In one corner, there is Kentucky’s upbeat governor, whose attractive wife, five biological children, and four adopted children compose a family too large to fit into the traditional governor’s mansion. New England-bred Matthew Bevin speaks out for religious freedom, promotes infrastructure on behalf of orphans in Africa and India, and has tried every trick in...
Italy experienced a revolutionary election on March 27, 1994, an election in which many Italian voters could make a difference. This mood of optimism and engagement stood in stark contrast to the many elections that have left Italians so disillusioned in recent years—local administrative elections, national elections to two houses of Parliament, and even international...
Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010 Two weeks ago the first “gay pride parade” was staged in Belgrade. Serbia’s “pro-European” government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the ...
You had to look closely to see the thick strands of barbed wire in the shrubs in front of my hotel. I’ve traveled all over the world, including to Kosovo, but this was the first time I’ve stayed in a hotel that was fortified. The staff explained that it was there in case of another...
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...
For this very welcome and unexpected award, I thank The Ingersoll Foundation and all concerned. When I was in high school, there were certain books that I carried around in order to impress people with my literariness. One was the Collected Poems of Hart Crane, whom I didn’t altogether understand, but whose words made me...
A select few who see the peril to which their neighbors are oblivious and who proceed to save their community against overwhelming odds, is a familiar literary and cinematic concept. Earlier this month (May 11-12) I had the pleasure of addressing one such real-life group ...
The Long Night of the Watchman: Essays by Václav Benda, 1977-1989 (St. Augustine’s Press; 352 pp., $35.00). On July 4, 1983, in Prague, there occurred one of those moments that may rightly be considered a single loose pebble that caused an avalanche. Film director MiloŠ Forman had been permitted to return to his native Czechoslovakia...
Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010 Two weeks ago the first “gay pride parade” was staged in Belgrade. Serbia’s “pro-European” government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the legacy of its...
He who writes a nation’s history also controls its future—so wrote George Orwell. During the Soviet reign over Eastern Europe, every citizen knew who was in charge of writing history, especially that dealing with the victims of World War II. Anyone professing to be a Slovak, a Croat, a Ukrainian, or a Russian nationalist was...
Sitting comfortably in my suburban apartment, far from the trenches and shellfire where Momcilo Selic is witnessing the desperate combat between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, I don’t know whether I can claim greater objectivity or simply greater ignorance. I am certainly grateful for Mr. Selic’s glimpse (“Letter From Bosnia,” April) into the lives of ordinary...
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the No Child Left Behind Act are up for reauthorization again. This process typically entails legislators tweaking the bill—a caveat here, a zinger there. Almost always, it translates into more money. Representatives George Miller (D-CA) and Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) of the Committee ...
“It is easier to make certain things legal than to make them legitimate.” —Chomfort The evisceration of the federal system by the Supreme Court during the last few decades—indeed, most of the modem malfeasance of that august body—has been accomplished largely through the instrumentality of the Fourteenth Amendment. This sorry tale, from the adoption of...
Christopher Sandford reports on the coronation of King Charles III, from Buckingham Palace.
The desire to know what tomorrow will bring, to know the future, is as old as the human race itself But how? Who among us has the “gift of prophecy”? The book of history might seem to offer guidance, but human expectations and prognostications often mislead. When the most brilliant generals, industrialists, scientists, and politicians...
The weathered boatman peered out at the three Westerners as we climbed into a small water taxi to cross the bay from the city of Ambon to the airport. “You’re from America? Send us arms. The Muslims are bad.” He used his hands to indicate a rifle as we pulled away from shore. Ambon, the...
It is necessary to be aware of the ambitions of political Islam and to harbor no illusions about its goals.
“Whose picture is this, Daddy?” The little blond girl is 11 years old, and, as she flips through the iScraps, her smooth round face shows the first twinge of the questioning mind that will disturb the complacency on which all future happiness depends. “That’s my grandfather.” “Your grandfather? He doesn’t look a bit like us,”...
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools . . . ” —Romans 1:22 Man, by nature, is limited by time, space, and biology. I can only be where I am, live for my appointed time, and accomplish what I am physically capable of accomplishing—which, according to the natural order, means, chiefly, having a wife...
His writing these last 40 years amounts to little more than a succession of malicious ad hominem attacks on people he disagrees with. His appeal is to those with a dirty mind, who want society to be as dirty as he is, and who are glad to erode barriers of decency. There is a coy...
At events such as the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, held last July in Denver, traditional believers get slandered in all sorts of ways, most of them indirect but effective. (And the most energetic apostles of inclusivity, dialogue, and openness never, ever call the slanderers to account.) Issues, a daily one-page sheet of commentary, provided several...
I have read somewhere that courtesy is the highest form of charity. Whether or not that is true (I like to think it is), courtesy is certainly charity in its least expensive form. Which prompts the question of why, in the age of what an anonymous wit a generation or so ago dubbed conspicuous benevolence,...
Short reviews of The Myth of Left and Right by Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis, and Myth America by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer.