The Editors

Wendy Doniger in the LRB, 16 December 1993: Even within a single traditional family, Christmas is problematic, precisely because it is not supposed to be problematic. In England, the Samaritans receive approximately eight thousand calls of anguish on each of the three main Christmas days (as compared with five thousand at other times of the year). The Swiss even have a word for it: Weihnachtscholer (‘Christmas unhappiness’). In Trinidad, Daniel Miller notes, a popular play begins Fargo was in ah bad mood. It was Christmas Eve, an’ he hated Christmas Eve. Because dat was one time ah year he used to feel like nobody eh like he.

Barbara Newman in the LRB, 22 March: The Latinate framers of the US constitution employed an ablative absolute in the Second Amendment: ‘A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.’ An interpreter who favoured regimen would argue that the ablative clause determines the sense of the main clause; hence, the state has the right to maintain an army. Those who favour the absolute, as American courts have done, bracket the militia clause and take the main clause to mean that citizens may own as many firearms as they choose. The difference between constructions amounts to roughly 12,000 murders a year.

Uri Avnery's latest: “Palestine, from the Jordan to the Sea, belongs to us!” declared Khaled Meshal last week at the huge victory rally in Gaza. “Eretz Israel, from the sea to the Jordan, belongs to us!” declare right-wing Israelis on every occasion. The two statements seem to be the same, with only the name of the country changed. But if you read them again carefully, there is a slight difference. The direction.

Next Tuesday (4 December) there will be an evening Celebrating Christopher Logue at the Southbank Centre's Purcell Room, featuring Craig Raine, John Hegley, Kate Dimbleby singing songs from Peter Cook’s Establishment Club, an extract from The Devils (in which Logue played Cardinal Richelieu, shown here), scenes from the 1965 poetry r

Stephen W. Smith in the LRB, 17 March 2011: We are hypnotised by the 1994 genocide, and oblivious to the atrocities of a regime we regard as exemplary. Aid, we say, must be conditional on good governance – but post-genocide government is an exception. La Francophonie is at best ridiculous and at worst a vector of France’s influence, but the Commonwealth is honourable as it embraces a dictator who favours English over French. Democracy is a precondition of peace – but not in a post-genocidal state. Justice, truth and reconciliation heal – but not the wounds of exterminatory hatred. The invasion and plunder of eastern Congo are criminal – but not when they’re carried out by genocide survivors. Hutu power is bad, but Tutsi chauvinism is acceptable.