"Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once." - Tallulah Bankhead

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My Favourite Periodical:


August 16th:

"SIR – It is true that Romanian does not have a precise word for “accountability” (“Mr Too Clean?”, August 2nd). The Romanian term responsabilitate, like the French responsabilité (to which it is related) and similar words in other Romance languages, encompasses both the concept of responsibility and that of accountability. Of course, we shouldn’t read too much into this. Romanian also lacks an exact word for “dating”, but this has never prevented Romanians from doing so. Thus, the lack of a precise term is probably not the cause of any issues of accountability in Romania.

Radu Costinescu
Washington, DC"
What does this tell us about the argument that language shackles our thoughts and deterministically frames them?

"[Detroit's] mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, spent a night in jail for violating his bond terms in a perjury case. The next day he was charged with assault, bringing his total roster to 14 counts. He was in court again on the 12th and is scheduled to return on August 14th and 15th. Known for his style, the mayor now wears an anklet adorned with a tracking system... In March Mr Kilpatrick declared that he had been “called a nigger more than any time in my entire life” and that “this unethical, illegal lynch-mob mentality has to stop”."

"Spelling arouses surprising passions. Residents in Cologne once called the police after a hairdresser put up a sign advertising Haarflege, rather than the correct Haarpflege (hair care)."

[On English's quirks] "It takes more than twice as long to learn to read English as it does to read most other west European languages, according to a 2003 study led by Philip Seymour of Dundee University."

"In fact, says Jorgen Carling, a Norwegian who has studied the trafficking of Nigerian women to Europe, it is rarely possible to draw the absolutely clear line that policymakers want between “innocent victimhood” and “willing participation” in sex work. For example, people may know that they are being taken abroad as sex workers, but have no idea of the harsh conditions, and the absolute loss of control over their lives, that they will face. This may be an area of life where most people can recognise evil when they see the details of one horrifying case—but where it will always be hard to make hard-and-fast rules that suit every country."

"The authorities have used television ads to challenge the macho Turkish myth that sex workers “ask for it and want it”. “Did you know that over half of trafficked women are mothers too?” asks one spot. Having been ensnared by talk of work as “fashion models” or “dancers”, a growing number of such women are rescued by semi-chivalrous male customers, who alert the police."

[On Tony Leon] "He enjoyed a warm relationship with Mr Mandela, whose offer of a cabinet job Mr Leon nonetheless turned down in 1997. Later, when Mr Mandela accused the opposition parties of being “Mickey Mouse organisations”, Mr Leon retorted that he ran a “Goofy government”. A few weeks later, Mr Leon heard a knock on the door of his hospital room just before he was to undergo open-heart surgery. It was Mr Mandela, who called out, “Hullo, Mickey Mouse, this is Goofy, can I come in?”"


August 23th:

"SIR – It was with an equal dose of sheer pleasure and utter horror that I read the letter from Alexander Kramarenko at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (August 9th). Regarding Zimbabwe, Mr Kramarenko said Russia believes “that negotiations… are the best way to avoid more bloodshed”, and, “as a matter of principle, we do not believe in the punishment or isolation of sovereign states”.

I read this while watching the Russian bombardment of the Georgian city of Gori.

Emile Gregoire
Paris"

[On Obama] "There remains a mystery about his politics. David Mundell, his most thorough biographer, refers to his “ingenious lack of specificity”. One Democratic activist has called him “a kind of human Rorschach test”. Mr Obama himself confesses that “I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.”...

Mr Obama has never pursued a serious reform agenda in any job he has held. He eased his way into his first job in politics, as a state senator in Illinois, by using a “petitions guru” to challenge the signatures his rival, Alice Palmer, had obtained to qualify for the ballot, an extraordinary move for a man who had made his name trying to get poor people to vote. He had a see-no-evil attitude to the Chicago political machine, one of the most corrupt in the country... He had a disturbingly close relationship with Tony Rezko, a Chicago property magnate who made his career doing favours for politicians who could open doors to real-estate contracts, and who is now in prison. Mr Rezko contributed $250,000 to Mr Obama over his career, and bought a lot next to his house...

He supported the farm bill and the override of the president’s veto, despite the fact that the bill sprayed money at agri-business and raised barriers against farmers in the developing world. A raft of pork projects, including Alaska’s “bridge to nowhere”, received his support. He used his star power to raise money for his political action committee, Hope Fund, and then disbursed nearly $300,000 to Democrats who might be useful in his election bid. The man who promises to reform America’s political system is the first presidential candidate ever to reject public funds for the general election...

At every stage of his career he has calibrated the balance of political forces and adjusted his behaviour accordingly—embracing big-city liberalism when he was a Chicago politician, moving to the centre when he won his party’s presidential nomination."

"Mr Cameron is only a politician: to accuse him of opportunism is tautological"

[On Chinese in Greece] "There are rumours that all their merchandise is made on ships on the high seas, where no labour laws apply, and that it can be dangerous—televisions that explode, underwear that gives you a rash. On Crete, says Ms Rosen, local Greeks rarely admit going to Chinese stores; they say the only customers are other poor immigrants. But older Greek women, in particular, do quietly patronise the Chinese, often getting clothes for daughters and granddaughters whose extravagance risks busting the family budget. In some contexts, the words “cheap” and “Chinese” are interchangeable. When a Greek electronics chain tells its customers that “we’ve become Chinese!” that means a sale is on."

