Society

Wednesday

Susan Jacoby

Reading on the web is not really reading

One of Senator Barack Obama’s persistent themes, since the drawn-out US presidential campaign began in the snows of 2007, has been the need for parents to turn off the television, put away video games, and spend more time reading to and talking with their children. Although no candidate would be dumb enough to call potential voters dumb, Obama is in fact referring to the dumbing down of American culture over the past three decades — a phenomenon that can be measured by everything from a sharp decline in book and newspaper reading to the mediocre performance of American students on international assessments of proficiency in science and mathematics. Obama’s approach

Oar Pali

Confessions of a travelling non-dom

O’ar Pali says it isn’t easy being on planes next to strangers all the time — and you quickly find there are a series of character types, dying to tell you about themselves Perhaps it goes with the territory: if you have decided to live your life between two countries you must accept the consequences. And no, I am not talking about Darling’s taxation treat. I am referring to what most non-doms endure on a monthly if not weekly basis. While the average UK citizen may undergo the travel dilemma a few times a year, usually during the summer and winter holidays, entitling them to complain about Heathrow’s Terminal 5,

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Our obsession with paedophilia is more dangerous than Gary Glitter’s return

Hello, hello, he’s back again. Although not necessarily — as the words of his 1972 hit had it — ‘on the right track’. Nobody, these past few weeks, has accused Gary Glitter of being on the right track. The lady in my local post office wants him strung up by his gonads and, from the various websites I’ve been trawling through, this a fairly popular denouement. Glitter was convicted of downloading pornographic images of children in Britain and, after he completed his briefish sentence, of sexually abusing two young girls in Vietnam, to which country he had fled. He served a longer sentence there and is now back in the

Boris Johnson

Beijing Notebook

We only had a few seconds left to get ready. There were 91,000 people in the stadium and (allegedly) about 1.5 billion watching apathetically at home. I advanced to the little plastic sign on the red carpet saying ‘Mayor of London’, and as we waited to be called to the centre of the arena I decided I had better spruce myself up. Now the crowd were roaring and waving their red light sabres, and hastily I got out my wallet, mobile, keys, and all the other clobber that might impair my flag-waving performance, and handed them to a chap on my left. I rolled my shoulders like Rocky, and rehearsed

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Did you know McCain was once a POW?

Is John McCain pretending to be a) Rudy Giuliani or b) John Kerry? Either way, this irrelevant invocation of his POW status threatens, if it continues to be used in this fashion, to make him appear ridiculous. It’s as bad as Giuliani’s “9/11 will produce a better postal service/farm bill/trade agreement/” or Kerry’s grim gawd-help-us “I’m a klutz and I’m reporting for duty” schtick. From his latest appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno: LENO: Welcome back, Sen. McCain, for one million dollars, how many houses do you have? (Jay laughs, McCain squirms and chuckles) MCCAIN: You know, could I just mention to you, Jay, and a moment of seriousness.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

From Gin Lane to Faliraki

Ah, Sarah Lyall. Bless her. The New York Times’ London correspondent has an entertainingly gruesome piece on the lagered-up misbehaviour of Brits on tour. No-one who has spent any time on Cyprus or the Costa del Sol will need reminding of the horrors that await the unwary or innocent traveller who stumbles upon the modern British tourist in his – and, indeed, her – natural element. It is, as you would expect from Ms Lyall, well done and, in places, appeallingly, well, dry: But they [Brits in Greece] said that the lurid stories are media exaggerations. “I’ve never seen anyone get stabbed the whole time I’ve been here,” said Chris

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Annals of Modern Life

It had to happen: peanut butter now comes with a warning that, yup, it contains actual peanuts. On the other hand, perhaps this isn’t as absurd as it may seem. Or, to put it another way, it’s good to see that peanut butter is, well, peanut butter and not something made using ersatz-peanut-like substances. That this is reassuring is, of course, also depressing.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

“Ping pong is coming home”

Whatever one thinks of Boris Johnson, the new Mayor of London, I think one can say that his speech in Beijing accepting the Olympic flag as it is passed from Beijing to London provided a splendid antidote to the totalitarian efficiency that seems to have rather weighed down these games. By contrast, there is every reason to suppose that London may be an agreeably and entertainingly shambolic affair. How could it be otherwise when Boris is the man notionally in charge of it all? Watch this and be delighted/appalled/tickled pink:I’ve previously suggested that the opening ceremony needs only the Band of the Grenadier Guards. Nothing more, nothing less.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Democrats’ challenge: Turning the election from a referendum on Obama into a choice between Obama and McCain

Everything this year seems to have aligned for the Democrats. The incumbent Republican president is deeply unpopular, more than three quarters of voters think the country is on the wrong track, the economy is in trouble and the conservative coalition is fracturing. But still the presidential race is tight; there aren’t more than a couple of points in it. The explanation for this is quite simple: the election has moved from being a referendum on the Bush years to a referendum on Barack Obama. The extent to which Obama dominates the media coverage of the campaign means that the most important thing in deciding your vote is what you think

