Author: The Archive (The Archive)

of prosperous burgher parents, and aboutrnas interesting as another famous burgherrnartist, J.S. Bach, if less respectable byrnburgher standards. Shorn of legend,rnShakespeare’s life does not make a romanticrneffect. Insofar as it has a moral, itrnis that middle-class ambition, work, andrnthrift have scored again.rnNot surprisingly, quite a lot of peoplerndislike this new, documentable story,rneven resent it, and...

standard books. Nor is the scholars’ consensusrnall that consensual. Many scholarsrnnow argue, on documentary evidence,rnthat Shakespeare’s family wasrnCatholic, that he was well-connected onrnhis mother’s side, and that his father wasrna good deal better off than has beenrnthought.rnYet the most important thing wernknow about Shakespeare will always bernthe fact that he wrote those plays and poems.rnThey...

and movies seriously, and I still am.rnWhat we call “film noir” was in effectrnmade for those veterans to watch; in fact,rnit was, often enough, about veterans returningrnto a corrupted civilian life.rnOf course, they didn’t (we didn’t) callrnit “film noir” then. They called it goodrnstuff. You recognized it for its refusal ofrnsmarm, its gritty exception to...

Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnImpeachable OffensesrnBack in March, Republican MajorityrnWhip Tom DcLay took lunch at thernWashington Times and started jabberingrnabout how he and his party were going tornimpeach “activist judges” who handedrndown improper rulings. I know somethingrnabout how those luncheons at thernTimes work, so I was not as impressed asrnsome people. First, the guest is...

the garage to serve that purpose.” Evenrnif we grant Judge Bork’s military expertise,rnit does not follow that because thernoriginal purpose of an explicit right is obsolete,rnthe right itself no longer exists.rnThe Court ruled in the Miller decision ofrn1939 that certain weapons, like sawedoffrnshotguns, were not covered by thernSecond Amendment because they werernnot useful in warfare...

CORRESPONDENCErnLetter FromrnInner Israelrnby Jacob NeusnerrnContinental Judaism, R.I.P.rnReligions may explode in human historyrn—Christianity conquering Rome inrnscarcely 300 years, Islam the Mediterraneanrnbasin in scarcely a century. Butrnthey die only here and there, only nowrnand then, and renew themselves in timesrnand circumstances none can predict.rnGod has a good sense of humor and arnstill better understanding of ourselvesrnthan we...

be tolerated, nor in Britain, nor at leastrnfor Reform and Conservative Judaisms inrnthe United States and Canada. Here thernRabbinate enjoys sufficient respect to establishrnorder, and except for some ratherrndegraded Orthodox synagogues that lackrnall self-respect and decorum, the behaviorrncommonplace in European synagoguesrnat the hour of prayer is simply astounding.rnIt is repulsive and anti-Judaic.rnWhere do people learn...

more than half of the city’s houses arernnow rental units and that Lima oftenrntops those national rankings of affordablernhousing.rnIn typical bureaucratic fashion, agencyrnofficials never bothered to tell therncommunity about their plans. The mayor,rna liberal Democrat who was a publicrnhousing bureaucrat before being electedrnto his post, did not see any reason to raisernthis “divisive” issue, either....

front of the Bilal mosque and blink, yournwould think you were in the MiddlernEast” rejoiced the architect, who is ofrnIraqi extraction.rnAll the new mosques are necessary becausernof all the people of differing, sometimesrnmutually antipathetic, Muslim traditionsrnwho are now living in Britain.rnThere will be separate mosques built forrnBangladeshi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Pathan,rnTurkish, and Mauritian Muslims, and atrnleast...

Letter FromrnPittsburghrnby Sarah McCarthyrnThe Mood Disorder ClinicrnA poem with a vivid title has started arnbrouhaha at the Mood Disorder Clinicrnat Western Psychiatric in Pittsburgh.rn”Nigger Do Not Speed In My Town” wasrndiscovered on a desk by two black employeesrnwho reported it to the EEOC asrnevidence of a racist environment at thernMood Disorder Clinic. The offendedrnemployees said...

