Athens – I am walking on a wide pedestrian road beneath the Acropolis within 200 meters of the remaining Themistoclean wall and the ancient cemetery to eminent Athenians. One side is lined with splendid neo-classical houses, none of them abandoned but most of them shuttered and locked up. This is the area where once upon a time Pericles, Themistocles and Alcibiades – to name three – trod, orated and debated non-stop. Back ...
The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Longworth Roosevelt, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The mountains were misty, snow was falling, and I went to the dojo for some karate training. I was sparring with a tough, fifth degree black belt instructor, Roland, and kept nailing him, something I hadn’t been able to do previously. That’s when it dawned on me. Respecting my advanced age, he was ...
The week after the murdering scum of ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya"their crime was being Christians"the European Commission opened an investigation of Christian schools in Britain for allegedly "discriminating" against nonreligious teachers. In other words, the unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats of Brussels want to force schools with a Christian ethos to stop giving preference to religious ...
A naked, very good-looking young man skied down the mountain, evoking shrieks of laughter and admiration from the hundred or so skiers lining the slopes. He turned out to be J.T., my son, and it was an act of protest against the mind-numbing conversation of some people at the Eagle Club who were talking about titles. A friend had skied ahead and was waiting for him at the bottom with a blanket. Needless to say it became the ...
I hate to start with a cliché, but Count Arnaud de Borchgrave d’Altena, who died in Washington, D.C., last week aged 88, was the last of the great foreign correspondents, with trench coat, suntan, title, and 17 wars under his belt included. One accomplishment none of his obituaries comprised—mind you, this is perfectly understandable—was the introduction to journalism and subsequent mentoring of the greatest Greek writer ...
Gstaad—Once upon a time, clergymen saw mountain peaks as natural steeples leading them ever closer to God. Doctors considered the mountains the best medicine for tuberculosis, while explorers saw them as rocks never before touched by humans. I thought of those good people while T-barring up the Eggli, in way below freezing conditions but in bright sunshine. For some strange reason, whenever I’m really cold, I try to think ...
The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that there’s a Castro in our midst, posing—just like Fidel did 56 years ago—as a democratically elected populist. Back then it was Uncle Sam who was the bogeyman. Now it’s the EU. Back then the Soviet Bear came to Fidel’s rescue. Now it’s Putin. Personally, I’ll take Vlad over the faceless unelected Brussels ...
I am not Charlie, nor will I ever be. Wearing a Je suis Charlie badge is one sure way of getting attention, but I will leave that to others. And another thing: Obscenity has no redeeming social value, and Charlie Hebdo was and is one long obscenity. But let's start with that famous Parisian march of mourners, one that had more criminals in its front row than a Mafia funeral. How is it possible that the gangster who calls ...
Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the village from picturesque into postcard-beautiful. I am lying in bed listening to a Mozart version of “Ave Maria,” with a heavenly soprano almost bringing tears to my eyes with the loveliness of it. This is the civilization of our ancestors, one that gave us Mozart and Schubert and Beethoven and built cathedrals all over the most wondrous continent in the ...
I had a short chat with BBC Radio concerning the actor Jack Nicholson, whom I knew slightly during the 70s and 80s. Alas, it had to do with age, his and mine, 77 and 78 respectively. No, the man on the other side of the telephone did not ask me anything embarrassing. All he wanted to know was: Do women still come on to an oldie, or are they, as Jack Nicholson claims, a thing of the past? Well, for starters, I do not believe ...
This is a good time to write about a nation’s resilience in the face of calamity. I am referring to the stoic discipline with which the Japanese bore hardship and the death of 15,000 people in March 2011 following a 9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever known to have hit Japan. I can remember the TV coverage as if it were yesterday. Very young and very old Japanese forming a long orderly line for disaster supplies. No ...
Although an acknowledged sinner for most of my adult life " I chase women non-stop, drink to excess, smoke and gamble " I have never left the easy foothills of faith, a Catholic faith imbued in me by my father, raised a Jesuit. Now, you"re not going to find many Greek ship owners brought up Jesuits, but my old man came from the Ionian Islands, a part of Greece that was never conquered by the loathsome Turks, but by ...
Welcome to 2015, the year that speaking and writing freely had to stop. Anything that might cause trauma to anyone of any race except the white one will be expunged, and the perpetrators of politically incorrect speech or written words will be airbrushed forever. "Trauma" derives from the Greek and means "wound." The literary canon will be the first to bite the dust, as it's one big trauma, especially for ...
Political correctness. The dreariest, most depressing and dismal words in the English language, almost as depraved as the word "hype." The apostles of P.C. claim to teach tolerance and diversity, but heaven help anyone with thoughts sufficiently independent and diverse to disagree with them. There is nothing more venomous than the hate-hype vipers, slithering far and wide, thus posing a danger nearly everywhere. Any ...
If I were a North Korean leader, or even an ISIS head chopper, I"d be reveling in the fact that a black American former basketball star spoke more plainly about race in America than any member of our political class or media. Charles Barkley doesn"t mince his words. Many of his fellow blacks were not best pleased when he told young African-Americans a while ago to forget about basketball and stay in school. After ...
Here is my Christmas gift to Takimag readers, one that applies mostly to unmarried males, but it’s also available to married ones who might wish to test whether that old magic still works. (Female readers of the best magazine in the whole wide world may also pick up a few hints.) This is not to be confused with the amateurish, vulgar, and embarrassing inventory of the Swiss-American Julien Blanc on how to pick up women. His ...
