Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Saturday

Alex Massie

When Death Freezes Over…

From our UK edition

A fascinating and typically well-written piece by Kerry Howley about cryonics and death, published in the New York Times Magazine last week. It begins well and gets better: There are ways of speaking about dying that very much annoy Peggy Jackson, an affable and rosy-cheeked hospice worker in Arlington, Virginia. She doesn’t like the militant cast of “lost her battle with,” as in, “She lost her battle with cancer.” She is similarly displeased by “We have run out of options” and “There is nothing left we can do,” when spoken by doctor to patient, implying as these phrases will that hospice care is not an “option” or a “thing” that can be done. She doesn’t like these phrases, but she tolerates them.

Alex Massie

To 2015 And Beyond

From our UK edition

My word, the Daily Mail is a tender, easily-startled fawn. Here's James Chapman today: The Prime Minister raised the extraordinary possibility of a non-aggression pact between the Tories and the Lib Dems at the next election as he mounted his strongest defence yet of the coalition. Well, the Daily Mail may consider this "extraordinary"; readers of this blog should not. This is both a logical and necessary step along the road to a second term. This, mind, will be difficult to achieve even with Liberal Democrat support for a second coalition: it will require nerve and guts and luck. But, perhaps, it can be done.

Friday

Alex Massie

Montgomerie’s Law & the Coalition’s Future

From our UK edition

Tim Montgomerie makes a prediction: Call it Montgomerie's Law of the Coalition (launched in The Times (£)). This Coalition is heading for breakdown or it's heading Leftwards. The Left of the Liberal Democrats will demand an end to the Coalition if Nick Clegg doesn't get more and more concessions from David Cameron. If the Coalition fails it will be broken by Liberal Democrats in left-leaning constituencies. Think Scotland, Wales, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sheffield, Liverpool. Think Ming Campbell, Charles Kennedy, Simon Hughes. Well, maybe. And, sure, the government is not likely to tilt to the right. But that doesn't mean it can't maintain its current, moderate course.

Thursday

Alex Massie

First Past the Post Needs Better Defenders

From our UK edition

I'm far from being an enthusiast for electoral reform not least because, as I've said, I don't think electoral systems matter much. But, my word, the defenders of First Past The Post are doing their utmost to convince me that the Alternative Vote can't possibly put more fools in parliament than FPTP. Here, for instance is Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski, co-chairman of the "All Parliamentary Group for the promotion of first-past-the-post": First-past-the-post is tried and tested, simple, it brings about quick results, is relatively cheap, which given the economic mess left by Labour is an important consideration, and it allows voters to clearly demonstrate which party they feel should form the Government.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Questionable Claim of the Day

From our UK edition

From Jonathan Jones in the Guardian: Surely if the novel in English has a master now at the peak of his powers, it is Ian McEwan. It doesn't and he isn't. This follows an equally dubious claim: Any honest fan of modern fiction has to acknowledge the supremacy of American writers since the 1960s. For this particular British reader, to discover the novels of Philip Roth and Thomas Pynchon, in particular, was to be released from the tongue-tied mumblings of postwar English fiction into a new world of generous imaginative reach and exuberant language. Oh really?

Alex Massie

The Mobility Gap

From our UK edition

Growing inequality is, plenty of people agree, a problem. So what do you make of this chart from a Brookings Institute study from 2009? It's a US-centric chart of "relative mobility": This, via Jon Chait, comes from David Frum and is, in many respects, possibly the biggest issue of the age. I don't think this means we have to become Scandinavian - though remember that Denmark is also one of the most economically free countries on earth (according to the Cato Institute) but I'm not sure one can look at this sort of thing without wondering about some things. This, I concede, is an even bigger question for the left than the right (given that this is an evaluation conducted after 12 years of a Labour government) but the right has to take account of and grapple with it too...

