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 orchard of some 40 acres. Continue reading “When Land Is History”
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. Continue reading “Remembering the Dead, from Selma”
by Victor Davis Hanson
Ricochet.com
There are lots of ways to lament America’s current financial and cultural dilemmas. Continue reading “More A Decline of the Spirit?”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
In the Arabic media, there are reports that Muslim clerics — energized by the sudden emergence of Egypt’s new president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood — are agitating to demolish the Egyptian pyramids. According to the imams, the pharaohs’ monuments represent “symbols of paganism” from Egypt’s pre-Islamic past and therefore must vanish. Continue reading “Imams of Islam and the Environment”
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
We’ve had some unusual cabinet secretaries in past administrations — Earl Butz, John Mitchell, and James Watt come to mind — but never anything quite like the present bunch. Continue reading “Secretaries Gone Wild”
by Victor Davis Hanson
NRO’s The Corner
Watching the current EU dramatics over southern Mediterranean debt reminds me of the farm crisis of 1982–4 when lots of big farming concerns around here defaulted on what they owed banks. Continue reading “The Coin Toss on EU Crisis For Germany: Heads We Lose, Tails You Win”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
I am starting to feel as if I am living in a Vandal state, perhaps on the frontier near Carthage around AD 530, or in a beleaguered Rome in 455. Here are some updates from the rural area surrounding my farm, taken from about a 30-mile radius. In this take, I am not so much interested in chronicling the flotsam and jetsam as in fathoming whether there is some ideology that drives it. Continue reading “A Vandalized Valley”
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Illegal immigration has been in the news daily during the Republican primary campaign, even though a depressed economy here, stronger border enforcement, and vast new finds of petroleum in Latin America may soon radically curtail the number of illegal entrants into the United States. Continue reading “Illegal Immigration Is Immoral”
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
Occupy Wall Street?
I’ve been following the Wall Street protests, in New York and elsewhere. I read as well of the Democratic Party’s sorta interest in turning the anger of a few into a left-wing Tea-Party-like movement of many. Continue reading “Rage On–and On and On…”
by Bruce S. Thornton
City Journal
In 1973, as I was going through customs in New York after spending the summer bumming around Italy and Greece, the customs agent looked at my passport and said with a Bronx sneer, “Bruce Thornton, huh? Is that one of them Hollywood names?” Continue reading “The Other California”