Amanda changed the subject to a television program she had liked, on the Discovery Channel, about whether mermaids exist.

NEWYORKER: Bones of Contention

This is not so much a political as an aesthetic flaw: In the classic movies about Elizabeth I, for instance, you knew why you were watching the movie, why she was its subject, and how she changed history.

WSJ: Peggy Noonan: Jobs, Thatcher and the Force of Life