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Parking at Picardi (Jean de Wet)
Articles of Note
8 April 2025
■ There’s no such thing as too much Robert A. Caro, and the New-York Historical Society has just opened a permanent — permanent! — display devoted to his archives which they have acquired.

In Smithsonian magazine, Chris Heath has a rifle through the archives alongside the historian, who tells us about his first job with the New Brunswick Daily Home News:

In March 1959, Caro was diverted into what might have been a whole other career. Instead it turned into a pivotal life lesson. His newspaper was so enmeshed with the local Democratic political establishment that, come election time, the paper’s chief political reporter routinely took a leave of absence to write candidate speeches. This particular year, the reporter fell suddenly ill, and Caro was deputed to fill in. Suddenly, he was in politics. Caro supplied the required speeches, and even a campaign song—65 years later, he can still sing part of it to me—setting the names of the five Democratic candidates to the tune of the 19th-century standard “MacNamara’s Band.” Every so often, the campaign manager and city attorney Joseph Takacs would pull out a wad of $50 bills, peel off a few and hand them to Caro. It was more money than he had ever been paid.

It seemed like a dream job. But on Election Day, in mid-May, Takacs, who seemed to have taken a liking to Caro, invited him on his tour of the polling stations. At each stop, Takacs would have a cozy conference with the police overseeing the polls. Then, at one stop it was explained that there had been some trouble that was being dealt with, and Caro watched as Black protesters were herded into a police van. As Caro tells it, this was a moment of decision. At the next traffic light, he reached for the door handle. “I just got out of the car without saying anything,” he says.

And much more about his early days in the newspapers as well as his writing method. It inspired me to finally pick up a copy of The Power Broker.

■ Granny killing is the biggest political issue in the UK at the moment, though the attention it has received from the front pages is less than in real life, the group chats, and online.

The original legislation establishing the National Health Service tasked it to “secure improvement in the physical and mental health of the people of England… and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness.”

Kim Leadbeater’s bill legalising and providing for assisted suicide, however, would require altering this.

In Compact, Dan Hitchens describes how assisted suicide will destroy the NHS.

■ Camille Paglia is a phenomenon whose reputation is having a second wind thanks to her breathless interviews and discussions on intellectual chat shows now shared on social media.

I don’t mean to dampen with faint praise but she’s probably the best thing ever to have come out of SUNY Binghamton.

Ella Dorn examines her own devotion to the cult of Camille Paglia for the Spectator.

■ Jews are a miniscule proportion of the global population but there are currently three Jewish heads of state.

At Engelsberg Ideas, Elijah Granet explores how Jewish leaders have defied the political odds to come out on top in the past century.

■ London is, alas, an increasingly undignified place to live.

Ellen Pasternack writes in this month’s issue of The Critic how you have to surrender a bigger and bigger chunk of your take-home salary to rent ever smaller accommodation that itself is often cramped and belittling.

The trends aren’t heading in the right direction.

■ There is a mischievous air to Fred Sculthorp. Whenever I see him he looks like he’s up to something, and he usually is.

The other day I ran into him (or rather he ran into me) on Victoria Street and he told me he was working on a piece on Dagenham.

He writes for Unherd about how this spectrum of far London and near Essex has been abandoned by the political establishment and is turning to Reform. “Bring back Rupert Lowe!”

■ Can Russians and Americans be friends? Richard Nixon has the answer.

The Richard Nixon foundation is doing yeoman’s work on social media lately and well worth a follow.

Shmensday (Jean de Wet)

Published at 2:10 pm on Tuesday 8 April 2025. Categories: Daily Cusack Errant Thoughts.
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