“Artificial intelligence may indeed affect the way our military operates. But the notion that bright-eyed visionaries from the tech industry are revolutionizing our military machine promotes a myth that this relationship is not only new, but will fundamentally improve our defense system—one notorious for its insatiable appetite for money, poorly performing weapons, and lost wars. In reality, the change flows in the other direction, as new recruits enter the warm embrace of the imperishable military-industrial complex, eager to learn its ways.”
“People would rather be enthusiastic collaborators in a global project than be skeptics of its fundamental integrity. Antinatalism implies or counts on our eventual extinction, and thinking this way is painful.”
The New Yorker (February 19, 2024): The new issue‘s cover featuresMarcellus Hall’s “Winter Wonders” – The artist depicts an array of invigorating, comforting, and delightful cold-weather activities.
Representative Matt Gaetz arrived at the White House in the last days of 2020, amid a gathering national crisis. President Donald Trump had lost his bid for reëlection the previous month, and his allies were exploring strategies to keep him in office. Though only thirty-eight years old, Gaetz, the scion of a political family in Florida’s Panhandle, had become one of the Republican Party’s most prominent and divisive figures. His dark hair styled in a kind of bouffant, his lips often curled in a wry smile, Gaetz bore a resemblance to Elvis Presley, or, in the description of a Florida friend, “either Beavis or Butt-head.” He was quick-witted and sometimes very funny, and he loved to taunt his enemies, who were numerous, especially in his own party. “He’s the most unpopular member of Congress, with the possible exception of Marjorie Taylor Greene, and he doesn’t care,” a fellow-congressman told me.
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (February 17, 2024): The new issue features ‘Actors in the Wild’ – The best performers of the year, when they’re not on film….
The best performers of the year — when they’re not on film.
James Nachtwey, an eminent photojournalist known for his intimate depictions of the front lines in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, had never photographed a movie star before. So for this year’s Great Performers issue, we asked him to capture a dozen of the world’s best actors away from the red carpets and awards ceremonies that often define how we see them. “My work has focused almost exclusively on conflicts and critical social issues, the polar opposite of what might be thought of as celebrity photography,” Nachtwey says. But he was intrigued by the challenge: “Art takes talent, but it’s also hard work, and exploring what actors practice in their daily lives to strengthen their art would be fascinating.”
Tubi Is Reviving a Lost Joy: Watching Really, Really Bad Movies
Their films have gone viral for their awful production values. But their success says fascinating things about what comes after prestige TV.
By Niela Orr
There’s a 2008 movie that offers an odd preview of today’s entertainment. In Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind,” a bizarre accident demagnetizes the entire inventory of a video rental store, so a clerk and his eccentric friend decide to remake all the films themselves, from “The Lion King” to “Driving Miss Daisy” to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Their versions are 20 minutes long (at most), shot on an old hand-held video camera and produced in a delightfully quirky, ad hoc way: handcrafted props and sets, buddies working as extras, costumes from the local dry cleaner.
Israel’s eternal dilemma by Victor Davis Hanson Enrique Gómez Carrillo by Anthony Daniels The singularity of speech by Wilfred M. McClay A life in ballet by Peter Martins
New poems by Amit Majmudar, James Matthew Wilson & Michael Casper
NEW HUMANIST MAGAZINE – SPRING 2024 ISSUE: The new issue features Emma Park on how the culture wars are damaging the sciences, theoretical physicist Tasneem Zehra Husain on why the imagination is key to decoding the universe, and Alom Shaha on what can be gained by thinking like a scientist…
Beyond the two cultures
Amid a polarised debate, science and art seem further apart than ever. Emma Park, editor of The Freethinker, explores what humanism has to teach us about the apparent conflict between these ways of thinking and how to bridge the divide.
“While humanities scholars are often (not without justification) accused of being Luddites, those on the science and technology side could also benefit from the knowledge that the humanities have accumulated over the centuries … [And] no intellectual activity worth the name can flourish in a politically repressive environment: freedom of expression and enquiry should be an issue to unite artists, scholars and scientists.”
The poetry of science
Metaphors are key to unlocking the secrets of the universe – scientists should do more to harness their power, writes acclaimed physicist Tasneem Zehra Husain.
“Metaphors aren’t only a means of description, they can also lead to revelations. Centuries ago, Newton was able to calculate the gravitational attraction between two objects … [but] would ‘feign no hypothesis’ as to why it was so. He had the equation, but he did not understand gravitation … With Einstein, we finally have a metaphor. When we picture space-time as a dynamic ‘fabric’ … we begin to understand what gravity means.”
The Atlantic Magazine – February 13, 2024: The latest issue features ‘To stop a school shooter’ – the case of the contested Basquiats; uncancel Woodrow Wilson; and start-up cities. Plus Michael R. Jackson, the despots of Silicon Valley, Raina Telgemeier, the James Bond trap, “Africa & Byzantium,” Marilynne Robinson, and more.
