Category: Imported

cided to bar anyone under the age ofn18 from even stepping foot inside thencenter for the durahon of the Mapplethorpenshow. With this attempt tondisplay sensitivity to community concerns,nthe CAC validated those concernsnby imposing restrictions on thenviewing of the art exhibit that werenstricter than those placed on the viewingnof an X-rated movie —;/ Cincinnatinhad X-rated movies....

didates have stayed out of jail, our littienold state ought to be the focus of rightnmuch national attention. That’s notnsurprising: from a major metro point ofnview our election is great melodrama, asngood as anything professional wrestlingnhas to offer:nIn this corner, the defendingnchampion, the Darth Vader ofnAmerican politics, friend ofnThird World dictators, homophobicnfoe of artistic freedom,nSenator...

Let me show you how that ignorancenworks.nI play poker with a crowd that includesna couple of conservative Democrats—nsort of the Northern SpottednOwls of American political life — andnone night a while back these guys gotnto talking about how to beat JessenHelms. They agreed that you can’t winnby trying to portray him the way thenYankee press...

COMMONWEALnThe Myth of thenHomeless Familynby Dan McMurrynIhad just finished delivering the keynotenaddress at the Hesburgh PublicnPolicy Colloquium on “Housing andnHomelessness” at the University ofnNotre Dame, and the questioning hadnbegun. After a number of questions ofnthe kind that every audience asks — andnrightfully so — about my experiencesnposing as a homeless man, someonenasked the question. Now...

Army officers, and many others, I hadnspent 18 months posing as a homelessnman. 1 wandered across the country,neating, sleeping, and waiting on thenstreets and in shelters in big cities andnsmall communities. This investigationnover a number of years turned upnalmost no “families as couples.” Thusnit was always a shock to see so muchnpublicity about homeless families...

relatives. . . . Many of the homelessnmust also be persons with whom it isndifficult and perhaps painful to maintainna pleasant relationship. . . .nWhatever the process, the outcome isnthat many of the homeless are completelynisolated, and most have onlynvery superficial ties to others.”nFractured lives and ruptured ties —nthese are the reasons for the “newnpoor”...

are not required, and any doctor (notnsolely obstetricians) may perform abortions.nJustice Stevens’ concurring statementnin Danforth in 1976 is correct:n”The majority of abortions now arenperformed by strangers in unfamiliarnsurroundings, where minors are alone,nfurtive and frightened visitors subjectednto assembly line abortion techniques.”nDr. Edward Allred, who owns an abortionnclinic chain that performs 60,000nabortions annually, described clinicnpractices for the...

ment’s chief of statistics] said.nDanforth noted the historical andnnecessary legal limitations of minors:nBecause he may not foresee thenconsequence of his decisions, anminor may not make annenforceable bargain. He maynnot lawfully work or travelnwhere he pleases. . . . Personsnbelow a certain age may notnmarry without parental consentnand they may not vote. . . . Butneven...

for advertising and promotion —therenis a kind of Gresham’s law operating.nQuality can creep in to betray thendreams of even the shrewdest and mostnavaricious studio operators.nWell, I saw the film and liked it—anlot. So much so, that I began to wondernwhether my judgment was still reliable.nWhat was I doing, responding withnsuch delight — yes, real delight...

Tracy are period cars — including andelicious lavender Cord that Breathlessndrives around in. There is a nostalgianfor the 30’s of Chester Gould’s stripnand the innocence of its assumptions,nso that the grown-ups in the audiencenare flattered and comforted while thenyoungsters are being entertained. Suchnvillains as Flattop, Pruneface, and ThenRodent are more fun and less troublesome,nsurely, than...

littroducing…The NewsnMagazine of the 1990snP ollsnshow that most Americansnare fed up with the arrogant,nexploitive tactics of the mediangiants. Time, CBS, and the rest ofnthe entrenched media establishment havenaccelerated their campaign to brandnAmericans as ignorant and out of step ifnthey do not accept gun control andnmassive defense cuts. ITiey label asn”homophobes” all who disagree with thenmilitant...

IS YOUR Ailiericancrumbling beforenyoureyes?nAre you afraid to send your child to the local school? Are you horrified by thensexual revolution . . . New Age paganism … the godless media?nThese books Help. Take 3 – FREE. Worth up to $92.40!nUtey’ll show you how to preservenyourvabies.. .fortifyyourchUdrenn… and, maybe, take bade yourncomtiy.n3246 TRIAL AND ERROR: ThenAmerican...

EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnKatherine DaltonnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSnChilton Williamson, Jr.nASSISTANT EDITORnTheodore PappasnART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinCONTRIBUTING EDITORSnJohn W. Aldridge, Harold O.J.nBrown, Samuel Francis, GeorgenGarrett, Russell Kirk, E. ChristiannKopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnJanet Scott Barlow, Odie Faulk,nJane Greer, John Shelton Reed,nGary VasilashnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnEDITORIAL INTERNnChristine HaynesnPUBLISHERnAllan C. CarlsonnASSOCIATE PUBLISHERnMichael WardernPUBLICATION DIRECTORnGuy C. Reffettn’ COMPOSITION MANAGERnAnita FedoranCIRCULATION MANAGERnRochelle FranknA publication of The...

malignant fatuity that the professor hasnmade so painfully familiar to veterannfollowers of National Review.nThe review made me sorry in threenways. First and foremost, of course, Inam sorry to see a good woman andnbrilliant conservative writer viciouslynabused for no serious reason. Second, Inam sorry to have borne for somenmonths a silent grudge against Mr.nWilliam Buckley, whom...

century was that the spread of educationnwas bound to lower the crime rate.nHe then presented a simple chart showingnthe behavior of education and crimenrates per capita in the United States evernsince: both figures, of course, havenincreased astronomically at much thensame rate. While this correlation hardlynproves that more education increasesncrime, it surely casts grave doubt on...

Mr. Fleming Replies:nI agree with Anita Evangelista’s praisenfor George Garrett’s piece and herninsistence that the funding of arts andnhumanities is a complex issue. But asnsomeone who has observed government-fundednarts, humanities, and educationnat all levels, I do not think shengrasps the seriousness of the issue.nOnce upon a time local communities,nsometimes with the help of thenfederal government,...

Let us suppose that we learned thatna major educational institution in Japanncategorically refused to admit blacks —nor Caucasians, or both. We wouldnimmediately call that invidious discrimination.nHowever, if a school innJapan admitted men of all races but nonwomen, or women of all races but nonmen, would we so quickly condemn it?nThe Roman Catholic Church does notnadmit...

world, God gave the Torah, “it hasnbeen told you, humanity, what is good,nand what the Lord requires of you,”n”you shall not murder,” “you shall notnbear false witness.” These and othernfoundations of the moral conduct ofncivilization stand firm. And up is notndown, west is not east, white is notnblack, either.nAnd for us Jews, the commandingnvoice of...

supported reauthorizing the Endowmentnand opposed restrictions on artists;nand he also was explicit in rejectingnpornography and obscenity at federalnexpense. The National Council on thenArts, led by New York State SenatornRoy Goodman and Florida State SenatornBob Johnson, unanimously adoptednSenator Pell’s position, in the exactnlanguage of his statement. I have hadnconversations with members of thenHouse of Representatives in...

Principalities & Powersnby Samuel FrancisnAfter two years of desperate pretensenthat the Bush administration is but thenlong afternoon of the Reagan era, manynof Mr. Bush’s conservative supportersnnow begin to suspect that morning innAmerica is fast lurching toward chaosnand old night. The President’s apparentnwillingness to consider tax increases,ndespite his best-known campaign promise,nand the return of Secretary of...

Professor Warren, however, definednMARs in terms of a common attitudenthey shared. “MARs are a distinctngroup,” he wrote, “partly because ofntheir view of government as favoringnboth the rich and the poor simultaneously.n. . . MARs are distinct in thendepth of their feeling that the middlenclass has been seriously neglected. Ifnthere is one single summation of thenMARs...

PERSPECTIVEnRevolution and Tradition in the HumanitiesnCurriculumnAfew years ago I found myself in the belly of the beast.nTo be more accurate, I was actually in the appendix ofnthe beast, the Department of Education, giving a paper onncurriculum reform. Secretary Bennett, who preceded me,nspoke with his accustomed exuberance of the then currentncrisis in the humanities and of...

and social mechanics of Thebes, Miletos, or Athens. By thenfifth century, city-dwelling Greeks of the middle and uppernclasses were making sure that their boys received instructionnin the arts of public speaking and debate, and this rhetoricalncurriculum dominated ancient higher education down tonthe very end of antiquity.nThe object of this education was, in Quintilian’s phrase, an”good...

science requirement that could be fulfilled with history,npsychology, or sociology; the math unit could be satisfiednwith logic; and science by kitchen chemistry or amateurnastronomy or even “geography.” At Chapel Hill I met anstudent satisfying a requirement by taking “Foods of thenWorld.”nOh, there were dissident voices, and here and there anGreat Books program (as at the...

however, sticking points, particularly religion. Bloom, like sonmany others of his philosophical sect — the unworthy disciplesnof the late Leo Strauss — are stuck in one of Condorcet’sneariier phases of progress, the stage at which philosophynreplaces religion. Religion, for Bloom, is irrational superstitionnmasquerading as truth, and it is the philosopher’s role toncombat error on this...

