‘Lying, grasping politicians have an easy ride. Unleash the next ‘Gotcha’’ – The Sunday Times

Photo: Josh Felise

Photo: Josh Felise

There are two political scandals doing the rounds in the US media. The first involves the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, who retired in 2007. During his eight-­‐year tenure as the longest-­‐serving Republican Speaker, Hastert presented a somewhat shambolic, avuncular front that endeared him to both parties.

He wasn’t known for being especially honest or particularly careful about the moral and ethical reputation of the House. But he was thought to be a man of good character and wholesome values — and that counted for a lot.

However, last Tuesday Hastert pleaded not guilty to federal money laundering charges. It is alleged that he paid $3.5m (£2.3m) in cash to an unnamed individual in return for that person’s silence about having been sexually molested by Hastert some years ago. It turns out that the man whom everyone considered a good old-fashioned Washingtonian of the right sort may have been a paedophile who was being blackmailed by at least one of his victims.

The same day that Hastert entered his plea, an even bigger scandal was splashed across the front page of The New York Times. The newspaper revealed that the Republican presidential hopeful Senator Marco Rubio isn’t rich. In fact, a thorough investigation of his finances showed Rubio has so many debts and so few assets that he is distinctly middle class. Oh, and he’s bad at paying his parking fines.

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WSJ Historically Speaking: Why Walls Rarely Keep Enemies Out

Photo: DEAGOSTINI/GETTY IMAGES

Photo: DEAGOSTINI/GETTY IMAGES

News of the latest theft of sensitive American information— this time of some 4 million records from the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management, allegedly by Chinese hackers—highlights the unfortunate truth about defensive walls. They may offer great psychological  comfort, whether as firewalls in the online world or stone walls and natural barriers in the real one, but they rarely work.

In the Book of Joshua, the Israelites engineered a brilliant victory by stamping their feet for seven days and blasting the walls of Jericho with their trumpets. In “The Aeneid,” Virgil described how the Trojans brought about their own downfall by bringing the famous wooden horse inside their gates. In his monumental “The Histories,” Herodotuslauded the courageous but futile last stand of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 B.C.) after they were betrayed by Ephialtes of Malis, who showed the Persians a secret route through the mountains that led to the back of the Greek lines. But these striking failures didn’t deter subsequent generations from believing that walls could keep them safe.

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The Sunday Times: Here’s a trigger warning for all campus censors: I shall fight you

Photo: Leeroy

Photo: Leeroy

I stopped watching HBO’s Rape of Thrones — sorry, Game of Thrones — three years ago. I appreciated the plotlines and strong characters and I’ve had both women and men explain to me why it’s necessary for the actresses to play hyper-­‐sexualised roles. But at the end  of the day, to me it’s a sleazy peep show about tits and bums gussied up with high production values and clever dialogue.

There’s a level of crude objectification, a cinematic revelling in the humiliation of women that speaks to something else. It disgusts me on many levels, not least because I believe that “something else” is modern society’s continuing toleration of sexual inequality.

So what’s an angry feminist to do? Well, watch a different programme, for a start. But more effective: complain, debate and generally participate in the marketplace of ideas to try to persuade others that “edgy” entertainment doesn’t have to mean taboo-busting depictions of women being degraded.

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WSJ Historically Speaking: The First Ladies and Their Predecessors

Photo: CSU ARCHIVES/EVERETT COLLECTION

Photo: CSU ARCHIVES/EVERETT COLLECTION

Dolley Madison was born this month in 1768. One of the greatest first ladies in U.S. history, she had a style and energy that brought a uniquely American twist to the role of political spouse. She transformed the White House, not only giving the interiors a much-needed face-lift but also making the presidential residence the social epicenter of Washington, D.C. Among her many gifts to the nation was her insistence that George Washington’s portrait be rescued when the British burned the city in 1814.

But Dolley Madison’s greatest achievement was in creating the role of first lady. President Zachary Taylor used the term for the first time at her funeral in 1849. After her time in the White House, Americans expected first ladies to play a public part, one that was above day-to-day politics and often national in its scope.

The idea of the political spouse has deep historical roots. Livia Drusilla, the ruthless and powerful wife of Caesar Augustus, was instrumental in shaping the destiny of the Roman Empire. Yet even she was imitating a role model that had its original expression in ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.

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The Sunday Times: America’s lost its can-do spirit in the jam of trains, planes and automobiles

Photo: Will Langenberg

Photo: Will Langenberg

I wish I could say that last week’s tragedy in Philadelphia — where a speeding Amtrak train jumped the tracks, killing eight people and injuring more than 200 — will create sufficient shockwaves that the government will have to change its attitude towards America’s crumbling infrastructure.

Even a small change would help, such as an end to the political deadlock over fitting all trains with the new anti-accident technology known as positive train control. Unfortunately I don’t think that’s possible.

