The Flintstones is the latest example of Hollywood’s infatuation with cartoon characters. Because a cartoon is not reality, one is expected to suspend belief and therefore judgment. Ever since Mickey Mouse became a culture-hero of the young, it has been hard to know where fantasy ends and reality begins. Neither is a cartoon myth, and...
10945 search results for: Post-Human Future
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Race, Aids, and Sexual Behavior
For the past decade or so, my research has focused on assessing racial differences in brain size and intelligence, sexual habits and fertility, personality and temperament, and speed of maturation and longevity. Startling and alarming to main people is my conclusion that if all people were treated the same, most racial differences would not disappear....
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Another War in the Works
Does anyone remember all the lies that they were told by President Bush and the “mainstream media” about the grave threat to America from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? These lies were repeated endlessly in the print and TV media despite the reports from the weapons inspectors, who had been sent to Iraq, that...
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The Forgotten Fire
“I am on the one hand a kind of New York State Republican, conservative. On the other hand, I am a kind of a Bohemian type. I really don’t obey the laws. I mean to, but if I am in a hurry and there is no parking here, I park.” —John Gardner Batavia’s wandering native...
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The Whippoorwill
“The pure products of America go crazy.” —William Carlos Williams The go-to-hell attitude, unique features, and deceptive talent by which we know Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) were the product of his heredity and experience. His father was a Scotch-Irish South Carolinian with some Amerindian blood—he died young in a railroad accident. His...
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City of God
For better or worse, British religious writer Karen Armstrong is rapidly becoming a publishing phenomenon. Partly because of the demographics of an aging baby boom, religious books are becoming a very hot item on the best-seller charts, ranging from reports of cuddly angels who allegedly guard our steps, through the pour épater les bourgeois efforts...
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The Sentimentalist Conspiracy
“Actum est de republica.” —Latin saying The Bourgeois Age is finished, but a principal feature of Victorianism—the fullest and most developed expression of that era—still flourishes. Postmoderns consider themselves a hardheaded and realistic people, yet the average American today is probably as much a sentimentalist as the typical Dickens reader of a century ago. Sentimentality—not...
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On NATO and Europe
The British Conservative Party’s defense policy remains frozen in a time warp as we head toward a general election in the United Kingdom this spring. The party is opposed to the European Reaction Force on the grounds that it undermines NATO and the alliance with America. For a party that has been in opposition, it...
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Walk Like an Egyptian
About the time that we moved into our current house, my grandmother gave me a pot of Egyptian walking onions. Winter hardy to Zone 3, they are perfect for Rockford, where many plants that are perennial in my native Michigan struggle to make it through our harsher winters. I’ll ...
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Crime and Moonshine
The jurors who tried the 14-year-old black boy who shot and killed three widows last year, one of them my own dear neighbor, found him guilty and gave him several life terms. By law, he got the maximum. He is too young for the death penalty. It is beyond me. If you are old enough...
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Red Lines & Lost Credibility
A major goal of this Asia trip, said National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, is to rally allies to achieve the “complete, verifiable and permanent denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” Yet Kim Jong Un has said he will never give up his nuclear weapons. He believes the survival of his dynastic regime depends upon them....
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The Prosciutto War
The mid-December 2001 E.U. summit in Laeken, Belgium, will probably be remembered most for its “prosciutto war,” which began when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi refused to approve the new food agency to be located in Helsinki, Finland, since he was convinced that the Italian city of Parma was best suited to house the E.U....
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Insurmountable Obstacles
Ralph Nader faces several insurmountable obstacles in his 2004 bid for the presidency, from overcoming restrictive ballot-access laws used to limit political competition to forging an ad hoc coalition between elements of the political left and right. Public-choice economics, popularized by Gordon Tullock and 1986 Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan, argues that politicians, like individuals,...
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The World Cannot Afford an Unserious America
The world, and U.S. citizens in particular, need a serious America. But thanks to our government’s refusal to secure our border, the idea of America being a serious country is a relic of a bygone era.
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Correcting David Frum
On September 13, 2004, a piece by David Frum called “Correcting Pat Buchanan” appeared at National Review Online. In it, Frum charged that Buchanan had opposed America’s war against the Taliban and had “repeatedly predicted doom and disaster.” Frum spoke of Buchanan’s “past opposition to military action against Osama bin Laden” and said “I cannot...
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The Loss of American Identity
I have never been able to get it through my thick skull that one’s identity, culture, and national sovereignty should not stand in the way of making money. For whatever reasons, I have always had a real attachment to my name, my family, my people, my place, my way of life. I have never felt particularly...
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The End of American Exceptionalism?
Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz have written a book entitled Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. The Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt on August 29, with the headline “Restoring American Exceptionalism.” In the excerpt, Cheney sought to identify his views on foreign policy with those of Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan. That...
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From America With Love
U.S. Commandos Are a “Persistent Presence” on Russia’s Doorstep “They are very concerned about their adversary next door,” said General Raymond Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, in July. “They make no bones about it.” The “they” in question were various Eastern European and...
