Category: Vital Signs

Who says that conservative historians have to be old, hoary-headed men unable to produce anything innovative? A young Italian scholar named Massimo Viglione is proving the contrary with his two latest books, Rivolte dimenticate (Forgotten Revolts) and Le Insorgenze—Rivoluzione e controrivoluzione in Italia, 1792-1815 (Uprisings-Revolution and Counterrevolution in Italy). Viglione is a Catholic researcher in...

For seven years (1989-96), I was a full time faculty member at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). I grew up in Las Vegas, earning a B.A. in philosophy from UNLV in 1983 before going to graduate school. In August 1996, my wife and I left Nevada and moved to Southern California, where I...

Methodism, America’s third-largest religious denomination, eagerly embraced the Social Gospel nearly a hundred years ago. It supported labor unions, civil rights, and a moderate welfare state. By the 1960’s, the church was supporting Third World revolutions and abortion rights, while opposing school prayer and U.S. military defense efforts. Not surprisingly, Methodist theology became as wacky...

Speaking in Atlanta this May, Al Gore joined the National Rifle Association and numerous police unions in supporting federal legislation to override state laws regulating the concealed carrying of handguns. Many states do not allow out-of-state, off-duty police officers to carry handguns. The Vice President wants to force communities to allow non-resident, off-duty visitors, who...

Except in war-time, Washington matters little to the comfort and safety of responsible Americans. Washington does matter, however, as the major source of impoverishment, harassment, and jeopardy. Our Founding Fathers never intended it to be this way. The last thousand years have been defined by revolutions that freed peoples throughout the civilized world. Yet at...

Yolanda and Raul Salazar of Miami, Florida, naturalized citizens who escaped Castro’s Cuba, are finding out the hard way that Uncle Sam’s classrooms are not about proficiency at anything, or literacy, or basics. America’s schools aren’t extensions of the home, where families are held sacred and parents are valued. Instead, American education is about “mental...

The skirmish at Monocacy, “the battle that saved Washington,” stalled Jubal Early’s rebel army of 15,000 men just 55 miles from the nation’s capital in 1864. Since the site in Frederick, Maryland, became a National Battlefield nine years ago, visitors have been reminded how Gen. Lew Wallace’s vastly outnumbered men desperately bought time for reinforcements,...

Gladiator Produced by DreamWorks Directed by Ridley Scott Screenplay by David H. Franzoni and John Logan Released by MCA/Universal Pictures Frequency Produced by New Line Cinema Directed by Gregory Hoblit Screenplay by Toby Emmerich Released by New Line Cinema Despite its flagrant historical inaccuracies and its preference for spectacle over drama, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is...

Last spring, ABC News sent movie heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio to interview Bill Clinton for an Earth Day special, a decision which reflected a lovely symmetry: In terms of human maturation, the 25-year-old actor and the 54-year-old President are approximately the same age (19). Symmetry aside, all hell broke loose. The resultant tempest, played out over...

On balance, would you say you are for or against gun violence? How about motherhood? Pro or con? How about keeping firearms away from children? I know that these are all contentious debates nowadays, and that most of us have to think awfully hard before deciding such questions. Somehow, though, I suspect that a decent...

In a recent discussion with a younger colleague about his book-in-progress on American historian Richard Hofstadter, I learned that, during the student riot at Columbia in 1968, Hofstadter repeatedly likened student radicals to European “fascists.” My colleague found this remarkable, given the fact that Hofstadter had spent decades agonizing over the “paranoid style” of the...

“This is not your Grandma’s pageant!” the announcer proudly proclaimed. No, indeed, this was the 1999 Miss Teen U.S.A. pageant from Shreveport, Louisiana—”Brittney’s Beat” (a reference to teen super-Lolita Brittney Spears). Why even acknowledge that this sorry event happened? Because it provides a window into the existence of an American phenomenon, one that has profoundly...

Joe Gould’s Secret Produced by First Cold Press and October Films Directed by Stanley Tucci Screenplay by Howard A. Rodman, from an article by Joseph Mitchell Released by October Films American Psycho Produced by Single Cell Pictures Directed by Mary Harron Screenplay by Mary Harron, from a novel by Bret Easton Ellis Released by Lions...

Through the good offices of a friend who is a large contributor to Republican causes, Chronicles was able to secure a brief exclusive interview with George W. Bush—the likely next President of the United States. We caught up with Governor Bush in Des Monies a few minutes before he was to address the annual joint...

My last (and only other) visit to the United States was early in 1986. I was visiting the Capitol at the invitation of a friend who, at the time, was working for a Republican member of the Senate. It was on the day of President Reagan’s State of the Union Address, hi the silence and...