"Activists have attacked both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, for instance, for allegedly depleting groundwater in India to make bottled drinks. Coca-Cola took the matter to court and was exonerated by an independent commission, which blamed a regional drought for water shortages, but activists were not mollified."
That's because activists don't think using their brains. Yet another peril of letting ideology and emotion overwhelm your brain

[On the Olympics] "Among the shares hardest hit this summer were those that unscrupulous brokers had touted as sure-fire winners from the games: restaurants selling Peking duck, hotels, and the like."

[On Physiognomy] "A century ago, the idea that a person’s character could be seen in his face was more or less taken as given. It then fell out of favour, along with the idea that behaviour is genetically determined, as Marxist ideas of the pliability and perfectibility of mankind became fashionable. Now, it is undergoing something of a revival. It has been found, for example, that women can predict a man’s interest in infant children from his face. Trustworthiness also shows up, as does social dominance... in men, at least, it is also possible to look at someone’s face and read his predisposition to aggression."

"A Christian of Palestinian provenance, Mr Muasher is careful not to blame Islam for the Arabs’ failure to create democracies, but notes that “in the Sunni stream of Islam the door to interpretation and reasoning, ijtihad, had been closed since at least the 13th century.”"


August 30th:

"If I understand it correctly, the job of a risk manager can be summarised as follows: we bundle up loads of toxic-waste packages and peddle them as AAA investments because the trading desk’s insistence on bonuses trumps our sober risk analysis. I look forward to your next article: “How our traders paid back their bonuses and compensated our customers’ pillaged pension funds”.

Paul Furber
Johannesburg"

"Amending English will be welcomed by children who cannot cope with the spelling of, for example, “cycle”, which sounds different when in “bicycle”. Such easy corrections were made to the German language a century ago. Perhaps this may explain why the Germans lost two world wars—they were too logical.

Giorgio Perversi
Massimeno, Italy"

"You didn’t consider French, which has a wealth of silent letters and homonyms and is an inspiration for punsters as well as poets. And the relationship between spelling and pronunciation in Portuguese and the Scandinavian languages is hardly simple. What about Russian, with its Byzantine grammatical case endings mostly sounding the same but spelt differently? The development of English into the world’s lingua franca suggests that spelling is not an insuperable barrier.

Jonathan Lynn
Geneva"

"I disagree that double consonants are “bereft of logic”. A little titivation would soon bring honnour (or honner, or onner) and schollar (or scholler or skoller) into line with the double-consonant/short-vowel rule. The difficulty with spelling reform is where does it end? Shudd “about” be “abowt”, and shud “however” be “houever”? If “father” duzn’t need an r, must we keep the one in “farther”, wich only the Scots pronounse differently? If George Bernard Shaw cudn’t get ennywere with refawm, I faw wun giv upp.

Hilary Potts
London"

"“No Nigerian likes the military in government,” says 65-year-old Bassey Archibong, a trader who is glad the years of military repression are over. “The poor man may not have seen many improvements” under civilian rule, he said. “But at least you can shout at these people. Shout at the military and they would just kill you.”"

"Germany is to board-games what Belgium is to chocolate... Euro (also “German-style”) games must not be confused with “Ameritrash” games, which generally involve high drama and employ plastic pieces, though arguing over what the difference is seems to be gamers’ second-favourite pastime."

[On a WHO report on World Health] "Amid the report’s musings on the social causes of health problems, what about individual choice? A fat glutton can hardly blame a cruel society, or liberal trade policies, for his predicament—yet the report says too little about people’s responsibility to look after themselves."
You can always blame advertising, cultural imperialism and oppression


September 6th

"Does the Rev Edward Franks think that Anglicanism is the only Christian institution with a “select or leave whatever you want” theology (Letters, August 23rd)? Liberals within the Anglican tradition are often castigated for promoting an exegesis that is open, tolerant and inclusive. Other denominations such as Baptists and Pentecostals, particularly in parts of America, interpret the Bible in other ways, casting aside the commands of “Love thy neighbour” and “Do not judge” in favour of verses that supposedly condone the use of guns, the execution of felons, the bombing of abortion clinics and the erosion of women’s rights.

Ultimately, the Bible is a text for which one is inevitably required to operate a “select or leave” policy. Its core message is one of love and tolerance, but there are also orders to force women to be silent in church and to burn at the stake anyone who wears clothes composed of different fibres.

Members of the Anglican Communion, and indeed all churches, would be wise to take St Augustine as their guiding light; any interpretation of the scriptures must conform to the principle of compassion. If all the Anglican church, and indeed the wider Christian community, has to offer in the 21st century is bigotry, sectarianism and intolerance, then Richard Dawkins will not be the only one cheering religion’s downfall.

Maddy Fry
Oxford"

"Please clarify the connection between arugula, a leafy green, and Barack Obama’s presidential campaign (“Explaining the riddle”, August 23rd). I am aware that journalists once spotted Mr Obama eating an arugula salad for lunch. However, I am not gaining any insight into the presidential race due to its weekly mention. If you insist on using arugula-based commentary week after week then please develop a connection between Republican politics and some other vegetable that we can chew on. May I suggest the soyabean? It is low in nutritional value, lacks flavour and is hard to digest.

Matthew Wasowski
Boulder, Colorado"