Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Wednesday 17 December 2014


This week on nybooks.com: Civil rights and the question of police misconduct, the foolhardy refurbishment of an 800-year-old cathedral, a grand exploration of the civilizations of the Iron Age, and why the pope refused to meet with the Dalai Lama.
 
THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY THE BRITISH LIBRARY
 
Martin Filler
Apparently with the full support of the French state, restorers have set out to do no less than repaint the entire interior in bright whites and garish colors.
 
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Michael Greenberg
For many New Yorkers, the grand jury’s decision not to indict New York Police Department officer Daniel Pantaleo for his part in the death of Eric Garner was like a punch in the gut.
 
James Romm
The Met’s extraordinary show “Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age” is a vast panorama of the Iron Age and an exploration of the commerce and connections between its major civilizations.
 
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Jonathan Mirsky
Over the last few years, a growing number of world leaders, under pressure from China, have spurned or downgraded meetings with the Dalai Lama. But the Tibetan leader has a long history of meeting with the head of the Catholic Church. Why has Pope Francis snubbed him?
 
Mark Danner
Lack of regret, refusal to reconsider, doesn’t alter the train of cause and effect; certainty that decisions were right, no matter how powerful—and the imperturbable perfection of Dick Cheney’s certainty is nothing short of dazzling—cannot obscure evidence that they were wrong.
 
V.S. Pritchett
The author was born on this day in 1900.
Holidays were getting near. The teacher said they were an opportunity to see unusual things. She would give a prize to the value of five shillings to the child who brought back a drawing of the most unusual thing he had seen. Five shillings! But how, since we never went away for holidays, would we see anything unusual?… I had a brilliant idea which I am afraid exposes the dirty cunning, the “deediness” as mother called it—and flightiness of my priggish character. (1967)