Magazines Rest in Peace, Lapham The dean of Harper’s made the modern magazine what it is. Lewis Lapham’s influence on the shape of the American magazine through his work at Harper’s can hardly be overstated. Many tributes have been written to this effect in the past few days, and I suspect many more will be written in the weeks and months to come as all the little eminences of American literary life crawl out to draw their lines of connection to the great man. Lapham was like a liberal William F. Buckley, in that he cultivated, through his magazine, a sensibility whose influence emanated far beyond its pages. But unlike Buckley, who with National Review gave his readers politics, Lapham only sought to suggest an approach to politics (and to life more generally). His sensibility was that of the genial skeptic. And, as he wrote in a 1984 manifesto, with Harper’s he aimed “to ask questions, not to provide ready-made answers, to say, in effect, look at this, see how much more beautiful and strange and full of possibility is the world than can be imagined by the mythographers at Time or NBC.” That vision of Harper’s still holds today. It is not a compliment to say that it is the best general interest magazine in America; it is just a fact. This is due in large part to the magazine’s structure, which Lapham designed in the early 1980s, shortly after he took over as the magazine’s editor (for a tenure that lasted until 2006). Harper’s had existed in several incarnations to that point. At its founding in 1850, it had been a sort of thesaurus of current affairs. It had subsequently become a literary magazine, then a journal of opinion and policy, and then, finally, before Lapham took the reins, a failure, about to go out of business. Lapham’s genius in rebuilding Harper’s was he realized that people already got their news and opinion from the daily papers and television, and that for a magazine to be a worthwhile product, it has to exist outside of all that. (This realization became even more pertinent with the advent of the Internet.) A successful magazine lives in its own world with its own rules, where, when it is pleasing, it can safely peer into any number of other worlds and comment on their proceedings.  In Harper’s, Lapham achieved that effect through a series of formal innovations, which still form the skeleton of the magazine today. These are the Readings, Annotations, and Index. The first is composed of a series of excerpts (often very funny) pulled from recent books, poems, speeches, government documents, advertising copy—whatever the editors imagine might amuse, delight, or horrify their readers in any given month. The second is usually a map or some other document reproduced with a written explanation of its elements. And the third, the greatest of these, consists of a series of statistics that, when taken together, read almost like a short story. One of Lapham’s literary models was Edward Gibbon, and at its best, the Index is a Gibbonian exercise in antithesis. I read it aloud with my wife whenever a new issue of the magazine appears in the mail.     As for the rest of the magazine, Lapham believed that on the strength of the departments, he could give over the features and reviews to longform reporting and well-thought-out essays, which often took years for authors to finish. A quick glance through the Harper’s archive seems to confirm that he was right in that belief. Everyone knows that the magazine published David Foster Wallace’s famous essay about cruise ships (commissioned by Charis Conn, who wrote the bulk of the Index under Lapham), but in that period the magazine also published a great debate between Neil Postman and Camille Paglia and a strange, raw symposium on abortion that I don’t think would be possible today. My favorite thing published during Lapham’s time is Don DeLillo’s novella Pafko at the Wall: It is worth the whole magazine put together. I haven’t said much here about Lapham’s own writing style. Gibbon was one model, but he also looked up to Sir Thomas Browne. And like many other admirers of that gentle doctor, his love of the ornate was a dangerous game. “If one fails in the style of Pascal, one is merely flat; if one fails in the style of Browne, one is ridiculous,” Lytton Strachey once observed. “He who plays with the void, who dallies with eternity, who leaps from star to star, is in danger at every moment of being swept into utter limbo, and tossed forever in the Paradise of Fools.” Lapham only rarely fell into the void, but all the same, I do not think it is for his writing he will be remembered. I never knew Lewis Lapham personally. My only encounter with him could hardly even be called a brush: I emailed him last year asking for a contribution to a symposium published on the occasion of Cormac McCarthy’s death. He declined, almost immediately, but with more grace than is usually expected in a refusal. I thought that would be the end of it; it usually is with these cold-call emails. But a funny thing happened. Over the next few months, I would occasionally receive pitches—none of them worked out, I’m sorry to say—from writers who began their emails with something along the lines of “Lewis Lapham thought this might be a good fit for The Lamp…”  I don’t know what to make of that recommendation, except that I find it impressive that at 89 years of age, the man’s mind was still whirring and that his sight was still cast all over the literary world. It is a world that he deserves much credit for creating. His death this week did not come as a shock, but it is a melancholy event all the same. May he rest in peace. The post Rest in Peace, Lapham appeared first on The American Conservative.

