Thank you for the elucidation. Back n the 1990's when WigWag was introduced to the public my reading habits were constrained by work an other time cpnsuming commitments. I did have a few magazine subscriptions for a while, including The New Yorker though I didn't live anywhere near NYC (and didn't have time to read it). I never saw WigWag. Sounds like I missed something good.
Nowadays reading The Atlantic and CosGlo, plus their comments sections, provides much of my online literary entertainment. I enjoy reading your take on things though we often disagree, which is okay by me. Nothing whets the appetite for discussion like a good old substantive disagreement, I always say.
Claire - you have outdone yourself. This is such an incredible trove of information and actually because of you I now subscribe to This Week In Africa (which is amazing) and Monique Camarra's Eurofile. Last night you cross-posted Tim Snyder but I am ahead of the game there and already read his posts - ha ha!
A couple of things to say . . .
1. The Houthis and their 'supporters' in the US make me want to scream. My dad (I miss him every day) worked cargo ships for a the British Merchant Navy for much of his career and did several trips through the territory currently being targeted by the rebels. He was also in the region during the Iran/Iraq war. What these people don't understand is that there are men/women working these ships who have families, who are just trying to do their job. Their far left sentimentalities are only fueling more attacks on these ships. I wonder if they will be the first to complain when their amazon order can't be fulfilled because their desired product wasn't in stock.
2. There was a big Pro Palestine rally a couple of blocks from our apartment on Saturday. I wasn't around (had a pre-planned date to see the screening of an Iranian film with a friend.- 'Winners' - highly recommend!) but had to run an errand earlier in the day and saw the many people gathering. I think the IDF needs to set aside and let aide through as directed and dispersed by the various AID groups that are working there. I thought Netanyahu needed to be booted out a couple of years ago when his corruption charges first surfaced. However I am really having a weird time with the intense focus being placed by people I am friends with and the general social media world I inhabit (mainly Instagram) of this being the only thing we should care about right now. I was criticized by a friend for not posting anything about Gaza to my feed (I do a lot of Ukraine and Sudan posts). Some of these friends are now going to the US polls as single issue voters - which if it pans out would inevitable mean a Trump victory. If I am not speaking about Gaza then I am silent on genocide and should take a good look at myself. There was a South African flag at the event on the weekend - everyone was thrilled when they brought their genocide charge against Israel to court. Meanwhile they are still going business with Russia who in turn is attempting to erase Ukraine (people and culture) from the map, which should constitute genocide. But no one seems too worried about that! I don't know how to respond to any of this. It's not that I don't think people are suffering, but there is a part of me that feels a little weird seeing a sea of Palestinian flags marching at cities around the US - up until Oct 7th no one was concerned about them and now all of a sudden it is solely about them? My husband and I were discussing the oppressor/oppressed narrative that seems to be informing a lot of these discussions and there just doesn't seem to be any room for discussion outside of if you're not 100% in agreement here then you are wrong and a horrible human.
3. If Tucker Carlson was even remotely interested in being a serious journalist, he would have nixed the Moscow supermarket run and instead buried his head in the amazing book I am currently reading, I Love Russia by Elena Kostyuchenko and then ventured out of the Moscow area into rural Russia which I am still grappling with after getting over halfway through this book. My Romanian friend cried reading it because she said it reminded her of much of her childhood.
Anyway, this is seriously brilliant coverage. Anyone who is on the fence about subscribing - just do it. I have found much more information here than anywhere else (and I subscribe to the NYT)!
Claire - Your tagline, "Read all the news that matters from every continent but Antarctica in the Cosmopolitan Globalist's Sunday Reader" is catchy, but maybe you should start posting news from Antarctica. Most of it these days is as disturbing was what you currently cover.
1) Search high and low and you will never find a Substack where the writing is as superb as it is here. Claire is simply a brilliant writer and, from time to time she assembles guest essayists who are also terrific writers.
2) Claire is willing to welcome readers with whom she disagrees. I disagree with her all the time, yet she is always welcoming. More importantly, readers inevitably learn a lot. Claire scours the world press for critically important stories so you don’t have to.
3) Claire is opinionated but she is never boring. The same thing is true for people who write comments at her site. It’s not unusual for readers to learn as much from reading the comments as from reading the posts. Claire is an American but she’s lived in Turkey and France (and a few other places). This gives her a nuanced and even idiosyncratic perspective that is very entertaining.
4) Claire’s interests are diverse and she writes about many subjects. While there’s a definite focus on world news, the essays branch into a variety of different topics such as the origin of COVID, the impact of social media on developing minds and interesting travel tidbits.
5) The world is awash with a focus on political correctness, but not here. This site values politeness but almost all views are welcome as long as they are expressed with reasonably good manners.
I subscribe to around 10 Substacks, (including some of the famous ones) three of which I pay for, including this one. Of these sites, Claire’s site is clearly the best.
Views worth disagreeing with on topics worth disagreeing about. Clear sharp writing. Detail that repays patience. Penguins.
(and maybe something about the vanishing voice of the reasonable Atlantic Right, but that's a long bleak story.)
