Latest news with #Anglophile
CNBC
18 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
'London is back:' Mayor — and Trump critic — Sadiq Khan looks to lure businesses from the U.S.
"London is back," the capital's Mayor Sadiq Khan told CNBC on Wednesday, laying out his ambition to attract investors, visitors and students who are looking for an alternative to the U.S amid an uncertain Trump 2.0 era. "At a time of growing international instability, at a time when there are, let's be frank, choppy political waters in the U.S., we're that rare thing — somewhere that's stable, that's open, that's diverse. A brilliant environment for innovation, creativity and business," the mayor of London told CNBC's Tania Bryer. U.S. President Donald Trump's often mercurial position on trade, immigration and visa policies have rattled markets as well as businesses, tourists and students looking to make the U.S. their base. Khan said the U.K. was seeing an increase in interest from American businesses and individuals looking to avoid more uncertain economic times and societal changes at home. "They're our closest ally ... so I don't see America as competition, I see them as our great partner and long may that continue, but I recognize the reality of the last few months which is that some American businesses, individuals and people in different sectors who, for a variety of reasons, are looking for somewhere new." "My message is very simple: actually in London we have everything you could possibly want, not only in terms of our stability, openness and diversity, but our values too." There's no love lost between Khan and Trump, with the former in 2019 calling the president a "poster boy" for the far right. Trump fired back at the time, calling the mayor "a stone cold loser who should focus on crime in London, not me." With Trump winning a second term in office last November, critics like Khan have had to take a more diplomatic stance as the U.K. government under the Labour Party, which Khan belongs to, has looked to build bridges with the Trump administration. Despite their political differences, Prime Minister Keir Starmer appears to have curried favor with Anglophile Trump, with the leaders seemingly getting on well and Starmer winning a much sought-after trade deal with the U.S. last month, averting many of the punitive trade tariffs facing other U.S. allies and adversaries alike. "What's important is for all of us to put aside out personal views when it's in the national interest to do so," Khan said, adding that "we can't escape the fact though that there are some things that the president has said or done that are controversial, and it's really important that we speak up on things we agree with, but also on things we disagree with."
Mint
09-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Trump's bespoke trade deal with UK sets little precedent for other nations
President Trump made a deal. Now comes the hard part: getting more. Trump agreed to a framework for a trade agreement with the U.K., giving his administration momentum as it faces pressure to notch scores more to avoid hurting American consumers. But the deal was limited in scope and included niche issues regarding the U.K., meaning it didn't offer other nations a clear road map to follow, foreign officials said. Many other deals weren't seen as likely to come together so easily. The U.K. was low-hanging fruit, given the U.S. enjoys a goods trade surplus with the country, unlike with China, America's third-largest trading partner for goods in 2024, according to the Census Bureau. Imports from China are currently subject to a whopping 145% levy. In a sign of how eager Trump was for a win in the trade conflicts, he called U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer late Wednesday to finalize the details. Starmer was watching his favorite soccer team, Arsenal, play a crucial European game at the time, according to the prime minister, who said he hadn't planned to announce a trade deal on Thursday. 'They are keen to show they are making progress," said Myron Brilliant, a senior counselor at DGA Group. 'These are signals to the market. It's better to have a step forward than a step back. But they are going to have to demonstrate these deals are going to end up with sustaining commitments on both sides." While analysts questioned the significance of the deal, Trump, who has shown frustration with questions over his trade agenda and the global turbulence it has created, cast it as historic. His team said the deal would unlock billions for U.S. exporters. The Trump administration agreed to roll back tariffs imposed on British steel and automobiles in exchange for the U.K.'s purchasing Boeing jets and giving American farmers greater access to U.K. markets. The U.S. also agreed to allow Rolls-Royce jet engines and parts to be imported tariff-free. Trump expressed confidence in reaching agreements with other countries, notably China. The president, though, showed no sign of backing entirely away from his tariff agenda as he seeks to rebalance global trade. 