[This view first appeared in the October 1986 issue of Chronicles.]
The obscurest epoch is today.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Taken together, these three books serve nicely as a kind of group portrait of Clio and her several faces. In
…
The Archive
Post
Beautygate!
Here’s an opinion that might as well be a fact of life: Men of all ages find beauty queens to be attractive. Yes, I know, it’s quite a newsflash. Remember, you read it here first.
Yet judging by the media’s
…
Post
Service Academy Board Blues
After an absence of several years, I was back to serve on my congressman’s Academy Selection Board. This group of ten or so volunteers is made up of service-academy graduates, several of whom are retirees, and a few who are
…
Post
Poems of the Week–the other Coleridge
Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849) was the oldest son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He inherited much of his father’s talent and brilliance but also some of his lack of discipline, which resulted in the forfeiture for intemperance of his Oriel fellowship. He …
Post
Chronicles Unbound, Live Today 3-5 PM
Chronicles Unbound, the official radio program of the best magazine on earth, is on the air and streaming live today, 3-5 PM. Join Tom Fleming, Scott Richert, and host Paul Youngblood as they discuss the Obama administration’s war against …
Post
Bibi’s Dilemma—and Barack’s
“Bibi” Netanyahu was disgusted.
“My initial reaction is that Iran has gotten a freebie. It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation.”
The Israeli prime minister was referring to Saturday’s meeting in Istanbul of the P5-plus-1—the five …
Post
Poems of the Week–Ben Jonson
Here is a somewhat conversational masterpiece by the great Ben. It’s a bit long but very vivid, funny, and, while self-serving, not hypocritical. What a man he must have been! Small wonder younger poets loved him, and not simply because …
Post
Poems of the Week–April 9: Conversational Verse
This is a big topic. Conversational verse includes satires, dramatic dialogues, and homey little poems of the Robert Frost type. To achieve a conversational tone, one has to lower the diction a bit and work somewhat against the metrical rules. …
Post
The Heart of Darkness
When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, over 58,000 Americans had lost their lives over the course of almost 20 years. Whatever one may think of the justice or prudence of the U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia, only the most …
Post
The Civil Rights Movement—March 2012
Vol. 36, No. 3
March 2012
perspective
Revolting Parasites
by Thomas Fleming
views
The Inner Logic of Civil Rights
by Claude Polin
Zora Neale Hurston’s White Mare
by Jack Trotter
news
Crusader in the Crossfire
by Timothy Stanley
reviews
A …
Post
Dreams of My Daughters
President Barack Obama surprised even battle-hardened pro-life Americans with his official remarks on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that has, since 1973, littered garbage dumps across America with the corpses of 50 million …
Post
Putin’s Victory
That a week is a long time in politics is confirmed by three significant events of the past seven days which will make life more difficult for the proponents of American “engagement” abroad. One was Bashar al-Assad’s victory in Homs, …
Post
Syria Gets Complicated
A three-member “Independent International Commission of Inquiry” appointed by the United Nations concluded on February 23 that “gross human rights violations” had been ordered by the Syrian authorities as state policy at “the highest levels of the armed forces and …
Post
A Warring Visionary
The Crusader: The Life and
Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan
by Timothy Stanley
New York: Thomas Dunne Books
464 pp., $27.99
British scholar Timothy Stanley has produced the first significant biography of Patrick J. Buchanan, describing his life from his …
Post
Obama’s Game
I was away in Europe when President Obama delivered his third State of the Union Address, hence a belated commentary.
Obama’s carefully crafted speech sounded more like the opening shot in the reelection race than a set of serious policy …
Post
Obama’s Trampling on God’s Turf Now
Yes, Virginia, there is a religious war going on. It is for the soul of America. And traditional Christianity is besieged.