Mission to Mars Produced by Walt Disney Productions Directed by Brian De Palma Screenplay by Lowell Cannon, Jim Thomas, and Graham Yost Released by Buena Vista Pictures Instead of insulting our intelligence, as so much third-rate science fiction does, director Brian De Palma’s second rate Mission to Mars is just good enough to do something...

Most academics belong to at least one of the various professional societies which can be of decisive importance in shaping careers. These societies award prestigious prizes and grants, and some, like the Modern Languages Association and the American Sociological Association, achieve their greatest significance during annual conferences that are, in effect, the national conventions of...

Fellow investors: Here is our business plan. The route to big profits is to find an industry that is oversized, inefficient, smug, and self-satisfied and then give it an injection of good old-fashioned business competition. Bring the power of business thinking and private sector efficiency to an outmoded industry. Cut costs and prices, downsize, consolidate,...

The recent news that there was a spy at NATO who revealed top-secret plans—including detailed descriptions of targets—during the Kosovo war has thrown the Pentagon and the Western powers into confusion and dismay. According to the London Guardian (March 10), a classified U.S. military intelligence report reveals that the Serbs may have been reading the...

The National Council of Churches (NCC) is the Hugh Hefner of the religious world: aging and not dealing well with it, trapped in the fashions of the 1960’s and 1970’s, financially troubled, still offensive but no longer shocking, blissfully unaware of obsolescence, and feebly trying to disco at a time when retirement might be in...

Relying upon federal legislation intended to allow Bible clubs equal access in high schools, a student homosexual group is demanding not only meeting space but official approval at a Salt Lake City high school. The Gay/Straight Alliance of East High School first formed in 1995. Fearing that federal law would preclude a ban targeting only...

The Talented Mr. Ripley Produced by Paramount Pictures and Miramax Films Directed by Anthony Minghella Screenplay by Anthony Minghella, from the novel by Patricia Highsmith Released by Paramount Pictures Anthony Minghella’s screen version of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley has beautiful photography, good acting, and real suspense. What it lacks is the element that...

In the December 1999 issue of Commentary, Irving Stelzer took Peter Brimelow to task for wanting to restrict immigration. Setting the facts aside, Stelzer accuses Brimelow of being a fan of the “old-line WASP population” that had produced perk-laden corpocrats who so mismanaged America’s major companies as almost to bring the economy to ruin before...

“Say what you mean,” the March Hare advised Alice—a piece of counsel imparted by writing teachers of the old school. But, as we know nowadays, say-what-you-mean is a lot of old-fashioned baloney. If we were to take it seriously, which of course we can’t (don’t forget “mad as a March Hare”), we’d never get anything...

When Randy Newman played the Kennedy Center in Washington last March, it was perfectly appropriate, on one level: No contemporary pop singer has serenaded America as far and as wide as Newman. He’s written songs about Birmingham, Louisiana, Baltimore, Dayton, Los Angeles, Gainesville, Kentucky, Miami, the Cuyahoga River, New Orleans. His appearance in a government-sanctioned...

On the bookstore magazine rack were several copies of Dissent. The cover piqued my interest because it advertised an article by Richard Rorty, an academic philosopher and a professor of mine at Princeton in 1977. Rorty’s contribution to Dissent, part of a multi-author retrospective on the impeachment of President Clinton appearing in the Spring 1999...

Wake Island (1942) Directed by John Farrow B&W, 88 Minutes Go Tell the Spartans (1978) Directed by Ted Post Color, IH Minutes Saigon: Year of the Cat (1983) Directed by Stephen Frears Color, 106 Minutes Americans learn their wars primarily through the movies. Who, except for the few who were actually there, can imagine World...

Not for the first time in recent years, American history is the subject of a ferocious political controversy, which ultimately grows out of the national obsession with race. What is new about this particular battle is the chronological setting: We are not dealing here with the New Deal, with Reconstruction, or the slave trade, but...

The shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, are still reverberating—accentuating some of the enormous problems with public education. American high schools are plagued with low academic standards, moral relativism, political correctness, student apathy, and social permissiveness. All of this has led to a deterioration in students’ commitment to learning, their sense of direction,...

In the bright, warm autumn of 1947 that followed a chilly summer, several hundred bewildered 17-year-olds found the Ohio State University campus in Columbus swarming with an alien and formidable species: veterans. The war, though well over, was still more a reality than a memory. The Great Depression was over too, having disappeared insensibly in...

The World Is Not Enough Produced by MGM-UA Directed by Michael Apted Screenplay by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The World Is Not Enough (hereafter TWINE, as its promoters have dubbed the film) is the 19th official James Bond feature. As if that weren’t enough, it is also the first genuinely interesting...

News Item: “Al Gore helped lead the federal response to Y2K, hut that doesn’t mean his own Internet operations went hug-free. The computer glitch took a tiny bite out of Gore’s campaign Web site. The damage came inside his “virtual town hall,” where a message from a supporter was dated January 3, 19100. . ....

