Life Archives

Friday

January 9, 2026

The trouble with muzzled liberals

Liberalism has always considered itself a noble creed, as liberals have conceived themselves its knights in shining armor. Perhaps – once upon a time – it was so. But that was in the 18th and 19th centuries, and we are now living in an era when liberals have many fears: climate change, fascism, malefactors of great wealth (as Theodore Roosevelt called them), nativists, white men, Republicans, Donald Trump. Indeed, they are frightened of so many things that I have written a book ennumerating them – a book that so far remains unpublished, perhaps because the liberal publishers fear its argument, too. Still, having observed them for so many years, I

Ruaridh Nicoll

How to eat in Cuba

My apartment in Havana is on a rooftop overlooking the sea, which sounds grand and penthousey, but it’s not – it’s the former caretaker’s hut. It also sits above my parents-in-law’s place, which offers challenges, but does mean that most days I wander down for lunch. When I first moved in, I didn’t speak Spanish and so would enjoy these meals in ignorant bliss, smiling winningly as I guzzled down pork, rice and beans. I tried not to ask my now-wife to translate because I didn’t want to interrupt what I imagined were hugely erudite discussions; she’s a literary professor and her parents are both philosophers. Slowly, though, I began

Monday

December 22, 2025

Roger Kimball

Reflections on the Winter Solstice

According to the handy timeanddate.com website, the Sun rose over our patch of Long Island Sound today at 7:18 this morning. It will set this afternoon at 4:28. From beginning to end, we will enjoy 9 hours, 12 minutes and 53 seconds of full daylight (not counting the prefatory and subsequent periods of twilight) in this bit of New England today. That may seem like a gyp. In high summer, we get more than 15 hours of daylight. But look on the bright side. Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. We had just 9 hours, 12 minutes and 50 seconds of daylight. So you see today is fully three seconds

Wednesday

December 17, 2025

Peter Watson

The no-fly zone over Mar-a-Lago annoys locals

Whether President Trump really has solved six, seven or even eight wars, one conflict he can’t do anything about, for now at least, is the one in his hometown, Palm Beach, where he is partly responsible for tempers that are beginning to fray. This is all down not so much to Trump himself but to the Secret Service. Following their embarrassing failure to stop the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, when Thomas Matthew Crooks managed to nick the President’s right ear with a bullet, the Secret Service has doubled down on security and established a one-nautical-mile flight-free exclusion zone around Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s mansion to the south of

Chilton Williamson, Jr.

Do politics matter at all?

It is likely that the ordinary man, not being an ideologue, would agree as he grows older with Arthur Balfour’s famous epigram: “In politics nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.” This is only partly to do with sub specie aeterni, etc. For the rest, there is the simple recognition that politicians always make politics (and the questions and policies with which they concern themselves) out to be much more substantial and consequential than they actually are. The “democratic process” consisting of popular debate and involvement in the form of public demonstrations, solicitation of opinion by the polls and private and public organizations, print and electronic journalism,

Gage Klipper

A herd is like a high school

When you own a horse farm, the same question canters repeatedly through your mind: should I buy another horse? Rationally, you know the answer is no, but you inevitably wind up doing it anyway. Because in the grand scheme of things, it’s just one more head in the herd. The day-to-day of farm management doesn’t change much between 15 horses and 16. It takes some time to acclimate a new arrival, of course. A herd is like a high school: popular kids run the show, and the new blood always faces some bullying. But once he finds his place in the hierarchy, the routine proceeds as usual. And consistency is

Josie Cox

Hold on to your peppermint mochaccinos – the Rockettes are not from New York City

In some ways, it feels like I stepped off the plane at JFK from London mere days ago – wide-eyed, naive and still convinced that “winter” would be charming and cozy rather than a six-month endurance test in avoiding frostbite. Yet here I am, somehow entering my sixth year of participating in the annual pageant that is the New York holiday season: that weeks-long spectacle beginning with the first delicate whiff of PSL-something and ending in the far-too-slowly receding hangover on an insultingly arctic New Year’s Day. The first year, Covid-tinted and therefore emotionally reminiscent of a half-deflated Macy’s parade balloon, was not what one might call festive. But things

Suzanna Murawski

Inside the Inca ritual of child sacrifice

The children of Llullaillaco don’t look too different from the living children I’ve seen around Salta. They’ve got the same diamond-shaped faces, pecan-colored skin and straight, pitch-dark hair. Of course, the children of Llullaillaco are smaller, as people five centuries ago were wont to be – and dead. I’m talking about three Incan child-sacrifice mummies, estimated ages five, six and 15. As of about 25 years ago, they’re permanent residents of Salta, Argentina, the capital of a province of the same name in the country’s northwest. As the crow flies, the city isn’t that much closer to Buenos Aires than to Lima. Due west of Salta, in the Andes, is