The catastrophic “imaginary” (as the postmodernists might say) is alive and well. Haunted by the falling Twin Towers, we imagine still more horrific scenarios to come: dirty bombs, perhaps, reducing our cities to rubble and befouling the air of the countryside with invisible clouds of lethal radiation; or dust bowls spreading like New World saharas...
When a politician stakes his campaign on a demonstration of how thorough, consistent and philosophically pure he is, he might impress conservative journalists and policy wonks, but they don't pick the nominee.
Even an expert must be mystified by the legal structures of the European Union Parliament and the European Commission. The EU Parliament has roughly 620 deputies, elected every five years from 15 Western European states. Voters from ElU countries have no decision over the election of other countries’ deputies to the EU Parliament. The president...
If Rupert Murdoch gets his way, all Earthlings will read one newspaper and watch one television station. And Murdoch will own both. So even before the Media Monster That Ate New York and London had the Wall Street Journal for dessert, the ...
The husband routinely beat his 26-year-old German-born wife, the mother of their two young children, and threatened to kill her when the court ordered him to move out of their Hamburg apartment. Police were called repeatedly to intervene. The wife wanted a quick divorce—without waiting a year after separation, as mandated by German law—arguing that...
The future of Christendom, according to the Population Reference Bureau’s 2001 annual report, is likely to be pretty bleak. The report’s chief conclusion is that population growth in the West has ground to a halt, while the Third World is reproducing like gangbusters. Tire numbers: “Of the 83 million people added to the global population...
Informing Iran, “The U.S. is watching what you do,” Amb. Nikki Haley called an emergency meeting Friday of the Security Council regarding the riots in Iran. The session left her and us looking ridiculous. France’s ambassador tutored Haley that how nations deal with internal disorders is not the council’s concern. Russia’s ambassador suggested the United...
On December 9, 2008, as I read through the federal criminal complaint against the latest Illinois governor to be indicted for the merest portion of his crimes, I could not help but feel uneasy. Sure, it was great fun to imagine Governor Hot Rod sweating it out in his holding cell, awaiting arraignment later in...
The coming fight over tax reform highlights distinct and seemingly irreconcilable views of government. We might want to reflect on them, as the major players ready the armament: brass knuckles, baseball bats, Fox News and New York Times commentaries. The two warring views: 1. Government knows more than you do. 2. On many topics, you...
America, we have a problem. In the blood-soaked chaotic Middle East, with few exceptions like the Kurds, our friends either can’t or won’t fight. The Free Syrian Army folded. The U.S.-armed Hazm force in Syria has just collapsed after being routed by the al-Nusra Front. The Iraqi army we trained and equipped fled Mosul and...
“Amazed at the moment’s peak, flesh became word—and the word fell.” —Octavio Paz, A Draft of Shadows Upon a confirmed gringo like me, contemporary Spanish language poetry makes much the same impression as contemporary Spanish or Latin American concert music. Broad prairies of cadenza enclose a garden patch of melodic theme, an orotund thunder of...
A station agent tried to telegraph Price, Utah—the direction the outlaws were headed—but Butch Cassidy and Elzy Lay had cut the wires. The paymaster had the train’s engine uncoupled. Men grabbed a variety of weapons and jumped aboard. The locomotive steamed down the narrow gorge of Price Canyon right past the unseen robbers, who were...
There are currently four lawfare battles against Donald Trump. Not just the former president, but the rule of law itself is on trial in these proceedings.
Kevin Birmingham reconstructs the aspects of Dostoevsky’s life that fed the stream of creativity that resulted in Crime and Punishment, the greatest psychological profile of a murderer in the annals of fiction.
In their program “A Decade of Study of the Constitution,” Robert A. Goldwin and his collaborators at the American Enterprise Institute have consistently published the most readable and stimulating discussions of contemporary constitutional issues to have appeared in America. The virtues of previous AEI books such as How Democratic is the Constitution? are embodied, on...
“The trowel in hand and the gun rather easy in the holster” —Nehemiah, according to T.S. Eliot “Say you got two Gucci jackets, you hock one and you get yourself a gat.” —The “Bad” News Bible Jesus, contemplating His departure from this world, instructed His disciples to arm themselves, and, ever since, Christians enrolled in...
And it came to pass that fear did grip all of the Swamp, from Foggy Bottom to DuPont Circle; and it did spread unto all of the region beyond the Potomac. For behold, Steve Bannon had come. Or, if we prefer not to use the familiar “Steve,” Stephen K. Bannon. The K must not be...
