Marx

Harpo speaks! New recordings reveal mute Marx brother chatting with audience

The comedy legend, who adopted his silent persona because of stage nerves, did occasionally address his audience, as revealed by a new archive releaseGroucho was the cigar-chomping wit with the improbable moustache, Chico was the piano-playing rustic grifter and Zeppo played the straight man and the lover. But as any Marx Brothers fan knows, Harpo was the pantomime, who cracked up the audience without saying a word, dressed in his tattered raincoat and curly wig. His persona was childlike...

Harpo speaks! New recordings reveal mute Marx brother chatting with audience

The club I wanted to join was waiting in Pompeii

analysis What Pompeii taught me about the sisterhood and the power of patience Sat 6 Jun 2026 at 8:00am I think I've finally found the cult I want to join. Given that Groucho Marx's maxim about abhorring club membership is one I have long taken to heart, this is significant and made even more so because I suspect any woman reading this will immediately want to join too. The secret women's society I'm referring to involves copious amounts of wine, food and feverishly dancing around to wild...

Listing Even Cycles Faster than the Submodular-Width Barrier

arXiv:2605.30564v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A classic result of Alon, Yuster, and Zwick (AYZ, Algorithmica 1997) shows that all $2k$-cycles in an $m$-edge graph can be listed in $\tilde O(m^{2-1/k}+t)$ time, where $t$ is the output size. This bound underlies the {\em submodular width} of Marx (JACM 2013) and the PANDA framework of Abo Khamis, Ngo, and Suciu (PODS 2017), which extend AYZ to arbitrary conjunctive queries with degree constraints. A central open question is whether...

The need for a socialist planned economy (2021)

This article is a transcript of the presentation given by Vincent R. Beaudoin at Fightback’s Marxist Winter School 2021. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Francis Fukuyama told us that this was evidence of the failure of the planned economy and the success of the capitalist market economy, and that it represented the end of history. In October 2018, however, he changed his mind.

Position: Neglecting the Sustainability of AI is Fuelling a Global AI Arms Race

arXiv:2502.20016v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Sustainability encompasses three key facets: economic, environmental, and social. However, the nascent discourse on sustainable artificial intelligence (AI) predominantly focuses on the environmental sustainability of AI, neglecting the economic and social aspects. Achieving truly sustainable AI necessitates addressing the tension between its environmental sustainability, which emphasises mitigating AI's climate impact, and its social...

The anti-communism movie quote that spells doom for the Democrats in the midterms

For years, I have told various people in politics, the media and the financial world that the most impressive investment CEO I have ever encountered is fictional. One who came from nothing; identified with the working-class over the elites; established a persona deliberately meant to be underestimated by his snobbish competitors; and truly prized morality over money. That fictional CEO being Lawrence Garfield.

Rise of Ritabrata Banerjee: How ex-Left leader engineered Bengal's biggest political coup

In the run-up to the West Bengal election, a video of Mamata Banerjee chastising Ritabrata Banerjee had gone viral, drawing widespread amusement. At a SIR protest meeting, Ritabrata had gone into an oratorical flourish before Mamata, in her own inimitable manner, cut him off publicly and asked him to focus on the burning issue of the day. Little did anyone know that Ritabrata, MLA from Uluberia Purba, would grow from a footnote in Bengal politics to the Leader of Opposition in a sensational...

Argentina’s ‘Madman’: Inside the world of Javier Milei

Otacon Party, a regular event for anime and manga fans held at the Galicia Centre in Buenos Aires, has never been known for being overtly political. Attendees buy comic books and Pikachu plushies, and sing karaoke, often dressed in colourful costumes. But at the February 2019 event, one cosplayer stood out among the rest.

Skof, Manchester M4: ‘Proof that fine dining can be magical’ – restaurant review | Grace Dent on restaurants

Clever, emotional – and well worth the hypeI couldn’t get a table at Skof for ages: it was too full, too booked up and far too busy. It seemed there’d be no lightly set miso custard with hen of the woods mushrooms and dashi for me. Jersey royals cooked in chicken fat with pickled walnuts?