Writing Worth Reading
Last updated 7 am GMT
Writing Worth Reading
What do you say when your son has killed 15 people? "Moscow was filling up with foreigners. At home there was discussion over whether violence was necessary or not. I was always against it. It is only now that I agree with him"
Revisiting John Rawls, his two principles of society. No 1: "Everyone should have indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties." No 2: Inequalities "are to be to the greatest benefit of least-advantaged"
On the importance of tribalism in the Arab Gulf states. Usually used by those in power to create bonds of loyalty; occasionally used by tribal alliances against rulers. Either way it's antithetical to a civil, democratic state
Why don't American fiction writers engage with what America is doing in the world? "The unmanned drone hovering over Pakistan, controlled by someone in Langley, is an apt metaphor for America’s imaginative engagement with my nation"
If you're a Venezuelan in US major league baseball, you'd better be ready to buy some security at home. Family members get kidnapped for ransom. And so, now, might you. It happened to Wilson Ramos of the Washington Nationals
Social history of the cruise ship industry, from the 1960s to the wreck of the Costa Concordia. Ships as "giant floating theatrical bubbles" in which ordinary people could behave for a while as though they were upper class
Republican challengers are turning this campaign into "one of the most race-soaked in recent history". It's all in the "dog-whistling"—"the use of coded, ambiguous language to appeal to the prejudices of certain subsets of voters"
Compelling tour d'horizon of political, social, economic turmoil. Is this a "50-year moment" where crisis leads to protectionism, economic nationalism, de-globalisation? Or could it be something much bigger – a 500-year event?
US colonel writes to former slave, requesting he return to work. Former slave replies, in some style. Signs off with: "Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me"
On Charles Murray's book, "Coming Apart": "The word 'class' doesn’t even capture the divide Murray describes. You might say the country has bifurcated into different social tribes, with a tenuous common culture linking them"
Remember the case of the Rutgers student, Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after his roommate allegedly filmed him having gay sex and broadcast it online? This monumental reconstruction suggests it wasn't that straightforward
Japan is "the most culturally cosmopolitan country on Earth". Artists, cooks, craftsmen seek ideas globally, perfect products locally. "The best of everything can be found here", including espresso, jeans, bread, jazz, pizza
Image by Heart & Soul on Flickr
"As we all know from our Blackberries, work invades leisure; but as we also all know from our iPhone, leisure invades work"
