In Gore Vidal’s “Burr: A Novel”, the narrator is asked to dig up dirt on his companion Aaron Burr. Through the process he invariably ends up admiring Burr and decides that, in addition to digging for dirt, it would be most interesting to help Burr craft his memoirs. The narrator, upon telling the newspaper editor his plans, finds the editor unconvinced: You will be favorable to Burr and so must fail, because the American reader cannot bear a surprise.…

I really like Chinese movies. Zhang Yimou’s (张艺谋) “To Live” (活着) is probably my favorite movie of all time. I also have enjoyed reading Liu Cixin’s (刘慈欣) “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” (地球往事) trilogy, even though book three had a plot line that literally spanned millions of years. So I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of “The Wandering Earth” (流浪地球) on Netflix. How sad I was when my high expectations were brought so low by a movie that could have passed as any one of the many post-apocalyptic movies Hollywood has defecated onto the viewing public in the past few years.…

It seems that Steve Bannon has carried the day. The China hawk has been claiming a civilizational struggle that would pit the US against China is only a matter of time. Now the rumblings presaging this brawl are shaking after the collapse of US-China trade talks, which during normal times would have meant failure to lower tariffs. In contrast, the failure of these talks has led to trade barriers going up where before there were none.…