“As long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt Have you been to a toy store lately? Barbie’s got some heavy competition these days. The Bratz collection, for instance: Yasmin, Sasha, Cloe, Jade—all household names for several years now. Check out that hot little number Sasha in her...
10853 search results for: Post-Human Future
Is Impeachment Now Inevitable?
“There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader,” is a remark attributed to a French politician during the turbulent times of 1848. Joe Biden’s Wednesday declaration that President Donald Trump should be impeached is in that tradition. Joe is scrambling to get out in front of the sentiment for impeachment...
We Came to Fight the Jihad
If a Muslim prays in a mosque and nobody sees her, does Allah still hear her prayers? That question might seem more urgent than rhetorical for a certain Bosnian immigrant after Dr. Arshad Shaikh, the president of the Muslim Association of Greater Rockford (MAGR), told the Rockford Register Star on February 9 that “It would...
High On the List of Priorities
Illegal aliens rank high on any social reformer’s list of priorities. At the very time millions of tax dollars are being spent to patrol our borders and to prosecute the illegals, CUNY—the City University of New York—announced in August that not only will it continue to welcome illegal aliens into its fold, but it will...
A Tour of the Labyrinth
Hugh Kenner, by day an unassuming professor of English literature at the Johns Hopkins University, is our foremost practitioner of the ancient cult of the maze, a celebrant of this endless labyrinth in which we live. Confronted with its mysteries, Mr. Kenner, the new Theseus, confidently draws on a lively knowledge of science, technology, music,...
Us and Them
American diplomats, foreign policy experts, and politicians desperately want to believe that the Soviet leaders are essentially like us and that, fundamentally, they want the same things as we do. The Soviets encourage this kind of thinking with their proposals for disarmament, trade, and detente, and with their laments over the madness of the current...
Valor
Valkyrie Produced and distributed by United Artists Directed by Bryan Singer Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie Slumdog Millionaire Produced by Celador Films Directed by Danny Boyle Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy from Vikas Swarup’s novel Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures In Valkyrie, screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and director Bryan Singer tell the story of Col. Claus von...
Letter From Barcelona: Catalonia Pacified
Back in Barcelona after almost three years, and an obvious novelty is that there are fewer Estelada flags fluttering from the city’s balconies and windows. Some are still out there, tired and pale, but Catalonia’s separatists seem to have run out of steam. Spain has weathered the storm of 2017-18, and it’s all for the...
Ruritanian Revenge and Reality
Land of Albania! Let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men! —Byron, Childe Harolde’s Pilgrimage ALBANIAN ANARCHY! BALKAN BLOODBATH! Typical banners to newspaper stories of the riots and virtual civil war that gripped “Europe’s most bizarre country” during 1997, culminating in the forced resignation of Sali...
Vol. 1 No. 3 March 1999
On day two of “Desert Fox” last December, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared that she was “gratified” by the “solid” support that the U.S. action against Iraq had received from statesmen around the globe, including those in the Arab world. Her counterpart at the British Foreign Office, Robin Cook, suggested that most Arab regimes...
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...
Lady and the Vamp
“No womman of no clerk is praised.” —Chaucer An old-fashioned historian can be forgiven for feeling a touch of empathy for the bewildered Egyptians upon whom Yahweh emptied the vessels of wrath some 3,500 years ago. The Hebrews’ God plagued the Egyptians for a matter of days, but the stern Minerva who reigns over academe...
The Christmas War 1914
This past year, we have heard a great deal about the centennial of the outbreak of World War I. Throughout that commemoration, though, we have rarely paid due attention to the religious language of Holy War and crusade deployed by all combatants. Think, for instance, of the great historic moment that many will remember this...
The Efficient Destruction of Flyover Country
Ideologues tend to place a great value on economic laws. I started out my undergraduate career hoping for a double major in political science and economics. My goal was to administer a breadline and to understand why it was necessary. I was doing very well in political philosophy and public administration, but lagging a bit...
Whens, Ifs, and Buts
When did World War II start? An American is entitled to think it started with Pearl Harbor, as, clearly, the world without the United States is only a world in part. But ask an Englishman, and he will say the world war began some two years earlier, when Britain declared war on Germany. A Russian...
In Memoriam: Mary Kohler
Chairman Ray Welder remembers fellow board member and longtime Chronicles supporter Mary Kohler.
Is US Being Sucked Into Syria’s War?
Candidate Donald Trump may have promised to extricate us from Middle East wars, once ISIS and al-Qaida were routed, yet events and people seem to be conspiring to keep us endlessly enmeshed. Friday night, a drone, apparently modeled on a U.S. drone that fell into Iran’s hands, intruded briefly into Israeli airspace over the Golan...
