Before the Culture Fades
by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal A review of The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia by Roger Kimball (St. Augustine’s Press, 2012) Roger Kimball has long been one of America’s most learned commentators on intellectual history, contemporary politics, fine art, and architecture.
‘White’ on the Brain–II
by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s The Corner Every now and then someone sends me an incoherent blog posting by someone named Conor Friedersdorf, who attacks a column I’ve written — usually in a way that reveals his inability to follow a simple argument. In the latest case of “‘White’ on the Brain,” he alleges that my piece was aimed […]
Are We Doomed?
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Sometimes societies find themselves in pernicious cycles in which the perceived medicine seems worse than the known disease. The Roman satirist Juvenal lamented the ill effects of free food and free entertainment for the masses (“bread and circuses”) in part because he knew there was no remedy for […]
When Land Is History
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media This winter I watched a new owner of the farm parcel next to mine bring in enormous Caterpillar equipment and land-levelers. He ripped out every living tree and bush. He changed the very contours of the land, flattening even the once rolling hills. Within days, arose a postmodern almond […]
Our Not So Best and Not So Brightest
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media From Eliot Spitzer to Elizabeth Warren to Fareed Zakaria — what is wrong with our elites?
There Is No California
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Driving across California is like going from Mississippi to Massachusetts without ever crossing a state line.
Time for ‘Liberals’ and ‘Progressives’ to Get New Labels
by Bruce Thornton Frontpage Magazine We need to find a new label for the ideology espoused by leftist Democrats. “Liberal” doesn’t accurately describe the party of blinkered intolerance, fanatical certainty, and an eagerness to destroy freedom in order to achieve some dubious utopia.
‘White’ on the Brain
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The election of the biracial Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new era of racial harmony. Instead, that dream is becoming a tribally polarized nightmare — by design, and intended to assist in the reelection of Barack Obama.
What the Ryan Choice Means for November
by Bruce Thornton Frontpage Magazine Last week’s poll numbers seemingly confirmed the doubts about democracy’s viability expressed in last week’s column. After a barrage of outrageous smears fired off by the Obama campaign, which accused Romney of killing a woman with cancer and failing to pay any income tax, Obama is leading Romney by 7-9 points.
Who Gets a Pass?
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently said of the Chick-fil-A fast-food franchise that “Chick-fil-A’s values are not Chicago’s values.” Why? Because Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy is on record as being opposed to gay marriage — as is close to half the US population, according to polls. The mayors of […]
A Wasted Educational Crisis
by Bruce Thornton Pope Center Commentaries As former White House Chief of Staff and now Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never want to let a serious crisis to go to waste.” The economic Armageddon facing the country’s largest state university system, the 23-campus California State University, undoubtedly qualifies as a serious crisis.
Remembering the Dead, from Selma
by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I confess this is the first time in my life I will break the old Hellenic rule: ton tethnvêkota mê kakologein(speak no ill of the dead). That Gore Vidal was a cruel person is no excuse for not refraining from criticism after his recent death, but here I sin nonetheless.
In Praise of Polarization
by Bruce Thornton Defining Ideas As the presidential campaign intensifies, we are sure to hear more and more complaints about the “polarization” of the electorate and the increasingly bitter divide between the two major parties. “It’s worse now than it’s been in years,” the Brookings Institution’s Darrell West said recently. “Our leaders are deeply polarized, […]
More A Decline of the Spirit?
by Victor Davis Hanson Ricochet.com There are lots of ways to lament America’s current financial and cultural dilemmas.
Obama in Never-Never Land
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The chief tenet of postmodernism is that truth and facts are arbitrary constructs, set up by the privileged to manipulate others less fortunate. In the case of our first postmodernist president, Barack Obama, there cannot be facts, past or present, only a set of shifting assertions that gain […]
Obama Administration’s War on Persecuted Christians
by Raymond Ibrahim Investigative Project on Terrorism The Obama administration’s support for its Islamist allies means lack of US support for their enemies, or, more properly identified, victims — the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world. Consider the many recent proofs:
100 Days Is a Long Time
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The presidential election is less than a hundred days away. President Obama and Mitt Romney are roughly even in the various polls, with Obama holding slight leads in the key swing states.
The Muddle East
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online No one has any idea what the Middle East will look like next year, much less in five years — especially the revolutionary players themselves.
Romney and the Palestinian Culture of Destruction
by Bruce Thornton Frontpage Magazine Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is under attack for speaking an important truth about the Arab-Israeli conflict. At a fundraiser in Jerusalem on Monday, Romney made the obvious, even banal, point about the economic disparity between nations.
Iraqi Irony
by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Amid all the stories about the ongoing violence in Syria, the most disturbing is the possibility that President Bashar Assad could either deploy the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that his government claims it has, or provide it to terrorists.