I have just finished writing a draft review of Lee Fang‘s The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right (New York: The New Press, 2013); it will appear shortly in The Washington Spectator. As I read Fang’s depressing history of the corporate-funded ‘New Right’ that has derailed the Obama presidency, looked over its roguesContinue reading “Aristophanes’ Sausage-Seller and the Tea Partier”
Author Archives: Samir Chopra
Ross Douthat is Feeling Sorry for Bigots
Ross Douthat doth protest too much: I am being descriptive here, rather than self-pitying. I have news for you, Ross: you are being self-pitying. This bemoaning a straightforward victory for common-sense–the vetoing of Arizona’s benighted SB1062–is a particularly pathetic exercise . An entire Op-Ed to tell us bigots are on the run, and will be ‘forced’Continue reading “Ross Douthat is Feeling Sorry for Bigots”
The Killing and Vigilante Justice
There are two instances of vigilante justice in The Killing‘s first season: Bennett Ahmed is brutally beaten by Stan Larsen and Belko Royce, and Councilman Darren Richmond is shot and critically wounded by Royce. Both victims were suspects in the murder of Rosie Larsen; both have been mistakenly accused, a fact that makes their fates particularly poignant.Continue reading “The Killing and Vigilante Justice”
On Visiting a Prison
I first saw a jail–and its inhabitants–as a child. Our family car had been broken into and some of its contents stolen, so we drove to a police station to file a report. While seated in the waiting room outside the police officer’s den, I could see what must have been a holding cell, occupiedContinue reading “On Visiting a Prison”
Social Media From Beyond the Grave
Charles Simic describes an ingenious and profitable aspiration for immortality: [The] poet Mark Strand…told me excitedly one day that he had invented a new kind of gravestone that….would include…a slot where a coin could be inserted, that would activate a tape machine built into it, and play the deceased’s favorite songs, jokes…whatever else they findContinue reading “Social Media From Beyond the Grave”
Philip Roth and Writing for One’s ‘Community’
In reviewing Claudia Roth Pierpont‘s Roth Unbound: A Writer and his Books, Adam Mars-Jones writes: Letting Go…hadn’t yet been published when Roth was given a hostile reception at a symposium organised by Yeshiva University….The topic was ‘The Crisis of Conscience in Minority Writers of Fiction’, and the idea seemed to be, if he didn’t alreadyContinue reading “Philip Roth and Writing for One’s ‘Community’”
The Killing and the Death That Dare Not Speak Its Name
One important feature of AMC’s The Killing, (the subject of yesterday’s post), which it inherits from the Danish original Forbrydelsen, is its focus on the effect of the central murder on the victim’s family. In so doing, the show manages to be, besides the imperfect police procedural, a painful examination of the most commonly ignoredContinue reading “The Killing and the Death That Dare Not Speak Its Name”
The Killing as Cautionary Police Procedural
If Wikipedia’s entry for “police procedural” is any indicator, AMC’s The Killing is not commonly thought of as one. But despite being a traditional whodunit, it has many of the features of that genre; it depicts “a number of police-related topics such as forensics, autopsies, the gathering of evidence, the use of search warrants andContinue reading “The Killing as Cautionary Police Procedural”
Tom Friedman Has Joined Google’s HR Department
Tom Friedman is moonlighting by writing advertising copy for Google’s Human Resources Department; this talent is on display in his latest Op-Ed titled–appropriately enough “How To Get a Job at Google”. Perhaps staff at the Career Services offices of the nation’s major universities can print out this press release from Google HR and distribute itContinue reading “Tom Friedman Has Joined Google’s HR Department”
Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion: Portrait of the Apocalypse
If you find speculation about post-apocalyptic situations interesting, then you should find speculation about the progression of an apocalypse interesting too. Steve Soderbergh‘s Contagion is a fine cinematic take on this eventuality. The movie’s plot is simple: a deadly new virus jumps the animal-human barrier, and is transmitted quickly by contact. The virus’ first appearance occursContinue reading “Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion: Portrait of the Apocalypse”
Samir Chopra 