I don't think souls or bodies can be changed by incantation. Or anything else by the way.

I've been writing a lot about a new form of Russian imperialism. Actually, Russian Orthodox imperialism. It's very little remarked that the cement, the political, ideological cement of the Russian regime now, communism having collapsed and imploded, is increasingly a confessional one.

Totalitarian is a cliché, dictatorship is based on clichéd thinking, on very tried and tested uniform stuff. They don't mind that they're boring, they don't mind that they're obvious, their point is made.

Religion makes kind people say unkind things: "I must prove my faith, so mutilate the genitals of my children." They wouldn't do that if God didn't tell them to do so.

Once you assume a creator and a plan, it makes us objects in a cruel experiment whereby we are created sick and commanded to be well.

I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?

The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.