In a January visit to the Vatican, American bishops were warned by Benedict XVI that “radical secularism” posed “grave …
Post
Plato’s Apology
After returning from my Balkan adventures, I can now return to the serious business of using Plato to teach reasoning. Let us turn to the Apology. You probably all know that the Greek apologia means something like justification or defense …
Post
David Cameron’s Finest Hour
Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to veto Germany’s demand for a new European fiscal union will define his premiership.
More than that, Cameron has raised a banner for patriots everywhere fighting to retain their national independence.
With his no vote …
Post
Plato’s Euthyphro: Introduction
It has been a while since I posted a Booklog entry. It is not for lack of reading, on my part, but most of my reading has been either rather technical–Sicilian history, Pre-Socratic philosophy, the history of marriage–or too light …
Post
It Can’t Happen Here!
Friday, thousands in Moscow, giving Nazi salutes and carrying placards declaring, “Russia for the Russians!” marched through the city shouting racial slurs against peoples from the Caucasus.
In Nigeria, Boko Haram, which is Hausa for “Western education is sacrilege,” massacred …
Post
A Kinder, Gentler Amnesty
By the time Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed the shift in policy, it was hardly a surprise. In an August 18 letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 21 other Democratic senators, Napolitano acknowledged that removing people from …
Post
The Greek Referendum: A Machiavellian Scenario
European politicians and commentators are predictably screaming blue murder over Prime Minister George Papandreou’s announcement that the Greek government will put the EU rescue package to a referendum, but I smell a rat. This looks like a cunning ploy, jointly …
Post
Herman Cain and Obama’s 1000 Days
My latest on the Daily Mail takes up the rise and what I hope will be the fall of Herman Cain.
I also have an even newer piece on Obama’s First 1000 Days.
Please do not respond here, since what …
Post
Success(ion)
The lifeblood of Chronicles is Tom Fleming, who took the reins of an interesting magazine in 1985 and turned it into an indispensable publication for anyone concerned about the future of this country. But the magazine that you hold in …
Post
Lessons of Libya
Liberal interventionists and their neoconservative twins on both sides of the Atlantic were jubilant as Libyan rebels took Tripoli. From now on, “The right question for the United States and its allies isn’t whether to help oppressed people fight for
…
Post
Am I a Threat to National Security?
When I first saw the memo from the FBI’s counterterrorism center in Newark, declaring that I’m “a threat to National Security,” not to mention an “agent of a foreign power,” I was incredulous. These can’t be real FBI documents, I …
Post
More on Daily Mail
I have posted two more columns on “RightMinds,” the online Daily Mail’s commentary section. One is on Perry and one is on Gingrich. I invite and welcome comments.
…
Post
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
In medias res: Loud, booming, clanging in an industrial factory. Bottles and other loose articles shake and nearly crash to the floor with each successive pounding, rattle of the building. A figure falls to a low crouch holding a drawn …
Post
My New Blog
The commentary editor of the online edition of The Daily Mail has invited me to contribute a blog several times a week. Once he wakes up and realizes his terrible mistake, the blog may be gone with the wind a …
Post
An Open Letter to National Public Radio
Kudos to the Morning Edition staff! I have been an NPR listener almost from the beginning, and while I am constantly impressed by the errors and distortions that pepper your reporting on literature and history, I must confess that even …
Post
Beyond the “Strategic Partnership”
The E.U.-Russia Centre Conference, Munich, September 15, 2011
The “Strategic Partnership” between Berlin and Moscow is usually understood in the English-speaking world in somewhat simplified terms: Russian energy meets German technology with a lot of high-minded political rhetoric on top. …
Post
Srdja Trifkovic on the Radio Today
Srdja Trifkovic, still in Germany at a major conference, will be interviewed by Paul Youngblood on WNTA/1330 at 4 PM today, Thursday 14 September. On this same website there is a button to take you to the station’s live webcast.…
Post
9-11, Ten Years Later: Islam’s Unmitigated Success
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I thought that the Muslims had made a big blunder. At first I believed that they had scored an auto-goal: This was the sort of thing that would shake up the Western world, …
Post
What 9/11 Wrought: The Bush Legacy
In Cairo in 1943, when the tide had turned in the war on Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, who had embraced Joseph Stalin as an ally and acceded to his every demand, had a premonition.
