We live in revolutionary times of rapid technological change, and yes, it is a little disconcerting when the rules morph and the practices mutate. But I did predict years ago that vinyl would be back, and so it is. This year’s junque is next year’s antique. And I remember back even to Before Vinyl. A...
In an hilarious episode of NBC’s The Office, Dunder-Mifflin übertwerp Dwight Schrute unwittingly adapts the words of several speeches by Benito Mussolini and Karl Marx in order to appear impressive at a conference for salesmen. “Blood alone moves the wheels of history!” he cries, and by the time he gets to Il Duce’s “It is...
Igor Ivanov, Russia’s foreign minister, is usually calm, cool, and collected, but he looked nervous during his March 22 press conference. Ivanov, known among Kremlin siloviky (members of the defense/security apparatus) as something of a wimp, adopted an uncustomary frown and set about lambasting Washington’s recent “unfriendly acts,” especially the March 21 expulsion of six...
Next let us turn to Woods’ comments on my discussion of scarcity as an economic concept. I again quoted Paul Samuelson who introduces the topic as fundamental to economic analysis and concludes by saying: “If you add up all the wants, you quickly find that there are simply not enough goods and services to satisfy...
Developed nations should assist poorer states by doing no harm. Washington should end government-to-government assistance, which has so often buttressed regimes dedicated to little more than maintaining power and has eased the economic pressure for needed reforms. The United States should stop meddling in foreign affairs which matter little to America; the result is usually...
As Pro-Lifers now face a monolithically pro-abortion federal government, it might be useful for them to look at last year’s Supreme Court decision about Guam. Despite robust opposition from Justice Anthony Scalia, the Court refused to hear Guam’s abortion case, which means the ruling of a California court striking down all of Guam’s restrictions on...
Robert Weissberg produced the present volume, on the concept and practice of empowerment, almost simultaneously with another monograph, on tolerance, published last year. Both studies highlight the difference between a political ideal and its grim result—that is, between what people are told the ideal consists of and what they ultimately get. In Political Tolerance, Weissberg...
The WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico, and their ultimate collapse were similar to what happened in Seattle in 1999, when President Bill Clinton, an avowed “free trader,” walked out when faced with demands even he could not stomach. Four years later, the United States again faced an intransigent coalition presenting unacceptable demands. Liberal commentators have...
The year 2010 was a depressing one in the foreign-policy world; the decline and fall of a world empire, no matter how well-deserved its fate, should be seen only as a tragedy. The sheer scale of its fatal gigantism portends a Stentorian scream as it falls into the abyss—and we heard the first painful groans...
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Produced by Buena Vista Pictures and Touchstone Pictures Directed by Joel Coen Screenplay by Ethan Coen with help from Homer Released by Buena Vista Pictures All the Pretty Horses Produced by Columbia Pictures and Miramax Films Directed by Billy Bob Thornton Screenplay by Ted Tally from a novel by Cormac...
It was now the beginning of the seventh year of the genocidal invasion of Afghanistan. To many Americans it appeared that the war would never end, not until the entire population of Afghanistan was either dead or in exile. Some Americans thought it was time to do something about Soviet imperialism, especially since a good...
If you did not know beforehand that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad was one of the most important men in the most neuralgic region of the world—and, by extension, in the world itself—you’d never have guessed it. One of the few things he has in common with President George W. Bush is a forgettable face. In...
With the Pentagon’s announcement that U.S. forces in Afghanistan will be cut in half—to 2,500—by inauguration day, after 19 years, it appears the end to America’s longest war may be in sight. The Pentagon also announced a reduction of U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 2,500 by mid-January. In 2003, we invaded and occupied Iraq...
Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of Americans want stricter controls on immigration. Yet it should be clear that our ruling class is not going to impose stricter controls or even enforce its own laws. What does this mean? The first thing to note is that immigrants, as such, are not the problem....
In her short piece “Men in Power” (Vital Signs, September) Nicole Kooistra describes a men’s organization at the University of Chicago that grew out of a satirical article, and then proceeds to berate the organization for its pursuits (such as developing professional contacts and learning about prostate cancer), the appearance of its members (“perfectly groomed,...
Stereotypes to the right of them, stereotypes to the left of them, the politically correct volley and thunder at every image that might offend the sensitive soul of the approved victim. Dartmouth’s comic Indian mascot turned into an unsmiling noble savage, then was abolished altogether. First the Frito Bandito’s politically unacceptable gold tooth disappeared, then...
There is a profound difference between the ancient and medieval view of children and the modern cult of the child. The Rousseauean idolatry of nature and worship of savages, popularized through a certain brand of sentimental poetry, helped to establish a picturesque ideal of the innocent, angelic child. St. Augustine was not inclined to hold...
