VITAL SIGNSrnFOREIGN POLICYrnAu Revoiiy Boutrosrnby Frank RuddyrnBoutros Boutros-Ghali, for all his hauteurrnand condescending ways, hadrnan absolute genius for driving peoplerncrazv, as if there were an InspectorrnClouseau within him trying to get out.rnhi 1993, he went to Sarajevo and toldrnthose who had lost their families andrnhomes to stop their bellyaching. Hern”could name 10 places in the...
15948 search results for: Post-Human Future
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The Coming Slap in the Face
In June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Kelo v. City of New London, depriving property owners of rights that virtually everyone has always assumed they had. Very soon—before you can say “sequel to Lawrence v. Texas”—the Supreme Court will no doubt take up the issue of same-sex marriage. You think...
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On Chronicles Among the Ruins
Near the latter part of each month, I anticipate having my day brightened by the delivery of the current issue of Chronicles. It isn’t the content that lifts my spirit so much as the unwavering commitment to truth, common sense, morality, and transcendent values. “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our...
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Principalities & Powers
ed to do was gobble up a small feudalnenclave that could not possibly havenexisted without superpower protectionnand to raise the price of oil so he couldnpay off the $70-billion debt he piled upnduring his nine-year war with Iran.nOf course, his drastic and bloodthirstynmeans of satisfying that ambitionndid raise serious implications fornthe national security and economicnwell-being...
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Functionally atheist government schools
A couple of times in my writings for Chronicles I’ve mentioned “functionally atheist government schools.” That’s what they’ve been since the early 1960s, when several U.S. Supreme Court edicts effectively banned any mention of religion, or anything approaching religion, from public schools. I remember sitting in my 6th grade class at Elliott Elementary School in...
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One Hell For Another
Karlo Štajner spent seven thousand days in Siberia and learned nothing. Of course the reader is moved by the awfulness of spending all that time in the Gulag, but still he is left only with the experience of a man who survived. Yet, for better or for worse, for many of the named victims, Štajner’s...
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The Dark Fields
A rap at the door: she dropped her sewing,ndisconcerted, and rose to her feet,nbut already her husband had crossed the roomnand stood at the window, peering through blinds.n”It’s all right,” he assured her, “they’re neighbors.’nHe stepped to the door and opened it wide.nFour haggard faces stared back at him.n”You’d better come with us,” one of...
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The Re-Possessed
power from limiting restraints in thenquest for social good. The authorsnspring heavy with good deeds.nIf the authors could somehow enlightenntheir redneck subjects, couldninfect them with enough social sciencensepticemia to cause them to throw offntheir Southernism — with its outmodednreligious and political values—ntheji society could be shoved towardn”meaningful structural change,” andnthe “masses might be persuaded tonwork...
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The Study of Wisdom
The second half of the life of Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) is not nearly as interesting as the first, when Russell did his major work in philosophy and mathematics and, through close contacts with the Bloomsbury Group, knew all the major writers of his time. In this second volume, Ray Monk picks his way through the...
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Tales of Virtue and Excellence
sion to bring terrorism to Europe wasnmade in 1968. The date is significant.nIt was a year in wiiich it was easy to findnrecruits for terrorist gangs on the universityncampuses, among naive and disorientednmiddle- and upper-class youth.nIt was also the year in which the Sovietnempire faced one of its recurrent crises:nthe threatened defection of Czechoslovakia,nwhere even...
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Diplomacy Good and Bad
These two volumes shed considerable light on the fateful events of 1945-46, events determinative of much that followed in American foreign relations. The first argues that, had Franklin Roosevelt lived, even if for only another year, postwar history would have been altogether different. The second, by an experienced “realist” foreign-service officer, views the postwar developments...
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As America Recedes, China Rises
As our July Fourth celebrations were beginning, the U.S. quietly closed and abandoned Bagram Air Base, the largest American military base between the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea. Afghan looters were soon seen scavenging inside the base. The long retreat of the American Empire is underway, and this longest war is likely to...
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Multiculturalism and Islam
cumcised people. The last attempt in pre-modern times, goingrnthrough the Balkans, took the sultan’s janissaries more thanrnhalf-way from Constantinople to Dover. On both occasions,rnthe tide was checked, but its subsequent rolling back tookrndecades, even centuries.rnFor the millions of Christians and Jews engulfed by the deluge,rnthose were centuries of quiet desperation interrupted byrnthe regular pangs of...
