The real national divide isn’t between red and blue states. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The densely populated coastal corridors from Boston to Washington and from San Diego to Berkeley are where most of America’s big decisions are made. They remind us of two quite different Americas: one country along these coasts and …
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Lady Gaga reportedly spent $25 million on pop art to jazz up her new and apparently underwhelming album. In contrast, Miley Cyrus’ sexual twerking at the MTV Music Video Awards earned her more millions by exposing her rather unimpressive anatomy. Both make the once vulgar Madonna seem like June Cleaver, but at least …
Was the MTV performance meant to be repellent rather than enticing? by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online An older generation used to call the boredom of bad habits “reaching rock bottom”; the present variant perhaps is “jumping the shark” — that moment when the tiresome gimmicks no longer work, and the show is over. …
Our elites would be right at home in Petronius’s world of debauchery and bored melodrama. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Sometime in the mid-first century a.d., an otherwise little known consular official, Gaius Petronius, wrote a brilliant satirical novel about the gross and pretentious new Roman-imperial elite. The Satyricon is an often-cruel parody about how the …
The Kardashians and Anthony Weiner are deemed more worthy of attention than what affects the security and prosperity of our nation. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Two quite different 21st-century Americas are emerging. The nation is not so much divided by “wars” between the rich and poor, men and women, or white …
by Bruce S. Thornton // Acculturated.com In the early 80s my mom and her sister dropped by our condo while my wife and I were watching Payday on HBO. (If you’re unfamiliar with this movie and Rip Torn’s brilliant performance, just think Crazy Heart for grown-ups.) They happened to come in during a scene in which Rip Torn’s girlfriend …
As it fragments into various camps, the country is being held together by a common popular culture. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online By a.d. 200, the Roman Republic was a distant memory. Few citizens of the global Roman Empire even knew of their illustrious ancestors like Scipio or Cicero. Millions no longer spoke Latin. Italian emperors were a …