Alex Singleton of Liberty Log rang me at 5 am this morning (not quite, but it felt like that) to check that I’d got a cheque he had sent me for travelling expenses (yes thanks), and he also mentioned that they’re thinking of starting some kind of campaign up there concerning the alleged superiority of Muslim culture. He mentioned a Reason online article. I’m in the middle of reading it now and I enthusiastically recommend it. It’s called “In Praise of Vulgarity” and is by Charles Paul Freund, which is probably a name known to lots of Samizdata’s readers but is one I haven’t attended to before. The article was published in March, but better late than never if like me you missed it the first time around.
I’ve just finished the bit about the USSR’s “stilyagi” subculture of the immediate post-WW2 era, and am about the read the bit about Algeria, and the use of pop culture there to get back at the Islamist suppression of the everyday pleasures of life.
I just checked the Liberty Log link above to make sure it worked, and they link to this article too, and you can see Alex Singleton’s brief comments on it.