'One lesson from the U.S.-U.K. announcement is that all of America's trading partners are likely to face at minimum a 10% tariff," said National Foreign Trade Council President Jake Colvin. 'That alone would result in a permanent fourfold increase from the average U.S. tariff of 2.4% in 2024, which is a scenario that was nearly unthinkable just a year ago." President Trump touted the trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. from the Oval Office on Thursday. The nature of the U.K. agreement shows how Trump is willing to bypass traditional trade pacts that can take several years to hammer out. The move also highlighted the soft power of the U.K.; Trump is a keen Anglophile who has in the past said he thought a deal could be worked out. Foreign partners generally viewed Thursday's news as positive but didn't see how its contours directly applied to their own talks, officials said. Trump is dispatching Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Switzerland this weekend for high-stakes talks with officials from China. The two nations have effectively closed trading through massive retaliatory tariffs. For Chinese officials, what's notable in the limited deal Trump struck with the U.K. is that it doesn't appear to have any details about the two countries aligning to isolate China—a stated goal by Trump advisers for the administration's trade negotiations with various nations. The lack of such details, at least for now, is likely to bolster China's position as senior officials from both sides meet in Switzerland. Meanwhile, even though Trump told reporters Thursday that he expects the coming U.S.-China meeting to be 'substantive," Beijing is treating it largely as an opportunity to present its position and gauge the administration's intentions. In particular, Chinese officials view it as a chance to figure out whether the Trump administration—and Trump himself—intend to pursue a deal that could help put the brakes on the current trend of decoupling between the U.S. and China. If those talks with China go well, Trump suggested the tariffs could come down. 'We're going to see. Right now you can't get any higher. It's at 145% so we know it's coming down," he said. A European Union diplomat said it could be helpful to get a sense from the U.K. of what worked in negotiating with the U.S. But the diplomat added the U.K. market is much smaller than the EU's and is more unified compared with the bloc's 27 member states. A spokeswoman for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who visited with Trump this week, didn't respond to a request for comment on the implications of the U.S.-U.K. framework. Bank of Nova Scotia economist Derek Holt said the U.S. runs a goods trade surplus with the U.K., and hence hasn't found itself 'in the same crosshairs of the Trump administration as other countries," such as Canada. Mark Warner, a trade lawyer who practices in Toronto and the U.S., said Canada faces a tougher haul because of the range of issues outstanding, such as automobiles, dairy production, and Canada's digital services tax. Plus, he said, Carney 'has adopted a more contentious approach to trade negotiations with a lot of red lines and no evident openings for compromise in a minority Parliament." The U.S. is also engaged with a range of other nations, including India and Japan. Juan Carlos Baker, who was Mexico's deputy trade minister during the negotiations for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed in late 2018, said the deal with the U.K. is in no way comparable to the deeper trade relationship the U.S. has with Mexico. Mexico shipped almost three million vehicles to the U.S. and supplied 40% of U.S. auto parts last year. A coming review of the USMCA is more complex and negotiations can extend for years, Baker said. 'Even with the best will, such an agreement doesn't come out overnight in any way," said Baker, who participated in USMCA trade negotiations with the U.S. and Canada for about two years. In the initial aftermath of the April 2 'Liberation Day" tariffs announcement and the subsequent 90-day pause, Trump and top administration officials predicted a wave of deals. Trump in recent days has expressed frustration with questions on when deals will land. 'Everyone says, 'When, when, when are you going to sign deals?'" the president told reporters during his Tuesday meeting with Carney. 'We don't have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us." Write to Alex Leary at Lingling Wei at and Paul Vieira at
