Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

Shambo RIP

It's official. A nation mourns. Mr Eugenides strikes a mournful, plangent note: Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy T-bone,Silence the tambourines and with muffled drumsBring out the burger buns, let the ketchup come. Let cattle trucks circle moaning round the barnScribbling in the dirt the message, Shambo Is Dead,Put mournful garlands round the white necks of the temple monks,Let the government veterinarians wear black rubber gloves...

Alex Massie

Flipper Romney stumbles onto truth…

Romney in Iowa: "America is not happy with how the war in Iraq   is going, and is angry. But America is not about to take a sharp left turn and put somebody in the White House who would turn America into a European-type state." This is true in as much as no candidate is running on a platform that proposes turning the good ol' US of A into a namby-pamby European state. Romney's antipathy to europe is quite something. Enmity toward France, where Romney did his Mormon mission during college, is a recurring theme of the [campaign strategy] document. The European Union, it says at one point, wants to "drag America down to Europe's standards," adding: "That's where Hillary and Dems would take us. Hillary = France." The plan even envisions "First, not France" bumper stickers.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Shambo to the Slaughter? For shame!

A couple of days ago I mentioned the heart-tugging story of Shambo, the Heroic Hindu Bull in west Wales threatened with execution simply because he's contracted TB. This is just the sort of story the British press, bless it, loves: peaceful Hindus, a placid animal, heartless bureaucrats, death, grim gallows humour...It's the perfect silly season story. And indeed, a Google News search reveals brings up 761 stories concerning Shambo's plight. According to a wire report, the latest exciting developments include: The plight of Shambo, a bull at the Skanda Vale monastery in Wales, was captured in real-time drama as the monastery launched an Internet campaign to save his life. A Webcast called Moo Tube was tracking the movements of the flower-garlanded bull in his hay-filled shrine.

Alex Massie

In which it’s a small, small world…

Heaps and heaps of stuff has been written on the historic/revolutionary/awesome CNN/YouTube debate on Monday night. But what are the odds that you'd see and old friend from college days in Ireland pop up to ask one of the questions? Slim, I'd say. Yet it happened. Lucia Brawley, with whom I appeared in productions of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood and Heiner Muller's Hamlet Machine had her question selected by the CNN bods. Weird proof of the smallness of the world and all that, given that one ain't seen her since those bright college days at Trinity College...

Alex Massie

The School for Scoundrels

On Turkey's lobbying to prevent Congress recognising the Armenian genocide, TNR's Mike Crowley notes that people such as Dick Gephardt, who once supported the Armenian cause, now bat for the Turks: Even in modern Washington, where it's taken for granted that everyone has their price, flip-flopping on genocide has the ability to shock.

Alex Massie

Shock troops latest:

Much gnashing of teeth in conservative circles over a TNR piece written by a soldier in Iraq that catalogues various episodes of unsavoury behaviour in Iraq. The Weekly Standard has been especially indignant, laughably accusing TNR of failing to support the troops and suggesting that Pvt Scott Thomas Beauchamp's piece was entirely fabricated. Other conservatives went so far as to suggest that Beauchamp was not even a soldier. Bill Kristol's startlingly dishonest Weekly Standard editorial argued (to use the term loosely) that: "...what is revealing about this mistake is that the editors must have wanted to suspend their disbelief in tales of gross misconduct by American troops. How else could they have published such a farrago of dubious tales?

Alex Massie

Department of missing the point completely

Good grief. Jonah Goldberg makes this argument: I think, even if broadly accurate, Frank made a mistake in running these pieces because they aren’t up to the standards of his magazine and they advance an argument I don’t think the New Republic should be making. Liberals don’t want to beat up on the troops anymore, they want to enlist them as victims.  The subtext of the pieces is that the war has made American soldiers evil or at least put holes in their souls. But, at this point at least (and I would argue always), I think it’s pretty clear that even if true, Beauchamp’s experience is not representative. But, lacking editorial rebuttal of any kind, the editors of the New Republic seemed to want people to think it is.

Alex Massie

The Greatest Non-Reader of Them All

As a coda to yesterday's posts on Not Reading Books, it was remiss of me not to quote the man who may make a decent claim to being the greatest newspaper columnist of the 20th century. I refer, of course, to Myles na Gopaleen ("Myles of the Ponies") better known to posterity by one of his other pseudonyms, Flann O'Brien.  Here's his solution to the reading problem:THE WORLD OF BOOKSYES, this question of book-handling. The other day I had a word to say about the necessity for the professional book-handler, a person who will maul the books of illiterate, but wealthy, upstarts so that the books will look as if they have been read and re-read by their owners. How many uses of mauling would there be? Without giving the matter much thought, I should say four.

Alex Massie

Department of Dangerous Books

Does this sorry tale demonstrate a) the dangers of reading, b) the extraordinary idiocy of local government or c) both? I'd say it was extraordinary except for the fact that nothing local nincompoop politicians do should cause so much as a raised eyebrow these days. WILKES-BARRE, Pa., July 25 A bookstore owner's obsession with the written word has cost him his Pennsylvania home after local officials deemed his book collection a fire hazard. Authorities in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., condemned John Puchniak's apartment this year when a routine inspection raised concern the bookstore owner's collection of nearly 3,000 texts could cause a fire, The (Wilkes-Barre) Times Leader reported Wednesday.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

French Pro-Americanism

David Frum is joking, right? I will never take Europeans seriously again (not that I took them so seriously in the first place) when they complain about the American gun lobby. I just discovered that the local tobacconist in the small touristy French town in which we are currently stopping has sold my 13-year-old son and his 10-year old cousin 25 Euros worth of roman candles, bottle rockets, firecrackers, and miniature explosives shaped like tanks. And a lighter. Parfaitment legal.

