Mother teresa

Tuesday

Jay Nordlinger

How Trump can win the Nobel Peace Prize

From our US edition

Openly, President Trump has expressed a desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize. This is understandable. It is “the world’s most prestigious prize.” That is the judgment of the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary World History. The prize is associated with some golden names: Albert Schweitzer, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa. All of those were Nobel peace laureates. Of course, Yasser Arafat was too. The history of the prize is messy, like history itself. Last month, the Pakistani government nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. That was for his intervention in the Pakistani-Indian clash over Kashmir. The Indians were less keen on his intervention, but that is another matter. A veteran Pakistani politician, Senator Mushahid Hussain, had a wry, realistic comment.

Trump

Friday

Antonia Fraser

The time I danced with Lyndon B. Johnson

From our US edition

There is general excitement among the legions of fans of A Dance to the Music of Time: next week a plaque to Anthony Powell will be placed on 1 Chester Gate, the London house where he started to write the many-volumed work of genius. I have a particular interest in attending, not only because Powell was married to my father’s sister Violet, but also because I took advantage of the relationship to lodge for several years in Chester Gate. This was when my parents chose to live maddeningly in Hampstead Garden Suburb and at the age of about seventeen I was beginning to go to parties. Go to them? But how to return? That was the problem. No taxi would go so far. I batted my eyes in vain. Fortunately, Violet was one of the kindest and most tolerant people I have ever encountered.

Johnson

Wednesday

Antonia Fraser

I’m glad Anthony Powell didn’t take my writing advice

There is general excitement among the legions of fans of A Dance to the Music of Time: next week a plaque to Anthony Powell will be placed on 1 Chester Gate, the house where he started to write the many-volumed work of genius. I have a particular interest in attending, not only because Powell was married to my father’s sister Violet, but also because I took advantage of the relationship to lodge for several years in Chester Gate. This was when my parents chose to live maddeningly in Hampstead Garden Suburb and at the age of about 17 I was beginning to go to parties. Go to them? But how to return? That was the problem. No taxi would go so far. I batted my eyes in vain. Fortunately, Violet was one of the kindest and most tolerant people I have ever encountered.

Thursday

Jessa Crispin

A podcast that listens to what anti-vaxxers think rather than lecturing them

Work is our new religion. There are people whose primary job is writing listicles of celebrity gossip, illustrated with gifs from the Fast & Furious franchise, who refer to being a writer as a ‘calling’. If I think about this for too long my brain simply shuts down to protect itself. What we used to do for God we now do for our work. In a secular culture, it seems totally normal — admirable, even — to sacrifice the possibility of having a family, to give up all leisure time, to starve yourself or live on insane, totally made-up diets like intermittent fasting or paleo for the sake of your job as an Instagram beauty influencer or whatever. But to wear a habit and be celibate and fast out of a religious devotion? That must be a cult!