Daily Mail
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Is Tom Cruise's dream of a knighthood finally coming true? Hollywood titan is declared an 'honorary Brit' after charm offensive on the royals and bizarre rebrand as an 'Anglophile'
Few things are as quintessentially British as cups of tea, strawberries at Wimbledon, Oasis and watching the footie. But among them is All American action star Tom Cruise - who has been declared an 'honorary Brit' with a BFI fellowship awarded to the actor next month. The cinematic legend, 62, has made his love for the UK clear over a whopping four decades, and is even reportedly impressive with his command of Cockney slang, after declaring himself an 'Anglophile'. But despite his allegiance to the Four Nations - and even his warm relationship with the Prince and Princess of Wales - the Hollywood A-lister is not among the Yanks who have been awarded honorary Knighthood by the Royal Family; a star-studded list that includes Bill and Melinda Gates, George H.W. Bush, and Angelina Jolie. It's an accolade that may well be on the horizon in light of Tom's recognition by the British Film Institute. And with how staunchly the stunt connoisseur has made his love for all things British ardent, it would come as no surprise. His Belfast-born longtime friend Kenneth Branagh, who starred alongside the actor in 2008's Valkyrie, told The Times: 'He's an honorary Brit now, with a handy line in Cockney rhyming slang, I've been to the pub with him a few times. 'He finds a quiet corner, enjoys the atmosphere and is always gracious when he gets spotted. He's a natural giggler and just enjoys what he does so much and that's infectious'. He has been spotted at Wimbledon, Victoria Beckham 's 50th, was apart of the King's Coronation, Late Queen's Platinum Jubilee with British friends including The Beckhams, Gordon Ramsay and Prince William and Princess Kate. Tom also reportedly owns property in London, after making the move across the pond in 2020 for back-to-back Mission: Impossible films. But it's not just the capital he's familiar with. The Top Gun star - who filmed in the countryside - also recently spoke to Derbyshire Life about how 'brilliantly helpful' both the local authorities to the people living in the area were. 'There is no doubt that when a film crew arrives on location the whole place can be disrupted and I could not blame anyone for complaining. However, that didn't happen when we were filming at Stoney Middleton, for instance,' he explained. 'Britain is trendy too and has a lot that other countries then copy... Seeing cows and sheep in the fields here is just so very British and just like we see in the movies in America. I always wondered whether it is really like that - It's great to go back to the US and say yes, it really is. 'I also like the fact that I am walking the same streets as Shakespeare, Dickens and even the Beatles. That is really cool and I love it.' Tom has also been known to exercise his charm offensive on the British royals, too. He has rubbed shoulders with the Prince and Princess of Wales, Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and Princess Diana - and has even said King Charles can be his 'wingman'. In the late monarch's final weeks at Windsor Castle before travelling to Balmoral where she died, she invited Tom for tea at the royal residence. She was said to have been disappointed that she had not met the star during her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which had taken place earlier that summer. Despite not seeing the Queen during the week of celebrations, Cruise appeared in a segment of the at the Jubilee, and said of her: 'She's a woman I greatly admire. She has tremendous dignity and I admire her devotion. What she has accomplished has been historic.' Insiders said the pair 'really hit it off' during their meeting and the late Queen 'loved seeing him' - and she even allowed him to land his helicopter on the lawn of the Castle. Tom was even invited back for lunch - but the Queen sadly passed away before he could return. The Hollywood star said: 'She's just a woman that I greatly admire. I think she is someone who has tremendous dignity and I admire her devotion. 