Letters From a Young Contrarian

THE WEEK THAT WAS (16-20/07/12)

This week: I demanded that it was time to discuss circumcision, both the arguments from wellbeing and from morality; I demonstrated on the anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv roundup the problems France has had and is still having with coming to terms with the horror of its collective past; I explained that the founding of a university in Ariel is worse for the peace process than Kadima leaving Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition; and, I discussed what the role of the kibbutz ought to be in a modern Israel that is out of step with the institution’s collectivist values.

Writers and articles featured this week included Walter Kirn in The New Republic discussing how he found and lost his Mormonism, and Janine di Giovanni in Newsweek on how the Syrian elite are partying while Damascus burns. And, I highlighted a profile of Martin Amis from The Paris Review, in which he described his fans as “wild-eyed sleazebags”.

One Tumblr user asked, What if Christopher Hitchens had a TV show?, Carla Bruni sang, and finally I listed the four books, both fiction and non-fiction, that I am looking forward to reading this year.