When we arrived back in the States, it was Zero degrees in Chicago and Rockford. The welcome was even chillier at O’Hare’s passport control, which now has machines to which the lines of cattle–I mean travelers–are directed, in our case, by a Subcontinental who could barely speak English. After 17 hours of travel–from the...
Year: 2014
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Sochi Olympics: Opening Ceremony
The opening ceremony, which stunned and impressed the skeptical West, will probably be the most interesting part of the Sochi Olympics. The ceremony was Putin’s Russia’s attempt to re-introduce herself to the world and show that it’s neither the old Soviet Union, nor the wrecked, pitiful Russia of Yeltsin. The musical introduction with the Russian...
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Nuland’s Doctrine of Limited Sovereignty
RTTV live interview with Srdja Trifkovic RT: We’ll now bring in Srdja Trifkovic, who is a writer on international affairs and Foreign Affairs Editor for the magazine Chronicles. Thank you very much, Mr. Trifkovic, for joining us at RT International to discuss the situation in Ukraine. As we know, Victoria Nuland plans to meet both the...
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A Soviet Emigre on France IIA
Anatoly Gladilin next shares his experience with the baleful reality of French public schools. His daughter Liza was attending school with Nastya, the daughter of Pravda’s Paris correspondent. Ironically, the daughters of two purported ideological enemies befriended each other. Anyway, by that time the Soviet Union has collapsed and Gladilin was more of a freelancer....
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A Soviet Emigre on France I
I recently stumbled onto a short, but excellent book by Soviet dissident author Anatoly Gladilin who moved to Paris in 1976 during the strongest days of Brezhnev and worked for Radio Liberty. The book, called “Rogues and Criminals, Welcome to Paris!” is a collection of uber-politically incorrect observations of the state of affairs in France....
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Superbowl Ruminations
The first Superbowl I’ve ever watched was the battle between the famous Dallas Cowboys powerhouse of the mid 90s and Bill Cowher’s inspiring underdog Pittsburgh Steelers (Superbowl XXX, played in Tempe, Arizona). I was in America a little more than a year and was the only kid in my small Russian Jewish immigrant neighborhood in...
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Syria: A Predictable Failure
U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi wrapped up the first round of the “Geneva II” negotiations last Friday reporting little progress. No ceasefire was agreed, and talks on a transitional government never began. The next round is scheduled for February 10, but its prospects are dim. The opposing sides predictably blame each other for the stalemate, but in any...
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Proper Books
Way back in prehistory—1991, or thereabouts—a promising Alabaman author started to register on readers’ radars, thanks to lambent reviews from Northern litterateurs surprised to discover that there was at least one Southron who could not only write, but write as though an amphetamined-up James Joyce was simultaneously charioteering Jonathan Swift, Flannery O’Connor, and John Kennedy...
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Suicide of the West (Revisited)
Fifty years ago James Burnham warned Westerners: Trying to come to terms with communism instead of resolutely fighting it amounts to committing suicide. Whether the communist ideology is dead or still alive under a new guise remains, in spite of current opinion, an open question, but in any case only the blind or the deceitful...
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That Special Relationship
John Kennedy and Harold Macmillan were the odd couple of the Special Relationship. Conjuring a picture of them from the cuttings files and obituaries, they seem almost comically mismatched. For much of the three years that they overlapped in their respective offices, the grouse-shooting British premier appeared ludicrously archaic next to a President who confidently...
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We’re All Racists Now
“For Democrats, it’s the gift that keeps giving: If all else fails, just call Republicans racists . . . ” —Neil Cavuto, FOX News Well, everything else is indeed failing, but the racism racket is working so well that it won’t be going away any time soon. Al Sharpton sees “white supremacism” everywhere among Obama’s...
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Suicide of the West (Reconsidered)
The elegant duplex maisonette at 73 East 73rd Street in Manhattan, formerly the residence of the late Mr. and Mrs. William F. Buckley, Jr., was recently bought by Mr. and Mrs. Mark Rockefeller, son and daughter-in-law of the late Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. A writer for the New York Times, describing the architectural and decorative renovations...
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The Buffalo Harp
Inutile asking me why this column is called that, or what a buffalo harp might be. I honestly do not know, except that it is the name of an old ironmonger’s near my house. One still happens here and there, in the less progressive European towns, upon those ancient shop signs, faded black or gold...
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Robertson Repulsion
Duck Commander Phil Robertson is the American Establishment’s worst nightmare, and allowing him simply to exist was not an acceptable option for those who wish to form our opinions and exterminate Christianity from our society. Most everyone has by now heard of the controversy surrounding Robertson’s comments as quoted by a snarky and patronizing article...
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The Mexican War
It’s popular in academe today to describe the Mexican War as an example of an aggressive and expansive colossus beating up on a weak neighbor, but that was not the case in 1846. The war was really a second phase of the Texas Revolution. Most people don’t understand that Mexico never recognized Texas independence. It...
Issue
February 2014
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New Electoral Alliance Aims to Capitalize on Anti-E.U. Anger
“Today is the beginning of the liberation from the European elite, the monster in Brussels.” These are strong words. But they are not surprising coming from Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom and a man known for his rhetorical flourishes. He was speaking at a joint press conference with Marine Le...
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Flyovers and Combovers
Nebraska Produced by Blue Lake Media Fund and Bona Fide ProductionsDirected by Alexander Payne Screenplay by Bob Nelson Distributed by Paramount Vantage American Hustle Produced by Atlas Entertainment and Annapurna Pictures Directed and written by David O. Russell Distributed by Columbia Pictures Few directors would have taken the chances Alexander Payne does with his...
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Numquam et Nusquam
Scott P. Richert (“Returning to Reality,” Views, December) says he’s a Catholic. He doesn’t write like one. What distinguishes Catholics is possession of a Deposit of Faith given 2,000 years ago. No, saith Richert. What’s important is a “lived relationship with the Risen Christ from which those doctrines flow . . . ” Lived relationship? ...
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Take a Hand
There’s no analysis to speak of in Bill Minutaglio’s and Steven L. Davis’s account of life and events in the city—Dallas—that much of the world came to hate after the Kennedy assassination. There is instead chronological recitation: this person, that person; words, deeds, threats, accusations, pleas, apologies, gestures; an amassing and piling up of facts,...
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High on Federalism
As the New Year rolled in, lines formed at Colorado pot shops. Some customers seeking to secure their first legal purchase of Mary Jane had to wait several hours. Once they made it into the shops they were struck by sticker shock: Top-shelf marijuana (not Mexican ragweed) was going for $400 per ounce. Of course,...
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Impractical Solutions
Mark Levin, in his best-selling book The Liberty Amendments, is absolutely right about two things: First, the Courts, president, and Congress are not playing the roles assigned to them by the Constitution. The Court is deciding the country’s social and cultural issues; the president freely amends laws and drops Tomahawk missiles on people without going...
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The Technology Mirage
For years, Americans worried about the disappearance of manufacturing jobs were told that their loss would be more than offset by all the new jobs technology would create in the United States. What’s more, the jobs created by technology would stay in the United States, because they required skills that the Chinese and Mexicans—those now...
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Bums and Bandits
One of the great but perverse pleasures of my life when I’m in New York City is to read the New York Times. It’s perverse because no paper north of Saudi Arabia lies quite as blatantly as the Times does, its lying based on omission rather than invention, and by the use of the kind...
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A Vanishing Nation
Uit die blou van onse hemel uit die diepte van ons see, Oor ons ewige gebergtes, waar die kranse antwoord gee. When in 1918 Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven wrote “Die Stem” (“The Voice”), the poem that became South Africa’s pre-1995 national anthem, by “our everlasting mountains” he meant the Drakensberg range that separates Transvaal from Natal. ...
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Big Brother, Little Sisters
When Sonia Sotomayor decided, in the last hours of the last day of last year, to issue a temporary stay on the enforcement of the ObamaCare contraception mandate, she surprised a lot of people, but likely no one more than the man who had appointed her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Barack Obama prefers his...
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Back to the Trenches
Stand by for a barrage of centennials. For some years to come, we will be facing very regular commemorations of the various horrors of World War I and its aftermath, so expect a great many books, documentaries, and newspaper pieces on Sarajevo, the Armenian massacres, the Lusitania, the Russian Revolution, and on through the 2020’s. ...
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Taking Action
“I don’t just renovate,” says Nicole Curtis, the 36-year-old star of Rehab Addict. “I restore old houses to their former glory.” She’s a willowy blonde with the body of a pinup model and the determination of a drill sergeant—and she can wield a nail gun as well as any man, if not better. That may...
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Out and About
The American Empire has been on the minds of at least some conservatives for about two decades, ever since the sudden collapse of the Soviet Empire caught us all by surprise. It isn’t that Americans haven’t argued about empire before: From the 1890’s until December 7, 1941, there was an on-again, off-again but very lively...
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End Game
The latest, and perhaps the best, book to be written in the wake of the Great Recession raises an important question: Why is it that America’s self-appointed elite refuses to learn from its long record of failure and futility in economic management that its ideas and policies are all wrong? The answer is provided by...
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The Mandela Mandala
Every year, the Christian calendar is more and more marginalized by anti-Christian “holidays” and commemorations. In 2013, the first week of Advent, by decree of President Obama and National Public Radio, was displaced by Nelson Mandela Week. Since we were only in December, I could not wait to see what our masters will pull out...
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All the News From Tuscany
1 February 2014 Two news items occupied the media today. The “big” national and international story was the reversal of the reversal of Amanda Knox’s and Raffaele Sollecito’s conviction for complicity in the sexual abuse and murder of Meredith Kercher. The outcome was almost a foregone conclusion, not because–as Americans have been saying–an American...
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State of the Union
Your last three Presidents are liars, war criminals, and completely lacking in any of the necessary qualities of statesmanship. The first is a pathological rake; the second a fool (“useful idiot”); the third is barely American (foreign father and expatriate mother). Such perspectives as liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, Catholicism, may each have something valuable to contribute...
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Eternal Youth
Rome was Rome, not only in the obvious and universal sense that, however much the city changes, it remains the urbs aeterna and not just for Catholics, but in the narrower sense that when you are in a place every year for more than a few days, it loses the exotic charm of unfamiliarity and...