'What she has accomplished has been historic. I just remember always as a kid seeing photos of her.' A source told The Times: 'The Queen let it be known she was really disappointed not to have met Tom at the pageant. 'So he was invited to have a special tour of Windsor Castle with everything laid on for him. Afterwards, just the two of them had tea together. 'She loved seeing him and they really hit it off, so much so that she invited him back for lunch.' Despite missing out on the Platinum Jubilee celebrations that June, Cruise flew to London later in the month for his Top Gun: Maverick premiere - and invited two very special royal guests along. The star was accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales on the red carpet - and during the appearance, the Hollywood star noted he has 'a lot in common' with the royal. Speaking about the royal couple, he praised 'what they do for their country'. He continued: 'We have a lot in common. We love England, we're both aviators, so it's just going to be a really wonderful evening.' During the red carpet appearance, the actor even held out his hand for Kate in a gesture of chivalry as they ascended the steps to the stage. Although naysayers may dismiss Tom's association with the royals as a PR stunt, his connection to the family goes back a long way - and he was even friends with Princess Diana. In 1992, when he was married to Nicole Kidman, Tom invited the royal to another London premiere of Far and Away. However, it has been reported that Diana might not have been quite so enamored with the actor as he was with the royal family. Former royal chef Darren McGrady once recalled how Princess Diana said Cruise was 'off the list' in terms of dating options because he was 'too short'. The royal had met with Tom again on the set of Mission: Impossible, and brought Prince Harry and Prince William along. Despite the occasional reported 'snub', Tom's love of the royals has endured - and he even made a cameo at the King's Coronation Concert. The Hollywood star appeared in a VT played during the concert from his fighter jet - where he delivered a special message for King Charles. He said: 'Pilot to pilot, Your Majesty. 'You can be my wingman.' Tom has also nurtured a friendship with British sports royalty over the years as well, and is known to be close with the Beckhams, with football icon David, who he has known for 20 years, said to 'idolise' the actor. Last year, he reportedly left guests at Victoria 's 50th birthday party in London slack jawed in astonishment after performing an incredible 'breakdance' routine – which culminated in the splits. When it comes to his day to day life in the UK, Tom has often reportedly been spotted in his favourite restaurants, sipping his favourite Earl Grey tea. He is also partial to a 'proper' cup of PG Tips, according to a Mission: Impossible crew member who also heard Cruise raving about a love of Guinness. In London, he prefers to walk or go incognito in a black cab. He also uses his matt-black Eurocopter AS50 helicopter 'the way other people use a car'. The chopper is based at Battersea helipad and Cruise often flies it solo to Richmond Golf Club where he parks it next to the ninth hole and has lunch in the Grade I listed clubhouse. In 2021, a family in Warwickshire were stunned when he landed in their garden because the local airport in Coventry was closed and he had a meeting nearby. Mum Alison Webb said: 'He arrived and got out and it was like, 'Wow.' He went straight over to the children for a chat, then came over and elbow-bumped us and said, "Thank you very much."' Over the years, Tom has filmed some of his biggest films in in Pinewood, Leavesden and Shepperton studios, from 1985's Legend to 1994's Interview With A Vampire and Edge of Tomorrow in 2014. 'I spend a lot of time in Britain and that's not just for work reasons. I just love being here,' he told The Mirror in 2022. 'It's a fantastic blend of old and new. I love seeing the sights, the Tower of London, Nelson's Column, Buckingham Palace and all those fantastic places which are just full of history.' The actor's connection to the UK is made even stronger than to make-up artist daughter Isabella, 32, who lives in Croydon with her her British husband Max Parker. A source who worked with the actor, previously told MailOnline: '[Tom has] fallen in love with everything about the UK, his daughter lives here, he enjoys a good cuppa and he loves the fact he can be himself '. Before adding: The biggest thing is he's developed a proper circle of friends. He's the happiest I've ever seen him.'
