Godard is caught, as so often, between elegy and protest between a lament for certain ideals, private and political, and splenetic digs at prevailing cultural conditions.

NEWYORKER: In Praise of Love

The billionaire was even more splenetic than usual during the media circus that was the recent election campaign, mocking left-wing voters, storming off a recent television interview and likening himself to Jesus Christ.

FORBES: Italian Election: Prodi Declares Victory Over Berlusconi

Of all the charges being levelled, the social one that the Prime Minister was fraternizing with the wrong sort is at once the most splenetic and the weakest, especially to anyone familiar with the dance that politicians and newspapers have led one another in the past hundred years.

NEWYORKER: Hack Work