Alex Massie

The Road to Hell is Paved with Cobblestones

From our UK edition

I'm not going to write about the Tour de France every day - just as I won't about the cricket season as soon as anything interesting or significant happens - but this was a great day in the Tour. Commenting on this post, Ronnie was right to suggest that a stage that involved a few kilometers over the cobblestones posed a risk that someone's Tour might end today. He was right: Frank Schleck is done. But that, brutally, is a small price for a superb race and, anyway, could have happened absent the pave too. There was a time and not so long ago that the racing in the first week was, well, a little dull. That's not been the case this year. Incentives matter in cycling as in anything else and now most of the contenders for the GC must attack when we (they) reach the mountains.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

The BBC and other Great British Anachronisms

From our UK edition

I suspect Rod Liddle's analysis of the BBC and, more especially still, the mentality of its top brass is acute and persuasive: My suspicion is that it will become increasingly difficult to justify a license fee when the balance of the BBC’s output is tilted so far in favour of populism and ratings chasing. This is the point I made to Alan; that times have changed, the market has changed and that no matter how fine a “product” Radio Five, say, or Strictly might be, they can easily be done elsewhere. You would have thought I’d suggested rogering his grandmother; there was an immediate bristling and a refusal to engage with the issue. Just a blanket denial that the corporation chases ratings, is stretching itself too thinly, etc etc.

Alex Massie

The Ethics of Cycle-Sadism

From our UK edition

Fabian Cancellara is one hell of a bike rider, but Sartacus blundered today. That's him on the left and in the Yellow Jersey reminding the peloton that they wouldn't race one another on the approach to the finish of Stage Two yesterday. This is what had happened: it was cold and wet and on the descent of the Stockeu some 30km from Spa there were multiple crashes. Armstrong and Contador both fell. So, most dramatically, did both Schleck Brothers. Conditions were, apparently, made still worse by petrol spilled from a motorbike that had itself fallen. The race was blown apart.

Monday

Alex Massie

DC & AV

From our UK edition

A droll post from Iain Martin on David Cameron's murky views on changing the voting system. It is possible, as Iain says, that Cameron's public position - he's in favour of keeping FPTP is, shockingly, also his private and unchanging view: Theory Three? Outlandish this one. Cameron is wedded to first-past-the-post, thinking of it as a system that has stood his party and country in good stead — putting the voters in charge rather than the political class meeting in semipermanent session to stitch-up the next coalition to protect its interests. (This seemed to be his view a few months ago). But to save the system, he has to con the Lib Dems into thinking that he’s not really trying to save it.

Alex Massie

The Liberal Unionist Club

From our UK edition

Welcome to the Liberal Unionist club, Fraser! It won't surprise regular readers that I think your latest post is spot-on. While we're taking names, let's also add John Rentoul to the list. His Independent on Sunday column this week concludes: This is where I think that Cameron is misunderstood. It seems to be generally assumed that, for him, the coalition is flag of convenience, hoisted to help navigate out of the tricky situation produced by the election. I think not. I think he sees it as a chance for a permanent change in favour of liberal conservatism, a label he has always been happy to apply to himself. The coalition is not merely an expedient to get him through to the next election, when the Tories can try again to win outright.

Alex Massie

Kids Like Playing Rugby. So They Shouldn’t Be Allowed To.

From our UK edition

This may be today's most infuriating "story": Rugby scrums should be banned in schools to protect children involved in a sport which is "not safe enough" for them, an expert has warned. Professor Allyson Pollock, director of Edinburgh University's Centre for International Public Health Policy, called for the ban after research into child injuries. The study was carried out during 190 rugby matches at five schools. There were 37 injuries recorded, with 20 taken to accident and emergency. The tackle was the "commonest phase of play causing injury" with the head and face the most injured body part, along with sprains or ligament damage. Prof Pollock, one of the study's authors, said: "High tackles and scrums should be banned.