New York Times
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The American Picture Book's Unsung Parent: Japan
In 1938, when the American Library Association introduced the world's first award for children's book art, it named its prize the Randolph Caldecott Medal, for one of Victorian England's most celebrated illustrators, and stipulated that only a U.S. citizen or resident could win. The point was made. America's illustrators owed Mother England gratitude for the glorious picture books created there in past decades, and now the time had come for artists here to put their stamp on the genre. Missing from this Anglophile version of the American picture book's origin story was any mention of the seminal role played by the artists and publishers from another of the world's great visual narrative traditions: Japan's. Illustrated children's books that blend instruction and delight appeared, independently of one another, in two thriving commercial cities half a world apart: London and Edo (now Tokyo). In both burgeoning urban centers, ambitious middle-class parents embraced such books as steppingstones on their children's path to literacy and a better life. Japan's earliest illustrated storybooks, from the late 1600s, predated the West's by more than 50 years and were an offshoot of Japan's venerable printmaking tradition. Because these paperbound books were printed from woodblocks on which pictures and text were combined in seamless compositions, they tended to be more animated design-wise than their first English counterparts, whose movable type made for a more efficient printing process but a less fluid result. Edo during those years remained largely closed to the West, but after U.S. Navy warships steamed into Edo (Tokyo) Bay in 1853 and forcibly opened trade and diplomatic relations, cultural exchanges multiplied. Ukiyo-e prints like those exhibited in Paris in 1867 likely inspired Randolph Caldecott's less-is-more aesthetic and dynamic renderings of figures in motion, unveiled in his experimental 'toy' books. It was those bold and distinctly un-Victorian approaches that prompted Maurice Sendak to hail Caldecott as the modern picture book's veritable inventor — and to regard him as his own indispensable role model. Among the first Japanese picture books to reach U.S. shores was a series of keepsake volumes from the 1880s featuring traditional tales such as 'Momotaro, or Little Peachling' and 'The Hare of Inaba.' Exquisitely printed in delicate pastels on durable crepe paper, they were issued for export in a handful of Western languages. As Sybille A. Jagusch has shown in her revelatory study 'Japan and American Children's Books,' for decades afterward America's young readers had no shortage of illustrated reading matter about (and increasingly from) Japan. By the turn of the last century, when Japanese translations of American classics such as 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' and 'Little Women' became available, Japanese children, too, had a growing library of options for pursuing their curiosity about all things Western. World War II interrupted but did not stem the tide of this intense mutual fascination. After the war, the pace of East-West picture book cross-pollination quickened dramatically. In 1954, the Rockefeller Foundation invited the Japanese children's literature specialist Momoko Ishii to the United States to study the groundbreaking work of 20th-century American children's book publishers and librarians. When she returned to Tokyo with copies of 'Curious George' and other popular American books for young readers, Ishii opened a neighborhood children's library, or 'bunko,' in her own home, initiating a national tradition. At the start, she simply pasted her own translations over the printed English-language texts. Later, building on American models, Ishii helped to establish the first of Japan's professionally staffed children's libraries. As the country's publishing industry revived, Japanese editions of 'Millions of Cats,' 'Make Way for Ducklings,' 'Little Blue and Little Yellow' and other American picture books found an enthusiastic readership at these libraries. By the 1960s, some of these books were required reading in Japan's grade school curriculum. At the same time, American children were being offered fresh picture book glimpses of Japanese art and life. In 1954, as Momoko Ishii toured the United States, 'The Animal Frolic,' a codex adaptation of a merry 12th-century Japanese narrative scroll, landed on The New York Times's list of the year's best illustrated children's books. Two years later, the Japanese American artist Taro Yashima was awarded a Caldecott Honor for 'Crow Boy,' a picture book with thrilling expressionist graphics and a contemporary story about a provincial Japanese schoolboy's struggles to fit in with his peers. Another generation would pass before the horrors of the atomic blasts that ended the Pacific war were distilled for young readers in the Japanese artist and peace advocate Toshi Maruki's 'Hiroshima No Pika,' a picture book simultaneously published in Japan and the United States in 