Why would an armed officer stand by as a school shooting unfolds? By Jamie Thompson
It was the early afternoon of Valentine’s Day 2018, and the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was full of kids exchanging stuffed animals and heart-shaped chocolates. Scot Peterson, a Broward County sheriff’s deputy, was in his office at the school, waiting to talk with a parent about a student’s fake ID. At 2:21 p.m., a report came over the school radio about a strange sound—firecrackers, possibly—coming from Building 12. Peterson stepped outside, moving briskly, talking into the radio on his shoulder. Then the fire alarm rang. Peterson, wearing a sheriff’s uniform with a Glock on his belt, started running.
DW Documentary (February 13, 2024) – Delivery service in the world’s smallest high mountain range is still done the traditional way. In the Alps and other European mountains, porters have long been replaced by helicopters and cable cars.
But not in the High Tatras of Slovakia. When loaded, the wooden carrying frames used by the so-called ‘Tatra Sherpas’ weigh up to 100 kilos or more. The porters climb up to 2,000 meters with their loads, supplying essentials to remote mountain huts in the Slovakian national park. Števo Bačkor is one of around 60 porters in the region today. Two to three times a week, the 47-year-old loads his self-built frame with firewood or food.
With the goods stacked on his back, he climbs up the mountains to deliver them, come snow, ice, heat, rain or storm. The mountain huts of the High Tatras depend on the porters’ deliveries, as there are hardly any roads or cable cars. The high mountain region in the Carpathians is a strictly protected nature reserve and, together with the Polish national park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. This film accompanies Števo Bačkor on his dizzying ascents. He falls into a meditative stride to cope with the exertion.
Strength and courage are not enough – passion is also a requirement for the tough job. It takes him just under three hours to climb 1,000 meters, ultimately reaching the Zbojnícka hut at an elevation of almost 2,000 meters. ‘Reaching the top is always a special moment. You may be exhausted, but you feel complete.’ Some of the ‘Tatra Sherpas’ have already lost their lives on delivery missions through the high mountains. In memory of colleagues who have died, the ‘Sherpa Rally’ takes place as a memorial run every year.
Country Life Magazine – February 13, 2024: The latest ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ – Let me count the ways; Rough collies, red roses and royal caviar; Glass acts – the coolest conservatories; Head start – why real gentlemen wear hats….
The romance of the rose
With its velvety, softly scented depths, the red rose has long beguiled lovers. Charles Quest-Ritson falls under its spell
Thoroughly good eggs
Tom Parker Bowles savours the unctuous delights of caviar from the mother-daughter team at King’s Fine Foods, ethically farmed and utterly delicious
Taking the rough with the smooth
Famed for their loyalty, rough collies are happy finding hidden sheep, bounding up Munros or simply curling up with children. Katy Birchall meets Lassie
In the hat of the moment
Time was when every gentleman of every background wore a hat. It’s time to fall back in love with bowler, beret and bonnet, recommends John F. Mueller
Interiors
Amelia Thorpe admires the most stylish conservatories
Sir Karl Jenkins’s favourite painting
The composer chooses an ethereal Italian scene that literally reflects his own music
Behind the scenes at the cathedral
Fiona Reynolds explores the environs of St Albans in Hertfordshire, from the longest nave in Europe to the River Ver
A Georgian reinvention
With imagination and style, late-18th-century Marlwood Grange in Gloucestershire has been transformed into a family home fit for the 21st century, discovers Jeremy Musson
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell gets a handle on the most colourful handbags
Music to our ears
As the famous opera house at Glyndebourne, East Sussex, turns 90, the gardens are more glorious than ever. Tiffany Daneff admires a symphony of planting
More pudding, pease
Tom Parker Bowles tucks into the succulent, comforting suet pudding, an old favourite that deserves to return to our plates
More than a pretty face
Admired for his portrayal of dewy eyes and diaphanous fabrics, John Singer Sargent rose to the top of the portrait-painting world. Mary Miers follows his career from peripatetic childhood to Society favourite
Smithsonian Magazine (February 12, 2024) –The latest issue features ‘Recovering The Lost Aviators of World War II’; Inside the search for a plane shot down over the Pacific – and the new effort to bring its fallen heroes home…
Feminist. Preacher. Abolitionist. Civil rights pioneer. Now the full story of the American icon’s life and faith is finally coming to light
On May 29, 1851, a woman asked to address the attendees of the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron. She cut a striking figure, close to six feet tall even without her crisp bonnet. She was more than likely the only Black person in the room.
A procession of participants had already sounded off about the plight and potential of the “fairer sex” during the two-day gathering. “We are told that woman has never excelled in philosophy or any of the branches of mathematics,” said abolitionist Emily Rakestraw Robinson before noting that women were largely barred from higher education. Lura Maria Giddings lamented: “The degraded, vicious man, who scarcely knows his right hand from his left, is permitted to vote, while females of the most elevated intelligence are entirely excluded.” A dispatch about women’s labor from Paulina W. Davis, who would later create the women’s rights periodical The Una, painted a verbal picture of “mother and sister toiling like Southern slaves, early and late, for a son who sleeps on the downiest couch, wears the finest linen and spends his hundreds of dollars in a wild college life.”
DW News (February 10, 2024): Ice baths are a popular health trend and beneficial for body and mind. For many Latvians, ice baths have been a weekly ritual for years. The activity is popular with all generations.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
DW Documentary
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