No sooner had victory in Afghanistan by the forces of Truth, Beauty, and Global Democracy been announced and the still uncaptured and undeceased Osama bin Laden declared by President Bush to be “unimportant” (no doubt the reason the administration put a $25-million reward on his head last fall) than the top-ranking officials of the U.S....
Category: Columns
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The Coming War in Iraq: Dangerous and Unnecessary
In the final years of the Soviet Union, as glasnost broadened the scope of permissible public debate, it was still deemed advisable to precede any expression of controversial views with a little disclaimer. For example, “While I hold no brief for the Islamic dushmans terrorizing the people of Afghanistan, I think we should withdraw from...
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The Geology of Time
Atop the final ridge rising to the south rim, Tom Hart stopped the truck and sat behind the wheel, gazing over into the meandering trench stretching from west to east and across it to the line of blue mountains over 40 miles away. It had been his first sight of the canyon when his family...
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The Bells of St. Mary’s
P. Introibo ad altare Dei. R. Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. From the outside, St. Mary’s Oratory in Rockford resembles scores of other Catholic churches built in the Midwest in the late 19th century, with its red-brick exterior, steep roof, stained-glass windows, and a bell tower that reaches for the sky. When you first...
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Signs and Wonders
Signs Produced by Blinding Edge and Touchstone Pictures Written and Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures In his third commercial feature, Signs, M. Night Shyamalan seems to be delivering a belated riposte to those who lorded over his Indian ancestors. His movie concerns an invasion by extraterrestrials who have imperial designs...
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Against the Obscurantists
It was a muggy day in late July, and I had gone to the back of the church to rest on crutches and take some pressure off my sprained ankle. Taking advantage of my condition to stand in the way of one of the church’s too-few fans, I noticed a woman feeding candy to her...
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Corporate America in Crisis
The ongoing turmoil in America’s stock markets and a series of corporate scandals have attracted considerable attention from commentators and editorialists all over the developed world, who fear that economic instability in the United States may plunge the world’s top businesses into a vicious cycle of doubt and deferred capital investment. With the world’s stock...
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Fire On the Earth
The old man had understood since the summer of ’88 that pigs are afraid of fire. He’d been in the pig business only three years, following his retirement from the Union Pacific Railroad, when the uncured hay in the hayloft combusted spontaneously, the barn exploded like something on a movie set, and burned to the...
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The Butler Didn’t Do It
I would like to try my hand at detective stories, but I’m having some problems coming up with plausible conclusions. Let me give you an example: I’m currently writing a book in which it’s obvious from the first page that the butler did it, and, as the book goes on, this conclusion is steadily reinforced...
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One More Such Victory . . .
June 30, 2002, arrived with little fanfare, an odd ending to 13 years of judicial tyranny here in Rockford. Perhaps that’s because the Rockford school-desegregation lawsuit officially ended on a Sunday; more likely, it’s because most Rockfordians didn’t realize the significance of that day (just as they never quite understood what has happened over the...
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Fateful Choices
Minority Report Produced by 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks and Cruise-Wagner Productions Directed by Steven Spielberg Screenplay by Scott Frank from a short story by Philip K. Dick Distributed by DreamWorks Men in Black II Produced by Amblin Entertainment and Columbia Pictures Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld Screenplay by Robert Gordon VII from Lowell Cunningham’s comic-book series...
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Artless Imitations
The Importance of Being Earnest Produced and distributed by Miramax Films Directed by Oliver Parker Screenplay by Oliver Parker from Oscar Wilde’s play The Sum of All Fears Produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures Directed by Phil Alden Robinson Screenplay by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne from Tom Clancy’s novel Oscar Wilde believed one’s first...
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Mexican in Name Only
For several years, Charles Truxillo, a professor at the University of New Mexico, has been proclaiming that the American Southwest will—and should—be reconquered by Mexico through massive immigration. Most politicians and media have either ignored Truxillo or tried to characterize him as an isolated extremist, claiming that most Mexican immigrants have no political agenda and...
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Eating With Sinners
And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you. —Luke 22:19-20 These familiar...
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Will Europe Survive?
The recent emergence in Western Europe of increasingly successful political parties based on opposition to Third World immigration and the utter failure of such parties to appear in the United States raise the question posed in the headline of this column. Most Americans of sensible political views have assumed for the last century that Europe...
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Bush’s Middle East Policy: Mendacity, Folly, or Both?
On June 24, President George W. Bush delivered his long-awaited speech on the Middle East. Most of his 15-minute statement was devoted to harsh criticism of the Palestinians, including the assertion that “peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership . . . not compromised by terrorism.” In addition to ditching Yasser Arafat and ending...
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Comments Anyway
Edward Paul Abbey 1927-1989 NO COMMENT —Inscription on Edward Abbey’s grave marker, Cabeza Prieta wilderness, Arizona My friend Edward Abbey, dead these 13 years, is finally the subject of a formal biography, published last year by the University of Arizona Press and written by a man who never even met him. Most biographers, of course,...