Sean Martin

Zanu PF are still delusional

With the MDC still refusing to sign the unacceptable power sharing deal, Zimbabwe’s future hangs in the balance. The discussions are as farcical as we expected – a fact demonstrated by Mandy Russow’s piece in the South African Mail and Guardian today. In it, she interviews both George Charamba and Tendai Biti, from Zanu PF and MDC respectively, and asks them identical questions about the deal negotiations.  Charamba’s answers depict the central cause of Zimbabwe’s ruin: Zanu PF delusions. He asserts: “It is about the plight of the white man and Britain and its mining interests…I don’t know what you are terming as economic decline. In terms of the stats,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Clinton factor

Day two and again what the press want to talk about is the Clintons.  Tonight Hillary speaks and, to be fair, she is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. If she takes it to John McCain, the pundits will say look what the Democrats are missing. But if she talks more about her primary campaign and Obama, she’ll be accused of pulling her punches. The word is that she will indeed go after McCain hard, something that the Democrats failed to do in prime time last night. The problem is that the keynote former Virginia Governor Mark Warner is not a red-meat speaker so he’ll likely not

Peter Hoskin

Russia makes yet another aggressive move

Russia’s formal recognition of the “independence” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is one of the most aggressive moves it could have made in the geopolitical chess game it’s playing with Georgia and the West.  For starters, it increases the likelihood of future military conflict.  The worry now is that any Georgian involvement in the breakaway regions will be used by Moscow as an excuse to mobilise its forces once again, all in the name of protecting South Ossetian and/or Abkhazian independence.  But it also effectively denies the West a democratic solution to the problem.  Many policymakers had hoped that the independence question could have been resolved by internationally-monitored referenda.  Even if those referenda do eventually go ahead, the sight of numerous South Ossetians and Abkhazians celebrating in the streets today suggests that the results would be immaterial.  For

Kaz Mochlinski

And now it’s London’s turn…

Beijing, China When Boris Johnson became the London Mayor earlier this year, he was promptly informed that his first major duty would be to receive the Olympic flag on behalf of the next host city, in Beijing in August. “Sorry but that is one thing I cannot do” he is reported to have replied. “In August I will be on holiday with my family in Tuscany as always and there is no way I am going to Beijing.” Come August and Bo-Jo did not just participate in the Olympic handover from Beijing to London, during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Games in the Bird’s Nest stadium, he stole the

Peter Hoskin

CoffeeHousers’ Wall 26th-31st August

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall.  For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – provided your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

The Spectator

Just in case you missed them… 

Here are some of the posts made over the bank holiday weekend on Spectator.co.uk: A Coffee House poll asks whether the Tories should pledge to cut public spending. Fraser Nelson says it’s getting harder for first-time buyers, and claims a big state means a spying state. James Forsyth picks up on how an MI5 report shies away from mentioning ideology, and reports on another strong opinion poll showing for the Tories. Peter Hoskin suggests that the Tory hares and tortoises are set to do battle once again, and highlights a rather strange quote from Gordon Brown. Clive Davis gives his take on the Olympics handover concert at Buckingham Palace. And

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Michelle Obama’s speech was cautious but effective

Michelle Obama played it safe tonight. Gone was the sassy campaigner I remember seeing in Iowa and South Carolina. The aim of the speech was to introduce Michelle Obama to the public and to dispel the idea of her as an angry, divisive figure. On that score, it worked. Michelle Obama sounded both humble and proud of her country—the opposite of how her critics portray her. By talking about her father, she was able to emphasise his commitment to work and self-reliance, one of the key American values. Describing how he coped with MS, she said simply that he “woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.” Her

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Rooting Obama in the American middle class

Tonight’s message is going to be all about Obama and the economy. The Democrats want to paint Obama as a tribune of the middle class and as a member of it; they want to reduce the sense of otherness about him, what Mark Penn called his ‘lack of American roots.’  This is a crucial task, if they can’t do this then you have to expect the undecideds to break heavily for McCain which given the current closeness of the race would be enough to put him in the White House. In the security queue we got talking to one of tonight’s featured speakers, Tom Balanoff, a Union official from Chicago

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Michelle’s moment

James and I have now installed ourselves in a bit of space at the Pepsi Centre in Denver. The stage is all set up, Obamabilia is being sold in the halls and musicians are warming up for the opening night of the Democratic National Convention. Tonight is, essentially, Michelle Obama’s coming-out party, a speech from the woman everyone has heard of but hardly anyone has heard from. The narrative about her is already being spun furiously: a working class Chicago girl unlike the super-rich Cindy McCain, A headstrong woman and devoted wife, as she puts it “I’m married to this guy Barack and that’s about it.” The spouse matters in

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can the Democrats unify?

The Democrats want to achieve five things this week here in Denver: 1). Unify the party 2). Persuade voters that Obama is ready to be president 3). Tie McCain to Bush 4). Hone an economic message 5). Show swing voters that Obama is ‘one of us’ There is, therefore, intense irritation that this morning the story dominating the news is about tensions between the Clinton and Obama camps. The spark for this is that Bill Clinton, who seems much less reconciled to defeat than Hillary is, is unhappy about being asked to speak on Wednesday night about national security. Instead, he apparently wants to speak about the economy contrasting the