CCP PLAN FOR ECONOMIC WORLD DOMINATION. CCP Multi-Polar World is CCP World Domination - CHINA'S NEW TECHNOLOGY PLAN IS AN OPEN DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST EVERY NATION - (The CCP Has Just Proven They Must Be Boycotted. BOYCOTT CHINA BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE) - Economic Theft Could Go Into Overdrive With CCP’s High Tech Ambitions | Crossroads - Yes indeed. Anyone who is backing BRICS, The Belt Road, or The Multi-Polar World NEEDS to understand that the CCP has No Intention of establishing FREE TRADE. - The CCP has Made it Clear, they Plan on Being the Only Existing Technological Powerhouse. - The Vision of the CCP is THE WORLD MUST BUY EVERYTHING FROM THEM. WHILE THE CCP WILL NOT BUY FROM ANY OTHER NATION. EXCEPT RAW MATERIALS. * 3,182 views July 26, 2024 Crossroads with JOSHUA PHILIPP - Economic warfare is back on the table, following the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) recent declaration of a new economic agenda. The regime wants to develop a high-tech economy and wants it to be domestic. - This means STEALING AMERICAN PATENTS AND TECHNOLOGIES, cutting out American businesses, getting rid of American software, and making sure that everything the CCP uses is made in China. And this also means the CCP will now be looking into which foreign technologies it uses, finding ways to replicate those technologies, and then booting out the related Western companies. - With this, it’s very likely that cyberattacks meant to feed the regime’s economic ambitions are about to go into overdrive. We’ll discuss in this episode of Crossroads. #economy #china #technology ? Subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss an episode! ? https://ept.ms/CrossroadsExclusiveNew... - ? Watch the full episode HERE ?https://ept.ms/EconomicTheftCR_YT ?? - EpochTV $1 Sale: https://ept.ms/45l73b3 - FAIR USE FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES - Mirrored From: https://www.youtube.com/@CrossroadswithJOSHUAPHILIPP

Greg Reese is always on the mark.... This DEAGEL report is very concerning....

Drag Queen Paris Olympics??? FFS!!

"The only people who could describe Dolly without using their hands." The post The musician who always had “a headlock” on Dolly Parton’s heart first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Donald J. Trump is not a Catholic. He did, however, appoint a majority Catholic Supreme Court who overturned the disastrous Roe v. Wade. His immigration policy is in keeping with the Catholic Church’s teachings on national sovereignty and cultural identity. He has condemned the current administration’s persecution of traditional Catholics. American Catholics are increasingly coalescing around Trump and his no-nonsense policies. Kamala Harris, on the other hand, has a long history of anti-Catholic rhetoric and policies. First and foremost, Harris is one of the most pro-abortion politicians to have ever served in any branch of the U.S. government. Even now, as she prepares to take over the Democratic nomination for the presidential race, Harris has been wholeheartedly endorsed by rabid pro-abortion organizations. The Atlantic proudly predicted that Harris “could make 2024 the abortion election.” During her tenure as vice president, Harris became the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion mill — not, of course, to mourn the American lives lost there in the womb, but to promote the butchering of the unborn. She launched the “Fight for Our Rights” tour last year, which encouraged college students to promote and vote in favor of radical abortion extremism. The Vice President followed this with another speaking tour touting abortion as an absolute right and a positive good. Harris has condemned pro-life laws responsible for saving hundreds and thousands of unborn lives from the horrors of the abortionist’s office and has even encouraged Christians to violate the demands God places on their consciences and support abortion anyway. “It’s important to note that to support a woman’s ability — not her government, but her — to make that decision does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs,” Harris claimed in a 2022 address. “For those of us of faith, I think that we agree, many of us, that there’s nothing about this issue that will require anyone to abandon their faith or change their faith,” she repeated. During her time as a senator, Harris cosponsored legislation to outlaw pro-life protections at the state level and voted against legislation requiring doctors to care for babies who survive brutal abortion attempts. Both NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood gave Harris a 100 percent rating for her rabid child-slaughter advocacy. When then-President Donald Trump nominated pro-life Catholic Brian Beuscher to serve as a federal judge, Harris castigated him for his membership in the charitable fraternal organization the Knights of Columbus. As CatholicVote president Brian Burch explained, Harris asked Beuscher “if he knew that the Knights had taken ‘extreme positions’ on life and marriage. ‘Extreme’ as in beliefs held by the Catholic Church itself.” She further demanded that he renounce his membership in the Catholic organization if confirmed to the bench. “Not only is this a gross form of anti-religious bigotry, it’s