From the One-Thing Files

“I put my feet up on the desk and start reading. If I get an erection, we prosecute.” Prosecuting counsel Mervyn Griffith-Jones, explaining why he prosecuted Penguin Books for obscenity after it published Lady Chatterley's Lover (Blog Post)

Sam Kriss Will Come to Your House and Kill You

"And if I ever see any of you trying to palm off some bullshit about how sunlight smells of memories that leave no footsteps . . . I will come to your house and I’ll fucking kill you." Sam Kriss. Pope Leo agrees, at least in principle. (Essay)

So, the Libertarian Conservatives Were Right Again?

They lost Massie in the attack by Conservatism 1.0 ("CINO's" . . . "Conservative in name only") but Conservatism 2.0 was right about the Iranian War . . . or so it seems. (Short Essay)

A Heavy Drinker Goes Sober

But he rails against teetotallers, reminding me of an Irish man who "took the pledge" and, when congratulated on becoming a teetotaller, looked shocked and said, "That's a filthy Protestant notion. I took the pledge." (BYCU Blog Post)

A Micro-Paean to County Highway

Today's journalism at the highest artistic levels. That, I think, is what County Highway is up to. (Blog Post)

We're Storing Over One Billion Pounds of Surplus Cheese

Under the Clintons, the Democratic Party took up dwarf throwing: seeing how far they can toss the little guy for votes. No one's been protecting the little guy since. Consider the small dairy farmer. (Essay)

Soho in the Eighties

I'm 5% of the way through this book and I'm not sure what I'm reading, but I'm pretty sure it's an abject waste of time and delightful. (Mini-essay)

Nothing Gets My Bile Going Like a College Graduation Ceremony

College administrators' pretentiousness-to-intelligence ratio is higher than pederasts' perversity-to-temperance ratio. It's bad enough that they both pollute the youth. At graduation ceremonies, they make us watch. (Screed)

An Anti-Abortion Drunk

Jeffrey Bernard (long-stumbling literary drunk, long-standing author of The Spectator's "Low Life" column, subject of the long-running play Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell) dedicated a column to "the heroes of 1985." One of them, the "late lamented Michael Dempsey." Last

Resist Tech Zeus!

Technological Progress is the Zeus of our culture. One moment, William Blake was warning that Francis Bacon’s essays are for Satan’s kingdom. The next moment, your cell phone is buzzing against your genitals while you’re trying to get laid. (Essay)