James Wimberley

This blog doesn’t need it, or Mark would have written an appeal. The RBC illustrates the new digital economy of the press: you can get good commentary on a lot of things for nothing, as the costs are sunk in the day jobs of academics or the pensions that keep the likes of me in […]

From Pope Francis’ Christmas Day homily – emphasis added: Only God’s mercy can free humanity from the many forms of evil, at times monstrous evil, which selfishness spawns in our midst. The paragraph does not mention ISIS (or whatever the label of the month is), but much of the homily is concerned with violence in […]

”and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.” Golden words; they may yet save us. But how on earth, given the massive forces against such high ambition, did they get into the Paris Agreement last week? A year ago, this was being pushed by the “group of small […]

They did it. We have a Paris Agreement. The text was released a few minutes ago as the President’s final proposal. The vibes do not suggest any last-minute objections, which would probably be suicidal as everybody else in the room desperately wants to get some sleep and go home. Update 1750h Paris time: Adopted. Final […]

In February I described the strategy of Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN framework climate convention,  as betting the world. Never mind the hyperbole, her strategy has triumphantly paid off. The COP 21 conference in Paris next week will be attended by a staggering 150 heads of state or government, starting with Xi Jinping […]

A fair question. But it’s not hard to answer. ISIS or ISIL or Daesh – Obama has settled on the last, and we might as well follow him – is quite clear about its goal: to establish by force of arms, starting now, a universal Sunni Islamic caliphate. This will be ruled by Abu Bakr […]

What’s the matter with middle-aged working class white Americans? Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino hasn’t yet made it into Keith and Johann’s film selections, but no doubt will. It’s a witty and moving, if formulaic, exploration of the psyche of the American white working class, represented by Eastwood’s character Walt Kowalski, a retired car worker in […]

A video, taken from a helicopter in early September, of the construction site of a short stretch of high-speed rail line in France. (Source: the contractor’s website.) The existing LGV-Méditerranée line line runs from Paris to Avignon, where it forks. One branch runs SE to Marseille. The SW branch will eventually go to the Spanish […]

There is a disturbing passage towards the end of the final book in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia septet: Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. […]

I finally got to see Bernini’s famous shocker The Ecstasy of St Teresa in Rome. I’ve written about it before, in the context of the Olympics. I’ll haul the bastard into service again to make a different point. Pope Francis’ generally fine encyclical Laudato Si’  descends into incoherent mumbling on the subject of population. You can […]