“Art for art’s sake” was the rallying cry of the Aesthetic Movement. Born in the mid-1800s in Britain, the movement was a response to the Industrial Revolution and the perceived ugliness and loss of craftsmanship that was the price for increased production and convenience. There was ...
In one month, the United States will observe its 250th birthday. It is shaping up more like a memorial service for a lost loved one than a party to celebrate something special. Rather than anticipating a happy occasion, America at 250 is increasingly characterized by anger, name-calling and scandals. Performers are withdrawing from President Trump’s Freedom 250 Great American State Fair in Washington, claiming organizers lied to them about its partisanship. Trump, who has contributed mightily to the growing divisions among us, is threatening to make a “major speech,” mostly to ...
Billionaire progressive activist and California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer recently remarked: “Health care companies only care about one thing: profits. Single-payer now.” This is the same Tom Steyer who opposed single-payer when he ran for president in 2020. “Bernie Sanders was right,” he says. “Boy, was I wrong.” He still cannot explain how to pay for it. Can anyone? Single-payer health care has been the progressive left’s signature domestic demand for four decades. It has generated presidential campaigns, mass rallies, congressional cosponsors and an ...
Dear Annie: My sister and I have not spoken in three years following a falling-out over our mother’s estate. I won’t rehash the details — suffice it to say, neither of us came out looking entirely clean. We were never close growing up, but we were friendly enough as adults, and I miss that. Last month, she sent me a card for my birthday. No note inside, just her signature. I’ve been staring at that card for weeks, trying to decide what it means. Is it an olive branch? Is it guilt? I don’t want to make a fool of myself by reaching out warmly only to be met with a cold ...
DEAR DR. ROACH: I was in excellent health until December 2020, when I was admitted to the hospital with high-risk multiple myeloma (MM). I’ve been participating in a Phase 2 clinical trial since January 2021, and I was fortunate to achieve minimal residual disease (MRD)-negative status in November 2023 — a milestone that is reached by only 10% of over 20 participants. However, as a side effect of four years of treatment, including Velcade injections (16 total), I’ve developed neuropathy, mainly in my feet. My primary issue is overall numbness and a lack of feeling in my feet. ...
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war. I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality. On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrodinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrodinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and ...