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Ethnic Cleansing
Family traditions often get started by accident—especially, perhaps, those that center on food. On the second New Year’s Eve after we were married, my wife and I found ourselves trapped in our apartment in Vienna, Virginia, victims of a freak snow and ice storm that made the Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., streets downright dangerous, especially...
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Cui Bono?
You cannot hope to bribe or twist / (thank God!) the British journalist. But, seeing what the man will do / unbribed, there’s no occasion to. —Humbert Wolfe The June issue of Chronicles was literally on the press on May 7, when local radio talk-show host Chris Bowman announced that Bishop Thomas Doran of the...
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Bitten and Smitten
Spider-Man Produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures Directed by Sam Raimi Screenplay by David Koepp Y Tu Mamá También Produced by Besame Mucho Productions Directed by Alfonso Cuarón Screenplay by Alfonso and Carlos Cuarón Released by Twentieth Century Fox Where would we be without eros? Would Antony have thrown away an empire? Would Dante have written The...
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Deracinated Americans
It was a late night in the small-town pizzeria, and the owners were sitting at our table drinking the Antinori Chianti riserva that was “too sour” for the local Swedes, who prefer Lambrusco on the rocks when they are not drinking Miller Lite. The husband had come from Italy as a child, but his wife...
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Transatlantic Rifts
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, Europe was closer to America, politically and emotionally, than at any time since World War II. For a moment, the threat of Islamic terrorism had rekindled a dormant awareness on both sides of the Atlantic of just how much the Old Continent and the New World have in...
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What Was a Chaperone?
I confess it: My television is always on. I seldom watch the news, the talking heads, the public-spirited uplift, Masterpiece Theater, or the educational stuff. No, I watch old movies. Constantly. I watch them because they bring back the good old days. I think, for instance, of a film (whose title I forget) in which...
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The Man in the Black Hat
From where the boy’s wagon was parked, Laramie Peak, which from every other perspective appeared in some degree or another triangular, had a rounded aspect suggesting the crown of a tall, black hat. The wagon stood braced on the summit of a low hill rising from a rolling plain dotted with pale stones and dark...
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De Profundis
In recent months, as horrifying allegations of homosexual and pedophiliac activities among Catholic priests in the United States have multiplied, the response of the American Church has been, to say the least, disheartening. Remarks by Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston, Roger Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles, and Francis Cardinal George of Chicago have clouded the...
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Beat the Clock
The Rookie Produced by Walt Disney Pictures and 98 MPH Productions Directed by John Lee Hancock Screenplay by Mike Rich Released by Buena Vista and Walt Disney Pictures Clockstoppers Produced by Nickelodeon Movies Directed by Jonathan Frakes Screenplay by Rob Hedden and Andy Hedden Released by Paramount Pictures I have no idea whether Oscar Wilde...
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Turn Left at the Renaissance
Siena is almost entirely a city of the later Middle Ages. The days of glory—artistic as well as political—were the 13th and 14th centuries, and by the time the city was absorbed by the Medici empire in 1552, it was already a place of memories, whose people were ridiculed by the Florentines (in Dante’s phrase)...
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Immigration Reform’s New “Palatable Face”
Almost immediately after the attacks of September 11, the open-borders lobby knew it was in trouble. The immediate, obvious, and logical implication of 19 aliens legally entering the country and proceeding to carry out the biggest single act of mass murder in human history is that the United States needs to close its borders, at...
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The Crime of Consistency
When future generations write the history of the Roman Catholic Church in North America, the year 2002 will loom large, since the crisis over child abuse by priests and other clergy has had such a devastating effect on the faithful. Yet these same events also deserve to be remembered as marking a remarkable new low...
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In Memoriam: Gen. Alexander Lebed, 1950-2002
When I first met General Alexander Lebed, shortly after he was forced to retire from his military career in 1995, he was a crusty soldier with great political ambitions, itching for action but visibly uncomfortable in mufti. His tie knot was too wide and his parade-ground bass sounded coarse and unmodulated. His face, with more...
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A Journey to the Bottom of the World
The plane took off to the east out of Denver, banked steeply right, and came round on a southwest heading: over Pike’s Peak, the Sangre de Christo Mountains, and the Great Sand Dunes National Monument; across the San Luis Valley, the upper Rio Grande, and the San Juan Mountains; over Chaco Canyon, with a view...
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In Remembrance of My Brothers
Three New York firefighters raise Old Glory over the rubble of the World Trade Center. The dramatic moment is captured from afar by a photographer. Within a day or two, the photo is featured in newspapers across the United States. It becomes as recognizable as the Marine flag-raising on Mt. Suribachi. T-shirts soon appear with...
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Giuseppe Sure Knows How To Live
The train winds its way slowly through the Tuscan countryside, stopping at every small station between Siena and Florence. I don’t mind, because Tuscany in mid-March is like Rockford in mid-to late-May—an explosion of greenery, a profusion of brilliant yellow forsythia blossoms, a cavalcade of white and pink cherries in full bloom. We pass small...
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Belief Suspended
The Time Machine Produced and distributed by DreamWorks and Warner Bros. Directed by Simon Wells Screenplay by John Logan from a novel by H.G. Wells Monster’s Ball Produced by Lee Daniels and Mark Urman Directed by Marc Forster Screenplay by Milo Addica and Will Rokos Released by Lions Gate Films I first read H.G. Wells’...