America is a young country, not even 250 years old. Yet a creeping sclerosis is spreading through the body politic. The country’s ability and, more important, its will, to fix what needs fixing and improve what needs improving is collapsing.

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WSJ Historically Speaking: The Many Meanings of May Day

Photo: ART MEDIA/PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES

Photo: ART MEDIA/PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGES

The Law of Non-­‐Contradiction states that it isn’t possible to be both Y and Not-­‐Y at the same time—which suggests that the law never encountered May Day, the public holiday celebrated on May 1,  which both is and isn’t a celebration of summer. May Day owes its origins to the ancient festivals—from the Roman Floralia to the Celtic Beltane—that celebrated the first plantings of the season and the coming of the solstice.

May Day owes its origins to the ancient festivals—from the Roman Floralia to the Celtic Beltane—that celebrated the first plantings of the season and the coming of the solstice.

By the end of the Middle Ages, the day had become one of the most important on the calendar. Just as the fir tree has become a popular symbol of Christmas, the flowering hawthorn—also called the May tree—became the sacred emblem of summer. (When Shakespeare wrote, “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” in his famous Sonnet 18, he meant the tree, not the month.)

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WSJ Historically Speaking: Charlie Hebdo and a Rubicon Moment for Free Speech

Source: Gerard Biard, right, Editor-in-Chief of Charlie Hebdo, and Jean-Baptiste Thoret, second from right, accept the Freedom of Expression Courage Award at the PEN American Center ceremony in New York on Tuesday. Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

On balance it would have been awkward if the boycotters of the annual awards dinner of PEN American Center had changed their minds and attended on Tuesday night. At the very least their presence at the literary gathering might have been an unnecessary distraction. At worst it could have been taken as an insult to the memories of the 12 members of the satirical French publication Charlie Hebdo who died on Jan. 7 while exercising their right to free speech.

The heartfelt standing ovation for Gerard Biard and Jean-Baptiste Thoret—who accepted the Freedom of Expression Courage award on behalf of the magazine—had its own eloquence. Unusually, the many writers in the room didn’t need to say anything to make themselves heard. Simply being at the dinner was a statement, a Rubicon moment for those who believe that universal human rights is a cause worth dying for. Just as boycotting the awards has become the rallying event for those who believe that it comes second to other considerations.

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The Sunday Times: The friction making Baltimore burn is not race but class

Photo: Skitter Photo

Photo: Skitter Photo

The riots in Ferguson, Missouri, last year were provoked by racism. No rational person could argue otherwise after a black man was shot dead by a white police officer. The facts speak for themselves. This small suburb adjacent to the port city of St Louis has only 21,000 residents, two-­‐thirds of whom are black. Yet its officials are almost without exception white — from the 94% white police force to the white mayor, the white police chief and almost all-­‐white city council.

In Ferguson’s case, at least, one answer to the institutional imbalance is relatively easy to see: encourage more people to vote in local elections and they will have more say in the outcome. A mere 6% of black voters took part in the 2013 local elections. It stands to reason, if more people within the community are involved in its decision-making processes there is a greater chance that the right kind of change will happen from within.

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WSJ Historically Speaking: Even Poets Get Spring Fever

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Spring is finally dispelling the cheerless gray of winter. In a few more weeks, city dwellers will begin the time-­‐honored practice of heading to the countryside in search of pristine nature, tranquility and cooler climes.

In the third century B.C., Theocritus of Syracuse became one of the earliest poets to celebrate nature for its own sake. His deceptively simple poems about shepherds and farmers inspired a new poetic form, the pastoral elegy.

Almost two centuries later, the great Roman poet Virgil (70-19 B.C.) freed the genre from its literal underpinnings to give it a certain philosophical bent. His pastoral poetry was more than just an elegant commentary on the countryside; fundamental to its purpose was the exploration of our relationship with nature. “Let me love the rivers and the woods,” Virgil declares in “The Georgics,” before going on to ponder whether he should spend his life contemplating rural delights.

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The Sunday Times: Even as California dries and cracks, farmers are paid to waste water

Photo: Casey Fyfe

Photo: Casey Fyfe

FANS of Roman Polanski’s iconic 1974 film Chinatown will remember a scene where the former mayor of Los Angeles reminds the city council of the Faustian pact that keeps the city alive: “We live next door to the ocean but we also live on the edge of a desert. Los Angeles is a desert community; beneath this building, beneath every street there’s a desert and, without water, the dust will rise up and cover us as if this place never existed.”

Although Chinatown was a product of screenwriter Robert Towne’s imagination, its depiction of the violence and corruption surrounding the so-called California “water wars” had the ring of dramatic truth. Los Angeles was transformed from a struggling conurbation into a thriving city by two men: Fred Eaton and William Mulholland, who schemed, tricked and pressured their way into obtaining the water rights of the Owens Valley.

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