Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia’s prime minister for the past three years, has one of the most challenging jobs in the world. He nevertheless seems at ease with that burden, and appears more confident than while he was Yugoslavia’s last president (2000-2003). When we met in ...
Year: 2006
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Christendom Under Siege
PERSPECTIVE Jihad's Fifth Column by Thomas Fleming Collaborating with terror. VIEWS Eurabian Nights by Srdja Trifkovic A horror travelogue. Fictional Muslims, Nonfictional Muslims by Derek Turner The Flying Inn revisited. Holding a New Line by Alberto Carosa Pope Benedict, Islam, and the media. NEWS Time to Talk Turkey by Christie Davies Why we must say no. REVIEWS War of the Worlds by Jack Trotter Philip Rieff: My Life Among ...
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Eyeless in Love
The desire to spit is widely underrated as a motive. Yet it was known throughout the university I attended, for instance, that the founder of Pan American Airways, one of its illustrious and discontented alumni, had built the PanAm skyscraper over Grand Central Station in New York with the single-minded purpose of being able to...
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Winners and Losers
I thought that Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota might be a cut above the general run of politicians when I noticed that he was one of four Democratic senators who voted against the Bush administration’s recent “immigration reform” bill, designed to replace the American population with Third World coolie labor. That prompted me to get...
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Solemn Joy and Hot Gospel
’Twas the middle of that sacred time of year when all Americans pause to remember what is most important—Christmas Shopping Season. I had just walked through the automatic doorway of MediaPlay, out in what was then the edge of Rockford’s wasteland (the East State Street shopping corridor, which has since sprawled itself all the way...
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Sinkin’ Down in Youngstown
If you really want to know what’s going on in a city, consult the motel clerk working the graveyard shift—not the clerk at the chain motel, but his counterpart at the inn that advertises the cheapest rates at the interstate exit with the truck stop. The kind of inn where you find cars patched with...
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Tipping Points and Imperial Meltdown
Tipping points have occurred in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia that signal the beginning of a meltdown of the American Empire. In war, a “tipping point” may be defined as an event so dramatic, often so unexpected, that it has a psychological impact on the momentum of the war itself. It adversely affects the morale of...
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War of the Worlds
“The most serious parody I have ever heard was this: In the beginning was nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.” —Friedrich Nietzsche Philip Rieff is best known for his Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud (1966), a work that many would rank among the most significant...
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After Watergate
A large portion of American history is only now being invented. For most periods of that history, we know the broad outlines: For instance, any account of the 1850’s has to include certain themes, certain events and landmarks. However much we differ on our interpretation, every respectable account has to devote some space to Uncle Tom’s...
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Infernally Yours
The Departed Produced and distributed by Warner Brothers Directed by Martin Scorsese Screenplay by William Monahan In The Departed, a raucously sordid meditation on the ways of the lower-class Boston Irish, director Martin Scorsese has included a passing tribute to Carol Reed’s peerless film, The Third Man. Reed’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s novella concludes with...
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Holding a New Line
At the time of his election to the papacy, many thought that Pope Benedict XVI’s approach toward Islam would be, by and large, no different from that of his predecessor, the late John Paul II. But Benedict’s now-famous speech at the University of Regensburg and the ensuing reactions in the Islamic world have shown that...
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Fictional Muslims, Nonfictional Muslims
Ninety-two years ago, at the apex of England’s Edwardian ease, Gilbert Keith Chesterton published a curious little novel, written in his inimitable light-but-serious style. In the context of a literary ambience that had recently produced The Wind in the Willows and Peter Pan, The Flying Inn must have seemed like just another piece of whimsy,...
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When Incarnation Is Considered Idolatry
In his trenchant 1919 Introduction to Scott Montcrieff’s translation of The Song of Roland, G.K. Chesterton was especially stirred by the Old French epic poem’s final stanza, after “Charlemagne the Christian emperor” had already victoriously fought on the Spanish March against encroaching Islam and seemed, at last, to have “established his empire in quiet.” But...
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The Letter That Rocked Orange County
Greetings: You are being sent this letter because you were recently registered to vote. If you are a citizen of the United States, we ask that you participate in the democratic process of voting. You are advised that if your residence in this country is illegal or you are an immigrant, voting in a federal...
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“Scratch One Flattop”
It was America’s first naval battle of World War II, Japan’s first loss at sea in the war, the battle that saved Australia from a Japanese invasion, the greatest naval battle in Australian waters, the first carrier battle, and the first battle in which the opposing fleets never came within sight of each other or...
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Jihad’s Fifth Column
No one on the planet, by now, has not heard of the violence that greeted Pope Benedict’s references to Emperor Manuel II and his reflections on Islam. Manuel, invariably (and unfairly) described as “obscure” or “forgotten,” lived in one of those interesting ages of the world that teach lessons to those who are not blind...
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Christianity and the Movies
Several things have worked against the development of serious Christian films in the United States. From its beginnings, the American film industry has included some, but very few, Christian filmmakers. By and large, it has been determinedly secular; and, because of the nature of the business, the need for a truly enormous worldwide audience to...