It’s worth it everybody. Subscribe. And hit my Substack The Neoliberal Standard
Thank you for the elucidation. Back n the 1990's when WigWag was introduced to the public my reading habits were constrained by work an other time cpnsuming commitments. I did have a few magazine subscriptions for a while, including The New Yorker though I didn't live anywhere near NYC (and didn't have time to read it). I never saw WigWag. Sounds like I missed something good.
Nowadays reading The Atlantic and CosGlo, plus their comments sections, provides much of my online literary entertainment. I enjoy reading your take on things though we often disagree, which is okay by me. Nothing whets the appetite for discussion like a good old substantive disagreement, I always say.
Claire - you have outdone yourself. This is such an incredible trove of information and actually because of you I now subscribe to This Week In Africa (which is amazing) and Monique Camarra's Eurofile. Last night you cross-posted Tim Snyder but I am ahead of the game there and already read his posts - ha ha!
A couple of things to say . . .
1. The Houthis and their 'supporters' in the US make me want to scream. My dad (I miss him every day) worked cargo ships for a the British Merchant Navy for much of his career and did several trips through the territory currently being targeted by the rebels. He was also in the region during the Iran/Iraq war. What these people don't understand is that there are men/women working these ships who have families, who are just trying to do their job. Their far left sentimentalities are only fueling more attacks on these ships. I wonder if they will be the first to complain when their amazon order can't be fulfilled because their desired product wasn't in stock.
2. There was a big Pro Palestine rally a couple of blocks from our apartment on Saturday. I wasn't around (had a pre-planned date to see the screening of an Iranian film with a friend.- 'Winners' - highly recommend!) but had to run an errand earlier in the day and saw the many people gathering. I think the IDF needs to set aside and let aide through as directed and dispersed by the various AID groups that are working there. I thought Netanyahu needed to be booted out a couple of years ago when his corruption charges first surfaced. However I am really having a weird time with the intense focus being placed by people I am friends with and the general social media world I inhabit (mainly Instagram) of this being the only thing we should care about right now. I was criticized by a friend for not posting anything about Gaza to my feed (I do a lot of Ukraine and Sudan posts). Some of these friends are now going to the US polls as single issue voters - which if it pans out would inevitable mean a Trump victory. If I am not speaking about Gaza then I am silent on genocide and should take a good look at myself. There was a South African flag at the event on the weekend - everyone was thrilled when they brought their genocide charge against Israel to court. Meanwhile they are still going business with Russia who in turn is attempting to erase Ukraine (people and culture) from the map, which should constitute genocide. But no one seems too worried about that! I don't know how to respond to any of this. It's not that I don't think people are suffering, but there is a part of me that feels a little weird seeing a sea of Palestinian flags marching at cities around the US - up until Oct 7th no one was concerned about them and now all of a sudden it is solely about them? My husband and I were discussing the oppressor/oppressed narrative that seems to be informing a lot of these discussions and there just doesn't seem to be any room for discussion outside of if you're not 100% in agreement here then you are wrong and a horrible human.
3. If Tucker Carlson was even remotely interested in being a serious journalist, he would have nixed the Moscow supermarket run and instead buried his head in the amazing book I am currently reading, I Love Russia by Elena Kostyuchenko and then ventured out of the Moscow area into rural Russia which I am still grappling with after getting over halfway through this book. My Romanian friend cried reading it because she said it reminded her of much of her childhood.
Anyway, this is seriously brilliant coverage. Anyone who is on the fence about subscribing - just do it. I have found much more information here than anywhere else (and I subscribe to the NYT)!
Claire - Your tagline, "Read all the news that matters from every continent but Antarctica in the Cosmopolitan Globalist's Sunday Reader" is catchy, but maybe you should start posting news from Antarctica. Most of it these days is as disturbing was what you currently cover.
The Guardian even has an Antarctica coverage section: https://www.theguardian.com/world/antarctica
And for the "soft news" segments, maybe you could offer up some cute Penguin videos.
New readers, here’s why you should subscribe:
1) Search high and low and you will never find a Substack where the writing is as superb as it is here. Claire is simply a brilliant writer and, from time to time she assembles guest essayists who are also terrific writers.
2) Claire is willing to welcome readers with whom she disagrees. I disagree with her all the time, yet she is always welcoming. More importantly, readers inevitably learn a lot. Claire scours the world press for critically important stories so you don’t have to.
3) Claire is opinionated but she is never boring. The same thing is true for people who write comments at her site. It’s not unusual for readers to learn as much from reading the comments as from reading the posts. Claire is an American but she’s lived in Turkey and France (and a few other places). This gives her a nuanced and even idiosyncratic perspective that is very entertaining.
4) Claire’s interests are diverse and she writes about many subjects. While there’s a definite focus on world news, the essays branch into a variety of different topics such as the origin of COVID, the impact of social media on developing minds and interesting travel tidbits.
5) The world is awash with a focus on political correctness, but not here. This site values politeness but almost all views are welcome as long as they are expressed with reasonably good manners.
I subscribe to around 10 Substacks, (including some of the famous ones) three of which I pay for, including this one. Of these sites, Claire’s site is clearly the best.