There’s a part of your brainnreserved for brisk, refreshing,ndiscriminating thinking.nStimulate it.nBy inlroducing yourself to one of the nation’s most stimulating, ihoiightful,nand unique news magazines. National Review keeps you in touch with the “other”npoint of view which has come to be a necessity for the truly informed person innthese days of “homogenized” news reporting. NR gives...

self-exposition according to which the argument ofnValidity in Interpretation was scarcely to bendistinguished from the kind of relativism espousednby Stanley Fish.nNote first in this account, the tell-tale polarity of theneither/or positions: Hirsch’s earlier ideas promoted objectivitynand respect for the author’s meaning, and all rightthinkingnpersons should agree with him. These earliernHirschian ideas are set against the...

Stanford student had to study the same core texts, which isnnot the case, the common core would occupy only about 8npercent of the student’s college curriculum. Consider byncontrast the humanities portion of the curriculum in lowerneducation. The topics and ideas to be studied are almost allncompulsory. In grades 1-6, the humanities componentnoccupies about 70 percent...

problematic. The teaching of the humanities did not suddenlynbecome politicized in the 60’s and 70’s. This interpretationnof the academic world, popularized in, among othernplaces, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, isntied to another fiction: that the American government wasntemporarily derailed in the late 60’s when the McGovernitesnseized the Democratic Party. Thereafter, it is...

rational and everywhere applicable.” He then goes on tonobserve that World War II “was an educational projectnundertaken to force those who do not accept these principlesnto do so.”nSuch support for political missionizing suggests thatnBloom and those who praise his work are not disinterestednhumanists. Their attacks on the Germans as the enemies ofndemocratic education simply rehash...

freshman), Johnny couldn’t care less when the Civil Warnwas fought, and older John, by now ambassador or President,nconfuses Bucharest and Warsaw. The true reasons fornthis state of affairs are — intentionally — never discussed,nonly the symptoms are listed with much simulated indignahonnand gratuitous prediction of better times ahead.nIn May Mrs. Lynne Cheney, chairman of the...

wholesome fabric of these talks is wovennof Montgomery’s always recognizable,ndeceptively informal prose, alivenwith metaphor and gentle irony, andnpunctuated by wonderful aphorisms. Inhave to show you just one:nThe failure to recognize the giftnof particularity, the uniquenessnof each person’s particularity,nthe uniqueness of each person’snactual existence as a limit to hisnpotential being, is the presentncause of most of...

points reaching us by way of Dante,nAquinas, and some other unfashionablenfigures who are free of gnostic distortions.nThese viewpoints I will notnattempt to summarize, having by hintsnand reductions already gone about as farntowards reducing Marion Montgomery’snwhole and compelling creation tondry bones as Lockean theory has reducednchildren of God to trouserednapes.nHere, again and at last, is the...

Wartime Journalism: 1939-1943nhy Paul de MannEdited by Werner Hamacher, NeilnHertz, and Thomas KeenannLincoln and London: University ofnNebraska Press; 399 pp., $35.00n(hardcover), $15.95 (paper)nResponses on Paul de Man’snWartime JournalismnEdited by Werner Hamacher, NeilnHertz, and Thomas KeenannLincoln and London: University ofnNebraska Press; 477 pp., $40.00n(hardcover), $19.95 (paper)nPaul de Man’s life was “the classicnimmigrant story” (according tonJames Atlas)....

divorced from Anaide when he marriednPatricia Kelley, but this marriagenwas essential if he were to obtainnpermanent resident status in the UnitednStates. In order to change his status,nhowever, De Man had to exit thenUnited States and return. When henapplied for a new Belgian passport,nword of his past reached America andnHarvard.nYears later his friends at Yale insistednthat...

United States. There were no regretsnfor Europe.nDe Man’s Critical Writings, 1953-n1978 was reprinted in 1988 by thenUniversity of Minnesota Press. Whatnare called his books are reprints ofneariier essays with some new material.nHe never edited a text or wrote ancommentary on a work of literature.nHis essays typically take a small part ofnan author’s work and discuss...

leagues included Geoffrey Hartman,nHarold Bloom, and Jacques Derrida.nDid their thinking and writing givenhim cause to change his mind? Wenhave many statements that he did notngo around Yale making openly anti-nSemitic remarks. In other words, henwas not stupid, which no one accusesnhim of being. The issue is, did he evernchange his mind from his clearly expressednopinion...

