From the August 2002 issue of Chronicles. “Dad,” the inquisitive youngster is bound to ask, “where do corn flakes come from?” In today’s economy, where farms are something you drive by on your way to Disneyland, the most common answer might be “Kroger” or “the 7-Eleven” instead of “from the farm, son, from cornfields.” The...
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Courage Is Worth the Risk
“I took a chance on an ‘imperfect’ pregnancy,” the title of a New York Times article recently proclaimed. Intrigued, I read about author Jacquelynn Kerubo’s journey through a fertility clinic where, after initial treatments, she and her husband were told that they had a “mosaic embryo.” A mosaic embryo, Kerubo explains, is one which could result in...
Homme Sérieux
Kipling should be a fascinating subject for literary history. He was enormously gifted and successful, the child of a modest, nonconformist Anglo-Scot family that, besides producing him, also produced his cousin, the conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin. One of his aunts married Edward Burne-Jones; another married Sir James Baldwin, chairman of the Great Western Railway,...
Distant Drums at Sarah’s Party
ST. PAUL, Minn.—The American Right has just died and gone to heaven. Wednesday night’s convention address by Sarah Palin here in St. Paul has confirmed the bold decision of John McCain to choose the Alaska governor as his co-pilot and united the Republican Party as it has not been since the second term of Ronald...
Trump Calls Off Cold War II
Beginning his joint press conference with Vladimir Putin, President Trump declared that U.S. relations with Russia have “never been worse.” He then added pointedly, that just changed “about four hours ago.” It certainly did. With his remarks in Helsinki and at the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump has signaled an historic shift in U.S. foreign...
Opera Near & Far
My relationship with Barnes & Noble is fraught with emotion simply because it is a big bookstore, among other things. And I am one of those types—an inveterate reader—who is easily hooked. I was once embarrassed when a lady told me that she had caught herself reading soup-can labels: As one who had done the...
A ‘Woke’ Crusader at Germany’s Helm
Angela Merkel’s unprecedented 16 years in power came to an end on Dec. 8 when Olaf Scholz was sworn in as the new German chancellor, symbolically breaking with tradition by omitting “so help me God” from the oath. Scholz steered his Social Democratic Party (SPD) to the dominant position in last September’s general election by presenting...
Two Rooms With a View
It has been the usual 56-hour day spent in airports under siege from CNN and microwave-burned pizza, cramped into buses, taxis, and the midget seats of American Airlines steerage with two varieties of undrinkable wine-product to wash down the “looks-like-chicken” alternative to the inevitable “pasta” they serve on flights to Italy, but now we are...
The American Covenant
“It is extremely frustrating to write history today because so much effort must go toward correcting the countless distortions that have been inserted into accounts of our heritage by militant secularists who twist facts to suit their narrow anti-religious political agendas.” So writes Benjamin Hart near the end of Faith and Freedom: The Christian Roots...
Filmlog: The Bullfighter and the Lady
Dr. Fleming wrote in the comments section of his article on Budd Boetticher’s Decision at Sundown that Netflix has 90% of titles a film lover can reasonably expect to find. I would only disagree that, for anyone who loves classic films, a subscription to Turner Classic Movies is also indispensable (no matter how reprehensible Turner...
Of the Baptists and the Modern World
I live in amity with the Southern Baptists, whose general tolerance for my fellow “Whiskeypalians” I take kindly. I wouldn’t dream of joining the media whoop-de-do over who among the Baptist faithful did what to whom, and when, and what to do now. You have read it all; I will not recount the imputations of...
Rudderless at the Pentagon
Chuck Hagel’s abrupt departure from the Pentagon on November 24 became inevitable after weeks of disagreement with the White House over strategy against the Islamic State (IS). The split had become public a month earlier, when Hagel’s blunt two-page memorandum on Middle East policy was leaked to the press. Addressed to national security advisor Susan...
Gaslighting Ireland
No one is persuaded when the media describes as an Irish national an Algerian man who stabs Irish children. The gaslighting may only radicalize people in the end.
All About Trump
Today, all books by liberals really are about President Trump. Such is Playing With Fire: The 1968 Election and the Transformation of American Politics, by MSNBC far-left fake-news host Lawrence O’Donnell. This book’s proxy is Richard Nixon and his 1968 victory for president against Aunt Blabby, a.k.a. Hubert Horatio Humphrey. For Nixon, Humphrey, South Vietnam,...
Can’t Get Fooled Again
In Earl Warren Rides Again, I wrote: Roberts portrays his decision as a check on federal power—if the Court had upheld the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause, it “would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority.” But it’s unclear whom he thinks he is fooling. Silly me. I should have known...
BTK Killer
Dennis Rader, the disgusting, twisted pervert who flattered himself with the moniker “BTK” (for “bind, torture, and kill”), is a living witness to the existence of the Devil. On August 18,2005, he was sentenced to 175 consecutive years in prison for ten grisly murders—the harshest sentence that Judge Gregory Waller of the Wichita district court...
