Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
It isn’t the most lavish of memorials: a small stained glass window featuring a 7×7 grid of seven different colours. But on closer inspection you see that each colour appears once — and once only — in each row and column. This glorified Sudoku puzzle is called a ‘Latin square’, and is one of those things… …
Continue reading "How the establishment fell for eugenics — UnHerd"
After leaving China for America two decades ago, my father only returned to his homeland once. I had turned 18, and I think he wanted to show me something of his youth, of which he spoke little. In the dusty village where he grew up, we met an endless stream of old men who wanted… via …
Continue reading "America’s cultural revolution is just like Mao’s — UnHerd"
Late last year I began working on a piece marking 25 years since the publication of what I believed to be the most prescient work of the age. The book had been published in Britain in the spring of 1995 but as February and then March 2020 came and went, we were all rather distracted.… via …
Florence Pugh has become the latest casualty in the war against “cultural appropriation”. The charming star of Macbeth, Midsommar and Little Women recently issued a nauseating apology on her Instagram account for donning cornrows and painting henna on her hands when she was a teenager. Pugh recalled how she hadn’t heard of “cultural appropriation” until …
Continue reading "Cultural appropriation is progressive and anti-racist — UnHerd"
In 1998, the urban planning student Mohammed Atta handed in his masters thesis at Hamburg’s University of Technology. Examining in depth the architecture of Aleppo’s historic Bab al-Nasr district, Atta’s thesis presented a picture of the human-scale “Islamic-Oriental city,” whose winding cobbled streets, shaded souks and alleys carved from honey-coloured stone had been violated by… via …
That's Bernard Goldberg's sensible suggestion: Here’s the idea: Every white corporate CEO who thinks racism is ingrained in our culture, every white journalist who thinks racism has infected every facet of American life, every politician who thinks this is a fundamentally racist country — all of them should voluntarily give up their jobs, on one …
Continue reading "Don’t Like White Privilege? Quit Your Job!"
The backlash against Priti Patel and Munira Mirza has been something to behold. Mirza, recently appointed to run the Government’s new Racial Inequality Review, has been described as a ‘racial gatekeeper’, among other things; Patel has been accused of ‘gaslighting’ by Labour MPs after talking about her own experiences of racism. I feel it especially because… …
Continue reading "Minority women can think for themselves — UnHerd"
I’ve been slowly reading through JK Rowling’s “Reasons for Speaking Out on Sex and Gender Issues.” If you have time, it is worth the effort—she reiterates many points I’ve run into elsewhere. She clearly and, I must say compassionately, lays out the dilemma for both women and for people suffering from gender dysphoria. Moreover, she… via …
They say it's temporary... Harvard College has joined peers in a major — albeit temporary — shift in college admissions: It’s dropping the requirement for standardized testing for the class of 2025, as the pandemic has restricted access to the SAT and ACT. For these institutions in particular, I think it's a waste of time. …
That's the finding of this Gallup poll: American pride has continued its downward trajectory reaching the lowest point in the two decades of Gallup measurement. The new low comes at a time when the U.S. faces public health and economic crises brought on by the coronavirus pandemic and civil unrest following the death of George …
Continue reading "Being Unpatriotic Slowly Becomes Fashionable"
Positive Infinity 