“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...
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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 16, 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...
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 8, 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 26, 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 16, 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...
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...
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 19, 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 18, 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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