Bernard-Henri Lévy Is Not As Ridiculous As He Sometimes Seems

For all that he can be a figure of fun in the U.S. and even in France, “Lévy ‘has made a positive impact on French policy and French thinking. Saying terrible things are terrible in a loud and convincing way is more than a lot of people do,’ says Steven Erlanger, who was The New York Times‘ Paris bureau chief from 2008 to 2013, ‘and he deserves a lot of credit for that.'”

The (Badass) Woman Who Revolutionized Food Writing

“Paddleford was the first American writer to approach food with as much respect and research as other journalists did with the established serious topics. She used it as a vehicle to talk about the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and the New York World’s Fair. When Winston Churchill visited Missouri in 1946, most reporters parsed his Iron Curtain speech. Paddleford wrote about the buffet menu.”

There Are Those Who Think Snoopy Ruined ‘Peanuts’ – Here’s Why They’re Wrong

Yes, it seems Charlie Brown’s beagle really irked some folks. (Daniel Mendelsohn: “[He’s] so self-involved, he doesn’t even realize he’s not human.” Sarah Boxer begs to differ: “Snoopy may be shallow in his way, but he’s also deep, and in the end deeply alone, as deeply alone as Charlie Brown is. Grand though his flights are, many of them end with his realizing that he’s tired and cold and lonely and that it’s suppertime.”