1980; and before the inner struggles of Japanese American immigrants to feel at home on American shores received powerful expression in Allen Say's Caldecott Medal-winning 'Grandfather's Journey,' published in 1993. Japan's influence was felt in the United States in other meaningful ways as well. In 1968, when the art director turned picture book creator Eric Carle presented his editor, Ann Beneduce, with the concept for an alluring design-forward novelty book for preschoolers called 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar,' she was instantly intrigued but recognized the unfeasibility of manufacturing it domestically (the standard practice then). Fortunately, Beneduce had a global outlook. That summer, she hand-delivered Carle's idiosyncratic dummy, with its array of die-cut holes and different-sized pages, to Hiroshi Imamura, then president of Kaiseisha Publishing in Tokyo, and returned home with an on-budget plan. If not for the determined efforts of Beneduce and her Japanese colleagues, Carle's caterpillar book, which has now reached readers in more than 65 foreign-language editions, might never have happened. Beneduce later introduced Americans to the work of modern-day Japan's greatest picture book creator, Mitsumasa Anno, whose 'Anno's Journey' and other wordless, scroll-like books cunningly blend Eastern and Western narrative art elements for the stated goal of 'bridging' national and cultural divides. When Carle visited Asia during the 1980s, he was moved to learn that in Japan, unlike the United States, picture book art was not routinely put down as a lower-rung endeavor. Tokyo, he discovered, was in fact home to the world's first full-dress museum devoted to the genre, the Chihiro Art Museum. Carle saw in the Chihiro a milestone validation that America lacked. It was on his second trip to Japan, in 1992, that he and his wife, Barbara, had the idea for what became the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, a monumental project realized a decade later on a 7.5-acre site in Amherst, Mass. At Tokyo's Itabashi Art Museum, a sprawling Leo Lionni retrospective recently kicked off a much-anticipated two-year tour of Japan. The Carle and Chihiro museums have upcoming plans to swap art installations and online programming. In the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Korea, other museums featuring children's book art now draw steady streams of multigenerational visitors; the number of such museums in Japan alone is currently about 30. Besides raising the profile of a once undervalued art form, these efforts tell a collective story of grown-ups in far-flung locales striving to do the best for their children, and of a time when the 'twain' of East and West did meet, with memorable consequences.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
What I Did Last Week: An Email to Elon Musk
To: hr@ From: Timothy Noah Subject: What I did last week Dear Elon Musk, Last Saturday, you sent an email from the foregoing address demanding that every federal employee (about two million people) inform you, in five bullet points, how they spent the previous week. 'Failure to reply will be taken as a resignation,' you announced on Twitter. Trump backed up that threat Monday. 'What he's doing is saying, 'Are you actually working?'' Trump said. 'And then, if you don't answer, like, you're sort of semi-fired or you're fired.' Cabinet officers treated these threats as the lunatic rantings of a senile commander in chief and his ketamine-fancying enabler—which they are—and advised federal workers not to respond. You don't even run the Department of Government Efficiency, according to a White House filing in a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general against DOGE. You also don't run the Office of Personnel Management (which sent out that email at your behest). Indeed, you possess 'no actual authority to make government decisions,' according to Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration. Speaking in Miami two days later, Trump contradicted that: 'I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge.' That White House of yours has some message-control problem! What I hope we're seeing, Elon, is the beginning of the end of your government career. On Monday, even the Office of Personnel Management advised government managers to 'exclude personnel from this expectation at their discretion,' even as you tweeted that 'subject to the discretion of the president,' a second email would be sent and 'failure to respond a second time will result in termination.' Failure to respond a second time won't result in diddly. Shame on you for scaring federal workers by pretending that it will. Instead of federal employees answering hr@ I gather is an email account set up exclusively to transmit your petty harassment—I'd like to see ordinary citizens crash it with a tsunami of messages telling you how they spent their last week. Or loading it up with other spam. That email address, again, is hr@ The New Republic used to have a feature called Washington Diarist, which then-editor Michael Kinsley, a raging Anglophile, modeled