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...
Category: Columns
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
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...
Post
The Decline and Fall of the Midwest
Even more than Vachel Lindsay, who liked to say that the Mason-Dixon line ran straight through his heart, Booth Tarkington embodied the regional conflict that defined the Midwest. Born in Indianapolis only five years after the end of the war between the regions, Newton Booth Tarkington was descended on his father’s side from Southern Democrats...
Post
Crazy Horse
The horse went down on a horizontal stretch of trail where no sound horse had any business stumbling. The quadrupe-dal rhythm broke suddenly, his near shoulder crumpled, his head sank at the end of the black-maned neck, until the horse seemed to be wanting to kneel and kiss the ground. I let out rein and...
Post
Time for Arafat to Go
It is not necessarily a bad thing for a national leader to remain at the helm for a very long time, provided that he is successful. Otto von Bismarck’s 28 years as Prussia’s and then the Reich’s chief minister were marked by unification and consolidation internally, nifty diplomacy and overall stability of the European balance-of-power...
Post
Transcendence, Anyone?
The Man Who Wasn’t There Produced by Working Title Films Directed by Joel Coen Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen Released by USA Films 2001: A Space Odyssey Produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Directed by Stanley Kubrick Screenplay by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick Distributed as a re-release by Warner Bros. Of the many films I’ve...
Post
Indian as Ecologist
Most of us learned in grammar school, if not before, that the American Indian had a special reverence for nature. He was a kind of proto-ecologist who conserved natural resources, be they trees or beasts, with a religious devotion. I cannot recall the number of times I heard someone repeat, mantra-like, that “The Indian used...
Post
The Tyrant’s Lobby
As American wars go, President Bush’s crusade—excuse me, campaign—against terrorism doesn’t really make the big leagues. So far, American military action in Afghanistan is not even comparable to the Gulf War of 1990-91, and put next to the Civil War, World War I, or World War II, the current adventure barely registers. That doesn’t mean,...
Post
There Goes the Neighborhood
The first time I drove to Rockford, on a cold, gray, slushy November day six years ago, I entered the city the way most people do. Heading west on I-90, I got off at the East State Street exit, where I was greeted by a horrifying metal sign, in muted oranges, purples, and greens, welcoming...
Post
Abuse Your Illusions
Walter Block is a libertarian without guile, a theorist who refuses to confine his classical-liberal analysis to strictly economic questions. Liberty is liberty, he would argue, and value is value, whether we are deciding a question of zoning or a case of censorship. Honest man that he is, he opposes both zoning and censorship as...
Post
’69 Plus 40
Sam Nash pushed the empty beer bottle away across the knife-scarred table. “I’m ready to hunt bulls,” he said. “We need to be making tracks for the mountain soon, before it gets too dark to put a camp in up there.” Jim McCorkle set his chin forward but didn’t answer right away. He’d ordered black...
Post
Afghanistan and Oil
Writing in the New York Times on September 26, Paul Krugman insisted that the war against Afghanistan would not be “a war on behalf of the oil companies; not even a war on behalf of SUVs and McMansions.” It was, though, going to be a war “over a natural resource that is more vital than...
Post
False Redeemers
The Last Castle Produced and distributed by DreamWorks Directed by Rod Lurie Screenplay by David Scarpa Training Day Produced by Outlaw Productions Directed by Antoine Fuqua Screenplay by David Ayer Released by Warner Bros. American film would be poorer without Robert Redford. As an actor and as a director, he has given us some vastly...
Post
Creeds and Values
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon may have jarred American self-confidence, caused coast-to-coast panic, and even (we shall see) ignited World War III, but so far they have failed to put a dent in multicultural etiquette. President Bush and other government spokesmen have been at pains to stress that...
Post
How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
The cinders of the World Trade Center had barely fallen to the earth before George W. Bush had it all figured out. “America was targeted for attack,” the President explained to the nation barely 12 hours after the first plane hit the Manhattan skyscrapers, “because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the...
Post
Consuming Ourselves
When my wife and I were searching for a house in 1996, we had a few basic requirements: We wanted an older home with a decent-sized yard for our children; we wanted to live in an actual neighborhood, not a new, vinyl-sided ranch development; we wanted to be relatively close to Chronicles’ office; and we...
Post
The Tower of Skulls
“You’ve never been to Nish?!” My friend was incredulous. How can someone who has traveled, it sometimes seems, every inch of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Kosovo not have found the time to go to Nish? The lady is far from being a local chauvinist, but when I first met her and asked (as I had been...
Post
Green Hills of Grayest Sand
Old Jules is more than the title of a book by Mari Sandoz it is the name of one of the monsters of American letters: the Simon Legree of the pioneer household who, married four times, drove one wife to the insane asylum and struck the fourth in the face with a handful of four...
Post
Shadow of Ecstasy
It’s starting again. Almost 20 years ago, the federal government launched what became known as the “war on drugs,” a radical experiment to suppress illegal drugs through harsh penal solutions. Among other things, this meant long prison sentences for the sale or possession of tiny quantities of controlled substances, sentences that are astonishingly severe by...
