Category: Imported

came to their aid.nIn 1910 Britain created a dominion, the “Union of SouthnAfrica,” from the Cape, Natal Provinces, and the twonformer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Innthis new, almost independent state, the British and thenAnglophile Afrikaner minority collaborated for 38 years andnformed a parliamentary majority, the Union Party, whichnwas eventually defeated by...

221 CHRONICLESnpractically disappeared. (To all intents and purposes, thoughnnot yet legally and politically, the Blacks in social mattersnenjoy the same status as the “Colored” in the UnitednStates.) Any Black who has the necessary gray matter andnthe will to work hard can “make it,” and many of them do.nIn 1987 a new law provided equal pay...

Yet in Brazil color does not have the significance it has innNorth America, South Africa, or (theoretically at least) innChina. (Before the Red takeover in China, Eurasian studentsnoften suffered agonies, as Bishop Hsii of Hong Kongnexplained to me.) In an absolute monarchy, just as in antotally free market economy, not race but primarily meritncounts: intelligence,...

have all sorts of chances). No, the victims are either Blacksnkilled by the predominantly Black police quelling organizednriots or (mostiy) Blacks killed by other, hostile Blacks.nNelson Mandela’s wife has repeatedly menaced politicalnopponents of her jailed husband with the “necklace”ntreatment (a tire tube filled with gasoline, put around thenneck of the victim and set ablaze). The...

261 CHRONICLESnof Dr. King is becoming a national tradition. Last year thenvictim was another sports figure, Los Angeles Dodgersnofficial Al Campanis, who was asked on ABC-TV’s Nightlinenabout black athletic performance and wound upndiscoursing on the comparative buoyancy of the races whennimmersed in water. He too got his clock cleaned by hisnemployers, and though the incident...

ative of social reconstruction — then the delegitimization ofnthe traditional symbols, values, and institutions of America isnnot only in order but also long overdue, and the radicalnreconstruction of American society is not only a legitimatengoal but also the principal legitimate goal of our nationalnendeavors.nDr. King understood this well himself, expressing it in thenThe Scoundrels’ RefugenCanada,...

281 CHRONICLESnit occurs to no one to ask why his dreams should prevail overnthe less grandiose dreams of others. Like all charismaticnprophets, he was the fount of his own authority, and hisnprivate visions were intended to become law for lesser men.nAmong the several hills and mountains that await loweringnby the new god and his gnostic...

roots of Western predominance. The demand for thenchange at Stanford, according to news reports, was led bynblack, Hispanic, and Asian students, who denounced thentraditional curriculum as a “year-long class in racism.”nThe point, of course, is not that the establishment of thenKing holiday makes the extirpation of the traditional symbolsnof American and Western civilization inevitable —nanti-American...

crack unit of the Armed Forces of the Independent State ofnCroatia. From time to time Signal, the Nazi version oiLife,nran stories on Germany’s loyal allies, the Croats. ThenIndependent State repaid its debt by exterminating thenBalkan Lumpengesindel and sending Ustashe to fight atnStalingrad.nMy father, gravely wounded, did not kill himself thatnnight. A woman soldier stayed his...

321 CHRONICLESnWherever the Bosnian Serbs went, the Bosnian Croats andnthe Bosnian Moslems went the other way. Fascism, communism,ndemocracy, even Christianity and Islam were justnnames. Balkan ethnic identity—tenuous, often imaginarynand hence imperishable — was all.nIn Hercegovina, families like the Sokolovici had split intonSerbs, Croats, and Moslems, depending upon when certainnrelatives had changed their faith. Initially Serb,...

care. If a Great Albania means mutilating Serbian cattle,nburning Serb fields and orchards, desecrating Orthodoxnchurches, monasteries, and cemeteries, maiming and murderingnindividual Serbs, too bad. Tomorrow, streets andnsquares will bear the irredentist’s names (Gavrilo Princip hasna street in Belgrade).nNo man happy, none complete,nNo man peaceful, none serene.nEach ceaselessly outraging the other.nEach an ape before the mirror!nsang...

a new cultural emphasis on stabilizingnmechanical and personnel operations,nreducing inefhciency through Taylorizationnand time-and-motion studies,nand eliminating waste in materials andnmethods. She finds that the marvel ofnmachinery temporarily made the engineernone of our cultural heroes, thatntechnological and business valuesnbegan to color the thinking of Americans,nand that machines and technologicalnoperations began to be thematizednin literature. For some, even...

have been channeled into a differentncourse? Could the woeful mistakesn— committed by all parties involvedn— have been obviated? Could thenSouth have been spared the war’s legacynof poverty, bitterness, and racialnantagonism?nCertainly the agents of the AMAnwould have answered yes to the lastnquestion, for they saw the moment asnripe for rectifying old errors, extirpatingncancers from the body...