The Angel of Dien Bien Phu
Taki recalls the heroic French aristocrat Geneviève de Galard and her selfless service following the fall of Dien Bien Phu.
Eliciting Responses
The story of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s plagiarism has elicited a number of responses, most of them disingenuous. Walter Muelder, the former dean of Boston University’s School of Theology, would like to exculpate Boston University’s Jon Westling (see page 4) but only succeeds in making matters worse. Mr. Muelder casually reveals what should have been...
Changing of the Guard
The birth of modern Croatia was closely tied to the paternalistic image of one man: Franjo Tudjman. A self-described nationalist and anticommunist, Tudjman ruled over Croatia for ten years until his death in December 1999. In January 2000, presidential and parliamentary elections brought to power a motley crew of reformed communists, liberals, and globalists. The...
Postwar Oxford
It was an interesting time. The Second World War had gone on two years longer than the First, with resultant fatigue in England’s industrial north, which gave the Labour government its 1945 landslide. Such is admirably explained in Corelli Barnett’s The Audit of War, which shows how the appeal of the shadow Attlee government, particularly...
Words and Power
Most American presidents, unless they leave office in disgrace, are honored by having airports, schools, libraries, streets, and even whole cities named after them. The city of San Francisco has saluted President George W. Bush in a singular way—by naming a sewage-treatment plant after him. Of course, this reminds us that the city on the...
John Bull Turns Johnny Reb
Since the 1940’s, Americans have been slowly introduced to the idea that national sovereignty is a dangerously outmoded concept that must give place to a broader and more generous understanding of our place in the world: national defense became bound up with the principle of collective security; national welfare tied to foreign markets (and foreign...
The Groyper Rebellion
In late October, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder Charlie Kirk took the stage at Ohio State University prepared to “own the libs,” as he and other establishment conservative speakers had been doing profitably on college campuses for the last two years, offering to debate all comers among the university’s typically leftist student population. Sitting in...
Closed Societies, Open Minds—September 2009
PERSPECTIVE Stepping Backwardby Thomas Fleming VIEWS Deconstructing Miss Dixieby Michael HillEducating for the planetary community. Educating for Faith and Communityby Thomas J. KorcokA Lutheran success story. The School of Historyby Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.California, here we come! NEWS Berlusconi’s Will To Fightby Alberto CarosaBetter late than never. REVIEWS An American Prophetby George W. Liebmann Lee Congdon:...
Forgetting a Villian
Imagine it is the year 2030, and you are talking to some young adults. To your horror, you find that they have never heard the name Osama bin Laden. As you begin to rant about the ignorance of the young, you find to your still greater astonishment that none of your older friends have any...
Homing in on England
Michael Wood begins with a quotation from Blake: “To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit.” This line betokens his aim, which is to zero in on one small English place and use its specific saga to tell the wider tale of all England from prehistory to present. The place is Kibworth, an outwardly unremarkable...
Genderless Society Just Around the Corner
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...
A Small Victory for Europe
As the new French President, Emmanuel Macron seems determined to hitch opposites together, combine like with dislike, compatibles with incompatibles, and otherwise fudge his policies as he did during the electoral campaign. As a candidate for the office, he praised Angela Merkel’s decision to accept a million “refugees” from the Middle East and elsewhere—but has...
Reservation Blues: Notes From Indian Country
Just outside Tucson, Arizona, lies a foreign country. It is not Mexico, although that is close by, but Tohono O’odham Nation, an Indian reservation the size of Connecticut that is home to some 30,000 people. Larger than many countries, the Tohono O’odham Nation is a place of astonishing and austere beauty. Seldom visited, it harbors...
Happy Warriors
For decades, conservative commentators and writers have told anyone who would listen that America is going to hell in a handbag. (An aside: Why do people always go to hell in a handbag? If I must go to hell, I’d prefer a limousine with a fully stocked bar; some beloved books; a picnic basket overflowing...
When the Old Order Passes
“The course of a river is almost always disapproved of by its source.” —Jean Cocteau There’s a story about the filming of The Big Sleep that ought to be true even if it isn’t. When Howard Hawks was supervising the final cut he realized he didn’t know who had killed the butler, so he summoned...
A Particular Facet of God’s Design
Last week, the European Union voted to require members to accept a portion of the migrants who have been coming into Europe over the Mediterranean and through the Balkans. Four states voted no—Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Romania—and both Hungary and Slovakia say that they will fight the mandate to accept migrants in the...
Bad Georgie
The facts of George Garrett’s literary career are laid out in the bibliography here: his 24 books include novels, plays, and collections of poems and short stories. In addition he has served as editor of 17 other books—interviews with contemporary writers, literary criticism, books on film scripts. He has also written a biography of the...
Campaign Finance Reform
Jack Tawil proposed a daring solution to balance campaign finance reform against the constitutional right to free speech: disconnect campaign contributions from sordid influence.