Post
Memorandum to President George W. Bush
In the aftermath of September 11, you have done a reasonably good job managing the crisis, symbolizing the nation’s unity, restraining the laptop bombardiers, and preparing a military response that was neither hasty nor disproportionate. Now that two months have passed, you have more time to reflect on the long-term significance of that event and...
Post
Something Both Brighter and Darker
Doing Hearts in Atlantis Produced by Castle Rock Entertainment Directed by Scott Hicks Screenplay by William Goldman from Stephen King’s novel Released by Warner Brothers I went to see director Scott Hicks’ Hearts in Atlantis not having read the Stephen King novel on which it is based. The little I knew of King’s other fiction...
Post
Enemies Within and Above
Within a few hours of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last September, it had become commonplace for even high-ranking government officials and elected leaders to say publicly that Americans would just have to get used to fewer constitutional liberties and personal freedoms than they have traditionally enjoyed. Of course,...
Post
From Here to Eternity
“Weapons—guns, knives, brass knuckles, cigarette lighters . . . ” The young man’s voice trails off. If he were not waving his metal-detector wand at us, I might think that he was offering to sell us a gun or two, not asking us if we were carrying any. “No, they’re all in the trunk,” Chronicles‘...
Post
Redeeming the Time The Days are Evil
The human universe, we are told by optimists on the editorial pages, is contracting into a gray and insipid doughball, pasted over with brightly colored labels advertising the only ethnic rivalries that persist: the struggles between Nissan and Daimler, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Unfortunately, there are people around the world who do not read...
Post
A Voice in the Darkness
Apocalypse Now Redux Produced by Producer Zoetrope Studios Directed by Francis Ford Coppola Screenplay by John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola Re-released by Miramax Films and United Artists I was finishing the original draft of this column early on the morning of September 11 when I received the news. My wife called me from the...
Post
Slavery’s Inconvenient Facts
I learned firsthand how disturbing facts could be when teaching a U.S. history course at UCLA in 1987. One of my teaching assistants, a politically correct young woman, became terribly upset after listening to my lecture on slavery. “He shouldn’t be saying such things!” she exclaimed to another teaching assistant. When asked by the other...
Post
Just Another Tequila Sunrise
It may be several years before the results of Census 2000 are available in anyy usable form, but certain trends have already begun to emerge from the raw data. Most significantly, as Chilton Williamson, Jr., and Roger McGrath have pointed out earlier in this issue, the Hispanic population in the United States continues to grow...
Post
It Ain’t Me?
George W. Bush comes as close as anyone to representing the current American aristocracy. It is not that the Bushes are old family or even old money. The family fortunes are usually traced back to great-grandfather Samuel Bush, a middleweight railroad magnate in Columbus, Ohio. Samuel’s son Prescott raised the family to national prominence by...
Post
Getting Somewhere
Jackson Hole is burning up. Gerry Spence had to evacuate his ranch ahead of the wildfires, and Dick Cheney could be next. Here above timberline in the Snowy Range of the Medicine Bow Mountains, 400 miles to the southeast, the breeze is cool, the grass is fresh and green, and the ponds of standing water...
Post
NATO Expansion: Harmful and Dangerous
After President Bush’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Italy in July, it is almost certain that a new round of NATO expansion will be announced at the forthcoming summit in Prague, regardless of Moscow’s misgivings. The alliance will include Slovenia, Slovakia, the three Baltic republics, and possibly Rumania and Bulgaria. The consequences of...
Post
The School of Savagery
Planet of the Apes Produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox Directed by Tim Burton Screenplay by William Broyles, Jr., from Pierre Boulle’s novel Ghost World Produced by Capitol Films, United Artists, and John Malkovich Directed by Terry Zwigoff Screenplay by Daniel Clowes with Terry Zwigoff Released by MGM-UA The 1968 film Planet of the...
Post
Abe-Worship
At the end of the recent remake of Planet of the Apes—turn the page now if you still plan to see it—the hero escapes from said planet and its monstrous chimp-tyrant, General Thade. Returning to Earth at night, his spacecraft crashes in, of all places, the Reflecting Pool at the Washington Mall, and he solemnly...
Post
The Tower of Babble
The first call comes late on a Friday night. “Welcome back,” says Mark Dahlgren, the organist at St. Mary’s Shrine, who is nine months through the one year of probation he received for hugging a tree at Tom and Jan Ditzler’s farm (see “For Keeps! A Christian Defense of Property,” Views, April). “You probably haven’t...
Post
Friday Breakfast
Robinson Crusoe, as the lit boys would say, is an “iconic” character, whose mastery over nature—and over the savage Friday—expresses the West’s sometimes contemptuous sense of superiority over other cultures. In the 500-year-long iconoclastic age that is just now coming to an end, icons are made only to be broken, and in such films as...
Post
Sunday Summer
In June, the sun gets up about the time the pollen release ends. Keeping the bedroom window down in the early morning hours is a simple preventive for hay fever that requires only getting up around 2:00 A.M. to drop the window. It’s easier to take a pill the night before and forget about it....
Post
Obligatory Holocausts
I feel sorry for Afrocentrists—those weird and wonderful folk who claim that civilization, philosophy, and science were discovered in ancient Africa, before being stolen by the white man. True, members of the movement are cranks, with nothing worthwhile to support their positions, but they are no more ridiculous than many other historians who dominate the...