Everyone wants to save the American family. Not a day goes by, it seems, without some politician or professor issuing a call to arms or an invitation to a congressional hearing. For a long time the family had been a conservative/ Republican issue, but last fall both Mr. Mondale and Ms. Ferraro made a great...
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Agonies of Intrigue
Lord Byron was the most fascinating literary figure of the 19th century. Fiona MacCarthy’s solid and competent biography covers the ground in great detail (the deformed foot, the scandalous exile, the endless wandering, the early death in Greece) but fails to engage our interest or do justice to its subject. Desperately straining to say something...
Fiction for a Flat Earth
Françoise Sagan The Painted Lady; E.P. Dutton; New York. St. Cyril of Jerusalem is reported to have told his catechumens that “The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass. Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls, but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.”...
G.I. Jane
DESFIREX, the Desert Firing Exercise, is a semi-annual celebration of cordite, steel, white phosphorous, and sand held at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twenty Nine Palms, California. During the weeks before, the howitzers and trucks are prepared for the field; They are rushed through a maintenance pipeline that at all other times...
The Story of Love
Octavio Paz, who was 82 when he wrote this book, asks in his preface, “Wasn’t it a little ridiculous, at the end of my days, to write a book about love?” The answer is a resounding “no.” The text is densely rich with ideas, elegant in style, and the ruminations are very wise. Paz ends...
Nazi Russians and “Basic Morality”
A burbling controversy of Olympic proportions has found its way to Moscow via Lausanne. On one side the forces of evil are arrayed behind the stallion-riding Vladimir Putin and his “anti-gay” law (which sailed through the Duma in June). On the other are the forces of absolute equality, led by the bribe-swilling International Olympic...
Human, Not-Quite Human
The doping scandals that plague professional and “amateur” sports have done little to shake the enthusiasm of fans and sportswriters for their heroes. Fans still flock to the stadiums and spend their weekends watching NBA basketball games, NASCAR races, and even (if ABC is to be believed) AFL football exhibitions. As a child, I once...
Bad Eggs
The rich ye shall always have with you is a truth our Savior in his mercy never declared to us. That the poor should be a permanent fact of human society is discouraging enough, especially for modern Americans convinced there is no problem that cannot be fixed, no sin that is without a cure. Even...
Final Solution
Public education exacerbates today’s toxic youth subculture. The combined forces of advertisers, television, teen magazines, and internet spammers have lured our nation’s youth into lives of promiscuity. Government schools add incompetence and dependency to the mix—all wrapped in a façade of “learning” and “testing” packages. Government education, unfortunately, never quite met the promised ideal. Even...
Onan Agonistes
I’ve been trying to figure out what somebody could do with the thirty bucks (plus tax) that they’re asking for Harold Brodkey’s word-processing product. My copy was no bargain for free. You could buy two pizzas and two sixpacks and have quite a party for that sum. You could wire your sweetie pie a nice...
Pink Elephants on Parade
More than ever before, homosexual characters and situations are being featured on television. Needless to say, the lay of TV Land is overwhelmingly favorable: cheery, cuddly, cute, and camp. The first of such programming originated in the formerly Great Britain, either imported directly (East Enders, Absolutely Fabulous) or adapted to the American small screen (All...
Ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
If you want to know why it isn’t a bright idea to permit homosexuals to serve openly in the military, consider the subject of “snorkeling.” That, according to The Atlantic, was one of Rep. Eric Massa’s occupation specialties as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. You might have heard of Mr. Massa. He quit...
Old Adam, New Eve
Feminist writers sometimes give us the impression that the nonworking mother is a rare bird like the Bach man’s Warbler—sighted (not very reliably) once a decade or so in a corner of I’on Swamp in the South Carolina low country. The ladies magazines do occasionally report on rumors that some professional women like Janet Fallows...
Mutiny In Paradise
In December 1787 His Majesty’s armed transport Bounty crept out of Portsmouth harbor on a clandestine mission, heading for the vast and largely uncharted South Pacific. Tahiti, a tiny pinpoint of land in the Polynesian Islands, was the goal. In October 1788, the Bounty dropped anchor in Tahiti’s spectacular Matavai Bay. In April 1789, she...
The Case Against Divorce
In the opening pages of The Future of Christian Marriage, Mark Regnerus notes a troubling truth well known to anyone who has set foot in an institution of higher education in the last several decades. “To talk seriously about marriage today in the scholarly sphere is to speak a foreign language: you tempt annoyance, confusion,...
The Darker Side of the Celebrated Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969 were a great, good thing that signaled the beginning of the LGBTQ social and cultural movement, and only positive things flow from them—or so the narrative goes. The “gay liberation” rioters are our heroes and heroines, and police, government, and traditional public opinion, on the other hand, are...
