A few months ago I found myself stranded in Piccadilly. There was a parade of women—of a decidedly Sapphic cast, I thought—carrying placards with slogans that admonished men for their proclivity to rape, violence, and pillage. Most prominent was a sign that read “No Means No,” its message being, supposedly, that when a woman refuses...
Month: July 2014
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A Chestertonian Assault
I begin with a confession. Whenever I receive a new number of The Chesterton Review, I groan inwardly and, from time to time, outwardly. Let me hasten to add that said groan is not a sign of tedium or disappointment—far from it. But opening those pages means that once again, despite myself, I will be...
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The Long Sadness
William Ball was just shy of 19 and living in the town of Souris on the prairies of Canada when war erupted in Europe in August 1914. The region was still something of a frontier, devoted to trapping and trading with Indians, and inhabited by hearty, adventurous types, Ball among them. On a bet, he...
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A Big Deal
“This is the biggest contract in the history of the gas sector of the former USSR,” Vladimir Putin said after the $400 billion agreement to supply Russian natural gas to China was signed in Shanghai on May 21. It is much more than that, Putin went on: It is an “epochal event.” China’s President Xi...
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Imperial Solution
I write this while American unmanned flights and 18 American “specialists” are looking for those 200 unfortunate girls abducted by Boko Haram, a group our very own Hillary Clinton had refused to place on the State Department’s terrorist watch list. Boko Haram is as bad as it gets and as violent as can be, but...
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Intransigent Diplomacy
There is a disturbing pattern over the decades in Washington’s negotiations with countries deemed to be adversaries. It is a tendency to adopt a rigid stance marked by unrealistic demands that make achieving a settlement virtually impossible. Often, harsh economic sanctions against the target country reinforce the provocative diplomatic posture. Most recently, that conduct has...
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The Wasted Century
The Great War and its inevitable successor have been called Europe’s civil war, and there is some truth in this characterization. Divided by language, religion, and culture, the nations of Europe were nonetheless united in a common civilization that developed out of the ruins of the Christianized Roman Empire. Despite the strains brought on by...
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Jimmy Rowles
In person, jazz pianist Jimmy Rowles was a cutup, a card, a madcap presence, a piece of work. After coming east from California in 1973, he would appear often, sometimes for weeks at a time, at Bradley’s, The Cookery, The Knickerbocker, Michael’s Pub, and other top New York City piano rooms, usually in duos with...
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Let Us Pray (But to Whom?)
In May, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause is not offended when a city council opens its meetings with a short prayer (Town of Greece v. Galloway). While this result seems to be an example of commonsense constitutionalism, conservatives should not be too quick to pat the Court on the back. ...
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Many Tiers
R. Clay Reynolds’ “From Castro to Cancun” (Correspondence, May) presented a number of observations that contradict much of what has been documented with regards to Cuba. For the sake of brevity, I am only highlighting some of the most glaring. First, the claim that there is “no urban blight” in Cuba ignores the crumbling reality. ...
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Is There Hope?
Think of what we’re trying to do: upend the biggest, deadliest, most intractable apparatus of power this world has ever seen. The sheer scope of the Leviathan State is so daunting that any patriot who seeks to take it on is immediately faced with the enormity of his task—and that is sure to overwhelm even...
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His Land, His People
“Dickinson was, in truth,” writes William Murchison, as much philosopher as writer, a man to whom God had imparted the gifts not merely of expression but also of examination and reflection. Among the large fraternity active in the cause of independence, he gave place, intellectually, to no one. That being indisputably the case, Dickinson’s inclusion...
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Free Spirit of Literature
Sam Pickering (born 1941) recently retired from professing English—mostly, it would appear, creative writing. Oh! “Beware! Beware! . . . Weave a circle round him thrice / . . . / For he on honey-dew hath fed / and drunk the milk of paradise.” If Coleridge had not crafted his magical lines for a figure...
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Mr. Kennan’s America
No admirer of George F. Kennan’s should be surprised by the angry tone of the reviews his recently published Diaries has been receiving. Of the several I have read, in the British as well as the American press, all were, to some extent or another, willfully unsympathetic. That is only to have been expected, Kennan...
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World War I and the Modern West
History may be a series of more or less contingent events, whose only connection to the preceding or following ones is that men react to what others do. Such events are basically disjointed because each one depends on the more or less unpredictable behavior of those men who are able to attract enough followers to...
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True Tar-Heel Tales
Abe Lincoln and Al Capone Sometimes “Uncle” Bud disappears for a week or two on “fishing trips.” He always has a nice car for trips, usually a Buick with a big trunk. Pays cash for ’em, too. Always says he got the money from cashing in his “G.I. insurance.” Less said about that the better. ...
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A Young Attorney’s Lament: Law School
Attorneys love to talk. They are addicted to argument, storytelling, reminiscing. The latter is especially true, both of weathered courtroom veterans, with their salt-and-pepper beards and passé suits, and of eager novices with their bright paisley ties and the slightest hint of gray around the temples. Whether in pages of autobiographical books or over a...
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Between Hate and Love
Blue Ruin Produced by The Lab of Madness Written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier Distributed by RADiUS-TWC Hateship Loveship Produced by The Film Community Directed by Liza Johnson Written by Mark Poirier from Alice Munro’s story Distributed by IFC Films Revenge, we’re told, is a dish best served cold. But is this true? Director Jeremy...
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How Not to Succeed in Washington
When I was younger and precociously interested in politics (I subscribed to National Review and looked forward to Firing Line every Sunday), I knew who George Kennan was. He was the brilliant author of the Containment Doctrine who had later gone soft on communism and become a liberal. If someone had told me, “No, it...
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A Necessary Book
We have been enduring the cultural revolution of liberal modernity. It is hard to say exactly when that revolution began, but it took a great step forward in the 60’s, when social and religious tradition lost its last shreds of public authority, and another after the collapse of communism freed it to go wherever it...
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Mencken and the World Warmonger
As World War I is remembered in this year of its hundredth anniversary, one rivalry continues to resonate across America. It isn’t between the Allies and the Central Powers, or between two houses of European royalty, but between two countrymen: President Woodrow Wilson and H.L. Mencken, the Bad Boy of Baltimore. Despite a couple of...
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