Ruby Turok-Squire [from ‘Snow’]: ‘see the dots
as unhappened kisses
searching out their mouths
eye-whites
keeping secrets
not even they remember’
Michael Blackburn: ‘The passions aroused by the referendum, the divisions opened up by it, the fact that Cameron felt he had to give it the go-ahead as a means to lance the boil of discontent, are indicative of a sizable rejection of the political establishment. They are no longer trusted. They prove, day in, day out, that they deserve no trust.’
Wall Street Journal: ‘Syria’s chaos has also incubated the rise of Islamic State, set America against its traditional allies, sent refugees pouring into Europe, invited the Russians back into the region, fed Iran’s influence in a nervous Arab world and spread instability across the region. ‘
Ian Seed: ‘Here I stopped because I could not remember how to conjugate the verb. In any case, I had an excuse not to continue for at that moment a military parade appeared at the end of the street. It was led by a general in a jeep. ‘
Michael Blackburn: ‘There’s no reason to assume that the EU couldn’t create a unified military force from a selection of member states with others staying out completely or occasionally working in cooperation. They’ve accepted (for the moment) a situation with the euro, for example, in which some members do not participate.’
Yetta Blaze de Bury: ‘I have been particular in exposing those features in Brunetière’s work which underline his own individuality: his worship of human dignity, his contempt of money, his disdain of flattery—all idiosyncrasies which strongly influence the critic’s severity toward the demoralising literature of the “naturalists”; a literature that is generally little else but excitement of the least noble instincts of humanity. In a word, he is chiefly concerned in literature with its ethical purport.’
Erik Butler: ‘When Brunetière wrote that “battle looms,” he was not exaggerating. Two World Wars, if nothing else, should have proven as much; the struggles for national liberation that emerged when European empires collapsed have dotted the globe with expanding theaters of conflict. The economic and cultural imperialism of gung-ho American capitalism has begotten a market that can operate perfectly well without its creator. Fundamentalism has only flourished in response to “progress” (including, not too long ago, the “scientific socialism” espoused by the Soviet Union).’
Elton Hocking: ‘Most of all, this banquet was held as a demonstration of protest against Brunetière. Three months before, he had dared to publish in his “Revue des deux mondes” an article which denounced the positivistic and materialistic spirit of modern science, and proclaimed that morality and happiness were to be found not in science, but in the spirit of the Church.’
A Petition [to the Yale University English Department] — We, undergraduate students in the Yale English Department, write to urge the faculty to reevaluate the undergraduate curriculum. We ask the department to reconsider the current core requirements and the introductory courses for the major.
Michael Blackburn: ‘inevitably, well supplied with bureaucrats and lawyers working away at one directive after another, one set of regulations after another, one set of proposals after another. Railways, bananas, toilets, light bulbs, driving licences, passports, road tolls, boilers, gas and electricity, television scheduling, fish quotas, postal services, immigration, defence, herbal medicines — you name it, there’s hardly a thing untouched by the EU prodnoses. ‘
Roger Kimball [via Real Clear Politics]: ‘St. John’s Board of Visitors and Governors is on the brink of making changes in the governing structure of the college that will set it, perhaps irrevocably, on the road to intellectual blandness and conformity.’
Edouard Tétreau [from Le Figaro]: Brexit is also very good news for France and French diplomacy. It will not change the remarkable and close-knit joint military ventures between the UK and France, in operation since the Lancaster House Treaties. But it will allow France – along with Germany – to instil into the EU a less interventionist foreign policy. This diplomacy was present in the Iraq War, supported by Tony Blair, and in NATO’s eastward push to Ukraine, reawakening Russian paranoia.
James Poulos {from the Orange County Register]: ‘The Islamic State – and, doubtless, its tacit allies and enablers – seems to understand perfectly that, if the spirit of France is broken, and the muscle of France paralyzed, Europe’s soul and Europe’s strength will also be fatally sapped. No other significant power can step into a France-sized hole in Europe. Germany is reeling from the combined burdens of Mideast migrants, EU economics and deeply ingrained resistance to dominance from Berlin. Britain, on the verge of cutting the EU loose, is too weak to lead the Continent, and not European enough besides. Spain? Italy? Belgium? Poland? There is nowhere else to turn … except, in a realization that should send shudders through the foreign policy establishment, Russia.’
Brunetière: Critic first.
Yetta Blaze de Bury: ‘I have been particular in exposing those features in Brunetière’s work which underline his own individuality: his worship of human dignity, his contempt of money, his disdain of flattery—all idiosyncrasies which strongly influence the critic’s severity toward the demoralising literature of the “naturalists”; a literature that is generally little else but excitement of the least noble instincts of humanity. In a word, he is chiefly concerned in literature with its ethical purport.’