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Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
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29 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
So I've been picking random locations in the US, finding random high schools, and looking at the assigned reading. Kids are reading Shakespeare, for sure, at this high school in Wisconsin: k12.com/content/dam/sc…
And this high school in Dallas is having a Shakespeare monologue competition. That sounds intellectually wholesome: udallas.edu/constantin/aca…
Here in New Jersey, the kids are getting what sounds like a reasonable literary education: lawrenceville.org/academics/depa…
I assume some schools are awful, but I suspect teachers still managing to force a few good books down American kids' gullets.

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More from @ClaireBerlinski

Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
24 Nov
A few thoughts about this. 1) Your question is rhetorical, but the answer is obvious: It's because no one is scared of Ukraine, which doesn't have nuclear weapons. This is what is *so* morally--and long-term, strategically--obtuse:
2) Why doesn't Ukraine have nuclear weapons? Because *we forced them to give them up.* And in turn, guaranteed their territorial integrity. No matter how people try to argue the Budapest Memorandum doesn't count, it does:
3) Why? Because if we don't stand by it, what kind of damned fool will ever give up his nuclear weapons, or abandon his program to build them, because we promise that in exchange, we won't let anyone chew them up and spit them out?
Read 12 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
21 Nov
I wonder if sharing my thoughts about the Kyle Rittenhouse on Twitter will leave me feeling that I've used my morning helpfully and productively.

I'm drawn to do it by some kind of masochistic compulsion.
I just have to do it. I know it won't make me happier, or improve the world, but I have to do it.

My fellow Americans: You've lost your minds. I'd like to help you find them again.
Let's review things you and every other American should have known by the age of five, if only from watching courtroom dramas.

1. In America, you are innocent until proven guilty. That means the burden of proving you guilty rests on the prosecution.
Read 20 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
19 Nov
I'm formatting an article I wrote several years ago, and I've found a sentence that seems as if it should be in quotation marks, because the style is different from the rest of the text. But when I search for it on Google, the only instance I can find is in the article I wrote:
I would hate to plagiarize, but I truly can't figure out if I wrote it. So I'm putting out an appeal: Does anyone recognize this sentence? Is it yours?
"This isn’t a Presidency anymore. It’s the People’s Temple in Jonestown. The President is Jim Jones, and his supporters are determined to follow him right up to the moment of death."
Read 4 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
19 Nov
ICYMI, @cosmo_globalist ran a review by my father, David Berlinski, of Pankaj Mishra's essays. It's an outstanding review. He does what a reviewer ought, in my mind, and which far too few do correctly:

1. He reads the book, carefully, and tells you what it says.
2. He places it in its larger literary and historical context.
3. He checks the author's work--the references, the claims--extremely carefully.
4. He tells you what he liked and didn't like, and why.
There's a maddening tendency, among book reviewers, to do none of that. Far too many reviewers use the book as a one-paragraph excuse to write a hobby-horse essay that has nothing to do with the book.
Read 7 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
19 Nov
Je peux me tromper, mais je crois que cet homme a sauvé mes grands-parents, et si c'est le cas, c'est la raison pour laquelle je suis en vie. RIP.
Je veux honorer sa mémoire en sauvant cette famille: . gofundme.com/manage/please-….
Ils sont autant en danger que l'étaient mes grands-parents.
Nous avons eu de la chance en collectant de l'argent pour eux : les gens ont été vraiment généreux. Mais nous n'avons pas réussi à les faire sortir d'Afghanistan pour les mettre en sécurité.
Read 15 tweets
Claire Berlinski. Profile picture
19 Nov
I want to honor the memory of the people who saved my family by saving this family--at risk every bit as much as mine. gofundme.com/manage/please-…. We've had good luck raising money for them: people are generous. But we haven't got them out of Afghanistan to safety.
They are eligible, under every relevant international convention, for asylum. But getting them to a safe place where they can claim asylum has proven almost impossible. (I won't use the word "impossible.")
Most countries observe international refugee law in principle, but in practice, set up such massive physical barriers between refugees and places they might claim asylum that it is effectively very near hopeless. (This was true when my grandparents were alive, too.)
Read 14 tweets

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