Great Expectations
“There is only one step from fanaticism to barbarism.” —Diderot In Defense of Elitism joins what is now a spate of books documenting the madness of contemporary “political correctness.” It is an amusing, readable, and journalistic work, full of the most delightful anecdotes about the absurdities of our times, unusual in that it locates the...
Muslim Crimes in Britain
During the last few months in Britain there have been yet more revelations of new Muslim crimes and detailed confirmations of older ones. In 2014 Lutfur Rahman, a Muslim, was elected for a second term as the mayor of Tower Hamlets, a London borough where one third of the population is Muslim. This April a...
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,...
The Subtlest Form of Protest
There is a lot of discussion of late regarding various methods for protesting against government-mandated COVID-19 lockdowns or the results of the 2020 presidential election. Everything from singing in grocery stores to concentrated letter-writing campaigns has been suggested here at Intellectual Takeout. Such brazen displays are allowed in the U.S. because it still has some...
Christopher Hitchens and the Days of Rage, Cont’d
One would think that the recent report about sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic Church in Belgium was horrific enough that it did not need any embellishment. But that’s not how Christopher Hitchens thinks. In his most recent column, a call for “simple earthly justice” in cases of clerical sexual abuse, Hitchens claims that...
The Court in Quandary
When the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s preliminary injunction against President Trump’s executive order restricting immigration from certain countries, it cited Trump’s statements about Islam as its rationale. American Muslims challenging the ban had alleged injury of two types: First, the Muslim plaintiffs felt marginalized by the President’s characterizations; second, they...
Onan Agonistes
I’ve been trying to figure out what somebody could do with the thirty bucks (plus tax) that they’re asking for Harold Brodkey’s word-processing product. My copy was no bargain for free. You could buy two pizzas and two sixpacks and have quite a party for that sum. You could wire your sweetie pie a nice...
Pedophiles, Ephebophiles, Ecclesiophobes
Surveying the clergy sex scandals of the past decade, one is reminded of Christ’s prediction that “from him who does not have, even that which he seems to have shall be taken away” (Matthew 25:29). The rather prurient glee with which the media have covered these cases—primarily those involving Roman Catholic priests—highlights as it exacerbates...
Going Down With the Good Ship Lollipop
“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...
Sex Scandal du Jour
Remember Gwen Dreyer? No, of course not. She was the poor, unfortunate midshipman who was “chained to a urinal” at the United States Naval Academy in the winter of 1990. The incident came at the end of a long day of snowball fights and practical jokes, in which Ms. Dreyer had willingly taken part. Sometime...
Raised Among the Elite
How did Al Gore blow it? He had everything going for him. He was the heir to one of the most successful administrations in American history. The length and extent of our prosperity were unprecedented. Our position in the world had never been higher. All agreed, with polls to back them up, that if the...
Not Ours to Give
Gary David Comstock is Protestant chaplain and visiting assistant professor of sociology at Wesleyan University. The author cites his “lover/partner Ted” in the acknowledgments, and thus manifestly belongs to the group he describes in uniformly favorable terms. The book is interesting, and in many respects challenging to the traditionally minded reader. A jacket blurb by...
Ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
If you want to know why it isn’t a bright idea to permit homosexuals to serve openly in the military, consider the subject of “snorkeling.” That, according to The Atlantic, was one of Rep. Eric Massa’s occupation specialties as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. You might have heard of Mr. Massa. He quit...
Ireland’s Anti-Christian Revolution
Secular anti-Catholicism can fairly be described as the ruling ideology of the modern Republic of Ireland. In no other country do politicians and the media so openly, persistently, and savagely attack the Catholic Church. In no other country do leading politicians seek to score political points by launching virulent attacks on the Church and all...
Toxic Insanity
A woman files a sexual-harassment suit against a man for wearing spandex shorts. A black college student tacks racist notes on his own door to try to start a campus outcry against racism. Howard Schwartz has tried to explain these and other examples of political correctness in psychological terms in The Revolt of the Primitive. For...
Sisyphus and States’ Rights
Can a ten-year-old girl successfully sue a local school board for failing to prevent the sexual harassment of the young lady by an elementary-school classmate? Should an Alabama state court judge be able to display his hand-carved copy of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom? Can the people of a state decide that no state...
The End of Childhood
If you want to see how America’s liberal elites would like to reshape the United States, look at Western Europe. For decades, they have dreamed of importing European social models, of a Swedish welfare society, and of comprehensive sexual tolerance à la Hollandaise. But the liberal vision is most perfectly manifested in the form of...