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Obama’s One Cheap Trick
I did not watch the President’s State of the Union Address. I hardly every watch such things, especially if I intend to write about them. What would be the point? The President’s boys and girls spend the previous week leaking the main talking points to the press to make sure that no one fails to...
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Chris Matthews Calls Out the GOP on McCain
The Arizona GOP (a species disappearing faster than the Amur tiger), came out with a strongly worded condemnation of John McCain. Seems like they had enough of Mr. Invite the World, Invade the World’s support of amnesty for illegals, Obamacare, and “assaults on the Constitution and the 2nd amendment”. They were especially angry about McCain...
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The Road to Rome–and Back
The title is intended as a joke and not as a declaration of apostasy. The past two weeks my attention has been almost entirely absorbed, first by our Winter School program and then by an informal after-excursion to Rome with a few lingering students. I enjoy these programs, but while they are going on I...
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John McCain’s New Neo-Nazi Friend
John “Invade the World, Invite the World” McCain is one of the loudest supporters of the anti-Russian, pro-EU forces in Ukraine, who are in armed rebellion against the legitimate (if bumbling and corrupt), government of Viktor Yanukovych. One of the leaders of this uprising, concentrated in Kiev’s Independence Square (Maidan) is Oleh Tyahnybok, a former...
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Trifkovic on RT: Thugs and MEPs
[Click here to watch the video] The EU has condemned the violence in Ukraine, putting the blame on the government. “A dialogue is needed in the parliament and especially between the government and the opposition, who are present in the parliament,” Member of the European Parliament Libor Roucek told RT. However, Chronicles foreign-affairs editor Srdja Trifkovic described the Ukrainian opposition...
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On Demons and Exorcism III
After the last two blog posts, several readers and acquaintances asked me to recommend some books on the topic of demonic possession and exorcism. Over the last few years, I read several non-fiction books on the topic. 1. “Hostage to the Devil” by the late Fr. Malachi Martin. A book that opened my eyes to...
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On Demons and Exorcism II
As I’ve mentioned in my previous blog entry, until I watched “The Exorcist” in late high school, I was more or less skeptical about the possibility of demonic possession. However, I did witness, what I to this day believe was an exorcism as a child in post-Soviet Moldova. Walking past a Russian Orthodox church dedicated...
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America: Nation of Transients
And now, Part 2 of the English version of Thomas Fleming’s interview with the Serbian magazine Geopolitika, on the decline of America: Geopolitika: Are you saying that the American people have been victimized by the elite classes that both control mass culture and the higher culture of universities and the arts? Is the answer some sort of populist...
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Music–and Again Muslims
January 14 We’ve spent a busy two days doing nothing. Yesterday we more or less wasted the day (with Mark Beesley, Michael Guravage (who came down from Holland), George Gaudio, and the Arnetts–whom we picked up along the way) going back and forth to Florence. We had intended to gaze lovingly at the Fra...
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On Demons and Exorcism I
Following the lead of Scott Richert, I read William Peter Blatty’s “Legion”. Blatty, the descendant of Lebanese Maronite Catholics is world-famous for his chilling and yet uplifting novel “The Exorcist”, which he later adapted into an Academy Award-winning screenplay. In “Legion”, Blatty re-introduces several characters from “The Exorcist” and the new novel still takes place in...
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Dr. Trifkovic on RT
Click here to watch Dr. Srdja Trifkovic’s interview on RT discussing the Eurovision song contest.
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America: A Growing Servility
Here is Part 1 of the English version of Thomas Fleming’s interview with the Serbian magazine Geopolitika, on the decline of America: Geopolitika: What has happened to the United States? Observers in and outside of America have been commenting on America’s decline, both as a world power and as an inspiration and model for other countries. Within living...
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Muslims, Mussels, and the Duomo
January 10 Last night we had a good seafood dinner at La Buca. This was our second seafood dinner, since the night before we had gone to my old favorite, Il Nuraghe, and dined well on fish–in defiance of the Trip Advisor food mavens, who are forever complaining about how stodgy and 1970’s the...
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Amiri Baraka: Race Hater not Poet
The recent passing of “poet” Amiri Baraka set in motion an outpouring of grief by the mainstream media. The taxpayer-funded NPR called him “one of America’s most important literary figures” and called his legacy “achingly beautiful”. The Washington Post gushed that Baraka was “one of the most influential African American writers of his generation”. Baraka...
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The Grit, the Grime, and the Glory
January 8 I first came to Pisa in 1988. Christian Kopff had persuaded me to apply to make a joint-presentation of work that grew out of my dissertation on the colometry of Aeschylus. Feel free to skip this tedious pedantic digression: What is colometry? Perhaps it is better not to ask, but, properly...
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Erdogan’s Desperate Overture
Turkey’s Islamist PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has come out in support of the retrial of hundreds of military officers sentenced as part of the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer show trials. These Moscow 1937-like shabby spectacles, discussed at length on this website (here and here), seemed to have been the final nails in the coffin of Turkey’s secular-nationalist military...