Mantlethought.org

Senior film critic Kurt Brokaw watches the entire New York Film Festival slate in order to choose the best and brightest entries each year. Whiplash (Damien Chazelle. 2014. USA. 106 min.) In his warm, definitive 1991 biography of drummer Buddy Rich...

The mania for hair removal goes way beyond pubic regions now. When asked about pubic hair removal, most American women tend to describe their efforts as a form of “self-enhancement”—a way to feel cleaner and more attractive. While some report opting...

From Ian: Assad Regime’s Grotesque PR Conference in Damascus Uses ‘New York Times,’ ‘Washington Post,’ NPR, and ‘New Yorker’ Reporters to Whitewash War Crimes Bashar al-Assad’s regime has pulled off a grotesque PR coup by corralling a number of prominent...

Every great achievement, it has been observed, is but the lengthened shadow of a great man. A movement which has weathered the storms of more than a century, as I write these words, and still exercises its influences upon the direction of human thought...

Abbreviated Edition "Public diplomacy lacks obvious benefits to states." --Ian Hall, Senior Fellow, Australian National University; image from ESSAY Are Political Appointees the Only U.S. Diplomats Who Haven't Been to the Country to Which They Are...