Some are gone forever

This past July, Howard Chua-Eoan wrote on Bloomberg: In 1931, the Politburo ordered the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow; it was built by Czar Alexander I to commemorate Napoleon’s retreat from the city and the…

Marx and his non-readers

I keep forgetting to post this. I once said that Jordan Peterson had been “completely unprepared” for his 2019 debate with Slavoj Žižek. Why? Because Peterson “knew next to nothing about Marxism.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb put it better: “Never BS…

The oil subsidy 2

Discounted Russian crude oil keeps flowing to India: “It’s amazing that India is buying at these levels because the summer months – June-July – are the lowest in terms of overall demand due to the monsoon. But it seems the…

The oil subsidy

The Soviet Union subsidized the economies of some developing nations if they leaned politically towards Moscow and were considered strategically important. Supplying raw materials at discounted prices is one way to provide a subsidy to the buyer. Today, if Indian…

Three extracts

From Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Sterne: But of all names in the universe he [Tristram’s father] had the most unconquerable aversion for TRISTRAM;—he had the lowest and most contemptible opinion of it of any thing in the world,—thinking it could…

To go to Lwów

Robert Pinsky reviews a translation of Adam Zagajewski’s poetry in the NYT. Among other things, he says: The Polish pronunciation and spelling Lvov has been replaced by the Ukrainian Lviv, and behind it the linguistic and cultural echoes of Lwow…

“To be honest, I think it’s absurd.”

A quote from September 2021: Only two major pollsters, FOM and VTsIOM, are allowed to publish their findings in Russia. Naturally, both are Kremlin-friendly. Levada Center was declared a “foreign agent” in 2016 and banned from reporting its polls during…

And who benefits?

Two recent tweets (not mine): Western pundits in thrall to American “dissident” conservatarianism all “independently” share the same opinions on Covid, ecology, Ukraine, and many other topics. Source. Also, check out Russian conspiracy theorists from 20 years ago. You may…

A Christmas warning

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the most senior bishop in the Christian Orthodox world, summed up the Russian church’s political stance in a recent speech: The Russian Orthodox Church sided with the regime of President Vladimir Putin, especially after the election…

No holy fool II

Following up on the Karamazovs, an obvious remark. It is said that Dostoevsky’s portrayal of women was lacking next to his male characters. It is not generally true – The Idiot is a counterexample – but The Brothers Karamazov is…

No holy fool

On Hope by Tara Isabella Burton in the Hedgehog Review: In order to accept our lives as a comedy, we must accept that none of us are the heroes we imagine ourselves to be. This is the truth understood by…