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A Nation of Losers
Pat Buchanan’s threnody on The Death of the West has upset Mr. Buchanan’s conservative enemies, who cannot forgive him for violating the GOP’s famous 11th Commandment—not “Thou shalt not speak ill of other Republicans,” but “Thou shalt not bite the hand that feeds us.” No one can actually dispute Buchanan’s main thesis: that European America...
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Who Rules America?
Is there a ruling class in the United States, or are we, as David Brooks suggests in his December 2001 Atlantic Monthly article (discussed in my column las month), more like a high-school cafeteria in which separate-but-equal cliques of “jocks,” “nerds,” and others munch meatloaf together amicably, with no one clique telling the others what...
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Milosevic on Trial
There are contests in which a decent person prefers not to take sides, such as the bloody wars between Mafia families or Stalin’s disputes with Trotsky and Tito. The war between Khomeini’s Iran and Saddam’s Iraq also comes to mind, or the family feud between Pol Pot and the Vietnamese communists. It is tempting to...
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State of the Union: An Empire, Not a Republic
President Bush’s recent State of the Union Address was an historic occasion. His speechwriting staff went through nearly 30 drafts and finally presented him (and the rest of us) with a mature ideological framework that reflects the balance of outlooks within the present administration. The preceding debate may have been the last chance for any...
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The Mysterious Mountain
The wind that had risen directly after sunset blew hard down-canyon, filling the rocky bowl where camp was fixed with a sound like rushing water, scouring the open fire pit, and sending red sparks in sheets among the dry cacti and bushes. Between gusts, the coals in the bottom of the pit burned dark red...
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Through A Glass, Darkly
“We have an Islamic school in Rockford?” my friend said in surprise. His reaction was typical. Rockford, as the local Gannett paper never ceases to remind us, is stubbornly average—in population, ethnic composition, income level—with a few notable exceptions, particularly astronomic property taxes and abysmal public-school test scores. The idea that there is a sufficient...
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Love, War, and Other Misunderstandings
In the Bedroom Produced by Good Machine and GreeneStreet Films Inc. Directed by Todd Field Screenplay by Robert Festinger from a story by Andre Dubus Released by Good Machine and Miramax Films Blackhawk Down Produced by Columbia Pictures Corporation and Jerry Bruckheimer Films Directed by Ridley Scott Screenplay by Ken Nolan and Mark Bowden Released...
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Recessional
If drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law— George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” address was a remarkable performance in many ways: It simultaneously marked the zenith of American triumphalism and the nadir, not only...
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What Neocons Do on Their Summer Vacations
It is not today exactly a secret of state that neoconservatism has become the dominant expression of what passes for the American “right”—and that its victory is also the reason why it is necessary for more serious conservatives to use the qualifying phrase “what passes for” when referring to the American right and to place...
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Chesterton and the Gentile Problem
In 1961, Garry Wills published his first book, a penetrating study of G.K. Chesterton. It wasn’t a huge success, and it soon went out of print. Later, after swinging fashionably leftward, Wills would write best-sellers and Pulitzer Prize-winners. Now his Chesterton has been reissued, slightly revised, in paperback. In a new introduction, Wills apologizes for...
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We Are the World
In the aftermath of September 11, the chairman of the House International Relations Committee noted that the war on terrorism has revealed the need to overhaul U.S. foreign policy. “Can anyone doubt that the sum of our efforts has been insufficient?” asked Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) on October 10, opening a hearing into the role...
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Love Thy Neighbor
Ben Lummis was not in a mood to write this morning. He wanted to be outdoors, and, because he was an outdoor writer, being outdoors was as legitimate a part of his job as writing about having been outdoors was after he’d been there. His work had two stages, outdoor and indoor, and in the...
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Robbing Paul to Pay Paul
After 12 years under federal rule, Rockfordians are looking forward to the end of the People Who Care school-desegregation lawsuit on June 30, 2002. If the district administration and the school board have their way, however, the fat lady may not actually begin singing for another ten years. One of the many elements that has...
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Moral Impressionism
Vanilla Sky Produced by Cruise-Wagner Productions Directed by Cameron Crowe Screenplay by Cameron Crowe, based on Abre Los Ojos Released by Dreamworks and Paramount Pictures In Vanilla Sky, director Cameron Crowe and producer/actor Tom Cruise have created an American version of Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar’s 1997 feature, Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes). I have...
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Anti-Imperial Judo
The basic principle of judo, so I have been told, is to use your enemy’s strength against him. I was forced to apply this principle more than once in college, when my athletic friends, invigorated by the joy of youth and a fifth of Jack Daniels, would suddenly realize how pleasant it would be to...
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Homophobia and Its Enemies
It is easy enough to criticize the postmodern approaches that have become orthodoxy in humanities departments over the last couple of decades, but if postmodernism has taught us anything of value, it is that we are prisoners of our language. The words we use constrain the expression of our thoughts. Since postmodern academics tend to...