"I know more about literature than most reviewers. I know what I'm doing. And my books will be around a lot longer than they will. Sometimes I think they're only saying these things out of jealousy. My work seems to make some people insane, but I think that's good. It inspires passion in people." Candace Bushnell joins the ranks of famous writers (I'm trying hard not to put apostrophes around that word) who hate critics. Pass the champagne--Schramsberg, it's the best.

Support Palestine, or try to open up the debate, and watch your book contract disappear. The German publishing house that pulled Ted Honderich's book after anti-semitism groups complained about a statement he'd made--"the Palestinians do indeed have a moral right to their terrorism"--ought to be ashamed of itself.

Honderich replied, "Micha Brumlik, the director a Holocaust institute and I understand a professor in your university's institute for general education in science declares me to be an antisemite. This is because in my book I defend the moral right of the Palestinians to their resistance to the state of Israel, as the state of Israel defends its moral right to the killing of Palestinians. The charge of antisemitism outrages me. I could not believe my eyes." Here is Brumlik's letter, a letter from Professor Jurgen Habermas, and Honderich's reply.

No one comes out of this well: Brumlik sounds like a censoring demagogue, Habermas defends Honderich against the charge of antisemitism but comes out sounding weak when he says that the book--which he recommended to Honderich's publishers--is sloppy, and Honderich does himself no favours by asking for Brumlik to be dismissed from his post, in a fit of righteous wrath. Counterpunch carried an interview with Honderich in December 2002 where he has more space to defend himself, and comes out with very rational arguments in support of his position.