VITAL SIGNSrnGLOBALISMrna.rnGeorge Soros,rnMegalomaniacrnby Justin RaimondornIt is a sort of a disease when yournconsider yourself some kind of god,rnthe creator of everything,” confessedrnGeorge Soros to a British newspaper,rn”but I feel comfortable about it nowrnsince I began to live it out.” Recallingrnyouthful fantasies of omnipotence in hisrn1987 book The Alchemy of Finance, thernmultibillionaire speculator and globalrndo-gooder conceded...

longtime business partner, Jim Rogers,rnbut also from his wife, Annalise, whomrnhe had met and married in 1961. Whilernthe pressure of his work had taken a tollrnon his marriage, Soros admits that “myrnwife had been very supportive, very tolerantrnof my involvement in business,” andrnattributes the breakup to his own attitude.rnHe describes “a rather wild period”rnin whieh...

Itnderscoring the depth of his support,rnSoros declared that he would personallyrntravel to Macedonia and take to the hustingsrnfor Gligorov if the president’s victoryrnat the polls seemed in doubt. As itrnturned out, Soros need not have worried;rnGligorov’s neocommunist ruling partyrnkeeps a tight rein on the media, andrnGligorov is widely suspected of havingrnrigged the election.rnGligorov is in...

sibly concerned about her disability case.rnShe talked about her distress because thernVeterans Administration Hospital is, yetrnagain, releasing her psychotic husband. Irnlistened and made the noises humansrnmake for one another, rather as horsesrnstand head to tail in the summer pasture,rntheir tails whisking away one another’srnflies.rnOn another matter, I billed and gotrn$1,450, also the mark of a...

paign volunteer for Democratic presidentialrncontender and then-AlabamarnGovernor George C. Wallace, had attendedrnthe candidate’s last campaign rallyrnbefore the next day’s primary. Wallacernfirst spoke in Wheaton then traveled to arnLaurel shopping center for another appearance.rnAfter a 50-minute speech, herndescended the podium stairs—whereuponrnmy mother greeted him with a hugrnand a kiss on the cheek—and headed towardrnthe crowd to...

his troops were too out of shape to makernany such eharge across open fields andrnover fences, Lee dehberately orderedrnthem to their deaths—and so saved thernUnion.rnThere is still time to put forth alternativernexplanations for the events depictedrnon the screen, and it is not too soon to dornso. There is the distinct possibility thatrnthe Confederate soldiers in...

finance is the sinew of war.”rnThere is no better current example ofrnthis maxim than China. Not only isrntrade and investment helping to buildrnup that country’s infrastructure and industrialrnbase, it is pulling back to thernmainland the loyalty of the “overseas”rnChinese entrepreneurs who control sornmuch of Asia’s commerce and capital—rnand who hold influence with so many ofrnthe...

The Hundredth Meridianrnby Chilton Williamson, Jr.rnWings of IcarusrnFrom 9,000 feet the triangulating mountains,rnsnow-covered and hazy withrnspring, showed on three horizons boundingrnthe broad brown desert of the GreenrnRiver. Leveling at 9,475 feet we saw thernsteam plume from the power plant. LakernViva Naughton, and the white scratch ofrnclay road running toward the mountainsrnnorth of town. The bumpy...

hundred feet below the summit of CoffinrnMountain, an isolated brightnessrnglinted from the surrounding brilliance.rnI ealled out to Norma, but the wordsrnwere carried away by the racing stream.rnWhen we caught up with one anotherrnagain I stepped aside from the trail andrnpointed to the gleam on the hangingrnslope.rn”Look—there’s another one.”rn”Another wha^?”rn”Another plane. It was covered whenrnwe rode...

MrnGREAT TOPICS—GREAT ISSUESrn^’^’oniikrnlO SnrS^’ c ^rn..ww”^””‘;’,””^^rnNATIONAL SUICIDE—July 1997—Thomas Flemingrnon letiming a lesson from the Czechs, Curtis Cate on thernFrench debate over immigration, R.J. Stove on PaulinernHanson’s influence in Australia, Justin Rainiondo on thernfuture of the Pacific Northwest, William Murchison onrnwhy Mexico lost Texas, and Gregory McNamee on thernstate of Native Americans.rnUNIFEST DISASTER—June 1997—Thomas Remrning on...

Classics for Today’s ReadersrnREFLECTIONS on HISTORYrnBy Jacob BurckhardtrnAlmost alone among nineteenth-century historians, Jacob Burclihardt (1818-1897)rndiscerned the totalitarian terrors that awaited the world of our own time. How did herndo so? Reflections on History is his own answer. Rrst published in English in 1943rn(under the title Force and Freedom), Reflections . . . is a guide...