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American Genius: Carver Skateboards, Skateparks, and Resisting the Joy Killers
Plans to build a skatepark in Brooklyn offer a laudable public works improvement to the city but are still not my style. The freewheeling street surfing possible on a Carver skateboard, however, is as American as it gets.
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The World as Imagination
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 Produced by Marvel Studios Directed and written by James Gunn Distributed by Walt Disney Studios The Lost City of Z Produced by Plan B Entertainment Directed and written by James Gray, based on David Grann’s book Distributed by Amazon Studios Mixed-race romance has become profitably au courant in popular...
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First Things First
After people gather into groups they formulate their own founding myths. The veracity of these stories is of secondary importance to their ability to tie people to a sense of noble purpose, shared sacrifice, and confidence that their activities have had some meaning over the passage of time. Thus I suppose it would be devastating...
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The Kennedy-Schumer Bin
The Kennedy-Schumer bin was a victory for “law and order,” proclaimed Senator Edward Kennedy after the Senate vote to crack down on protesters at abortion clinics. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Bill authorizes lengthy jail time and fines for entirely nonviolent conduct that “intentionally and physically obstructs the ingress or egress of another...
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Ishmael Among the Scriveners
The heroic age of modern poetry has been over for some time. The learned reactionaries who shaped it for two generations have all been dead for many years: Eliot (1965) and Pound (1972), Valéry (1945) and Claudel (1955), Ungaretti (1970) and Montale (1981). Diverse in style and technique, the great modernists were all ambitious in...
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Methodists and Sex
The United Methodist Church, having declined from 11 to 8 million members in the United States, spent millions on a television and newspaper ad campaign called “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.” Those millions were probably wasted, however. The ad campaign has been overshadowed by unwanted publicity over increasingly routine battles about homosexuality. Last fall,...
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It Can’t Be Repeated Too Often (Until It Sinks In)
The purpose of Political Correctness is to suppress true ideas. Its proponents have no interest in suppressing falsehood. You cannot have a First World economy and military with a Third World population. The Republican Party is not and never has been a conservative party. (For most of American history, until less than ...
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A Reading List to Drive the ‘Woke’ Crowd Crazy
At the beginning of the year, a couple of my coworkers challenged me to join the yearly book challenge on Goodreads. While I am still wrapping up a few of my selections, I’m on track to finish my goal, and it’s rewarding to see the finish line in sight. Having done this challenge, I took...
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Election Hangover
Your Excellency, I don’t know about you, but I am ready for this campaign season to be as dead as Scrooge’s doornail. For the last month, political commercials have crowded television screens and websites, interrupting even Mayberry reruns and the latest scoop on Paris Hilton. Despite their promises to avoid negative campaigns, all candidates have...
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Counterrevolution in Toyland
Among the hottest selling items in toy stores across the land is the “G.I. Joe” series of military action figures. Since the “Star Wars” movies, war toys have made a strong comeback from their depressed levels during the “antiwar” 1970’s. Model figures based on “Star Wars” characters proved so successful that others quickly entered the...
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Tradition, Old and New
“Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3). Jesus had many negative things to say about the dangers of placing excessive emphasis on tradition; in the passage quoted above, he goes on to cite the prophet Isaiah, “In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of...
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“Better Than Balkan”: Blood Against the Levelers
“Exsilioque domos et dulcia limina mutant, Atque alio patriam quaerunt sub sole iacentem.” —Virgil, Georgics II.511-12 Honestly, why bother any more? If there is any unifying theme in the scribblings of genuine, bona-fide American conservatives, it is that our country is lost, whether to whoremongers or warmongers—or both. Drum sets in...
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At Sea Again
A perfect 360-degree horizon, occluded in the nearer distance by cloud shadow and smears and smudges of squall, is something sensed, not seen. All around lies a mottled expanse of turquoise, wine-blue, cobalt, and purple patches streaked with brilliant sunshine alternating with gray shadow and scuffed into variously textured sheets ruffled and smoothed by the...
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The Conservative Movement Raises the White Flag, Again
Unless you live in a cave, you know that New York’s legislature recently passed a bill recognizing homosexual marriage, a bill that was quickly and enthusiastically signed into law by the latest loathsome member of the Cuomo clan to govern the Empire State. The mainstream conservative movement’s reaction to this event was only slightly...
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Fact and Fiction
Kingdom of Heaven Produced and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Directed by Ridley Scott Screenplay by William Monahan Crash Produced and distributed by Bull’s Eye Entertainment Directed and written by Paul Haggis As I watched Kingdom of Heaven, Sir Ridley Scott’s most recent directorial effort, a feeling of déjà vu descended upon me, the story...
