Victor Davis Hanson As a classics student at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens some 45 years ago, in the latter 1970s, I was assigned to excavate at ancient Corinth. There I learned a lot about strata and how to detect the rise and fall of Myceneans, the Greeks of the Dark Age, […]
Víctor Davis Hanson As an academic, I remember the “Words Matter” controversies of the 1990s when euphemisms soon became Orwellian speech and ushered in the age of microaggressions and safe spaces, as “African American” became “black” that in turn became “Black.” Words, then, we were told affect realities. And they do. Certainly, the stereotypes of
Victor Davis Hanson A February 3rd huge train derailment recently sent fire balls high into the sky over small East Palestine, Ohio (ca. 5,000 population), in the heartland of the rustbelt of post-industrial America. I guess the current administration would call this small-town clinger/deplorable/chums/dregs country, to paraphrase the past usage of Obama, Hillary, and Biden.
Victor Davis Hanson The game itself was well-played and exciting. But the entire spectacle is heading into a strange and ultimately suicidal territory. Before the National Anthem, there was sung and observed the “Black” national anthem of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It is a wonderful song, but no substitution for our common, shared National
Victor Davis Hanson I consider myself an alien from outer space, as far as a lack of knowledge of the supposedly premier Super Bowl halftime entertainers. I usually skip the game and especially the half-time show. This year for some reason I didn’t. I have no real idea who “Rihanna” (Robyn Rihanna Fent) is, other
Victor Davis Hanson The worst crime I witnessed was not necessarily a crime but was surely amoral. One of the best mechanics in the class (his father was a master mechanic as well) had dropped a Chevy 454 into his 1955 four-speed and had what was considered the fastest car among many. One night he
Victor Davis Hanson The second occasion of witnessing a crime was more disturbing. A poor guy pulled into a 99 station about 1AM with transmission trouble. He asked if he could park the car there for a few hours, while he hitchhiked to Fresno to get a ride. Odd request? The locals assented because he
Victor Davis Hanson Drinking “Coors” was standard, Olympia was considered “piss water.” (I preferred Olympia because it tasted like water.) Again, almost everyone knew something about cars. (None knew much about our Volvo 544 and looked baffled when they opened the hood.) Most on Saturday nights parked out on someone’s safe-space farm, drank, talked, fought,
Victor Davis Hanson George Lucas’s American Graffiti is getting a lot of play recently. This year is the 50th anniversary of that brilliant film, depicting the fading high-school age of 1962 in small-town America—before the Sixties kicked in, Vietnam went to 500,000 American troops, and various cultural revolutions of the turn-on, tune-in, and drop-out sort
Victor Davis Hanson 1. Do we really believe it was unsafe to shoot down the Chinese balloon over Montana (6 people per square mile), but not over the Aleutians (1 person per square mile), or off the Pacific coast while in U.S. waters? 2. Was it really true that the Chinese balloon was of