EDITORrnThomas FlemingrnMANAGING EDITORrnTheodore PappasrnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSrnChilton Williamson, jr.rnASSISTANT EDITORrnMichael WashburnrnART DIRECTORrnAnna Mycek-WodeckirnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSrnHarold O.J. Brown, Katherine Dalton,rnSamuel Francis, George Garrett,rnPaul Gottfried, Christine Haynes,rnE. Christian Kopff, J.O. Tate,rnClyde WilsonrnCORRESPONDING EDITORSrnBill Kauffman, William Mills,rnJacob Neusner, John Shelton Reed,rnMomcilo SelicrnEDITORIAL SECRETARYrnLeann DobbsrnPUBLISHERrnAllan C. CarlsonrnPUBLICATION DIRECTORrnGuy C. ReffettrnPRODUCTION SECRETARYrnAnita CandyrnCIRCULATION MANAGERrnRochelle FrankrnA publication of The Rockford Institute,rnEditorial and Advertising...

with me in finding both the theologyrnand the social program dubious.rnOn Reconstructing thernSouthrnWhile there is much to praise in MichaelrnHill’s “The South and the New Reconstruction”rn(March 1997), there is a streakrnof unreality and wishfulness in the articlernwhich begs attention. For example, whatrnwould the Southern League have us dornwith the masses of Northerners—aA/arnYankees—who inhabit the region?...

the family that had once owned the factoryrnsell it when the “salaried employeesrn. . . were within a few years of a full pension”?rnWhy are they totally blameless inrnMr. Kauffman’s moralistic framework?rnIs it merely because they were not “tiedrnto Bata’ia only by the flimsy cord of thernalmighty dollar”? Perhaps only longstandingrnresidents of Batavia should bernallowed...

CULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnJACKIE, TIGER, AND ELLEN—rnnot as catchy as Martin, Bartin, and Fish,rnor Abraham, Martin, and John, butrngood enough to mesmerize the press thisrnspring. In one respect, the mainstreamrnmedia were right: Jackie Robinsonrnwas a courageous man; Tiger Woodsrnis an extraordinary golfer; and EllenrnDeGcnerate—well, two out of threernain’t bad.rnBut here’s the “rest of the story.”rnThe national love-fest...

ministration and more serious debate ofrnmajor issues of national policy, but thernRepublicans failed even to make goodrnpolitical use of the myriad moral flawsrnthey uncovered. The Clinton scandalsrnbarely rippled the stagnant surfaces ofrnlast year’s presidential campaign, and incrediblyrnthe Dole-Kemp ticket bubbledrnbeneath the political waves while thernship of the Clintonian state sailed proudlyrnon.rnOne of the main reasons...

derous applause, Fleming proclaimed,rn”Free people don’t have masters, andrnwhat the judge and his lackey . . . mean isrnthat we are all—black and white. EastrnSide and West Side and all around therntown—slaves on a plantation owned byrnthe federal courts. And if we sit aroundrntaking their orders, without offering anyrnresistance, then we deserve to be slaves.”rnHe...

PERSPECTIVErn1 1rn;M,rn’ – * ‘ ” • ” • ‘ • ^ • ‘ “‘”‘”‘^ 4rnJ •rn’ ‘9$.rn”HrnI ^1rnBirth of a Nationrnby Thomas FlemingrnMost of us in the United States are hyphenated Americans:rnHispanic-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Irish-rnAmericans. Even WASPs have taken refuge in the term “Anglo-rnAmerican,” as if the British stock did not define thernAmerican identity. At...

faith; religion is a bond, the fulfiDment of an obligation. For allrnI knew, Slovaks might be less spiritual, less moral than the morerncasually observant Czechs, but the willingness to get up onrnSunday morning must count for something.rnI happened to be in Prague on Palm Sunday, and I asked thernclerk in my lovely hotel (U Pava...

their own medicine, by expelling German farm families fromrnthe Sudetenland, where they had lived for centuries. When myrnwife made the mistake of asking a German visitor, whose familyrnturned out to have been among the victims, whether or notrnhe had ever been to Prague, he replied, “Only when I will bernriding on top of a tank.”rnAfter...

is now a museum of local history going back to Celtic times.rnThe museum guides were very kind, but when they discoveredrnthe limits of my Slovakian, they left me to wander, until an olderrnman tricked me into revealing that I understood his German,rnI am glad he did, because as he took me through the rooms devotedrnto...