Too Good To Be Untrue
The amoeba. You remember it from biology class; it’s your long-lost relative. Don’t believe it? Well, you’re probably one of those pro-life Christian homeschooling losers. You don’t play nice with others. You are socially maladjusted. “Amoeba are essentially everywhere and have probably existed . . . ...
Who Is One to Judge?
I found myself aghast that, after more or less favorably reviewing Calvary (“Vocation,” In the Dark, November), which sounds like a disgusting and anti-Catholic movie, George McCartney takes the opportunity to declare that “mandatory celibacy in the Roman Catholic clergy is a benighted institution that’s done much harm to the Church.” He credits the recent...
Funny Business
Cleaning out my drawers, I find regional news items (some newer than others) from the worlds of religion and business, with some miscellaneous statistics for garnish. Beginning with religion (of a sort): In Tupelo, Mississippi (where Elvis was born in 1935), two brothers went on trial last year for attempting to murder Judge Tommy Gardner—by...
Therapeutic Totalitarianism
Paul Gottfried has spent a useful career shining his lantern of truth into the dark corners of America’s political consciousness. In After Liberalism: Mass Democracy in the Managerial State (1999), he examined the rise and consolidation of centralized managerial regimes across the Western world. Gottfried documented what should have been obvious to every educated man:...
A Surprising Threat of Veto
Vladimir Putin, during his February trip to Germany and France, surprised Kremlin watchers east and west by threatening to veto any U.S.- or U.K.-sponsored resolution on military action against Iraq. In Paris, Putin told reporters that, if a resolution on the “unreasonable use of force” against Baghdad were made “today,” Moscow “would act with France...
Muddling the Missile Crisis
The Abyss, a pop history treatment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, revives unhistorical myths in an effort to chalk the whole thing up to American hysteria, and to portray the bumbling JFK as having masterfully handled the crisis.
The Battle for Aleppo
A month ago the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of the Castillo Highway in northern Aleppo, the rebels’ last supply route into their eastern redoubt. By July 27 it looked like the complete reconquest of Syria’s largest city by government forces was only a matter of time. In the first week of August, however,...
The New Imperialism
Martin is a Franciscan lay missionary whom I befriended early in my stay in Tuzla. Over beers at the Harley-Davidson, a bar popular with the international crowd, he explained, “A lot of organizations will be pulling out at the end of the year. This year is real important. If the democracy will hold, it has...
Christophobia, Communist and Otherwise
Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev has recently warned Europeans of the dangers of building a completely atheist and secularized society. That was the situation in Eastern Europe under communism. Some of the methods may have been different, but the outcome is the same: the notion of God is expelled from society, religion is confined to the...
Fish or Cut Bait
President Obama’s nationally televised speech announcing an increase in troop levels in Afghanistan was everything we have come to expect from one of his speeches: vapid, dishonest, puerile, and–most of all–confused. Speaking grandly of an exit strategy he never defined, he did not once address the more serious question of an entrance strategy. What possible...
Evildoing Nations
On October 3, in an address celebrating the anniversary of German reunification, a Hessian deputy to the German Bundestag and a member of the CDU/CSU steering council, Martin Hohmann, committed a gaffe that led to his removal from his party position five weeks later. The party leader who justified this sacking, Angela Merkel, complained that...
Exporting Multiculturalism—October 2009
PERSPECTIVE Remembering Who We Were by Thomas Fleming VIEWS Exporting Political Correctness by Justin Raimondo Through force of arms. Obama's Right-Wing Cheerleaders by Leon Hadar Rah-rah government intervention! NEWS Dissolving Britain by Mary Ellen Synon The Lisbon Treaty's Eurojustice. REVIEWS Supernova by Derek Turner Charlotte Mosley, ed.: In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor Matthew A. Roberts on Dora L. Costa's and ...
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...
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
“First grubs obscene, then wriggling worms, Then painted butterflies.”—Alexander Pope, Phryne Maybe I’m bewitched, but I’m not bothered and certainly I’m not bewildered by Sean Griffin’s too divinely unbelievable disquisition on one of everybody’s favorite topics, and I’m not going to waste space by saying what that is, because you just...
Old Answers to Old Questions
After a decade or two of introspective breast-beating, educators are turning from an examination of what is wrong with public schooling to what is right with private schooling. This latest entry to the field examines religious education in the United States. Nearly 5.1 million students attend some sort of private school (K-12), eschewing for whatever...
To Spurn a Stranger Cur
By the time you read this it might be very old news, and if it is, treat it as a background briefing. But if the son-of-a-bitch I’m writing about is still out on bail and moving his ill-gotten assets around Israel and the environs, pay attention. What you read can one day save your savings....
Insulting Our Intelligence
What a good thing, from the Democratic perspective, so many of America's schools are in such miserable shape. It means, apparently, Democrats think they can insult voters' intelligence right and left and get away with it, at least until Election Day. After which, they'll think of some other way to ...
Russia Defends the West Against Insanity
Foreign ministers of nations both great and small make statements all the time, most of them silly or just forgettable. Some of them are utterly sinister, like Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s promise to promote homosexual “rights.” This has led to the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, among others, to display the rainbow flag of politicized...
On America’s Wise Turks
Your December 2001 issue contains a number of articles attacking Unitarianism. Frankly, as a Unitarian, upon reading Aaron D. Wolf’s piece decrying the unitarianization of Christmas, I was able to enjoy the holiday as seldom before. But I am astonished and offended by Thomas Fleming’s line, “Better a foolish Turk . . . than a...
Tapping into Concerns
Jean-Marie Le Pen’s success in the first round of France’s presidential election—he came in second and faced President Jacques Chirac in the final round-fell far short of a “revolution,” despite the right’s wishful thinking. The number of votes in his favor has risen only slightly since 1995, and the rout of the Socialists was primarily...
Budgetary Issues
The fiscal 1991 budget proposed by President Bush totaled some $1.2 trillion. This prodigious amount, larger than the entire Gross National Product of twenty years ago, is considered a “tight budget” in Washington. Politicians complain that they cannot find enough money to finance programs, while the hunt has been on to find programs to cut...
The DC Statehood Power Grab
“How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?” asked President Abraham Lincoln, who answered his own question: “Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg.” And Congress’ saying that D.C. is a state would equally contradict truth and reality, as our nation’s capital lacks...
The Folly of Propositional Democracy
California continues its essential role as the proving ground for bad ideas. The latest is the demolition of “popular” initiatives to decide important issues. Of the 11 initiatives on the ballot last November in the Golden State, 8 were funded primarily by multimillionaires, according to MapLight, which tracks election funding. And Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry...
An Optional Crisis for the U.S., an Existential Threat for Russia
In his latest RTTV interview our Foreign Affairs Editor discusses the developments in the Crimean Peninsula and elsewhere in Ukraine. Srdja Trifkovic: Ukraine is getting closer to disintegration, or at least a form of federalization to which the Russians can make a stabilizing contribution. Any attempt by the mobocracy that has gained power in Kiev...
’Knock-Knock’: Another Dumb Idea From Our Government
Many of my grandkids love knock-knock jokes, but the younger members of the gang don’t quite grasp the concept. They get the “Knock-Knock” part correct, but the rest of the joke falls pancake flat, as in: “Knock-knock.” “Who’s there?” “Sally.” “Sally who?” “Sally I don’t know who.” In their defense, let me add these kids...
Of Death and Diapers
Our Endangered Children: Growing Up in a Changing World by Vance Packard; Little, Brown; Boston. Who Will Take the Children? A New Custody Option for Divorcing Mothers—and Fathers by Susan Meyers and Joan Lakin; Bobbs-Merrill; Indianapolis. Secular liberalism is the supreme doctrine of the sovereign self. As such, its failures are particularly obvious at the...
The Decline and Fall of the American Economy: Offshoring Our Security
The United States has three large economic problems. The overarching one is that the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency is wearing out from continuous and large trade deficits and from government budget ...
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...
Epic America
Up in Oregon a woman was bathing in a river. The transistor radio she had set on the bank played as she swam. She was still swimming when a movement farther along the bank caught her eye. She turned and saw Elvis disappearing into the woods on her side of the river. At the same...
Where the South Meets the West
Oh, I’m a good old Rebel, That’s just what I am. And for this damned Republic, I do not give a damn! I’m glad I fought agin it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon, For anything I done! —Maj. James Randolph, CSA Not long ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perry...
Vipers in Ivory
“Teaching,” said the former nun in blue jeans, as if she were instructing a room full of halfwits about something very important, “is a political act.” It was early December 1991 at Providence College, the school where I taught for 27 years, the school that I grew to love deeply, though that love, it seems, was...
Hanson’s Hubris
Over at NRO, Victor Davis Hanson is denouncing
Inaugurating a Movement
It was a clarion call to his supporters and a hard slap in the face to his adversaries—the latter being gathered just a few feet behind him as he delivered his Inaugural Address. Donald J. Trump never minces words, and on January 20 he showed that he isn’t about to start, now that he’s President...