on the Diary features in British magazines and newspapers. I wrote a fair number of these, but that was way back in the 1980s, so don't fault me if I'm rusty. Here, in five bullet points, is my last week: On Saturday I set up a Trump Sieg Heil Tracker on my Substack newsletter, Backbencher, to archive every instance since January 20, 2025, in which a Trump official or prominent Trump supporter got caught on video throwing a Sieg Heil salute. You, of course, kicked off this trend at an inauguration rally. Later you denied you intended a Nazi salute. The Anti-Defamation League, cravenly, backed you up, even though you once accused the ADL of promoting 'de facto anti-white racism.' Later, after a boycott got started against X for allowing pro-Nazi posts, you visited Auschwitz and said you'd been 'naïve' about antisemitism. Still later, you threw that Sieg Heil salute at the Trump rally. It was pretty unmistakable. Writing in Die Zeit under the headline 'A Hitler Salute Is a Hitler Salute,' Lenz Jacobsen wrote, 'There's no 'probably' or 'similar to' or 'controversial' about it. The gesture speaks for itself.' Why am I bringing this up now? Because at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, speaker after speaker mimicked your Sieg Heil, typically after repeating 'My heart goes out to you,' which is what you said before your Nazi salute. I counted four Sieg Heils at CPAC; there may have been more. After Steve Bannon threw one, Nick Fuentes, who has told Jews to 'get the fuck out of America,' had to admit: 'It's getting a little uncomfortable even for me.' On Monday I finished a lengthy piece for a forthcoming print issue of The New Republic. That's how I spent most of last week, actually, and the week before that. Journalism is a deeply satisfying trade, but describing how it's done is boring ('I make phone calls, I read stuff, I go over my notes'), so I'll leave it at that. I don't want to give away what the article's about, but you won't like it. On Saturday I saw Kunene and the King, written by and starring John Kani, at the Shakespeare Theatre Company here in Washington, D.C. The play riffs on King Lear, with Lear an aging white South African actor now dying of cancer and Cordelia a male nurse trying to keep him off the booze, played by Kani. They argue about the long shadow of apartheid and who's to blame for continuing poverty and crime under Black-majority rule. South Africa is your nation of origin, right? And I know you have an interest in white nationalism. You should see the play! I last saw Kani onstage 50 years ago in a Los Angeles production of his play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead. It was on tour, after playing in New York and winning Kani a Tony. On Kani's return to South Africa, police showed their pride in their cultural ambassador by beating and stabbing Kani and leaving him for dead. Kani lost an eye in the incident. You, Elon, would have been about 5, so you're off the hook. Monday night I saw Peter Beinart, a former New Republic editor, speak at my neighborhood bookstore about his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. The book is excellent (also short), and I strongly recommend it. Among its points is that in the 1970s the accepted definition of antisemitism largely shifted from 'prejudice against Jews' to 'recognition of Palestinians as human beings.' One consequence (this part is me, not Beinart) is to let antisemites who support Israel firmly enough entirely off the hook for their Jew-hating, a tradition that began with Richard Nixon. Disappointingly, Beinart, a devout Jew, said he isn't getting many invitations from synagogues to discuss his book, even though Jewish people are famously in love with disputation. Beinart drew a big crowd at Politics & Prose bookstore, though, and faced only one foul-mouthed heckler, who failed to make her beef clear before being escorted out. Her bile was directed not at Beinart but at his interlocutor. I don't know whether the heckler was a MAGA devotee or a DOGE enthusiast, but she was certainly rude enough to be. I started reading The Mirror and the Light, the concluding novel in Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell and the court of King Henry VIII. A dramatization starring the great Mark Rylance will be televised next month, and I liked the previous two books too much to allow the third to be spoiled for me. Like its predecessors, the final installment does a brilliant job conjuring the dangers of working for a monstrous chief executive. For further reading I recommend Lawrence Stone's memorable New Republic cover essay 'Terrible Times' (link works only for TNR subscribers), in the issue dated May 5, 1982. This was a review of the collected letters of Henry VIII's uncle Arthur Plantagenet (a.k.a. Viscount Lisle) and his family. It says a lot about this essay that I remember it 43 years later. Stone evoked brilliantly 'the most ferocious period of arbitrary and bloody tyranny in English history.' Sound familiar? That's my week, Elon. I did some other stuff too, but you limited me to five bullets. Can I keep my job? All best, Tim