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Terror on the Underground
Two muslim terrorists held under Britain’s controversial “control order powers”—an Iraqi with possible links to Al Qaeda and a British citizen likely connected to the London Underground bombings last year—have escaped, as Tony Blair’s government reluctantly acknowledged on October 16. Both were suspected of being linked to international terrorist groups, and, in a sane world,...
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American Parenthood
Overwhelmed by the shame of having a juvenile delinquent for a daughter, Héctor could almost forget that he himself was a convicted criminal and the subject of an investigation by the Immigration and Borders division of the Department of Homeland Security. The entire business had been a father’s worst nightmare, as well as a major...
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North Korea Joins the Club
North Korea has now barged into the global nuclear-weapons club by conducting a nuclear test. The six-party talks designed to get Pyongyang to relinquish its ambitions for a nuclear arsenal have effectively failed. Even if North Korea can be induced to return to those talks (which Pyongyang has boycotted for a year), the prospect that...
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Finland, Democracy, and Those Cartoons
The Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten’s publication of the satirical cartoons depicting Muhammad prompted a crisis that touched the whole of Scandinavia. The drawings were greeted with outrage and violence from Muslims and their liberal defenders throughout the world. Danish flags were burned in Arab cities; Danish embassies were firebombed in Syria and attacked in London;...
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Time to Talk Turkey
Turkey is currently negotiating to join the European Union, with the full support of the British government and of U.S. President George W. Bush. If she does join, it will be a disaster for Europe and for Britain. Turkey has 70 million people, nearly all of whom are Muslims and, by European standards, poor. She...
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What Lies Beneath
According to an article in the New York Times on September 10, “In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents—nearly 96,000—than in any year in the previous two decades.” Moreover, many of these are not simply Muslims who had been here on guest visas but now have been granted permanent...
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Operation Iraqi Freedom
In Iraq, as of this writing, the death toll for U.S. soldiers has reached 100—in the month of October alone. So far, 2,813 members of the U.S. Armed Forces have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. At least another 21,266 have been wounded, as reported by the Pentagon. This...
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On Blaming Bryan
In “Don’t Blame Bryan!” (Reactionary Radicals/Radical Reactionaries, October), Jeff Taylor takes Michael Kazin to task for identifying William Jennings Bryan as the man who built the ideological bridge between 19th-century laissez-faire government and the modern liberal welfare state birthed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Dr. Taylor writes: “[Kazin] offers no detailed evidence to support this claim...
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Eurabian Nights: A Horror Travelogue
Thousands of young Muslims, armed with clubs and sticks and shouting, “Allahu akbar!” riot and force the police to retreat. Windows are smashed; stores are looted; cars are torched. Europeans unlucky or careless enough to be trapped by the mob are viciously attacked, and some are killed. The scene could be Mogadishu in the aftermath...
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Our Special Relationship
Con Coughlin is the defense and security editor of London’s Daily Telegraph and the author of several books on Middle Eastern themes: Hostage, about Lebanon in the 1980’s; A Golden Basin Full of Scorpions: The Quest for Modern Jerusalem, a presentation of the city through the voices of residents; and Saddam: King of Terror, a...
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The Disappearing Border—November 2006
PERSPECTIVE El Gringo y El Mexicanoby Thomas FlemingAn amalgamation. VIEWS The Economic Realities of U.S. Immigrationby David A. HartmanCounting the cost. Pure Personalityby Chilton Williamson, Jr.The meaning of Francisco “Pancho” Villa. Immigration, the Border, and the Fate of the Landby Gregory McNameeNotes on a crisis. How Santa Ana Became SanTanaby Steven GreenhutAn irrelevant border. Islam,...
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To Preserve the American Tribe
“A nation scattered and peeled . . . a nation meted out and trodden down.” —Isaiah 18:2 “It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been motivated by the fear of looking insufficiently progressive.” Pat Buchanan quotes this aphorism of Charles Péguy in his latest book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion...
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The Economic Realities of U.S. Immigration
Mass immigration is changing the fundamental character of America—our culture, institutions, standards, and objectives. Until recently, our society was the envy of the world, so why are these changes even necessary? In addition to the ruling class’s commitment to globalism and multiculturalism, the chief reason that is given in support of open borders is the...
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The Universe Within
Dr. James Watson, one of the discoverers of DNA, has written that the human brain is “the most complex thing we have yet discovered in the universe.” Indeed, with its 100 billion cells, the human brain is a universe within a skull. This isn’t an original insight: The importance of the brain was understood for...
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Lebanon, Israel, and the Holy See
Among the representatives of 15 powerful nations gathered in Rome on July 26 to discuss the crisis between Lebanon and Israel were clergymen sent from that tiniest of states ruled by the world’s last absolute monarch, the Pope. Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, Vatican secretary for relations with states, and two monsignors from his staff had been...
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Pope Benedict and Islamic Intolerance
The Muslim rage at Benedict XVI’s citation of a late 14th-century Byzantine emperor who condemned Muhammad’s call to spread Islam through war has obscured the numerous cultural implications of the Pope’s learned speech. One of them is the unique importance for Western civilization of classical thought, in general, and Greek thought, in particular—as preserved and...