Alex Massie

The unread

Perhaps only a French professor of literature could write a book entitled How to Talk About Books You Have Not Read. Professor Pierre Bayard's book became a best-seller in France this year, and one can see why. After all, a book that promises to lift the oppressive guilt one feels at not having tackled many of the giant literary peaks has a lot to be said for it. At the very least this guilt leaves one feeling somewhat inadequate, especially when one compares the amount of reading done by one's forbears (who admittedly didn't have the distractions of television or cinema or a thousand other things and, equally, for the lucky few, could rely upon servants to relieve them from much of the drudgery of ordinary life. But still...) As the TLS notes, Bayard suggests that: "in order to . . .

Alex Massie

Cheney Derangement Syndrome

This is, perhaps, the funniest thing I've read all year. Possibly this century. Reviewing Steve Hayes' biography of Dick Cheney, Ira Stoll dreams of a Cheney run for the Presidency. Yes, really. The book quotes Senator McCain as saying, "Dick doesn't like campaigning." Nothing in the Hayes book suggests that Mr. Cheney is about to do it — except for that the vice president spent nearly 30 hours cooperating with the author and apparently gave the okay for many of his friends and colleagues to grant similar access. The Richard Cheney described in this book isn't vain enough to do that simply for his reputation in history. My own guess — okay, hope — is that Mr. Cheney has taken a look at the Republican presidential field and sees an opening.

Alex Massie

Remembrance of Time Wasted

On the subject of not reading books, commenter Jim Barnett has an excellent idea: How about a new category: LR, for "Livres que je regrette d'avoir lus" - books I have regretted reading. I'd put Nabokov in that category - "The Gift" was just the sort of prissy, self-satisfied blather that I had always suspected Nabokov had produced. I should have known better and left it as an LE [a book you have heard discussed], but I foolishly took it on a trip and got stuck reading it.

Alex Massie

Stephen Potter’s Guide to Reading

Megan links to the now almost famous Not Reading post and recalls a conversation we had: Me:  I've never read Camus in English. Alex:  That's brilliant!  I'm going to use that. Me:  "I've never read Camus in English?" Alex:  No, like this:  "I've never read Camus in English" . . .   That way I don't have to tell them I've never read Camus in French, either. Grand stuff. My recollection, however, is subtly different: Megan:  I've never read Camus in English. Alex:  That's brilliant!  I'm going to use that. Megan:  "I've never read Camus in English?" Alex:  No, like this:  saying "I've never read Camus in English" carries the implication that you have read Camus in French.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Beckham and Azharuddin…

Just recovering from a 21 hour Istanbul-Washington trip (thanks American Airlines), so still catching up with correspondence and the like. Still, here's a piece I wrote for The New Republic defying the (emerging) conventional wisdom - at least amongst some soccer snobs - that Beckham's arrival is the beginning of the end for US soccer. Of course, it's also the case that, psychologically, some American soccer fans fear what might happen to their game if it really takes off (I argue that it has already taken off). Can soccer survive American interest?

Alex Massie

Three cheers for the Tories. Yes, really.

David Cameron is receiving some grief for zipping off to Rwanda to talk about the Tories' new policies on global poverty, leaving behind the whines of some that he is ignoring his flooded constituents so-called plight. Well, too bad. Cameron had a good, welcome message to deliver in Kigali: Tory leader David Cameron has called for an end to trade barriers that put developing countries at an "unfair disadvantage", during a trip to Rwanda. He said all rich countries should end trade tariffs unilaterally and British aid spending should be speeded up. Launching a policy group's report on global poverty, he said trade rules were "immoral". The group's proposals, which may or may not be adopted as Tory policy, include making aid spending more "transparent".

Alex Massie

By Galata Bridge I sat down and fished…

Marginal Revolution's Alex Tabarrok writes: "On the famous Galata bridge fisherman cast from the top level while outdoor restaurants line the walkway below.  The fishermen's lines are hard to see so dining at dusk you are surprised when silvery fish, glittering in the last light of the sun ascend to the sky as if swimming to the heavens." Well, I was on the Galata Bridge on Sunday, watching these fellows cast their lines into the Golden Horn. I don't munch fish anyway, but even if I did would I want to consume fish that swam in these waters? More, and possibly slightly deeper observations on a week in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and in Istanbul will follow over the next few days.

Alex Massie

Shambo, the Heroic Hindu Bull…

Mr Eugenides, guest-blogging in fine style at Jewcy, fills you in on the sad yet stirring story of Shambo, South Wales' latest celebrity. Read all about how bureaucrats are doing their best to slaughter this sacred, er, bull, here.

Alex Massie

In case you’re wondering, my childhood pony did help me prepare for 9/11…

Ah, Rudy, is there any limit to your shamelessness? Apparently not. In Iowa, the great ham has this to say: After about 10 minutes of prepared remarks, Giuliani began taking questions.  Asked about increasing federal support for HIV medications, Giuliani discussed what he considers appropriate federal responsibility in health care. "I don't want to promise you the federal government will take over the role," he said, drawing applause and shouts of "all right."  Then, in some interesting twists, he turned the HIV question into a 9/11 answer: "My general experience has been that the federal government works best when it helps and assists and encourages and sets guidelines… on a state-by-state, locality-by-locality basis.