Conversing with Harold Macmillan, Churchill blurted:…
Post
ON THE AIR AGAIN
Please join my friend Paul Youngblood and me at 3:00 (CDT) on WNTA 1330. LAst week the station changed the schedule on us, but we’re back to normal now. We are probably going to talk about the new report on …
Post
September 11: What Has Changed?—September 2011
beyond the revolution
Deforming Education
by Thomas Fleming
views
U No What I Meen: Technology and Illiteracy
by R. Clay Reynolds
Tarzan’s Way
by Andrei Navrozov
news
September 11: Ten Years After
by John C. Seiler, Jr.
reviews
The Monism …
Post
The Libyan Endgame
Regardless of whether Muammar Qaddafy is killed, brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, or exiled, his regime has collapsed beyond recovery. After a five-month air war against his forces NATO has succeeded in decisively tipping the …
Post
Today’s Rich Are Different
It used to be that plutocrats felt they were part of the society in which they lived, or at least felt the need to act as if they were part of that society. Thus, when they decided to give away …
Post
Who’s Really Downgrading America?
The decision by Standard & Poor’s to strip the United States of its AAA credit rating, for the first time, has triggered a barrage of catcalls against the umpire from the press box and Obamaites.
S&P, we are reminded, was …
Post
London’s Postmodern Riots
As a former resident of Winchmore Hill I am well familiar the surrounding areas of north London—Wood Green, Ponders End, Enfield…—affected by three successive nights of rioting and looting which has now spread to other parts …
Post
Turn on the Radio
Paul Youngblood and I will be on the air at 3-5 CDT today, chatting amiably about Syria and government-funded contraception–and anything else that comes up. Please call in and save me from Rockford’s rabid welfare dependents who call up screaming …
Post
What “Big Deals” Did to America
Thanks to Tea Party fanatics, we are told, America just lost an historic opportunity to deal with her national debt.
Because of Tea Party intransigence and threats against their own leader John Boehner, the speaker had to reject Obama’s “grand …
Post
Serbia Arrests the Last Fugitive From The Hague Tribunal
[Transcript and video of Srdja Trifkovic’s RTTV interview]
RT: By giving up wartime fugitives President Tadić may win the praise of EU leaders, but as Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, foreign affairs editor at Chronicles magazine told RT, this will …
Post
Democracy’s Dictionary (With Apologies to Ambrose Bierce)
Democracy: A sacred form of government invented by Abraham Lincoln in the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address. John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also helped greatly in the invention of democracy.
Democratic Elections: When the rulers …
Post
Otto von Habsburg’s Ambiguous Legacy
Archduke Otto von Habsburg, who died on July 4 aged 98, became the heir to the imperial crown of Austria and the royal crown of Hungary when his father Charles ascended the throne of the multinational Dual Monarchy in November …
Post
An American Family Covenant
“I used to say to my father,” he says, “‘If my class at Yale ran this country,
we would have no problems.’ And the irony of my life is that they did.”
—Louis Auchincloss, interview with Trevor Butterworth, Financial Times
…
Post
Back on the Air
A few weeks ago, I hosted a local program on WNTA Radio for our new friend Paul Youngblood. Paul has invited me to join him every Friday at 3.
Call (815) 874-8255 to take part in the discussion. I’d like …
Post
Israel in a Post-American Era
In 1918, the United States proved militarily decisive in the defeat of the Kaiser’s Germany and emerged as first power on earth.
World War II, ending in 1945, produced two truly victorious nations, the Soviet Union of Joseph Stalin and …
Post
Jerks, The Individualist, Part II
Self-made millionaires set the tone for this class, and any scholar or man of letters who has had to raise money among men of wealth and influence will see himself in Eliot’s Prufrock. These poor fools have to listen, hour …