I do, but more often I wimp out. I wish now I’d said the…
You can’t keep a good Talib down. Or in jail, apparently.
Last Sunday I was grumbling about how there are so many great books about war and not that many great war movies. That got a lot of readers lobbing in their suggestions for good war movies. One reminded me that…
