Victor Davis Hanson So what happened? In a word, too much astounding wealth and too much abject poverty created a medieval keep surrounded by a village of peasantry outside the high walls. California in general, and in particular the Bay Area, ushered in the greatest concentration of wealth in civilizational history, with some nine-trillion dollars […]
Victor Davis Hanson Who were to blame for the San Francisco Inferno? Anarchistic leftwing state laws and ballot initiatives that green-lighted criminal activity? Grasping city, county, and state governments that both raised taxes to the nation’s highest levels and passed crushing regulations—and yet gave the taxpayers mediocre services in return? Radical and inept city attorneys
Victor Davis Hanson It should have been impossible to wreck San Francisco. It is the world’s most naturally beautiful city, with perhaps the most ideal bay, harbor, and ports of any coastal metropolis. San Francisco is America’s premier window on the East. It serves as the natural conduit of commercial and cultural exchanges with the
From An Angry Reader: Part Two It is disappointing to me that Hanson is stupid enough to believe that it was a good idea for Britain to start a war against Germany on the flimsy pretext of preserving Polish “sovereignty” over lands that were historically German. After all, Britain did not go to war against
From An Angry Reader: Part One It is disappointing to me that Hanson is stupid enough to believe that it was a good idea for Britain to start a war against Germany on the flimsy pretext of preserving Polish “sovereignty” over lands that were historically German. After all, Britain did not go to war against
Victor Davis Hanson Then about six months after I had discovered them, the weasels had vanished! Or rather their entire hill on the property line above our orchard disappeared with them in it! One day they were neurotically busy as usual, then the next afternoon, two huge war surplus caterpillars were leveling the hill itself
Victor Davis Hanson My grandfather with a sentence or two had dismissed the idea that I could see a weasel, since he saw everything on the farm and had found no stoats, ferrets, or weasels. “Now Victor, I’ve never seen a weasel out here for years. You may. But I bet the coyotes ate them
Victor Davis Hanson When one is seven or eight, and free-ranged on a 135-acre orchard and vineyard farm, surrounded by a cocoon of protective family and hired men, a child gains the confidence of an adult to explore and investigate, but without their guidance and experience of age to discern fantasy from reality. And so,
Victor Davis Hanson For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labor and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. νῦν γὰρ δὴ γέος ἐστὶ σιδήρεον: οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἦμαρ παύονται καμάτου καὶ ὀιζύος, οὐδέ τι νύκτωρ φθειρόμενοι. χαλεπὰς δὲ θεοὶ
Victor Davis Hanson We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats’ feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture