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Again about superheroes
One of the most memorable moments in Alan Moore's great WildC.A.T.s story is in the final issue, where Maxine and Majestic practically adopt each other as father and daughter. It is an old commonplace that superheroes are mythical projections of our teen-age super-egos; but surely if mythical projection there be, it is of those who guard us, who ( Read more... ) -
About omnipotence
One of my Facebook friends spoke with considerable annoyance of the idea that God would be angered by the individual behaviour of one woman. Now I think I have shown and said that I am not a person to go and persecute one person, of whatever sex, for their sins or for what I take to be their sins. I have quite enough of my own to think about, thank ( Read more... ) -
Four years after Captain M.
Brie Larson is, I think, an ill-treated person.
Larson, an Oscar winner in her twenties, was cast as Captain Marvel in a remarkably bad superhero movie that marked the first signal of the sudden and vertiginous collapse of the Marvel Cinematic Universe from a setting for brilliant stories and amazing actors with splendid parts (think of Chadwick ( Read more... ) -
Come nasce una mafia
Una mafia si può creare da qualunque parte, se esistono le condizioni sociali adatte. Io la ho osservata in formazione a Londra, da vicino, negli ultimi decenni.
Ventitre anni fa feci un tentativo di diventare insegnante di liceo (high school) dal quale, a parte il mio insuccesso, imparai molte cose. La formula della pubblica istruzione inglese è ( Read more... ) -
Rebels with the permission of Head Office
I think woke-ism is in crisis. Maybe we have reached the crest of the wave, and we may be going in the other direction. The issue of claimed identity is smashing against two unbreakable rocks, the desperate resistance of female sportswomen who refuse to be erased from their own sports by men in female dress, and the growing voice of detransitioners ( Read more... ) -
THE DEGENERATION OF ENGLAND WAS MANAGED AND DIRECTED
Many opponents of Brexit, especially of course those on the left, like to think that Brexit is an expression of the plutocracy. That is not a view that will bear analysis. Business in general did not want Brexit, and when it came, the international media reacted with bewilderment and stupefaction. That was what the international elite felt. It may ( Read more... ) -
The meaning of a beauty
Everyone is publishing pictures of Raquel Welch on the day her passing was announced. Yes, she was a very beautiful woman, and, yes, her beauty was her most remarkable feature. She was at best an ordinary actress. Yet I will be surprised if, when the acting greats of her time pass away, many of them will receive such a widespread tribute. Raquel ( Read more... ) -
Why I am a Christian
I've said more than once that it was the study of history that convinced me of the truth of Christianity, and that I was a historian before I was a Christian. I think however that there is one thing I haven't said, which is very important.
I am certain that all the documents of the New Testament were written within living memory of Jesus, in the ( Read more... ) -
Elizabeth II and I
To be sure, she was the palest shadow of what monarchy once was. Her life was a sequence of hollowed-out rituals. What is worse, it served, especially in the end, horrible purposes. She herself was widely seen as a staunch, enduring person, whose final years were certainly less than happy; but her position is the capstone of the informal but real ( Read more... ) -
Pornography and politics
1.
I have long pointed out that Margaret Thatcher has been sold on a false prospectus, and that she was, in particular, no manner of "social conservative". As I pointed out in my unfriendly obituary for her (https://fpb.livejournal.com/655471.html), "I doubt Margaret Thatcher would have opposed " ( Read more... )