The Arts and Entertainment (A&F) television network, best known for its Biography series, has produced a list of the 100 most important figures of the millennium and devoted four hours of airtime to explain its picks. The list consists mainly of consensus figures: Beethoven, Columbus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Genghis Khan; and some 30 names are...

From Operation Desert Storm, unleashed against Iraq by President George Bush, up to the present moment, the attack on Iraq has been relentless. As I write, a report of a U.S. sortie over Iraqi skies and a clash with Iraqi anti-aircraft guns is hitting the wires—yet another skirmish in the continuous low-level warfare that has...

“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . . And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam” (Genesis 2:18, 21). In between the Lord’s observation that it is not good for man to...

One sure sign of advancing age is a transition in our perceptions of unchanging events: What was once on some level interesting or amusing is now simply irritating. As a few things become more important, many things become more boring; while there’s more to love, there’s less to like. Time robs us of—or frees us...

The Limey Produced by Artisan Entertainment Directed by Steven Soderbergh Screenplay by Lem Dobbs Released by Artisan Entertainment The Insider Produced by Touchstone Pictures Directed by Michael Mann Screenplay by Eric Roth from a Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner Released by Buena Vista Pictures Pokemon: The First Movie Produced by 4 Kids Entertainment and...

Why is the Second Amendment under such constant attack? One important reason is the depressing historical ignorance of most Americans, particularly of classical history. But suppose that modern students were required to read Tacitus, Plutarch, Livy, and other classical historians. The Founders of the American Republic all knew the sad story of the Roman Republic....

The news for both the “Father of Russian Democracy” and his “friend Bill” was equally bad in the second week of September. A wave of bombings had killed some 300 Russians, murdered by an elusive terrorist gang as they slept in their beds (with some people pointing an accusing finger at the Kremlin; see “Banking...

Three Kings Produced by Village Roadshow Productions, Atlas Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Directed by David O. Russell Screenplay by John Ridley and David O. Russell Released by Warner Bros. American Beauty Produced by DreamWorks and Jinks/Cohen Directed by Sam Mendes Screenplay by Alan Ball Released by DreamWorks Set against the aftermath of the Gulf War...

I am going to ask what Churchill would have called some naughty questions, and offer some impertinent answers. I apologize in advance for the extreme political incorrectness of what follows. In the hope of persuading the reader that I raise these issues with no pleasure at all, I shall preface them with some personal notes....

New federal hate-crimes legislation is on the way. Never one to miss an opportunity to expands its powers, the national government has capitalized on a perceived rash of hate crimes in order to increase federal jurisdiction, and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1999 (HCPA) will probably become law in the near future. When confronted...

In 1985, I was a resident of Rancho Sante Fe, California, and a member of the prestigious Rancho Sante Fe Golf and Country Club. I often played golf with “Jack” (not his real name), who was listed in Forbes magazine as one of the 400 richest people in America. On one occasion, as we were...

I had expected to find a small gathering of eccentric Episcopalians in a basement lecture hall. Instead, the National Cathedral was overflowing with a Christmas Eve-sized crowd. The draw was not a holiday but a debate between “Jesus scholars” Prof Marcus Borg of Oregon State University and the Rev. N.T. Wright of Litchfield Cathedral, England....

Because the New York Times is a continual source of annoyance and amazement to me, I was predictably stunned and incensed to read last May that this most self-important of publications was presenting as news the following information: “[T]here is no evidence of an anti-poor mentality, at least as measured by reported [financial] giving, among...

Stir of Echoes Produced by Gavin Polone, Judy Hofflund, and Michelle Weisler Directed by David Koepp Screenplay by David Koepp, based on the novel by Richard Matheson Released by An Artisan Entertainment The Sixth Sense Produced by Spyglass Entertainment and Hollywood Pictures Directed by M. Night Shyamalan Screenplay by M. Night Shyamalan Released by Buena...

It was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. The stores were staying open until midnight, and the crowded malls were noisy. But all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. We had just settled down for a long winter’s nap, when there was a clatter on the roof and...

One evening a few years back, I was channel-surfing when I ran across a panel discussion of efforts to restrict children’s access to smut and violence on TV. One of the panelists was former New York mayor Ed Koch; another was the president of one of the major TV networks. The latter was quite agitated...

American public education is under siege, but not by kids with guns, as the somber reporters of the six o’clock news would have us believe. Schools are being held hostage by government regulations, antagonistic parents, a biased, mendacious press, and special interest groups who view public education as an opportunity to promote their causes. Many...

Forget Back to Basics, language immersion. New (and newer and newer Math, the seven types of intelligence. Learn by Doing, the Great Books, discovery learning, arts-based education. Core Values, self-esteem, and even phonics. American parents have found a new savior for their children’s imperiled education; the computer. All across the country, parent-teacher associations and ad...