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Is Hillary Morally Unfit to Be President?
Does Hillary Clinton possess the integrity and honesty to be president of the United States? Or are those quaint and irrelevant considerations in electing a head of state in 21st-century America? These are the questions put on the table by the report from FBI Director James Comey on what his agents unearthed in their criminal...
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To Arm or Not to Arm
To arm pilots or not to arm—that is, apparently, an even more important question than the debate over whether or not we should allow unions, seniority rules, and affirmative action to hamstring every new effort to preserve national security. George Bush wants a free hand with the unions, but his administration doesn’t want airline pilots...
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Principalities & Powers
Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnAn Electorate of SheeprnEven the weariest presidential campaignrnwinds somewhere to the sea, and thisrnmonth, as the ever dwindhng numberrnof American voters meanders into thernvoting booths, the sea is exactly wherernthe political vessels in which the nationrnsails have wound up. Water, water everywhere,rnbut not a drop to drink.rnIt is symptomatic of the...
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Caledonians of the Heartland
Celebrating St. Andrew’s Day (November 30) is not uncommon among Scots, especially in the English-speaking world, but the widespread commemoration of the birthday of the poet Robert Burns (January 25), even by non-Scots or “Scots for a day,” sets this national group apart from all others. No other national heritage rests so heavily on the...
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Appalled by History
For us to love our country, Burke somewhere wrote, our country must be beautiful. The sheer aesthetic ugliness of modern capitalistic civilization has been as much a reason for the revulsion against it on the part of poets, artists, and social critics as have its various injustices and inequities, real or alleged. We are inclined...
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Mexifornicating the Californicated
Victor Davis Hanson, a professor of classics at California State University, Fresno, writes often and writes well. I have two of his books on ancient Greece. He is the only author who has ever explained to me how difficult it was to wreak permanent agricultural devastation on a typical Greek city-state: Pulling out grape vines...
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Cultural Revolutiosn
Wilma, played by Elizabeth Perkins, whornis too attractive and sexy for the role. Arnfight ensues when Wilma confronts Fredrnover the disappearance of their savings.rnFred, hostile at first, wilts under a littlernpressure from Wilma and reveals thatrnhe has given their savings to the Rubblesrnso they can adopt a child. Wilma forgivesrnFred because of his sacrifice forrntheir...
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Another Glenn Beck Brainstorm
There is no denying Glenn Beck’s great popularity with many Americans who see themselves as conservatives. Joe Carter of First Things recently offered a reminder of why this popularity is unfortunate. In an appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s program, Beck denied that legal recognition of gay marriage would harm the United States and stated, “I believe...
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Problems in Democracy 01
The House Ethics Committee has changed reporting requirements for members who receive free travel from a variety of groups. The travel will still be reported but only on the House Clerk’s website, making it less likely for watchdog groups—aka paid snoops—and journalists—aka professional liars—to keep track of their indubitably corrupt activities. To answer Nancy Pelosi’s...
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Clark’s Tale
digm provide examples of ideological distortionrnlegitimized by a value system immunernto critical scrutiny. That Kissingerrnis probably unaware of the hierarchy ofrnnormative control that determines hisrnown thinking does not mean he is off thernhook. A “self-revising” analyst—a boldrnthinker unbound by institutional loyaltiesrnand personal ambition —would deliberatelyrnseek the distinction betweenrnvalues and norms. Critically examiningrnnorms —in this case,...
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Charity Begins at Home
most West European societies had rapidly falling birthrates,nwhich were attributed to the economic uncertainties ofnfamily living. Security for families, the nationalists argued,nwould restore national birthrates, building what SwedishnPrime Minister Per Albin Hansson once called “the people’snhome.”nThe welfare state constructed on these impulses did havenan identifiably traditional cast. The state took it upon itself tondefend particular...
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Hamas-led Palestine
After Hamas, the radical Islamic and anti-Western movement and terrorist organization, achieved victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I was invited by a leading think tank in Washington to debate with another Middle East analyst the implications of that stunning development for U.S. policy in the Middle East and the moribund “peace process.” I found...