Alex Massie

Ranking the Presidents

From our UK edition

Like Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Bernstein, I'm delighted that Ulysses S Grant's reputation is currently being revised and that, consequently, he's no longer thought of as one of the worst Presidents in American history. The latest Siena College poll of "presidential scholars, historians, and political scientists" puts Grant towards the middle of the pack in 26th place. Still too low but certainly a step in the right direction. As is always the case in such matters the Rushmore Four plus FDR take the top five spots though this time, for some inexplicable reason, Teddy Roosevelt has supplanted Lincoln and come in second, behind FDR.

Sunday

Alex Massie

Happy Independence Day, America

From our UK edition

A regrettable, discreditable business back in, you know, 1776 And All That. Nevertheless, happy Fourth to you all. To celebrate here's John Philip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, performed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the Albert Hall in 1976.

Friday

Alex Massie

The Stupidest Man in America

From our UK edition

Like Satan, Sodomy and Socialism, Soccer begins with an S. Obviously, then, it's un-American and likely to corrupt these great United States. Hats off to Marc Thiessen for scrawling the most absurd anti-soccer nonsense of the World Cup. At long last we have a winner: The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real reason soccer hasn’t caught on in the good old U.S.A. It’s simple, really: Soccer is a socialist sport. Think about it. Soccer is the only sport in the world where you cannot use the one tool that distinguishes man from beast: opposable thumbs. “No hands” is a rule only a European statist could love.

Alex Massie

The Prisoner’s False Dilemma

From our UK edition

Does prison work? I'm very pleased that John McTernan - who is one of the brightest and sanest of Labour buttons - is now ensconsed at the Daily Telegraph. Unfortunately he's not inoculated against daftness: Suddenly it’s become fashionable to see ending short term sentences as common sense. Alex Massie is the latest victim of this strange policy meme. He praises “the presumption that prison sentences of fewer than three months are generally to be avoided on the reasonable grounds that they don’t do much good for or to anyone”. This is quite an odd argument. You need to be a fairly bad person to get a prison sentence – however short – that does at least protect society.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Happy Birthday Canada! | 1 July 2010

From our UK edition

A shout-out to Canadian friends and readers on this, your national day. Another year passed: another year of peace and prosperity in the northland. Here's my friend Will Wilkinson writing about how he became an accidental Canadian: As the clock struck midnight on April 17, 2009, the Canadian citizenship of my Saskatchewan-born but subsequently naturalized American father was restored. And thus, thanks to Bill C-37, an amendment to the Canadian Citizenship Act, so was mine. Under its terms, all Canadians who had lost their citizenship when they took on a new nationality—i.e., Canadians like my dad, who became an American in June 1965—regained it, as did their first generation of offspring.

Alex Massie

Back to the West: Irish Economic Update

From our UK edition

A follow-up to this post on the Irish economy: our friends on the Emerald Isle are now officially out of recession. That's good news. The bad news? Unemployment remains above 13% and, if you exclude multinational corporations, the "indigenous" economy (if you can call it that) still hasn't recovered completely. The bleeding has slowed but the patient remains enfeebled. Nevertheless, overall the economy grew by 2.7% in Q1, assisted by the euro's decline agaist the pound and dollar. It's going to be some time before all is well but it's certainly possible that Irish Austerity, painful as it may be, is not proving a terrible failure. Then again, Ireland is helped, perhaps, by the fact and the memory that it's done this before.

Alex Massie

Al-Qaeda Does Vogue

From our UK edition

If this weren't posted by Marc Ambinder I'd think it must be a parody. It certainly has the feel of a Jihadi edition of The Onion. It is, however, supposed to be al-Qaeda's first English-language, glossy propaganda magazine. Obviously Inspire is the title you'd choose too and, frankly, who can resist the appeal of a feature headlined Make a Bomb In the Kitchen of Your Mom.[UPDATE: Ambinder considers the possibility that it's a parody here.] Ambinder says the US is a little worried by AQ's publishing ambitions, not least because they're aimed at native English-speakers. And perhaps they're right Nevertheless, this sort of caper also makes AQ seem somewhat ridiculous and, really, rather like a kind of terrorist version of Alan Partridge or something.