also unconstitutional,” Burch said. “Harris’ version of being Catholic is a Catholic who surrenders their core beliefs.” During her stint as California’s attorney general, Harris sponsored the ill-named FACT Act, which would have forced crisis pregnancy centers to advertise for abortion facilities. The legislation was later struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. When investigative reporter David Daleiden came forward in 2016 with evidence that Planned Parenthood was harvesting organs from unborn babies, A.G. Harris did not prosecute the organ-harvesting baby butchers, but instead targeted Daleiden. Harris also joined a coalition of 13 other state attorneys general in demanding that the Supreme Court force Hobby Lobby to fund contraception and abortifacient drugs. In the Senate, Harris introduced the (again, ill-named) “Do No Harm” Act, which would have terminated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1983 and its conscience protections for Catholic doctors and healthcare workers, forcing them to commit abortions and carry out gender transition surgeries. Harris also promoted the “Equality” Act, which the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) warned would “run roughshod over religious liberty” and inevitably be used to “punish” Americans who refuse to support gender ideology. Harris has also been complicit in the coverup of President Joe Biden’s deteriorating cognitive state and declining health, openly lying to the American people in an effort to maintain power. She has, further, completely abrogated Catholic principles and abandoned U.S. law in her multitudinous and, in many cases, fatal failures as Biden’s “border czar.” Although Harris is trailing behind Trump in polls — especially in battleground states — she is not to be dismissed by conservatives as a nonentity. The vice president is manipulative, politically- avvy, and, despite her chronic case of foot-in-mouth syndrome, a viable threat to Catholic and, indeed, Christian principles across the nation. Biden had centered his reelection bid around abortion and Harris, as his chosen successor, has followed suit. That appeal alone may prove successful enough to overshadow her many flaws as both a candidate and a person. Catholics cannot allow her to take over the White House, or else her anti-Catholic rhetoric will quickly become national policy, enforced by every federal agency under her control. The post Anti-Catholic Kamala appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Readers know I am a Republican conservative. At age 70, I concede that I never voted Republican — not even once — until the 1972 presidential election. That was when George McGovern was the Democrat standard-bearer. (It also was the first time I was old enough to be eligible to vote.) Ever since then, GOP. There would have been an exception here or there if circumstances had allowed. If I had lived in Washington State, I would have voted for Sen. Henry Jackson. But that is all theoretical. What matters right now is the Aug. 6 Democrat primary in St. Louis. And — plain and simple — if I lived in St. Louis, I would ask for the Democrat primary ballot just so I can vote on Aug. 6 to be rid of Cori Bush. It is not only about her rabid anti-Semitism and hate for Israel. Rather, even the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board has excoriated Cori, pleading that St. Louis voters kick her out this coming Tuesday: “For the past four years, the district has been in the hands of U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat who has generally appeared less interested in working [the government] system for the good of her constituents than attacking it on behalf of a small, hard-left klatch of lawmakers — ‘the Squad’ — who are good at getting headlines but bad at actually accomplishing anything,” the board said. The editorial continued, in pertinent part: Democratic primary voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic [St. Louis] district weren’t offered a viable alternative to Bush two years ago. This year, they have a terrific one. We enthusiastically endorse Wesley Bell for the Democratic nomination to this seat in the Aug. 6 primaries. . . . Bush’s almost immediate induction into the small clique of progressive House rabble-rousers positioned her as a darling of fringe-left activists — and thus irrelevant to what actually happens in Washington. Even National Black Empowerment Action Fund (NBEAF) opposes Bush on grounds that her insane support for defunding police endangers black communities: “[S]he’s actually one of the most vocal proponents of defunding the police. Everyone in the African American community wants police accountability, but at the same time, we also want to live in safe communities.” Bush also is one of only two in Congress to oppose a ban on Hamas members entering America. Two months ago, she introduced a bill that would require the federal government to pay $14 Trillion in “reparations” to black Americans. You in St. Louis have Cori Bush, a rabid “Squad” extremist, in Congress representing you. She needs to be sent back home from D.C. to St. Louis, so she can be nearby the courts to answer any questions that may be asked of her about how she spent over $700,000 of your tax money for “security services.” By coincidence, a bunch