Pat Buchanan has taken more punches than Chuck Wepner, hut unlike the Bayonne Bleeder, Buchanan has a good right hook (or is it now a left?) of his own. The year began with Buchanan defending his feisty anti-interventionist manifesto A Republic, Not an Empire: Not since the days of Arkansas Sen. William Fulbright, the one...
“The true meaning of Christmas gets lost when we believe contrary worldviews,” the prisoner writes. “Our beliefs determine our views in a world where absolutes are fading away.” The prisoner is dictating this for his newsletter.Come-to-Jesus (or -Allah) experiences abound in prisons, so it’s always wise to take conversion stories with a grain of salt....
An afternoon’s reading of Bolo’Bolo by “P.M.” leaves the reader wondering what the New York State Council on the Arts is doing giving public money to Columbia University to publish such books. A futuristic Utopian tract, Bolo’Bolo is as inane as it is self-indulgent. Its author, P.M., a slave to every cliche of the untutored...
American Pie Produced by Universal Pictures Directed by Paul Weitz Screenplay by Adam Herz Released by Universal Pictures Summer of Sam Produced by 40 Acres & a Mule Filmworks and Touchstone Pictures Directed by Spike Lee Screenplay by Victor Colicchio and Michael Imperioli Released by Buena Vista Pictures Eyes Wide Shut Produced by Warner Bros.,...
Six of this book’s 10 essays were presented at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of Irving Babbitt’s death. Held in Washington, DC, at The Catholic University of America in November 1983, the conference brought together scholars of various disciplines to address the general subject of “Irving Babbitt: Fifty Years Later.” Although some people might...
The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for more than eight years. That is longer than our involvement in both world wars combined. Yet the end of the conflict appears to be further away than ever. It is not even clear what would constitute victory. Afghanistan began as the “good war,” receiving near-unanimous...
I made my way to Florence from Cortina d’Ampezzo, where for the past half-century the Italian bourgeoisie had pretended to ski while in reality merely promenading in opulent furs in front of the Hotel de la Poste in postprandial stupefaction. This year, however, the resort was a ghost town, and not only on account of...
We have it on good authority that the peacemakers are blessed, and that’s only fair, because we sure catch hell in this world. Not long ago I suggested that most Southerners who display the Confederate flag are not bigots and got some hate mail to the effect that only a bigot could believe that. Last...
“Jason [the tyrant of Pherae] used to say that he felt starved whenever he was out of power.” —Aristotle Phenomena, like words, suffer much in translation. To know is to understand, but to be merely informed is far from knowing. We agonize through our books vicariously, then sit to enjoy our dinner. In the West,...
Late one night recently, after pub closing time, I walked through the back streets of Whitechapel again, something I had not done for several years. The sight of the familiar streets and the old smells and sounds reminded me of the six months when I had lodged there, during which time I had grown to...
“How American Media Serves as a Transmission Belt for Wars of Choice” Several weeks ago the mainstream media (MSM) gave saturation coverage to a picture of a little boy pulled from the rubble of Aleppo after his home and family were crushed in what was dubiously reported as a Russian airstrike. Promptly dubbed “Aleppo Boy,”...
Ronald McDonald had better look into renting Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout. Several national newspapers recently published a letter, signed by over 1,000 health professionals and two-dozen institutions such as the Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition and the Inpatient Diabetes Program at Boston University, imploring McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner to “stop marketing junk food to children.” ...
Nations define themselves by what they choose to remember. The growing complexity of the United States is suggested by the ever-expanding volume of her historical memories, the range of groups and events that are commemorated, often in the name of multiculturalism. Just look at the changing landscape of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., with...
A couple of springs ago, my daughter and I took a bus from Thessaloniki in northern Greece over the mountains to Istanbul. The trip was ghastly. In an effort to save some money, I had found us seats on a local—a big mistake. Despite the promise from the ticket vendor that no smoking was allowed,...
Surprisingly enough, in many ways journalist and commentator John T. Flynn was a typical progressive. Long a figure of prominence on the American right, he was not politically active in the time of Woodrow Wilson, whose domestic policies he much admired. He did, however, first gain prominence as a muckraker denouncing the financial chicanery of...
