Here’s something about on-line writing. It’s always the afterthought, the thrown-off idea that sends ripples thru the pond. Turns out my best post last night was the Beckett post on love of the Irish people. My friend Mark, a Catholic,…
I read David Hare’s “monologue” on the Wall on the train just now, and I can’t say enough good things about it. First of all, it’s great that the New York Review of Books is publishing a forceful piece from…
1. Samuel Beckett on “the Irish people” (in a J.M. Coetzee review of Beckett’s letters) It is only when the subject of Ireland comes up that Beckett now and again allows himself to vent a political opinion. Though [critic Thomas]…
Nice piece in the Times (or the IHT, I can’t tell the difference) by Sigridur Vidis Jonsdottir on an Baghdad refugees in tents in the Iraqi desert near the Syrian border. They’re unwelcome in Baghdad because they’re Palestinian: Lina was…
Clark University just disinvited Norm Finkelstein from a speaking engagement later this month. Michigan State University was under pressure from the ADL to rescind its invitation to Israel-critic Desmond Tutu to give its commencement address. MSU is sticking to its…
Wonderful news. Michael Walzer has condemned the Gaza war as an unjust war, in the Hebrew version of Haaretz. So reports Jerry Haber. Remember that Walzer welcomed the Gaza war back in January at Dissent and said it wasn’t disproportionate…
I need to document something important that happened in 2009 in American Jewish intellectual life that someday people will look back on in horror. Twice in the last month I have had conversations with Jewish intellectuals who must go nameless…
From Richard Witty to Clark University President John Bassett this morning : Dear Mr Bassett, I’m writing to you to request that you review the decision to cancel the Norman Finkelstein lecture at Clark scheduled for April 21. While I…
Blunt censorship. Clark University has cancelled a talk later this month by Norman Finkelstein, saying it will shed more heat than light. This on the same week that Joseph Massad is said to have gotten tenure at Columbia. So reports…