of your tax dollars went to a particular security guard, Cortney Merritt, whom she married after he was enriched. She paid him $60,000 in 2022 for security services even though he was not licensed to provide private security in St. Louis. She paid him another $42,500 in 2023. By the end of 2023, Bush had paid Merritt over $122,500. They married in 2023. In all, she spent over $700,000 of public money for her security while leading the charge to defund the police, collapsing your security. Cori Bush also hates Israel and is deeply despised by the St. Louis Jewish community. Par for the course, as “Squad” extremists go. She agitates for “BDS” — to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. She lies and calls Israel “apartheid.” Attacks Israel every chance she gets. But you don’t have to be Jewish to despise Cori Bush and to want her out of Congress representing St. Louis. Again, she supports defunding the police. How’s that for your family safety? She was in the middle of Black Lives Matter, which we now all know is a vicious hate group who even praised the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre. She was one of nine “progressive” Democrats who refused to vote in favor of a House resolution declaring that Israel is not racist or apartheid, and that “the United States will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.” My dear St. Louis Republicans, here is the anomaly: In American electoral politics, many congressional districts are competitive in November, but many others — like your Missouri District 1 — are decided in the summer during primaries. Sometimes, a district like yours is so overwhelmingly Democrat that, no matter who is on the Democrat and Republican ballots in November, the Democrat will win. That is what keeps a few very extreme crazies in office. They would be beaten easily in a November election if people would vote by the person, not the party. But where they vote in November for the party, no matter who is running, it all comes down to who wins the spring or summer primary, thus ensuring them the November election. That is why so many New Yorkers made it their business to defeat “Squad” wild man Jamaal Bowman a few weeks ago. Now he is out, the first “Squad” member ever primaried out. The winner of that Democrat primary will win in November. Why do bad crazies sometimes win summer primaries if they otherwise would be beaten so easily in November? Because most people — the vast majority of the voting population — who vote in November do not bother to vote in the summer primaries even though it is the Aug. 6 St. Louis primary — and not the Nov. 5 general election — that will decide your district’s Congressional seat. Here is food for thought: In the Democrat primary of Aug. 2, 2022, for the 1st Congressional District in Missouri, Cori Bush got 65,326 votes. Her opponents got an aggregate of just under 29,000. But in the November general election, so many more St. Louis Democrats came out just to vote their party line, regardless of who the party candidate was. Cori Bush got 160,999 while her Republican opponent, Andrew Jones, Jr., predictably got trounced with 53,767 and Libertarian George Zsidisin got 6,192. Think about those numbers: Only 95,000 voted in the August Democrat primary, while 161,000 Democrats voted the party line in November. The Republican and Libertarian never had a chance, but those 53,767 November Republican voters could have trounced her if they also had voted in the August 2022 Democrat primary. Get it? The vote that mattered in Missouri Congressional District 1 was the primary in August. She easily could have been trounced if only the voters who would be casting ballots in November also had bothered to kick her out in August. This Aug. 6, voters in the Missouri District 1 Democrat primary have a much better alternative to Cori Bush. Wesley Bell is a dignified, honest, man. He has been a professor of criminology, was a municipal court judge, and of course a prosecutor. He most assuredly is not aligned on all issues with lifelong conservatives like you and me, but he is the only conceivable option in a choice with Cori Bush. We can knock her out, our second “Squad” eviction this season. Although I am a lifelong registered Republican, if I lived in St. Louis I would ask for the Democrat ballot — not the Republican — so that I could vote in the Aug. 6 St. Louis Democrat primary. November will take care of itself, and I would (and you could) vote Republican in November anyway. But I would understand that right now it is my obligation as a normal person to vote in the Aug. 6 Democrat primary. This is a moment in time, and the purpose could not be more clear.  It is an imperative for every St. Louis Republican to go out to vote at the Aug. 6 primary and to ask for the Democrat primary ballot — not to waste this critical moment in a Republican primary that, alas, will not matter this time. You have an amazing opportunity to evict Cori Bush exactly as New Yorkers just evicted their own wild “Squad” political lunatic, Jamaal Bowman. So, please, St. Louis Republicans, vote on Aug. 6 at the primaries, and please ask for the Democrat primary ballot this time. Vote for Wesley Bell — i.e., against Cori Bush. READ MORE: Joe Biden and the Democratic Party Are Amoral The Sum of All Democrat Fears A Modern Colossus: Donald Trump The post Here’s How to Break Up the Squad, St. Louis. Vote Against Cori Bush. appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On the morning of July 21, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) sent out the first round of 1,000 draft orders to men between the ages of 18 to 26 in the ultra-Orthodox “Haredi” Jewish communities across Israel. The order followed the historic June 25 Supreme Court ruling that overturned a decades-long ordinance exempting Haredi men studying in yeshiva schools from compulsory military service.  