"The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children." - King Edward VIII

***

My favourite periodical:

April 12th:

"Of course, America still tops many league tables by a wide margin. For example, it is the world's biggest debtor nation; it guzzles the most energy; and it has the biggest prison population. But perhaps these are not things to boast about."

"Fossils

SIR – I found your description of the dictatorships in Myanmar and North Korea as “Neanderthal” to be quite unfair (“The great game in Asia”, March 31st). Neanderthal man is famous for his premature extinction, whereas the regimes in Myanmar and North Korea are successful survivors in a rapidly evolving political world. Neanderthals also divided labour between the sexes, as you have noted (“Mrs Adam Smith”, December 9th 2006). But to the best of my knowledge neither Myanmar nor North Korea allocates power with gender in mind.

Moreover, there is no scientific evidence about the socio-political organisation of Neanderthal settlements that points to them being casually dominated by ruthless men happy to oppress and exploit their own people.

Frédéric Laforge
Lausanne, Switzerland"

[On Segolene Royal] "Critical [of 35-hour-week], because too much power for employers (sic)"

"Russia's ability to cause harm to itself and to others in the cause of proving its greatness should never be underestimated."

"Since the dawn of agriculture, man's most enduring relationship with forests has been to cut them down"


"Some Americans fret that there is a double standard. Black comedians such as Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock use the word “ho” all the time, without controversy. And Stevie Wonder refers to himself as “nappy-headed” in his song “I Wish”. Ah yes, but those black comedians are mocking misogynistic rap culture, and Mr Wonder was mocking himself. The more obvious double standard is that Jesse Jackson, a black politician who led a protest against Mr Imus, once referred to New York as “Hymietown”.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, a more consequential racially-charged dispute ended this week. The state attorney-general exonerated three white lacrosse players at Duke University who had been accused a year ago of raping and assaulting a black stripper at a party. The media and much of the Duke arts faculty had trumpeted the case as an example of how wealthy white men abuse their power over poor black women. But the accuser kept changing her story. DNA evidence appeared to clear the three, and one had a solid alibi."

"When staff moved into the new Reykjavik headquarters of Actavis last year, the headaches were literal. Unable to tell whether the glass doors were open or closed, executives of the Icelandic generic-drugs firm kept walking into them."


May 10th:

Chronically happy

SIR – Well, nothing is really new. Your article on the unexpected improvement to patients' emotional health after they were injected with a bacterium recalls a similar effect that has been long identified in people suffering from tuberculosis (“Bad is good”, April 7th). Known as Spes phthisica, or the euphoria of the tuberculous consumptive, this partly explains the disease's impact on a long list of aesthetes, including George Orwell, D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, and Amedeo Modigliani. Frédéric Chopin complained that he could not compose unless he was coughing blood. John Keats, “With anguish moist and fever dew”, poured out his ineffable poetry as the disease accelerated.

An interesting aside to this is the aphrodisiac effect of tuberculosis, so familiar to staff working in sanatoriums. As a nursing sister in my hospital once said, “You need a blowtorch to separate them.”

Dr Dermot Kennedy
Glasgow


June 2nd:

"Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell, observed Frank Borman"


June 9th:

"SIR – What a coincidence. The map of abortion laws in your article highlighted those countries that either prohibit abortion altogether or restrict it severely, and is almost identical to regions that are distressed from overpopulation. Nearly all those states are suffering severe social stress, ethnic tensions and civil disorder. They include almost all of the countries that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation says will need food assistance this year.

John Bermingham
Denver"