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Richard Farr
  • Jun 8, 2018

“Conservatives” and the problem of evil

Some questions have to be asked again and again, because being unable to get a straight answer reminds us what’s really going on: What do...
Unlike
Richard Farr
  • Mar 22, 2018

Unlike

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scanda l (an extraordinarily ugly story for the age of Trump), I have deleted my Facebook account....
Richard Farr
  • Jan 24, 2018

Inequality – something we should all be able to agree about

It often strikes me that we almost all agree about the fundamental problem in political economy. Almost all. A few crazies on the...
Richard Farr
  • Jan 24, 2018

Trumpocracy

Choice is a great burden. The call to invent one’s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable. Totalitarian regimes aim to...
Richard Farr
  • Jan 8, 2018

The Genius in Chief

To read books seriously is to be staggered by the knowledge of how many more books will remain beyond your ken. It’s like looking up at...
Richard Farr
  • Dec 29, 2017

2017

I am a citizen of two countries, the UK and the US. Last year, in 2016, both acted in lock step, as they have so often done before: first...
Richard Farr
  • Dec 17, 2017

Oliver Cromwell on the Republican Party’s holiday gift to the Koch brothers

Be pleased to reform the abuses of all professions: and if there be any one that makes many poor to make a few rich, that suits not a...
Richard Farr
  • Dec 11, 2017

Warlocks and witch-hunts

The revelations about Harvey Weinstein, and the sexual predations and or boorishness of other powerful men, are shocking and disgusting....
Richard Farr
  • Nov 16, 2017

Great acting – and tyranny

Helping out with a high school class on dystopian lit, I came across one of the best examples of the craft I’ve seen in a long time – the...
ICAN: a small nuclear win
Richard Farr
  • Oct 11, 2017

ICAN: a small nuclear win

Sumiteru Taniguchi, Nagasaki victim and lifelong anti-nuclear activist, died just over a month ago. It’s a shame he didn’t live to hear...
Richard Farr
  • Sep 7, 2017

America: a history lesson

Historian Eric Hobsbawn (quoted from memory): “It is the job of the historian to remember what others have found it convenient to...
Richard Farr
  • Jun 23, 2017

Pushing dimensions at the NYT

Once again I find my morning coffee interrupted by the desire to rewrite some odd English in the The Gray Lady of Record (Shifting...
Richard Farr
  • Jun 9, 2017

‘Lies’?

One of today’s New York Times headlines raises an interesting point for the word nerds among us. Comey …. accuses the White House of...
Richard Farr
  • Nov 27, 2016

After the cataclysm: thoughts from the deck of a sinking ship

This great ship, the USS America, is in deep trouble. Captain Barry Hope — “Audacity” to his friends — is about to be helicoptered off...
Richard Farr
  • Nov 17, 2016

“Not I”: An Open Letter to American Conservatives on the Eve of the Election

The most frightening book I’ve read in the past ten years is not a novel by Stephen King, but a childhood memoir by the German historian...
Edward Albee, 1928–2016
Richard Farr
  • Sep 18, 2016

Edward Albee, 1928–2016

A great talent. RIP. In 1996, I had the opportunity to interview him at his home in Manhattan. Along with my introduction, this is what...
A conversation with Marcus Aurelius about Donald Trump
Richard Farr
  • Jul 31, 2016

A conversation with Marcus Aurelius about Donald Trump

I was talking American politics recently with my old friend, the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. Marco is a good person to talk...
Richard Farr
  • Jul 20, 2016

Trident: yet another depressing vote in the UK

Thirty six years ago, as a student, I wrote to the then Minister of Defense, Francis Pym, to argue that both the enormously expensive...
Richard Farr
  • Jun 19, 2016

Guns, violence, and terrorism

Following the Orlando massacre, here are a couple of numbers, and two new acronyms, that may help to make sense of these important...
Richard Farr
  • Dec 10, 2014

Torturing Dick Cheney: “Brutal, un-American, and ineffective”

The Senate Intelligence Committee has now released its report on the American people’s torture of Dick Cheney, and has reached three...
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