The New Criterion – March 2024 Preview
Category Archives: Culture
Previews: New Humanist Magazine – Spring 2024
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.”
Arts/Politics: The Atlantic Magazine – March 2024
TO STOP A SHOOTER
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.
A Trove of ‘Lost Basquiats’ Led to a Splashy Exhibition. Then the FBI Showed Up.
Why is it so hard to root out fakes and forgeries?
Culture And Traditions: The Porters Of Slovakia
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.
Previews: Country Life Magazine – Feb 14, 2024
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
Arts/History: Smithsonian Magazine – March 2024
The Remarkable Untold Story of Sojourner Truth
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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.”
Travel & Culture: Ice Bathing In Latvia (DW)
The New York Times Magazine – Feb 11, 2024
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (February 9, 2024): The new issue features ‘The Untold Story Of How Trump’s Former Chief Of Staff Rose From Cash-Strapped Roots To Washington Prominence, Before Becoming Embroiled In The Prosecutions That May Determine The 2024 Election….
How Mark Meadows Became the Least Trusted Man in Washington
The untold story of the rise and fall of Trump’s former chief of staff — and his role in the prosecutions that may determine the 2024 election.
How Oct. 7 Drove a Wedge Into the Democratic Party
Members of Congress, and candidates for their seats, have been drawn into bitter political clashes over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When George Santos, the indicted fabulist, was expelled from Congress in December, Nassau County Republicans scrambled to hunt up a new nominee. Santos was a catastrophe, but he had also flipped a New York Democratic stronghold, and party leaders wanted the best of him — the charisma, the conservatism and the history-making potential — with none of the debilitating drawbacks.
Politics: The Guardian Weekly – February 9, 2024
The Guardian Weekly (February 8, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Final Straw’ – What’s eating Europe’s Farmers?; Joe Biden’s Middle East masterplan; Can anything stop the AI deepfakes? and The Pet Shop Boys are back in town…
If you live in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland or Greece, you may well have already run into one of the numerous roadblocks or protests formed in recent weeks by furious farmers. If you’re in Spain and Italy, take cover – because they are coming to you soon, if not already.
In this week’s cover story, we explore what has proved to be the final straw for Europe’s farmers. A combination of rising costs, environmental rules and grievances over EU policies, coupled with more localised complaints, seem to be the factors driving the convoys of tractors. But far-right and anti-establishment parties, who could make major gains in forthcoming European parliament elections, have also picked up on the protests as part of their agenda against EU influence.
Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis and Europe correspondent Jon Henley delve into the protests (if not the piles of steaming dung being dumped on the continent’s roads, as illustrated wonderfully by Neil Jamieson on this week’s cover), and ask what can be done to placate them.
Previews: Country Life Magazine- February 7, 2024
Country Life Magazine – February 6, 2024: The latest features The Travel Issue – View the world from the very best hotels; The map-makers who broadened our horizons; Out of the ashes – Chillingham Castle rescued and Waxwing explosions and snowdrop heaven….
Travel
- Richard MacKichan rides with the eagle hunters of Mongolia
- Jo Rodgers asks what makes a good hotel great as we introduce Country Life’s inaugural list of the world’s top establishments
- All the latest travel news and new openings with Rosie Paterson
- Nigel Tisdall tails the elusive jaguar in Belize
- Catherine Fairweather is on the strait and narrow in Istanbul
- Richard MacKichan puts the fun back into flying
- Pamela Goodman swims with pigs in the Caribbean
A castle of curiosities
The history of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland is a turbulent and memorable one, peppered with family disputes, imprisonments and a live toad. John Goodall explores
Windows on the world
The urge to chart our surroundings is centuries old. With map in hand, Matthew Dennison ventures forth in search of mammoth tusks and globes
Irruption of the waxwings
Mark Cocker marvels at the exquisite plumage of this European songbird as it flocks to our shores to feed on a glut of its favoured winter berries
Get down on your knees
James Alexander-Sinclair joins the wandering throng as snow-drop lovers descend on Thenford in Northamptonshire to luxuriate in 900 varieties of Galanthus
Joanna Jensen’s favourite painting
The founder of Childs Farm chooses a rural scene to sum up ‘a picture of my England’
Groundhog day
The shortest month can also feel like the longest, delaying the arrival of spring, but what can February tell us about the year ahead? Lia Leendertz reveals all
Thunderous waterfalls and torrents hoarse
From the most dramatic plumes to the calmest cascades, we seek out the corners of the kingdom where water and gravity collide to magical effect
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell says green for go with a selection of stylish and useful khaki travel accessories
Interiors
Sally Stephenson on the secrets of illuminating period houses and Amelia Thorpe’s lighting picks
London Life
- Russell Higham on piazza plans for the Docklands
- Carla Passino meets the man who shaped Mayfair
- Martin Fone reveals the saga of ‘London’s Eiffel Tower’
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson harnesses the delicious flavours of rosemary
Boomers Daily 