Although the country braced for violent protests, as witnessed in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in recent weeks, the draft went out relatively peacefully. Despite community leaders calling on yeshiva students to ignore the order, a recent poll presented to the Israeli Knesset showed that over 50 percent of students surveyed (450 between July 3-4) would comply with the draft if “Haredi-appropriate” measures were in place to maintain their lifestyle.  To the international community, the IDF represents a formidable regional power. At home, however, the conscripted “people’s army” binds the nation through a shared collective patriotic experience. Israelis enter the IDF at 18 for two years and remain in reserve units after reentering civilian life. The networks, shared experiences, and relationships forged during active and reserve duty form the backbone of society. As Dan Senor and Saul Singer argued in their bestselling Start-up Nation, the experiences that 20-year-olds bring to civilian life after their service have largely contributed to Israel’s entrepreneurial and economic success. The ultra-Orthodox community, roughly 13 percent of the population, has long been exempt from this obligation, and, therefore, outside the national collective experience. Their ideology to observe and guard Torah and rabbinic commandments at all costs distinguishes them from the secular, nonreligious Jewish population and isolates them from society. In addition to customary dress, this devotion includes the daily study of the Torah and rabbinic literature in yeshivas, which receive state funding to maintain operation and support the often large Haredi families.  Historically, the Haredi communities have been split over support for the state. Many view the secular government and national Zionism — the very bodies protecting their way of life — as anathema to their ideology. Other more lenient communities who engage in economic and political arenas believe that persistent yeshiva study is for the “spiritual protection” of the country and its soldiers. While it’s not completely foreign to see Haredi men, and even fewer women, serving in voluntary security roles, obligatory conscription remained a contested issue.  The shifting tide, however, has long been coming. During the Menachem Begin administration in the late 1970s, concessions were made between right-wing and religious coalition parties to defer military service until students completed their yeshiva studies. This backfired as Haredi men thus became official yeshiva students for life, clinging to religious piety as an excuse for military exemption. Ultra-Orthodox political parties, such as Shas in 1984, became strategic coalition allies willing to partner with any political party, on the left or right, in exchange for maintaining the conscription status quo.  Today, the ultra-Orthodox constitute the fastest-growing section of the population. In early July, Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf (a Haredi politician) approved the construction of a new city for 80,000 residents in the northern Negev targeted specifically to the Haredi community. According to Israel’s National Economic Council, the ultra-Orthodox will account for one-quarter of Israel’s population by 2050. The historic military exemption expired in June 2023 and was succeeded by temporary regulations. The unanimous ruling from a panel of nine judges on June 25 upheld that Haredi men must enlist, and yeshivas would lose state funding if their students evaded enlistment. This follows the death of 681 Israeli soldiers in Gaza since Oct. 7 (a population percentage that equates to roughly 25,000 American soldiers), the escalation of Islamic militia violence in the West Bank, and the looming threat of a full-scale war against Hezbollah in the north that will require additional front lines and auxiliary personnel. “The strains of the war in Gaza and the north require the contributions of all sectors of society,” noted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who described the exemption of ultra-Orthodox to study in yeshivas as “impractical.” In response, the former chief rabbi of Israel and current spiritual leader of Shas, Yitzhak Yosef, warned: “If they force us to go to the army, we’ll all move abroad.” Rabbi Yosef made further allusions to the fact that the biblical tribe of Levi, the Priestly tribe, was also exempt from military duty. There are currently 67,000 Haredi males eligible for recruitment, while roughly 540 have volunteered for the IDF or community security units since the war began in October 2023.  