baroque of the ruling class. The National Art Museum has arncollection of the usual German and Italianate paintings, mostrnof them technically competent, but turn the corner and walkrninto a room filled with paintings and carved wooden statues removedrnfrom churches, and you discover an art that combinesrn”primitive” exuberance with a high aesthetic sense. I lere wasrnan...

sluice-gates opened. France, the generous, warmheartedrnFrance of Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, and Jean Jaures, was goingrnto resume her age-old humanitarian mission as a pays d’accueilrn(a land of welcome) for the downtrodden and oppressed. Tornmake it clear that this was not just hollow rhetoric, a law was enactedrnin October 1981 which “regularized” the existing statusrnof illegal...

tating the French state toward a condition of bankruptcy, withrntoo many millions of persons to support and no money left tornpav them. And, not least of all, they were promoting a climaternof grotesque unreality and of preemptive capitulation, in whichrnanvone daring to suggest that immigration should be strictlyrncontrolled could immediately be pilloried as a “racist”...

ment” that the crime rate was lowest, hi Boston’s “North End,”rnfor example, mostly populated by Amerieans of Italian originrnand where on warm afternoons many women spent their timernseated before their front doorsteps, as their ancestors had alwaysrndone in Naples or Civita Vecchia, any stranger venturing intornthe area was instantly recognized as such and kept underrnsurveillance...

In 1989, the then prime minister, Miehel Rocard, liad therneourage to protest aloud that “la France ne peut pas accueillirrntoutes les miseres du munde” (France cannot welcome all thernpoor of the world). It was just about the wisest statement thatrnhas so far been made on the subject. But it was not enough tornsae this honest...

Keating was widely expected to be returned to office with a majorityrnof at least three seats. The driveling incompetence thatrnthe Liberals and their National Party coalition partners had displayedrnin the final months of the previous Parliament’s life inspiredrndespair in even their most devoted lay supporters. Sornconvulsed were they by humiliating memories of their defeat atrnthe...

ness in Mrs. Hanson than their Southeast Asian eounterpartsrn(including hidonesia’s Ambassador to Australia, Wiryono Sastrohandoyo,rnand the Bangkok Post) did the same thing. (Thernreadiness of Asian regimes to deal with domestie opposition byrnputting it before a firing squad and running eleetric currentsrnthrough its genitalia was considered unmentionable.)rnMalaysia’s de facto dictator Dr. Mahathir called Mrs. I lansonrn”moronic,”...

Iv pruning, let alone scrapping, the multicultural agenda. Yetrnwithout Mrs. Hanson’s presence to give him the occasional reminderrnof how Australians outside ta.xpavcr-subsidized bughousesrnactually think, Mr. Ruddock would never have vowedrnCN en the modest concession to sanitv’s demands that he did articulate.rnDuring the lead-up to Christmas it appeared that Mrs. Hansonrnwould obtain a small but deserved...

The Road to Cascadiarnby Justin RaimondornThey call it Cascadia—a land of plunging waterfalls andrnsnowcapped mountains, a mythical kingdom of toweringrntrees and raging rivers. Here in Seattle, capital of this Arcadia,rnthe sleekly modernistic Space Needle rises up against the backdroprnof Mount Rainier, which dominates the horizon—arndistinctly Cascadian juxtaposition of mountain and citvscape,rnforest and skyscraper, greenery and...

bee out of confederal Canada and into the waiting arms of thernUnited States.rnLament envisions a “Pacific alhance whose other membersrn[include] Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington,”rna postindustrial economic powerhouse rich in raw materialsrnwith a gross annual product of some $280 billion. An independentrnCascadia would be the ninth wealthiest nation on earth—rnbut that is not on...

All of this raises an interesting question: whether the greatestrnthreat to the United States is not secessionism but expansionism,rnnot states wanting out, but whole regions wanting in. Norndirect assault on American sovereignty is likely to succeed; ifrnour old Republic is overthrown, it will be death bv submersionrnin a “multicultural” continentalism. Although such a merger orrnseries...

From Greeks to GringosrnWhy Mexico Lost Texasrnby William MurchisonrnAmong the terms of endearment applied to Amerieans whornworry about present immigration pohcy is “xenophobe.”rnThis high-toned word normallv precedes lower-toned ones—rn”racist,” “bigot,” “neo-Nazi,” etc.—which take over as the exasperationrnlevel rises.rnA “xenophobe” is someone who fears foreigners. Fears themrnwhy? No dictionary is competent to sav. Every xenophoberndoubtless has...