An innovative new film asks why four young men risked prison to steal rare books from a Kentucky university library. “‘Growing up, I had a desire for some kind of life-altering experience,’ the real-life Spencer explains. The character Spencer makes a similar point early in the film, asking Warren whether he shares the feeling of ‘waiting for something to happen but you don’t know what it is? But it’s that thing that could make your life special?’”
In defense of Oliver Cromwell: “Cromwell, the man who ‘abolished Christmas’ was in some ways a pioneer of religious toleration.”
Who is the world’s worst popular president? “Probably the foul-mouthed, gun-toting septuagenarian president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. His most recent approval rating was 88 per cent, rising to 91 per cent among the poorest Filipinos. How does he do it? By indiscriminately rubbing out supposed bad guys – and if some of them do actually turn out to be criminals, so much the better. Insulting all and sundry seems to help too. He recently had a pop at God himself, who is a ‘stupid … son of a bitch’ in the president’s considered opinion. And all that in a country that remains deeply Catholic.”
Carl Rollyson reviews TR’s Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, The Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy: “His own ambition colored everything he said and did. This vociferous man, unafraid or imprudent—depending on your political position—did not want to play the part of elder statesman. And he saw no virtue in remaining silent, even though his increasingly virulent attacks on Wilson aroused recurring questions about Roosevelt’s own mental health.”
The longlists for the National Book Award have been announced. It’s nice to see the return of a category for works in translation. Otherwise, the lists are uninspiring. Finalists will be announced on October 10th.
The rehabilitation of famous men acting badly has begun. Last week, John Hockenberry, who lost his radio job after he was accused of sexual harassment by several women, took to Harper’s to portray his actions as a clumsy attempt at romance. This weekend, The New York Review of Books published an essay by Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi, who has been accused by more than 20 women of sexual or physical assault, explaining that, really, he’s suffered enough: “There has indeed been enough humiliation for a lifetime. I cannot just move to another town and reboot with a pseudonym. I’m constantly competing with a villainous version of myself online. This is the power of a contemporary mass shaming. Even people who are supportive sometimes have expectations of how I will act based on a singular, sexualized identity that was repeated in media stories. But this period has also been a tremendous education.”
At Slate, Laura Miller tries to put her finger on what bothers her about both pieces: “Ghomeshi has mastered the lingo of contemporary progressive gender politics, and he knows better than to present himself the way Hockenberry does, as a clumsy, misinterpreted suitor. He acknowledges that he ‘began to see [his] own actions as part of a systemic culture of unhealthy masculinity,’ and portrays himself after the fall as benefiting, despite his extensively detailed sufferings, from ‘a crash course in empathy.’ He’s listening, though signs of actually absorbing what he’s heard remain scant. Like Hockenberry, he affirms his commitment to feminism and broods over the mental list he keeps of former friends and colleagues who ditched him when he was down. Both men take pains to point out the aspects of their identities that make them targets of discrimination. (Hockenberry is disabled; Ghomeshi is of Iranian descent.) Both admit that their successes made them full of themselves and convinced them that they could get away with treating others however they pleased. While Ghomeshi never mentions therapy, the post-downfall insights he presents reek of it: ‘If the opinion of others is how you define yourself, what happens when all of the outside props of status—the ratings, the followers, the social media likes—are torn away overnight? Who are you?’ Why are these protracted confessions so unsatisfying?”
Essay of the Day:
In American Affairs, Allen C. Guelzo argues that Reconstruction was a failure. Still, it offers lessons for today:
“For that Reconstruction to have been a success, we should have found a way to redistribute ex-Confederate-owned land to freed people, disfranchised the old Southern ruling class, and (as Ulysses Grant finally concluded) established a military occupation regime of at least forty years (in other words, an occupation similar to that employed against Japan and Germany after World War II). But we did not: we had no lesson book to show us that this was the way, and a distaste for proceeding in that fashion, and the result was the payment of a high price. Before we embark on any similar projects in regime change, we should take a leaf from our own history book to learn how not to do a Reconstruction.”
Photo: The best photo from the 2017 total eclipse (and the story behind it)
Poem: Ryan Wilson, “Philoctetes, Long Afterward”
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