Putin Paranoia
Hopefully, the shaky truce between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, brokered in Minsk by Angela Merkel, will hold. For nothing good, but much evil, could come of broadening and lengthening this war that has cost the lives of 5,400 Ukrainians. The longer it goes on, the greater the casualties, the more land Ukraine will...
Rothbard Was Right!
As the Tea Partiers swarm town-hall meetings, and talk of nullification, the Tenth Amendment, and even secession is in the air, I can’t help thinking, Rothbard was right! That’s Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-95), the libertarian economist and theorist whose uncompromising intelligence instructed an entire generation of the freedom movement’s leading lights. Rothbard’s career spanned the...
Judicial Taxation: The States Respond
The Madison Forum was founded in 1993 by Missouri State Senator Walt Mueller and me for three reasons. First, we wanted to respond to the Supreme Court’s claim in Missouri v. Jenkins (1990) that the federal judiciary’ has the authority to levy or increase taxes. We believe this constitutionally baseless assertion by the Court poses...
Defiling the Sacred Dead of Gettysburg
Just two hours from where I sit writing this lies a battlefield where 50,000 American men and boys were wounded, killed, captured, or went missing over the course of three days roughly 160 years ago. Several months later, that field became a cemetery dedicated by President Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg Address, and a federally...
Looking Forward as the West Declines
Germany’s defeat in World War II was accelerated by Hitler’s unwillingness to accept reports at odds with his increasingly fantastical view of reality. His self-deceptions were believed with such firmness that, by mid-1944, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel concluded that the Führer was living in a Wolkenkuckucksheim (“cloud cuckoo land”). The same diagnosis applies to the establishment Right, both in...
Mr. Trump: America Doesn’t Need Tiny, Corrupt Montenegro in NATO
During the presidential campaign Donald Trump horrified the bipartisan foreign policy mandarinate by suggesting that NATO was “obsolete” and useless against the only real threat faced by Europe: the massive influx of violent Muslims applauded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the “EuSSR” bureaucracy in Brussels, and the Obama Administration. Trump also indicated that America’s treaty...
Death Wish of the West—May 2011
beyond the revolution The Unentitled by Thomas Fleming views Suicide by (Legal) Immigration by Roger D. McGrath The Death Wish of the West by Claude Polin news DOMA’s Fifth Column by William J. Watkins, Jr. reviews A Southern Foison by Ray Olson Chronicles of the South edited by Clyde N. Wilson Vol. 1: Garden of the Beaux Arts Vol. 2: In Justice to so Fine a ...
A Child of the Revolution
In his engaging biography of John C. Calhoun, Irving H. Bartlett reminds us that American political culture and the men who made it were not always as decadent and corrupt as they are today. Yet Bartlett’s book is not a partisan manifesto. He is respectful of Calhoun but not always sympathetic to his views, aspirations,...
American Tragedy
One thing about tragedies: They reveal people for who they really are. In the past two weeks, we’ve learned a lot about our media and political class. Our country endured two separate and horrifying mass shootings, one in El Paso, Texas, and the other in Dayton, Ohio. Between them, at least 31 people were murdered....
The Racists and the Flag
The Southern Baptist Convention finally had its Appomattox, surrendering the flag of its ancestors at its annual meeting of messengers (representative delegates) held in mid-June in St. Louis. Reportedly, an overwhelming majority of messengers voted in favor of Resolution 7, in which they determined to “call our brothers and sisters in Christ to discontinue the...
Germany Moves Away From Woke Regime Politics. Will America?
The once-docile German people no longer trust their political establishment to deal rationally with immigration and crime. A growing people’s revolt in Europe may be a sign of things to come in America.
Europe’s P.C. Fatwa
Sometimes I have to pinch myself to remember that Europe was the cradle of democracy. For today Europe seems to be sliding inexorably into a culture of control that would have made Stalin proud. Carol Thatcher, the daughter of the great Lady T, was recently banned from the BBC for referring to an unnamed tennis...
On Politics and Race
Now that Samuel Francis’s two-part installment on his “Rise and Fall” appears complete (April and May 1996), it’s time for the readers of Chronicles to hear the rest of the story. What he did not disclose was the nature of his blatantly white supremacist writings that appeared in a newsletter called American Renaissance. In the...
Visible Poets
Many readers will fondly recall the earlier incarnation of Their Ancient Glittering Eyes (the title is taken from Yeats’s Lapis Lazuli), published in 1978 as Remembering Poets. That book contained Donald Hall’s reports of his close encounters with four giants of modernism—Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. When Hall began revising for...
President Obama: Thanks, George
So Americans have elected another president who is in not in any visible way a real American. He is from Hawaii and Chicago. From Kenya and Indonesia. From nowhere and everywhere. He‘s
Is Democracy on the Way Down?
“The Western democratic system is hailed by the developed world as near perfect and the most superior political system to run a country,” mocked China’s official new agency. “However, what’s happening in the United States today will make more people worldwide reflect on the viability and legitimacy of such a chaotic political system.” There is...