De Man showed that Derrida falselynattributed to Rousseau a simplistic viewnof progress that was clearly and explicitlynrejected in Rousseau’s text. It doesnnot matter, though, De Man tells us.nDerrida’s attitude is still the right one.nThe critic’s blindness, what we lessernbreeds without the Law call his blunders,nare essential to his genius. Thenpoint is not to enter into...

La Trahison desnClercsnby/.O. TatenTenured Radicals: How PoliticsnHas Corrupted Our HighernEducationnby Roger KimballnNew York: Harper & Row;n204 pp., $18.95nThe state of higher education in ourncountry is best passed over innsilence, in order to avoid both uselessnexasperation and any provocation ofn”reform.” The mess we are in is thenresult of a parade of fraudulent reformsnand movements, of a...

escape the other.nStill, given the incentives and thenpersonalities involved, one ought not tonbe surprised at the level of support fornthe pro-market public interest groups.nIndeed, if one removes the civil rightsngroups from the analysis, the left-leaningngroups have an advantage of justn$9.6 million to $8.1 million. Certainntypes of right-leaning groups are verynsuccessful: those which support removingnregulatory burdens...

vain lacks the tension of poet-clergymannR.S. Thomas’s poetry. Outside ofnhis ballads, which are not much innevidence in the current collection, henlacks a single distinctive quality — ofntone, of idiom, or of sound — thatnmight set his poems apart from thosenof any number of skilled poets. Thenquality of the work is high, to be sure,nbut there...

an unnamed reporter for a Floridantabloid, the Star: a middle-aged mannwith intellectual tastes, once a teachernof remedial composition at a communityncollege, who through failure andndespair finds himself reduced to manufacturingngrotesque confabulations fornthe enjoyment of his paper’s credulousnreaders.nIt is a type of work that directs thenmind toward the contemplation of absurdity.nThough Mr. Slavitt might havenswiped these...

Letter From NewnYork Citynby Murray N. RothbardnIt Was a Long Hot SummernI returned to New York at the end ofnMay for my summer stint to find thatnboth bellwethers of New York life, thenfar-out left Village Voice and the chicnliberal New York, were headlining (respectively)n”Race Rage,” and “ThenRace Mess.” Yes, the fabled andnmuch-dreaded Long Hot Summer...

elected him because he is soft, slow,nand nonthreatening, and they believednthat he could calm the black militantsnand bring New York racial peace. Hisnblack supporters, however, particularlynin militant Brooklyn, voted for Dinkinsnin order to get a lot of goodies from thenNew York government. These goodiesnhave not been forthcoming. Anothernproblem is that Dinkins and his blacknadvisers, coming...

commits a Hate Thought is in dangernof getting the ax and being permanentlynbarred from the “free marketplace ofnideas” that our Establishment likes toncrow about.nMurray N. Rothbard is a professor ofneconomics at the University ofnNevada, Las Vegas. He also lives innNew York.nLetter From thenLower Rightnby John Shelton ReednAn Academic RemnantnAs a rule I don’t use this...

though, is that the presence of evennone fellow dissident produced nearlynunanimous nonconformity. Which isnwhy the NAS meeting was such anheady experience: it was downrightnexhilarating to be in a room with a fewnhundred others who also know whichnline is longest.nIt’s hard to overstate the politicalnlopsidedness of American college facultiesnthese days. I think it was ThomasnSowell who...

STAGEnStratford 1990nby O.B. Hardison, Jr.nTom-Toms Along the AvonnWhat Joseph’s coat of many colorsnis to a London Fog raincoatnOntario’s Stratford Shakespearean Festivalnis to all other summer dramanfestivals. It was founded in 1953 bynTom Patterson, a Stratford journalist.nPatterson’s motives were varied but onenis obvious. If God had not intended anCanadian Shakespeare festival, why hadnHe named Patterson’s home...

triumph after a terrible ordeal that thenEnglish felt in the last year of the warnagainst Hitler. The film drew its energynat least as much from memories ofnDunkirk and the Battle of Britain asnfrom the Hundred Years War, andnOlivier called attention to that fact byndedicating it to “The Commandoesnand Airborne Troops of Great Britain.”nAgain, Roman Polanski’s...

a director. Would he be more comfortablenon a lecture platform than in thentheater? William also directed this season’snLove for Love, of which it can bensaid that the first act seems slow, thensecond slower, and the finale — a minuetnthat seems to be danced in molasses—nslower than the first and secondncombined. By the time it is...

for once how he might hope to bentaken seriously as a wooer. Colm Feorenis perfect as the fanatically jealousnFord, who, when disguised as MasternBrook, has to pretend to be vastlynamused by FalstafPs plan to seduce hisnwife.nDavid Storey’s Home gives Stratfordna chance to show its skill in contemporaryndrama. The play is about thenworld ending not with...