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On ‘Enemies of Society’
Professor Arthur Eckstein’s fine review of Pete Collier and David Horowitz’s Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (August 1989) calls attention to the fact that the revolutionaries of the 60’s turned themselves into the professors of the 70’s and the deans of the 80’s. Why? Because the universities in the 1960’s were expanding. So...
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Love stories for guys
I’d long wanted to see more Raoul Walsh movies. Renowned as an action specialist and he-man director without peer, Walsh made every kind of adventure film—war, western, swashbuckler, gangster, fantasy (the Douglas Fairbanks Thief of Baghdad), naval, bandit (Carmen twice!), even biblical—during his 51-year career. The restless son of a successful immigrant Anglo-Irish clothier in...
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Principalities & Powers
common market within its boundaries,rnto enforee a uniform systemrnof justice, and to extend citizenshiprnboth to pett proprietors andrnto rich merchants, ahke excludedrnfrom power under the old regime.rnThe middle class understandabKrnbecame the most patriotic, not tornsay jingoistic and militaristic, elementrnin society. . . . Whatever itsrnfaults, middle-class nationalismrnpro ided a common ground, commonrnstandards, a common framernof...
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Today’s Rich Are Different
It used to be that plutocrats felt they were part of the society in which they lived, or at least felt the need to act as if they were part of that society. Thus, when they decided to give away some of their enormous fortunes, their gifts generally reflected ...
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Myths, Visions, Passions
must be handled with some delicacy.nFor reasons that are inexplicable fromneither her photographs or her poetry,nRiding exercised a magnetic appeal toncertain personalities that has given her anlegendary stature out of proportion tonher artistic achievements. But she cannotnbe dismissed simply as the archetypalnOther Woman. Although married at thentime, Riding apparentiy descended onnthe Nashville group with all...
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Art Felons
In Prince Street’s early morning sunlight, Robert Lederman carefully removes the bungee cords holding a wooden “jail cell” to the top of his car. He sets up the metallic grey cell along the curb and surrounds it with protest signs, blow-ups of newspaper articles, and photographs of some of the nine times he’s been arrested...
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California Dreaming
You never know what Lady Fortuna has in store for you next. Having quit college—after all, I knew what I wanted to do, and didn’t need lessons from some hippie in how to do it—I was shuttling between New York City and my parents’ house in the suburbs. I was 19, aimless, and living at...
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Erdogan Unleashed
A successful national leader (“good” or “bad”) is able to redefine the terms of what is politically possible in accordance with his values, and to produce durable desired outcomes. Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan come to mind at home, and Churchill, De Gaulle, and Deng Xiaoping abroad. Very few are able to effect a profound, long-lasting...
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Let Me Count the Ways: What to Make of Survey Research
24 / CHRONICLESnLET ME COUNT THE WAYS: WHAT TOnMAKE OF SURVEY RESEARCH by John Shelton Reedn”Things and actions are what they are, and thenconsequences of them will he what they will he:nwhy then should we desire to be deceived?”n—Joseph Butler, Fifteen SermonsnNo doubt many of us could think of an answer or two tonHis Grace’s...
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Holding the Fort
John Cardinal O’Connor, the distinguished and controversial head of the archdiocese of New York, has played an important role in affecting American politics, both inside and outside the Catholic Church. He is the pope’s point man in the battle for the soul of the US Church, and some say if an American were considered for...
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Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest
There are two—equally indispensable—Paul Fussells: one is the erudite professor of English (at the University of Pennsylvania) who is the author of such brilliant studies as The Great War and Modern Memory; the other is the scalding critic of American pretension who writes such astute books as Class: A Guide Through the American Status System....
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Where Trump’s and Bibi’s Interests Clash
On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has designated part of another nation’s government as such a threat. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group. With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria,...
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Tough Tamales
a real head ease and I have just one question for Mr. Foxy. Ifrngambhng is so corrupt, then how come the states are sponsoringrnlotteries and all the people are flocking to the casinos? Answerrnme that one, Mr. Smarty Pants!rnI ill )onnes’ Hep-Cats, Narcs, and Pipe Dreams: A History ofrnI America’s Romance With Illegal Drugs {1996)...
