Taking No Prisoners

Sam Kriss on Jason Arday.

Firing in all directions.

Films About Totalitarianism: A Series

 

First Paragraph

 The word "revolution" has an interesting etymology. When asked by Soviet sociologists what it meant to them, Russian peasants responded "samovol'shchina," or, roughly, "doing what you want." In modern advertising, "revolutionary" has come to mean "radically new," and hence, by implication, "improved." When used in everyday speech, it is another way of saying "drastically different." From such usage one would hardly suspect that the word had its origins in astronomy and astrology.

- From A Concise History of The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes

Deeply Appreciated

 Many thanks to Kurt Harden and all others who've written their very kind reviews of Pilate's Magician.

Those matter more than I can say.

The Tide is Turning

 

My Substack is up: The Divisiveness of Diversity Mismanagement.

[Photo by Fine Photographics at Unsplash]

Happiness

A Large Regular has a very helpful perspective by Michael Lewis.

[Photo by Ryoji Iwata at Unsplash]

The Math Gap

San Francisco Standard: A Berkeley mathematics class has students who are "five to eight years behind in mathematics."

An excerpt: "Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school."

[Photo by Eric Prouzet at Unsplash]

Big Salman

 

Kaputt

I recently finished Curzio Malaparte's novel, Kaputt.

It's fascinating, chilling, and beautifully written and yet the problem with Malaparte is you never quite know how much of the story is true.

And your biggest worry is that all of it is true.

Some Stories Linger in Memory

 The strange America West case in 1999.