A week after Georgia’s failed attempt to conquer the breakaway province of South Ossetia, the crisis is over. The only major issue still unresolved concerns Mikheil Saakashvili’s motivation. His order to attack on the night of August 7-8 was a breathtakingly risky move; but was it a calculated, or reckless gamble? That Saakashvili acted with...
In Italy’s general election on March 4, two parties routinely derided by the corporate media as “populist” won almost 70 percent of the votes cast. A coalition led by Matteo Salvini’s League (Lega, formerly known as Lega Nord, LN) won 37 percent of the vote and a plurality of seats both in the Chamber of...
In the Netherlands, Els Borst has been found dead in her garage. A few hours earlier, the 81 year old physician and former deputy prime minister had attended a meeting of what is described by the Telegraph as her center-right political party. In the Netherlands, apparently, any party to the right of the Maoists can be...
During my first semester as a graduate teaching assistant, I was fired from my job at a coffee shop for mv inability to act phony. Anyway, this is what I suspected my particularly phony employer meant by a “bad attitude.” I quickly found that, despite the incredibly high taxes in Illinois, my state-university stipend was...
Not long after last fall’s presidential election, an entire wall in New York City’s Union Square subway station was plastered with hundreds of protestors’ Post-it notes, hailed by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration as “subway therapy” for the losing side, but more akin to a billboard for the demented, all berserk with rage, contrived hysteria,...
Years ago, in an article he wrote for the New Yorker titled “My Philosophy,” in a section subheadlined “Eschatological Dialects as a Means of Coping with Singles,” Woody Allen wrote: “We can say that the universe consists of a substance, and this substance we will call ‘atoms,’ or else we will call it ‘monads.’ Democritus...
Late in life, Harry Sinclair Lewis of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, figured something out: he would soon be forgotten. In a mock self-obituary, Lewis foresaw that he would leave “no literary descendants. . . . Whether this is a basic criticism of [Lewis’s] pretensions to power and originality, or whether, like another contemporary. Miss Willa Cather,...
The last man standing between the U.S. and war with Iran may be a four-star general affectionately known to his Marines as “Mad Dog.” Gen. James Mattis, the secretary of defense, appears to be the last man in the Situation Room who believes the Iran nuclear deal may be worth preserving and that war with...
Americans have always loved their real-life Horatio Alger characters. They fired our imagination as children and were worthy of emulating. I hate to see many of those who were an inspiration to me disappear from our histories. A perfect example is Kenneth Ambrose Walsh. Ken Walsh was born in 1916 in Brooklyn, New York. His...
All of the presidents of the 21st century—Bush, Obama, Biden, and yes, even Donald Trump—seem a cut below the gravitas and statesmanship of the founding fathers. The first three were—and are—globalists, and as anyone with eyes can see, Joe Biden and his crew are busy taking a wrecking ball to our liberties. Regarding Donald Trump,...
“The sin against the spirit of a work always begins with a sin against the letter.” —Igor Stravinsky “When I hear the word ‘theory,’ I loosen the safety latch on my revolver,” remarked one disgruntled language teacher recently. He had an excuse, after all. He had just listened to an hour-long exposition of a Lacanian...
In Bill Kauffman’s sermon “World Citizens on Main Street” (March 1997), he decries the purchase of a local Batavia, New York, tractor factory by a German firm as an example of foreign “Teutonic overlords . . . tied to Batavia only by the flimsy cord of the almighty dollar.” Using such epithets as “executioners” and...
 “Making predictions is very difficult,” said Niels Bohr, “especially about the future.” We live in uncertain times, and they have been chronically uncertain, oftentimes acutely so, ever since July 1914. As we enter 2014, it is apt to remember that a hundred years ago the civilized world greeted the new year with the complacent belief, bordering on arrogance,...
After a lengthy legal battle concluded in September, Spain’s Supreme Court gave its approval to the socialist government’s plans to exhume and remove the remains of General Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen, where they have lain since his death in 1975. The controversial general led Spain’s Nationalist forces to victory over their...
 I am grateful to Dr. Trikovic for his reply to my response to his article defaming Archduke Otto since he thereby proves my case entirely. Not one of the challenges to his sources is he able to gainsay or rebut. The most he can do is claim some sort of generalised misinterpretation of his position. There is but...
As the federal Fiscal Year 2005 approaches completion and the 2006 budget takes shape, the lack of fiscal discipline of the George W. Bush presidency continues to enlarge upon the “politics of joy,” which have characterized the Republican Party since the end of World War II. No longer aspiring to be the party of frugality...
Freedom House sees election corruption everywhere except in the U.S., where the government pays its bills, and the legal system coordinates with the administration to impoverish and imprison the conservative opposition.
Dinesh D’Souza’s 2000 Mules offers an intriguing, if depressing, look at a massively well-organized system of vote fraud apparently executed during the much-disputed 2020 election.