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Mexico Comes of Age
“It doesn’t matter to me if Mexicans make fools of each other; what I will not tolerate is that Mexicans do it.” —Pancho Villa The world remembers the 2000 U.S. presidential election, with its hanging chads, overvotes, undervotes, and esoteric attempts to “discern the intent” of the voter. Irregularities people thought did not and could...
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The Lewis Gun
[Lewis: Painter and Writer, by Paul Edwards (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) 584 pp. $75.00] Professor Edwards has set himself to a daunting task in taking on Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957). Lewis the painter is a difficult task for many reasons: first, because he attacked the British art establishment early on, trashing Roger Fry...
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Music: Musical Matters
Records and die Vienna Philharmonic,nconducted by Christoph Van Dohnanyi,nhave provided an interesting recordingn(LDR71015) of two seldom-heard worksnthat plot two points in Schoenberg’sncareer. The earlier of the two, SixLieder,nOp. 8 (1904), is in the same late-nRomantic vein as Gurre-Lieder, annopulent, extravagant rendition of poeticntexts which should be enjoyed by fans ofnsimilar excesses by Strauss and Mahler.nErwartung,...
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The Coming Abortion Insurrection
I told you it was coming. Back in May, on my show, “Sovereign Nation,” I chronicled significant signs of pro-life progress that were driving death-lobby Democrats mad—and I warned of a wave of intolerant tantrums to come as we hurtle into autumn. It’s here. In a 5-4 ruling last week, the U.S. Supreme Court refused...
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The Rise of the Red-Browns
“world peace,” or socialism, by whateverrnmeans are necessary to fulfill a nationalrndestiny made inevitable by the dialecticsrnof history. It is unimportant whetherrnthey call themselves “patriots” or “communists,”rnwhether they see Lenin orrnPeter the Great as a demi-god, for allrnnationalists of this stripe see the historyrnof the nation as a continuous progression,rnunder czars and commissars. Polishrndissident Adam...
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What is History? Part 23
To know truly is to know by causes. —Francis Bacon Success begets excess, and excess begets death. —Anonymous Something is going on and will not stop. You are outside the going on, and you are, at the same time, inside the going on. In fact, the going on is what you are. —Robert Penn Warren...
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The Deconstructive Lyric
tutes reality, and he also sharply dividedn(on some days — Kant is a verynelusive thinker) subject and object; andnstudents of such teaching began tonbrood, “Suppose the mind gets itnwrong? How on earth would we know?nAnd isn’t all value really subjective?nWhich is to say not really true?” (Kantntaught that beauty is absolutely subjectivenand absolutely universal, but...
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Who Spawned the Christchurch Killer?
Last Friday, in Christchurch, New Zealand, one of the more civilized places on earth, 28-year-old Brenton Tarrant, an Australian, turned on his cellphone camera and set out to livestream his massacre of as many innocent Muslim worshippers as he could kill. Using a semi-automatic rifle, he murdered more than 40 men, women and children at...
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The Tyranny of Democracy
Winston Churchill’s backhanded praise of democracy as “the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried” is usually cited as the last word on the subject. It is a good way of closing off a dangerous topic of discussion, and it works quite well with that vast majority of people...
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taken to calling it the “R word.” But sherndidn’t have the time to come up with anotherrnword —and besides, it was euphonic.rn(Maybe what she meant was that itrnwould sell.)rnToo late; whether she likes it or not,rnwords can take on a life of their own.rnAnd random means random. Myrnunabridged and certainly non-randomrnRandom House Dictionary defines thernword...
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Execution
In the ramshackle Kolasin prison, Vukota received hisncousin Panto Vlahovic.n”You’ve got to escape,” whispered Panto to Vukota, whilenthe Chetnik guard slouched by the door. “Friday night thenguards will not be watchful — nobody but that dog LjubonMinic wants to see an elder shot. Take this,” said Pantonloudly and handed Vukota a bundle.n”The visit’s over,” said...
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Realism and the Spirit
The following is the text of M. Ionesco’s address at the 198S Ingersoll Prizes Awards Banquet: I am extremely proud and honored to have been awarded the very prestigious T. S. Eliot Prize, which has been given to such persons as Jorge Luis Borges and the novelist Anthony Powell, artists who exemplify the prime values...