I feel like Diogenes, the Ancient Greek who walked about sunny Athens with a lamp looking for an honest man. And I have found one in Nigel Farage, certainly the last politician who always tells the truth. What I find truly shocking is those who oppose him, the Rothermere press, for example, whose financial dealings with the British government remind me of Pravda with the Soviet Politburo. "Farage is the first and last honest ...

Speaking with a friend who is Jewish—arguing, rather—I reminded him that protesting against the death of innocents is hardly anti-Semitic. He agreed. And yet the death of 37,000 Palestinian noncombatants that have produced nonstop protests in Europe and in the United States are described as anti-Semitic by mostly conservative commentators. The argument with my friend flared up again until I came up with the following: Had ...

Winning at all costs is a double-edged conundrum, especially where sport is concerned. Both my father and uncle were track stars who represented Greece during the Chariots of Fire period. Fair play back then was more important than winning. I was brought up that way, although it was hard to comply at times, especially when facing opponents whose style I can charitably only describe as all-out. My racket was tennis, a supposedly ...

He’s physically repellent but writes quite elegantly, from the left, needless to say. He recently took a swipe at us dumb Christians for believing, he being Jewish and referring to our Lord Jesus as a crucified rabbi. Adam Gopnik is his name, and his reference to Jesus Christ was just a name-drop while reviewing some books on liberalism: “Try publishing an anti-communist book in China or a critique of theocracy in Iran,” ...

Never mind the cesspool of toxic masculinity in the Vatican, London’s gentlemen’s clubs, and the Greek monasteries of Mount Athos. This is far worse, an insult to all women, especially lesbians, an institutional blackmail that threatens American democracy and unmarried women the world over. Here’s the lowdown: During a commencement speech at Benedictine College, a Catholic school in Kansas, a professional football player ...

Reading a male nitwit interviewing an actress in the Bagel Times reminded me of the manner of a slave while addressing his master. The nitwit writes that “whenever my turns of phrase or tossed-off hand gestures caught her fancy, she’d repeat and refine them, doing them better than I did myself.” Gee, a blonde actress refining the nitwit’s turn of phrase, that’s earth-shattering and really something to behold. An ...

Okay, enough nostalgia and European tales of love and war. Let’s get back to the awful present, and the god-awful Gaza mess. One side argues that Palestinians have lived under Israeli occupation since 1967 and are fighting for their freedom, the other absolves Netanyahu and the ruling Israeli government of any wrongdoing. Actually, it’s been going on since 1948, with its roots all the way back to 1917 and the Balfour ...

At the end of World War II, the victorious Allies were convinced that Prussian militarism had played an important part in Hitler’s war in Europe. Herbert Marcuse, an overrated theorist of the Frankfurt School working for Uncle Sam, submitted a secret report that put all the blame for Nazism on capitalism. Marcuse was a phony who later became a hero to the anti-Vietnam war protesters but got it right on Prussia and Hitler. As ...

Numbskull journalist ignoramuses refer to this week’s Met Gala as the party of the year. Sycophantic hacks who can’t tell the difference between a hooker and a nun cannot be expected to know better, so never mind. The lyrical aplomb of yesterday’s balls and parties is terra incognita to them, whereas today’s vulgar, hyperbolic culture requires the gruesome exaggeration they provide. The Met Gala is now a Frankenstein ...

I feel funny about the old lady, Miss Liberty, or Miss US of A, whatever you wish to call the United States, once upon a time THE No. 1 in everyone’s books. The country looks ancient and worn, with corruptive wealth having become an obsession in the republic. Consumers have obliterated idealists, the latter now the butt of jokes in corporate rooms. The culture is too impressed by fame and fortune; materialism is so deeply ...

“Blue-eyed white devils” are not very popular nowadays. At least not with a recent migrant thrown off an airline flight for calling his fellow travelers thus. The man was drunk, or he might have been a New York Times reader. Or watched network news, especially NBC, because he really had it in for white people. I was not surprised when I read the item, especially the phrase “blue-eyed white devils.” It reminded me of an ...

A well-dressed gentleman in New York today looks like a shadowy figure in a sepia-colored old photograph. I’ve been here for two weeks and have yet to see anyone wearing a suit and tie, except when I passed a window and saw a reflection of yours truly. Between Patagonia fleece vests donned by Wall Street hustlers and the schlubby hoodies of Silicon Valley wannabes, the city is slob heaven, its innocence, spontaneity, and ...

Back in the good old days when the Brits ruled the roost in the American colonies, the sneaky Brits used a system of their own to lord it over those who looked like them, spoke like them, and worshipped the same God as them, but called themselves American rather than British. It was very simple, really. The bad old Brits recalled an old British law passed by those whose knowledge of democracy was equal to mine of homosexuality, ...

He has the appearance of a startled vulture, a sort of prefab mannerism, but he’s all greed and preening self-importance. Selfishness is his holy grail, and he’s a lying, self-serving opportunist who knows whose ring to kiss at all times. This malodorous cesspit used his son-in-law position to get $2 billion off the Saudis and save his bankrupt business. He is Jared Kushner, the man who last week made a remark so jarring in ...

I’ve never had much use for diplomats, nor did my father, who called them gigolos and freeloaders living high on the hog off taxpayers like him. “Except for George Kennan,” I used to tell him, and Dad would reluctantly agree. For any of you young whippersnappers unfamiliar with George Kennan, he was the author of America’s Cold War policy of “containment,” in which the U.S. would try to constrain the expansion of ...

Of all the lovely things and habits that Big Tech has deprived humans of by turning us into electronic robots, the one I miss the most is the love letter. Those sleepy types who go by the name of millennials have declared letter writing over, with the great majority of them ages 18 to 35 proudly admitting in a recent poll that they have never written an epistle, let alone a love letter. So, what else is new? All one needs to ...