Browser Daily Newsletter 1257
They Come Here, Taking Our Jobs
Hopi Sen | New Statesman | 10th March 2014
They work for less money. They drive up the cost of housing. They consume public services and crowd the roads. They have strange habits, intrusive music, odd ways of dressing. They don't understand what Britain used to be like before they came along. And there are so many of them. Immigrants? Perhaps — but also young people. And everything that we value in young people, we should also value in immigrants (1,330 words)
Why Does Test Cricket Run In Families?
David Papineau | More Important Than That | 9th March 2014
Cricketing countries are "replete with test dynasties" — the Mohammads, Khans, Manjrekars, Roys, Hadlees, Headleys, Chappels, Pollocks. Genetics at work? Perhaps, but more probably environment. "Even in sports that don’t require extreme physical attributes, family patterns will be favoured to the extent that (a) the necessary skills are hard to learn and (b) youngsters aren’t all exposed to the necessary training" (1,720 words)
Bach Psychology: Gothic, Sublime, Or Just Human?
Michael Markham | LA Review Of Books | 10th March 2014
Bach is "the official center of gravity that binds together the musical universe". John Eliot Gardiner's recordings are models of "sleekness, clarity, momentum, almost superhuman precision". But Gardiner's new book, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, is a "messy concoction of the spiritual and the psychological". The composer emerges as an "orphaned, death-obsessed, outlaw, non-conformist, sullen misfit" (6,920 words)
Petrenko’s Elgar 5/3/14 Review
Neil Atkinson | The Anfield Wrap | 6th March 2014
Football writer reviews classical music concert; with pleasing results. "But the Elgar. Crashing Elgar. What did I hear? Well I definitely heard. I heard a great many aspects at the most spectacular volume, crashing in and out of each other. By Christ it is loud when it wants to be. Across the four movements, it was vigorously wistful if such a thing is possible. It confronted its reality but still wants to strive for more" (1,060 words)
Let Crimea Go
Eric Posner | Slate | 10th March 2014
The Russian-sponsored referendum on sovereignty over Crimea is "underhanded, dishonest, absurd — and completely legitimate". If Crimeans "vote overwhelmingly to join Russia", then any Western effort to stop them will be seen as "a violation of their right to self-determination". The West can "sympathize with Ukraine"; but Ukraine's title to Crimea is recent, whereas Crimea's ties to Russia "go back centuries" (1,200 words)
Video of the day: At Home With Roz Chast
Thought for the day:
"All language can be considered as names for unspeakable entities" — Alfred Korzybski
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