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A Cynic’s Dictionary
cynic (’sin-ick) n.—One who no longer believes in the comforting illusions and protective half-truths that others use unreflectively to get through their lives. A administration, n.—An abstract concept that disguises a concrete problem of government; an administration of 4.4 million people, such as the United States has attained, has been found to be incapable of...
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Misallocated Infamy
For the past 67 years America has commemorated over 2,400 sailors, soldiers and airmen who were killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Every such anniversary reminds us that all history is to some extent contemporary history: Almost seven decades after the event, the myth of FDR’s goodness and greatness—revived for...
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The Unhelpful Uncle
I recently had a spirited discussion with the British historian James Holland, brother of Tom Holland, also a distinguished man of letters, about FDR, his oil embargo of Japan, and the root causes of World War II. We were in Normandy, inspecting the battle scenes of D-day, with James giving us the kind of briefings...
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The Gay Mafia Strikes Again
JavaScript computer programming language inventor, founder and later, CEO of Mozilla free software community Brendan Eich was forced out of his job. And what was Eich’s crime or misdemeanor? Was he caught using narcotics, possessing child porn, beating his wife, or abusing his pets? Nope, the hapless executive donated a measly thousand dollars to a...
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The Labour Minders
Gordon Brown’s media handlers have taken to ensuring that he frequently appears in front of the country’s journalists while in the company of children. This is presumably intended to soften his public image. However, when a 50-year-old man with a tendency to overdo the stage makeup, who suffers a series of bizarre facial tics and...
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Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Conservative Clinic
If you wanted to imagine a British Donald J. Trump, Jacob William Rees-Mogg would not spring to mind. Mogg is younger than Trump (49 to Trump’s 71), thinner, and pale instead of orange. If they were cheeses, Mogg would be Stilton, and Trump would be Jack. Mogg has excellent manners—not something the 45th American President...
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Lincoln’s Legacy: Foreign Policy by Assassination
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” For proof of this axiom, we need only look at the foreign policy pursued by the U.S. government since the end of World War II. The United States emerged from World War II militarily victorious but politically deformed. Instead of a republic, it was now a...
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On Education Reform
I agree with much of the premise of Clay Reynolds’ piece “The Real Crisis of Higher Education” in the February issue (Vital Signs): Certainly, as he indicates, education at all levels in the United States is failing. High schools no longer prepare students for life and work but “to take standardized tests” for advanced learning....
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The Soros Left Guns for ALEC
Vote for Chicagoland politics, get Chicagoland politics. Inspired by President Obama’s slash-and-burn tactics on his opponents, Democrats, radical labor, and left-liberal activists have begun full Saul Alinsky-Bill Ayres-style assaults on conservative and libertarian groups. Media Matters for America is the barking brigade leading the charge. A battalion in the war is another website called Color...
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“Think of the Children!”
“School cuts would hurt neediest kids,” the headline in the local Gannett paper proclaimed. With the spring primary just days away, the administration of Rockford School District 205 was urging the public to pass the third education referendum in a row. This one would allow the district to issue $23.5 million in bonds and use...
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The Flies of Summer
Last summer I was standing next to a great bull buffalo in western Kansas. He was mad and had a right to be. My buddy Joe Kramer, along with other men from Kansas Fish & Game, had this great American bison in an animal squeeze while they took a blood sample and gave him a...
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John Roberts Makes His Career Move
For John Roberts, it is Palm Sunday. Out of relief and gratitude for his having saved Obamacare, he is being compared to John Marshall and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Liberal commentators are burbling that his act of statesmanship has shown us the way to the sunny uplands of a new consensus. If only Republicans will...
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Dads, the Nation Needs You
Father. Now there’s a word weighted with meaning. For Americans indoctrinated in gender politics, father brings to mind the patriarchy, male domination, and oppression. For others, the word father summons nightmares from childhood, abuse, slaps and punches, drunken rages, constant criticism, and neglect. Or maybe they remember Dad as the man who would come home...
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Nothing to See Here, Move Along
As Steve Sailer says, you aren’t supposed to notice some things—like rising mortality rates for middle aged, working class whites that I discussed last week: A startling new study that shows a big spike in the death rate for a large group of middle-aged whites in the United States was rejected by two prestigious medical journals, the study’s co-author,...
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Polemics & Exchanges: March 2024
Readers tussle with Paul Gottfried over slavery and the War Between the States, praise for November's "End of the Dollar" issue, and more thoughts on the coming American resistance.
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Some Thoughts on Motu Proprio Mania
I am gratified that the long-awaited motu proprio from Pope Benedict, urging a wider celebration of the Tridentine Rite, is out. I’m happy for those, including my son, who love to worship in that way. More power to ’em. Some of the ...
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What the Editors Are Reading
Confined to a three-man tent on a rainy day in the canyons of southeastern Utah, I continued by lantern light my rereading of Cormac McCarthy’s novel All the Pretty Horses, first published a quarter-century ago as the first volume in The Border Trilogy, and got a good start on its immediate sequel, The Crossing. McCarthy’s...