The Cost of Immigration
Beginning in 1991, for more than a year, a 22-year-old Salvadoran immigrant sexually abused an eight-year-old California girl. This permanent legal resident took advantage of her whenever he was at his cousin’s house, where he lived in Los Angeles. He was not always there, so the child would return to the home of her girlfriend...
Billwatch
Billwatch became the prime-time soap of early 1998, eclipsing even the Pope’s visit to Cuba. Why should we care this time? Anyone with a mental age of 12 already knows that the President is an uncontrollable sexual predator. If a single straw could break the camel’s back of our patience, why not the bale after...
Legal Insanity
“Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.” —Thomas Jefferson A society governed by the judiciary—rather than by the will of the majority—displays odd characteristics. On July 29, 1994, a seven-year-old girl in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, was sexually assaulted and murdered. A neighbor who is a...
A Spark to Start a Wildfire
Sound of Freedom is a beautifully crafted and passionately humane film about the darkest underbelly of contemporary life: the trafficking and sexual abuse of helpless children.
The New Sexual World Order
The New Sexual World Order is taking shape, thanks to the Peace Gorps, the United Nations, and the U.S. Congress. In late September, Dr. J. Ricker Polsdorfer, the Peace Corps’ director of medical services in Africa, was fired for promoting abstinence as a method of preventing AIDS. Dr. Polsdorfer’s crimes, according to the Peace Corps...
How a Court Can Derail a Culture
Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others have written volumes about how the Great Society destroyed the American family. But the pivotal role played by Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court, in nullifying laws intended to encourage the formation of two-parent families, has gone largely unremarked. The lightning rod for change was a Connecticut statute which...
Acting Up
Faithful Roman Catholics are routinely criticized (this book is no exception) for their unwillingness to condone the use of contraception. Although it is commonly believed that opposition to contraception is unique to Catholic doctrine, it was only recently that Protestants gave up the same fight. As recently as the 40’s and 50’s, the Anglican C.S....
The Eclipse of the Normal
Nearly a century ago, G.K. Chesterton wrote of “the modern and morbid habit of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal.” Today the very word normal is almost taboo. Perish the thought that there is anything abnormal—let alone sinful, vicious, perverted, abominable, sick, unhealthy, or just plain wrong—about sodomy. (Unsanitary? Let’s not go there.) As...
Using Howard Stern to Build Hillary’s Dream
As I sit down to write this, on the Sunday afternoon before the second presidential debate, the media feeding frenzy over remarks made by Donald Trump 11 years ago continues unabated. The content of those remarks reminded me of one of the more interesting pieces I’ve read about the improbable rise of Trump, an article...
The Hind and the Panther
No one expects to discover in a drug dealer the character of Johnny Appleseed or Santa Claus, overflowing with compassion and the milk of human kindness, scattering sweetness and light wherever he goes. On the other hand, I suspect even the most hardened undercover cop in his local antidrug unit would be shocked to witness...
Society is to Blame
Patti Davis, Reagan’s little girl whose nude body graced the cover of the July Playboy, has finally settled down, gotten her act together—and written a novel about bondage. Yes, bondage. And it’s titled, well, Bondage. Discussing her book on the NBC Today show with interviewer Katie Couric, who noted that it’s about people “totally out...
The Body as Billboard
The blind poet Milton, praying for divine inspiration, tells us what he misses most since losing his sight: Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine. The...
Opera Without Meaning
Last year, in a January 3 review published by the Daily Telegraph, Hannah Furness made some remarkable assertions concerning the presentation of traditional operas on the modern stage. Furness quoted the tenor Michael Fabiano, then playing the Duke in a Royal Opera House production of Rigoletto, to the effect that “the treatment of women in...
Sodomy and the Lash
Sodomy and the lash, according to Winston Churchill, were the outstanding features of the British Royal Navy. The United States Navy will be at least half-British, if the American courts have their way. The homosexuals’ battle plan to gain acceptance, which includes taking dates to the Officer’s Club, now involves 100 or so discrimination claims...
The Stuffed Grape Leaf Standard
Danger lurks everywhere these days, even in five gallon plastic tubs of feta cheese. The containers of feta delivered to our restaurant come embellished with sketches of a baby falling headfirst into a bucket of cheese, which is preserved in liquid, and therefore comes complete with grim warnings of possible drownings in English and Español....
Revolt of the ‘Karens’
Moms for Liberty, a proud group of American parents, is retaking control of their children’s educations from the government leftists now destroying it.
The Old Ways Were Better
Harking back fondly to the standards of half a century go—aah, weren’t those the blithe, happy days?—won’t get you much of a hearing from today’s self-appointed arbiters of college and university moral questions. I don’t care. Let’s do it anyway. The standards of half a century ago concerning male-female relationships were infinitely better—galactically better—than the...