The Atlantic's review of P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

IN SEPTEMBER OF 1936, six months after Germany’s reoccupation of the Rhineland, P. G. Wodehouse published a story titled “Buried Treasure.” This short tale begins with a conversation among pub-goers:

The situation in Germany had come up for discussion in the bar parlour of the Angler’s Rest, and it was generally agreed that Hitler was standing at the crossroads and would soon be compelled to do something definite. His present policy, said a Whisky and Splash, was mere shilly-shallying. “He’ll have to let it grow or shave it off,” said the Whisky and Splash. “He can’t go on sitting on the fence like this. Either a man has a moustache, or he has not. There can be no middle course.”

Five years later, Wodehouse, residing at a posh hotel in Berlin, agreed to write and transmit a series of broadcasts for German radio about life as an internee. His hosts’ objective was to score a propaganda victory in the officially neutral United States, where Wodehouse’s books were extraordinarily popular. In the first broadcast, he said:

Young men, starting out in life, have often asked me, “How can I become an Internee?” Well, there are several methods. My own was to buy a villa in Le Touquet on the coast of France and stay there till the Germans came along. This is probably the best and simplest system. You buy the villa and the Germans do the rest.

In the half decade between the fictional conversation at the Angler’s Rest and his light-as-a-feather account of his own experiences, Wodehouse had, as he noted, experienced the German invasion of France, the loss of his house in that country, the separation from his wife and beloved dogs, and internment in Belgium and Germany. What ensued was a sustained public campaign against his “traitorous” behavior in the English press and Parliament, and his decision, once the war culminated, to permanently relocate to the United States.

Read the rest at The Atlantic

"The Social Network" screenwiter Aaron Sorkin: "Yes, The Social Network is sexist"

The critical consensus is that The Social Network is one of the best movies of 2010. According to a handful of voices, it's also one of the most sexist, populated by female characters who, in the words of The Daily Beast's Rebecca Davis O'Brien, exist only as "props, buxom extras literally bussed in to fill the roles of doting groupies, vengeful sluts, or dumpy, feminist killjoys...foils for the male characters, who in turn are cruel or indifferent to them."

Which, according to Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing), was the whole point of the movie.

Read the rest here at The Atlantic

When Iranian mental case Ahmadinejad got to be too much for even Fidel Castro

He [Fidel Castro] went on, "Well, I didn't know what a Jew was. I knew of a bird that was a called a 'Jew,' and so for me the Jews were those birds. These birds had big noses. I don't even know why they were called that. That's what I remember. This is how ignorant the entire population was."

He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.

Full article here.

For and Against bombing Iran

Jeff Goldberg's cover story in The Atlantic about Israel preparing to bomb the Iranian nuclear reactor has inspired a lot of recent discussion.

Many have called it the most thoughtful piece yet on the subject, while others accuse him of laying the groundwork for a military campaign.

The Atlantic published their own summary of the response from American punditry here.

Christopher Hitchens: "I see no reason not to take out the Iranian regime"

Hitchens discusses the need to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities and remove the regime in this video:




A fascinating article about Benjamin Netanyahu and the possibility of an Israeli strike against Iran here from The Atlantic