Kubrick's final film was widely considered a failure upon release in 1999. But 20 years later, it's garnered a reputation for being just as thought-provoking and masterful as his most famous works. Drawing from essayists Mario Falsetto and Tim Kreider, we'll dive in to the film's unique aesthetic and how it informs the film's biting social commentary.
8 May 2019
UnHerd: Where did the Church’s land go?
A new book by Guy Shrubsole Who owns England? sheds some light on this longstanding question. There is a familiar assumption that floats around in the cultural ether, that the C of E is a massive landowner. But it turns out not to be totally true. Roughly, the Church of England owns 0.5% of England. And given that, through the parish system, the church has a presence in every community in this country, this doesn’t sound a lot to me. Especially when compared to the aristocracy, which owns a whopping 30% of it, for instance.
What fascinated me about Shrubsole’s findings was not how much land the church owns, but how much land it has lost – and relatively recently. According to his figures, the church owned some two million acres of glebe land (an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest) in 1873. By 1976, this figure had plummeted to 111,628 acres. And Shrubsole does his best to make this sound suspicious. “The mystery of who stole the church’s land is a whodunnit worthy of a Brother Cadfael novel,” he writes. [...]
Can the church do something to restore its damaged reputation? Last month, it established a commission to address its response to the housing crisis, promising “surplus church land for affordable housing”. And there are already developments underway. At present the commissioners are seeking planning permission for 9,200 new dwellings, 2,500 of them so-called “affordable”.
UnHerd: Are these the last gasps of our old political order?
With Theresa May having failed, so far, to deliver any sort of Brexit, the Conservative Party is getting hit on all sides. Their biggest setbacks were in Remain areas. And among the voters, the most important were not the 18-24-year olds that are generally obsessed over, but the slightly older, 30-and 40 somethings who swung hardest against them in 2017. [...]
But most worrying of all is the fact that the party is now also losing ground among the older and more committed Leavers, albeit less dramatically than it is losing ground in Remainia. Many of those areas where the party lost council seats, or councils flipped into no overall control, had endorsed Brexit in 2016. [...]
But, for me, the most striking statistic of all from the local elections was that the combined share of the vote going to the two big parties tumbled to just 56% – the second lowest figure on record. A bad night Labour and the Tories was a good night for independents, Liberal Democrats and Greens. [...]
As we argue in National Populism, what is happening in Britain and other advanced democracies is that many of our established, older and hence less flexible parties are struggling to absorb and navigate new issues that are cutting directly across their traditional electorates. [...]
Meanwhile, deeper changes in the overall structure of societies are reshaping party coalitions from below, and will continue to do so for many years to come. These drivers include the expansion and now squeezing of the new middle-class, the rise of university graduates, our collective failure to respect and support those who choose, or are forced down, other paths, and the ongoing effects of unprecedented migration and demographic change.
Quartz: Are the UK’s two leading political parties on the edge of collapse?
“I think it is fair to say that this is the return of at least three-party politics,” political scientist John Curtice told the BBC. “But I suspect that on 23 May”—or the date of the forthcoming European Parliament elections—”we will discover that there are more than three significant players. We may see the most fragmented British electorate since the advent of mass British democracy.” [...]
Since 2016, the year the UK voted to leave the European Union, more than 20 MPs have resigned from roles in prime minister Theresa May’s government over her handling of Brexit. Some of these ministers were literally tasked with its execution, but have found developing a plan that works for everyone, or even has majority appeal, an insurmountable hurdle. May’s repeated attempts to pass her own deal with the EU have been utterly unsuccessful. Now, with less than six months to go before the UK’s new leave date, the future of the party, and its leadership, is far from certain. [...]
The Brexit Party’s only policy is that Britain should leave the European Union, and that it should do so at once, without a withdrawal agreement. Since the party’s registration with electoral authorities in February, polling has gone from zilch to 17%. At the same time, Conservative party support has dwindled, leaving the party conclusively trailing Labour for the first time all year. [...]
But the party’s inconsistent messaging saw it punished at the polls in recent local elections. At present, Labour is pushing for a snap general election. If it wins, its job will be just as hard as the incumbent’s. With Brexiteers across the political spectrum, any deal requires bipartisan support to have a hope of being passed—including a no-deal Brexit. At present, there is no incentive for Corbyn to “sign off” on May’s Brexit. Any pro-Brexit Tory leader is just as unlikely to be prepared to compromise with Labour.
Vox: Contempt of Congress and what it means for William Barr, explain
Contempt is another way for Congress to get subpoenaed documents, by asking the US attorney of the District of Columbia or the Department of Justice to charge Barr with criminal contempt for not complying with a congressional subpoena. In theory, a charge of contempt could result in a fine or jail time for the attorney general (though in reality, that likely won’t happen).
As serious as contempt sounds, it realistically won’t amount to more than Congress sending a powerful message — unless Democrats pass a different resolution to authorize suing Barr and the Trump administration to try to get the Mueller report. [...]
But it’s crucial to remember Congress is just making another a request here — if a more strongly worded one. Actually getting the executive branch to comply can be difficult, precisely because the executive branch is the one with the power to prosecute the individual who isn’t complying with the subpoena request. [...]
That itself is risky. If a judge rules against Congress and in favor of the Trump administration, it could set new legal precedent that could make it easier for future presidential administrations to withhold information from future Congressional committees.
The Guardian: 'We must act now': Netherlands tries to control tourism boom
In a major shift, the board is moving its focus from promoting the country as a tourist destination to trying to manage the huge numbers coming in by plane, train and automobile. [...]
“We say that ‘more’ is not always better, certainly not everywhere,” a tourist board policy document states. “To be able to control visitor flows, we must take action now. Instead of destination promotion it’s time for destination management.” [...]
A document laying out the strategy suggests this might require actively dissuading people from visiting certain areas through means such as closing down disreputable attractions to imposing a tourist tax. The standard of life of some of the country’s residents is said to be coming under pressure.[...]
Tourism earns the Dutch economy €82bn (£70bn) and in 2018 accounted for about 761,000 jobs – one in 13 jobs in the Netherlands – but there is also concern over the environmental cost.
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