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To Lose a War
President George W. Bush’s highly anticipated prime-time speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America was supposed to be nonpartisan and conciliatory. It offered him an opportunity to present mature thoughts on one of the most momentous events in this country’s history, to correct several manifest flaws in his conceptual approach...
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Immigration, the Border, and the Fate of the Land
One hundred and seventy miles southwest of Tucson, hard by the Mexico line, stands a weathered mountain range called the Cabeza Prieta. It is a place of weird landforms and scarce but formidable vegetation, a graduate school for desert rats that only the best prepared dares enter. The geography of the place says, Stay away. ...
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On the Blue-Eyed Coulter
Robert Stacy McCain’s main point in his review of Ann Coulter’s Godless: The Church of Liberalism (“Is Ann Coulter Among the Prophets?” September) seems to be that those of us who are not blonde and blue-eyed should not envy those who are. (“But we all cannot be blue-eyed blondes, and, in the Age of Media,...
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Of Men and Supermen
Hollywoodland Produced by Miramax Films Directed by Allen Coulter Screenplay by Paul Bernbaum Distributed by Focus Features Of the entertainment industry’s many venerable traditions, cashing in on dead celebrities ranks just below rehabilitating headliner junkies. Untold millions have been made under the guise of immortalizing fallen performers—think of James Dean, Elvis, John Lennon. And who...
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El Gringo y El Mexicano
America has not been a nation for well over a century. She is more like an Indian stew: Never taken off the fire, the mess of wild carrots and fish is gradually transformed by the daily addition of squirrels and squash, birds and deer, and the odd bit of human body. By the end of...
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Life in a Border Town
The archetypical middle-sized town in the middle of the Middle West, Rockford seems about as far removed from the border as you can get, unless we count the border with Wisconsin, a few miles to the north. And yet, Rockford has been subject to successive waves of immigration that have brought with them (if in...
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A Plea for Clarity
Your Excellency: I trust you are in robust spirits as you face the rigors of the Christmas season. Surely, nowhere is there greater evidence that sin is a good wrongly twisted than in the manner in which we Americans celebrate Christmas. Contrary to our Church’s teaching, which emphasizes the penitential and preparatory aspects of Advent,...
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All Honorable Means
The political culture of the United States is cramped and stunted by the narrow range of acceptable viewpoints and the utterly banal, subliterate tone of our political campaigns—to compare American elections to the marketing of soap is an insult to the people who sell soap. If, as Sean Scallon notes in Beating the Powers That...
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Islam, Immigration, and the Alienists Among Us
In his Introduction to Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith, G.K. Chesterton casts himself as a man on a yacht seeking the world and finding home. The seeker, he writes, may have entertained us with his efforts to find “in an anarchist club or a Babylonian temple what I might have found in the nearest parish...
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A Muslim in Congress
Keith Ellison won the nomination of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party on September 12 to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which centers on the city of Minneapolis; he seems all but certain to win the general election against the Republican nominee, Alan Fine. Ellison’s primary victory has generated tremendous national media attention, because his likely triumph in...
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Aaron’s Tormentors
This summer, as the odious Barry Bonds advanced toward Henry Aaron’s home-run record, I told a friend: “I’m going to write Bonds a letter. And it’s going to be even more vitriolic than the one I wrote Aaron 30 years ago.” Just kidding, of course! When Aaron broke the most venerable record in baseball—then held,...
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Wal-Mart Super-sized
Wal-Mart is hated by some people for the very reasons others love it. Liberals and leftists hate it because they allege Wal-Mart’s substandard wages turn employees into helots. Libertarians and some conservatives love it because Wal-Mart, expanding like the Blob, represents no-borders planetary capitalism. Wal-Mart is McDonald’s, only supersized. Whatever one’s opinion, a recent article...
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Of Love’s Compromises
Death is terribly tactful. It comes to a man when he finally realizes that he understands nothing, thus saving his face. Watched back to front, like the videocassette that you know is on fast rewind when you see the hooker paying the client, life is a gradual shedding of obsolescent platitudes, a quiet letting go...
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Agrarian Poetics
Over the past four decades, Wendell Berry has been one of the most prolific writers in America, averaging around a book each year. Much of this output has been in the realm of poetry, for which he has been honored with the T.S. Eliot Award, the Aiken Taylor Award, the John Hay Award, and other...
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Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.
Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P. Back in the 1960’s, Oriana Fallaci was a “brave,” leftist, feminist hackette. Her iconoclastic interviews were praised by the chattering classes for bringing the genre to the heights of postmodernism: She was lauded for doing for journalism what Susan Sontag was doing for fiction. But whereas the latter progressed to become an...
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The Point Left Unprotected
This book will surely be widely denounced. Its merit, which is considerable, is suggested by the vast coalition who will want to deride it: the corporate elite, Republicans, Clinton Democrats, neoliberals, the politically correct lobby, libertarians, neocons. Any author who can provoke such an array of enemies must be onto something. Walter Benn Michaels’ argument...