On October 5, 2000, in an almost bloodless coup by the security forces staged against the backdrop of massive street protests, Slobodan Milosevic was removed from power in Serbia. Ten years later, many of those who cheered his downfall then (this author included) have nothing to celebrate. In the run-up ...
Richard Mayne: Postwar: The Dawn of Today’s Europe; Schocken Books; New York. It is common today to describe Western Europe as facing a crisis. Its physical problems are manifold: economic stagnation, high unemployment, political dissatisfaction, demo graphic decline, military flaccidity. It would appear, however, that these overt problems are surface manifestations of a deeper malaise-the...
Last week saw one-hundredth anniversary of an event which greatly impacted the destinies of Europe and America for decades to come. It passed unnoticed by the media. On March 3, 1918, the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers at Brest-Litovsk. Far from sealing the Kaiserreich’s historic triumph in the East, its brutal...
America’s present position is paradoxical. On the one hand, her unparalleled power and wealth are reflected in the astoundingly imperialist “National Security Strategy” unveiled last October, which asserts a right to stop any country “from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing or equaling the power of the United States.” That America is a...
Remember Kate Millett? She made the cover of Time in 1970 after her dissection of literary machismo, Sexual Politics, became a blockbuster best-seller and won her the title of leading feminist spokesperson. It didn’t last. Although she was married, she soon announced that she was a lesbian, which split the women’s movement and destroyed her...
According to William R. Hawkins (“A COM for Africa?” Cultural Revolutions, July), the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, Ryan Henry, claimed in an April 23 briefing that “Africa represents 35 percent of the world’s land mass” and “about 25 percent of the world’s population. Each of these figures is off the mark. The...
“There’s a bear in the woods,” warns ad man Hal Riney, as a grizzly appears on screen. “For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it is vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right,...
The genderless society is just around the corner. Eager to oblige, the Pentagon has ordered a series of “reforms” that will admit women to some 4,000 military positions previously reserved to men. The only restriction remaining is the congressionally mandated ban on women in direct combat, and even that barrier is increasingly porous (“we will...
Everyone is sure the American political system is broken, but no one wants to blame the people in charge. James Fallows has his nifty little book blaming the press; Howard Kurtz blames our talk show culture; Frontline and The Center for Public Integrity point to our corrupt campaign finance system; conservatives tout their all-purpose reform,...
Vojislav Kostunica, Serbia’s prime minister for the past three years, has one of the most challenging jobs in the world. He nevertheless seems at ease with that burden, and appears more confident than while he was Yugoslavia’s last president (2000-2003). When we met in ...
Condi Rice had a vision: It was springtime in Pakistan, and love was in the air—which was an ideal time for a chick flick. From the lady who brought us the Shiite-Sunni Love Fest in Iraq, Fatah-Hamas: Isn’t It Romantic? in Palestine, The Amorous Cedars in Lebanon, not to mention the first season of Democratic...
Jessie and Kirk Dawson were in their late 20’s when they I moved into Grove Glen, and Fred Glover’s wife Eva saw at once that they needed work. This was a tight community, not the kind two kids could walk into cold, so Eva took it as her responsibility. She was, after all, the boss’s...
There are two incompatible narratives on the meaning of last Saturday’s agreement in Minsk. There is also, as usual, the complex reality which the partisans of the warring sides refuse to recognize, and which escapes the attention of major Western media commentators. The Ukrainian nationalists accused Petro Poroshenko of surrendering to Putin. Kiev’s New Times...
“The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” —1 Timothy 1:8 Richard Posner is one of the greatest judges never to have sat on the Supreme Court of the United States. A distinguished professor at the University of Chicago, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit for 25...
“We feel bound to disagree with these prophets of doom.” —John XXIII Nestled in the foothills below Saddleback Mountain in “the O.C.” there is an abbey of priests and a small boarding school. There is nothing there that would remind one of the lubricious television program that made the initials of Orange County, California, proverbial;...
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...
Some polls now have Joe Biden running ahead of Donald Trump by 10 points and sweeping the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. This vindicates the strategy Biden’s advisers have adopted: Confine Joe to his basement, no press conferences. Trot him out to recite carefully scripted messages for the cameras. Then lead him back...
You wouldn’t know it, based on the endless cries for more money coming from the military, politicians, and the president, but these are the best of times for the Pentagon. Spending on the Department of Defense alone is already well in excess of half a trillion dollars a year and counting. Adjusted for inflation, that...