Days after Gallant approved the IDF’s first draft for July 21, the chief of staff outlined what the “Haredi Battalion” would entail based on recommendations from the “Shkedi Committee,” a group established by Gallant to oversee integration. New units will comprise male recruits with Torah-observant commanders and a civilian-rabbinic body to advise on religious issues and maintain Torah learning within the unit.  The IDF’s objective to “recruit from all sectors of society” reflects the heterogeneous fabric of Israeli institutions. Ze’ev Jabotinsky once compared the early Israelis of the new state to an orchestra with distinct instruments and purpose. David Ohana, the prolific author at the Ben Gurion Research Institute, called Israel’s society of immigrants “the revolutionary ideology of the melting pot.”  The IDF has long been a reflection of this melting pot with representations from Ashkenazi, Sephardic, modern Orthodox, reform, and secular Jews joined by East African immigrants and volunteers from other exempted groups, such as Arab Muslims and Christians. The so-called “Bedouin Battalion” (Muslims in southern Israel) is currently active in Gaza, while the number of Druze soldiers that have fought and died in the IDF since October 7 is enough to make Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad in Syria order assassinations on Druze leaders. While the draft order for the ultra-Orthodox forecasts the IDF’s mobilization for uncertain days ahead, it could also usher in a new generation that sees the gulf between religious and secular shrink under the shared patriotic bonds of unity, cooperation, and survival.  The post Even the Religious Will Fight appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

WASHINGTON — “This is not a clash of civilization. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, in a speech directed at speeding up U.S. military aid for his country. Bibi’s appearance also put a spotlight on the rift in America, especially among Democrats, regarding the war in Gaza and Israel. Dozens of congressional Democrats who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause boycotted the speech; funding for the Jewish state has become politically risky for the Left. Other Democrats who showed up made a point of not applauding certain lines. President Joe Biden wasn’t there; it was, after all, a speech given at Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s behest. But the two leaders are sufficiently old school. I am guessing Biden appreciated it when Netanyahu referred to him as a “proud Irish-American Zionist,” even if progressives likely blanched. Biden also wasn’t there when Netanyahu delivered his previous address to Congress in 2015, which tells you how long Biden has straddled the controversy. Vice President Kamala Harris also skipped the speech, citing a scheduled keynote address at the Zeta Phi Beta sorority in Indianapolis. As the world knows, however, she has been trying to separate herself from Biden’s once “ironclad” support for Israel. At key moments, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., flashed small signs that read “War Criminal.” At least she showed up. Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks slammed lawmakers who boycotted the event as “so petty and so closed-minded that they will not even come and listen” to the only democratically elected head of state in the Middle East. Pro-Palestinian activists swarmed around the Capitol to protest Netanyahu’s platform. As I write this, I cannot leave the building because of security concerns. Here’s the worst part: As Brooks noted, anti-Israel sentiments are no longer limited to fringe members like Tlaib. They are increasingly common among more mainstream Democrats; proof, he argued, that “the historic bipartisan consensus on Israel no longer exists.” Netanyahu used the moment to assail anti-Israel protesters on American college campuses. “You have officially become Iran’s useful idiots,” Netanyahu declared. And: “Gays for Gaza. They might as well hold up signs that say, ‘Chickens for KFC.'” “It’s a sad fact that rather than two pro-Israel parties, there’s only one pro-Israel party, and that’s the Republican Party,” Brooks told me before the speech. This might be a good place to mention that J.D. Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate on the GOP ticket and a member of the Senate, skipped Netanyahu’s remarks as well. Too busy, I guess. Biden and Harris will meet with Netanyahu on Thursday, privately and separately, another signal that the Biden administration’s support for military aid is flagging for a nation defending itself against the Hamas terrorists responsible for mass murder on Oct. 7. And yet, it hasn’t been all peace and love between Bibi and the GOP. Trump announced on social media that he will meet with Netanyahu on Friday at Mar-a-Lago — perhaps ending a rift that began after the Israeli PM became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden on his 2020 victory, to Trump’s displeasure. Netanyahu arrived in a Washington reeling from Biden’s surprise announcement Sunday that, some 100-plus days ahead of the Nov. 5 vote, he would not run for reelection. Johnson had invited Bibi to address the joint session, a record fourth such address, in May, prior to the political turmoil that followed not only Biden’s announcement that he won’t run for reelection but also a failed assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania July 13. The Middle East is erupting. American politics are roiled with chaos. Support for Israel has never been more endangered. If these trends aren’t stopped, it will not end well. Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM The post Netanyahu Speaks to Congress of Israel’s War on Barbarism appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Lolita was in the news again earlier this month. It isn’t the first time the classic 1955 novel by Vladamir Nabokov has been interrogated and found guilty. It’s a controversial novel, after all, was shocking when originally published, and continues to disturb and spark debate. Narrated by an aging man obsessed with a twelve-year-old girl, latest critics are claiming that if authors don’t intentionally distance themselves from the grossness of their characters, they’re implicated in the immorality. Daisy Willow of the Daily Beast wrote that Nabokov has “basically been cancelled” for composing Lolita, with “today’s readers finding it hard to believe that what he was writing was fiction.” The pushback was quick. Novelist Aaron Gwyn quipped back in response on X: You’re right, scribbler for The Daily Beast: Nabokov has been so thoroughly ‘cancelled for writing Lolita’ that the 70-year-old novel has never gone out of print, has sold 50 million copies, and is currently outperforming most newly released novels on Amazon (by a lot). You might think Lolita’s detractors would be religious conservatives, but progressives are leading most of today’s literary cancellations. Lolita isn’t alone. Certain groups boycotted J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books when they first came out in the early 2000s. Conservative religious parents were unnerved by the wands and witchcraft in the tales about the “boy who lived,” while progressives generally championed the series. Twenty some years on, though, and Rowling has become castigated, not by the religious right, but by the fringes of the far left. How’d that happen? Rowling kept on being a normal progressive while the rest of the tribe moved onto more radical waters. Rowling’s views on biological sex and questioning some of the consequences of the transgender movement have put her in the far left’s crosshairs time and again. Rowling is also a big fan of Lolita, once noting how its final lines “made her cry.” She got blasted for that, too. Today people who write (and read) books that don’t overtly champion a certain political point of view are to be denied entry into the camp of the enlightened. If authors don’t pay homage to liberal consensus, they’re “problematic.” Enjoying Harry Potter is harder than it used to be. There are consequences for loving the work of a traitor. The leftists trying to cancel Lolita and Rowling have a problem that goes deeper than their simple distaste for these books. They misunderstand why we read fiction, and where its true power lies. C. S. Lewis wrote that we have to read books on their own terms, suspending, for the time being, our judgment in order to receive what the book is trying to say. We might end up hating the book, but at least we gave it a chance. Today, however, if you like Lolita, it means you “approve” of the narrator’s heinous inclinations. If you still read Harry Potter, you could be a transphobe. If you don’t wrestle long and hard with Ernest Hemingway’s series of failed marriages, you don’t get to sit back and enjoy For Whom the Bell Tolls. Critics assume that Nabokov approved of his character’s evil just because he, well, wrote about it. I don’t mean to say that literature shouldn’t involve moral, political, or religious themes or questions, or that novelists can’t have strong points of view. Just read The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina. These are deeply moral, even religious, novels that ask the ultimate questions of our existence. But these books aren’t cloaking an agenda in a story; they provoke contemplation through story. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings lacks overt reference to a God figure. And yet, Tolkien himself said that the “religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.” While authors do have moral failings, and while those do matter, it’s essential to remember that the novelist is an artist, an observer, and a storyteller. They are not a pundit. Fiction, as Rowling posted on X, is not intended to be a human resources manual. It’s meant to be a compelling catalog of the human experience, an imaginative excursion into the minds of others. Stories reorient our perspective, not by telling us what to believe, but by showing us something we might have otherwise missed or need to confront. It cultivates the imagination to help us see the world in a slightly altered light, which might end up influencing how we decide to act. It offers characters who are worth emulating for their virtue and characters, like the narrator in Lolita, who serve as a warning to the world. At its best, fiction does more than simply dictate and instruct — it also delights. Peter Biles is a writer and a contributor for Young Voices. A novelist as well as an essayist, he is the author of Hillbilly Hymn, Keep, and Through the Eye of Old Man Kyle. The post Critics of <i>Lolita</i> Need to Learn How to Read Fiction appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.