A critic of Dalrymple’s earlier review (here) of New York’s new Whitney Musem says to look at this piece in the Guardian for “a more balanced” view. Dalrymple’s reply in City Journal asks whether the review in the Guardian is really better or just more “evasive and cowardly”.

Does “trumpeting awkwardness” in some way cancel out ugliness, and if so, why? Does the boldness of a criminal make his act any the less criminal? Note also that the author refrains from saying whether he (as against, presumably, most people) finds the building shockingly ugly. Nor is there any explanation as to why the ability to read “thin slivers of sense” (would it be better or worse if they were thick slices instead?) from “the great industrial bricolage” should—whatever to do so actually means—be a virtue in a great public building ostensibly dedicated to art.

Why is a private toll road in Britain free of the litter that mars a nearby public road? Dalrymple has several possible answers:

Perhaps the private company that owns it takes care of it better than any British council would do. Perhaps the class of person using it is different from those who decline to use it because of its cost. Or perhaps the people who use it, having paid for the privilege of doing so, are rendered more reluctant to ruin the appearance of what they pass through.

Read the rest at the Salisbury Review

To what extent are Greeks to blame for their country’s debt crisis? Does the sending of a severed pig’s head to a policeman via the post amount to a crime or a gift? To what extent is a woman responsible for stealing money to pay (supposedly) for her father’s kidney transplant?

These questions are not as disparate as you might think.