421 CHRONICLESnLetter FromnMinneapolisnby Herbert SchlossbergnGoing HomenThe taxi ride to Manhattan after thenfirst shuttle flight of the day from Washingtonnpuzzled me. Why did scenesnthat should have been familiar fromn30-odd years before seem so new andnstrange? I was the Brooklynite who hadngrown up on the buses (and beforenthem the trolleys) and the subways ofnthe city — and...

with great relief—for the Army inn1954.nThe spindly sycamore tree that mynfather had planted in front of thenhouse and kept erect with an elaboratencircular fence, rubber stays, and guynwires was now somewhat misshapennbecause of lopsided pruning. But it hadngrown very large and stretched over tonthe other side of the street where itnjoined the top of another...

441 CHRONICLESnRepublic. Chartered in 1892, the clubnis, among other things, a year oldernthan the earthly remains of Mao Tsetung,na cultural hero to one-time studentsnwho are nowadays running thenshow in the major media.nThe Pen & Pencil sponsors Wednesdaynevening off-the-record sessionsnwith a variety of newsmakers (in bothnsenses of that word). The eveningnbefore the election promised to bensomewhat...

and for all.nThe campaign had thus fearfullynoffered to force attention on The SubjectnWe Can’t Talk About — i.e., hownthe civil rights movement has degeneratedninto a system for rewarding ornpenalizing entire classes of people accordingnto the color of their skin, ornsome other official designation of theirnstatus as either victims or oppressors.nWhile the media dogged Rizzo onnthe...

4BI CHRONICLESnto find out that it does — againstnyou — if you are white. Rizzo couldnnever articulate this very well, and thenmedia would never discuss it. But thenfrustration was real, and since Goodencouldn’t live up to his fairy-tale medianimage, this instance of reverse discriminationnonly deepened it.nDespite any number of opportunities,nRizzo committed no suicidalnblunders to speak...

the view of humanity was Hmited tonthe members of the immediate tribe.nKiUing was murder only when donenwithin the tribe. Those who did itnoutside the tribe gained social andnpolitical standing as well as materialnwealth through plundering the goodsnof the deceased. Such had been theirnattitude long before the coming ofnEuropeans. When battles went againstna tribe, slavery —...

481 CHRONICLESnty, not men of hate; and men ofnbreadth of spirit and understanding,nnot men who preach meanness andnmisunderstanding.nTo the extent that both Indian andnwhite have denied one another thenstatus of responsible humans, bothnhave demeaned the repubHcan ideal.nTo the extent that hatred and war havenprevailed, we have belittled the idealsnand concepts of the Founding Fathers—nand desecrated...

But there was no question whose regionnwe were in.nSometime recently, though, wenpassed a tipping point that’s as easy tonrecognize as it is hard to define. Therenare now so many newcomers thatnthey’re no longer just the seasoning innthe stew; they’ve become a lumpyningredient in their own right, one thatnshows no signs of dissolving. Peoplenfrom places like...

50 / CHRONICLESngroups to do a lot of “sharing” (thendeathless liberal shibboleth, perhapsnbecause of its socialist implications —nalthough, come to think of it, peoplenwho use it a lot love to “share” theirnfeelings and opinions but rarely offernme any of their money).nI’m a slow learner. I should havencaught on, but the more evasive theynwere, the more...

Stalin. . . . Mr. Tebbit’s toughnaction was signalled by hisnreaction to the Stockton attacknin August. He interrupted hisnholiday to issue an apology tonthe former Conservative PrimenMinister and to denounce thenarticle as “disgracefijl.”nBut no sooner had Mr. Tebbit resumednhis holiday . . . Early in 1987nr/ie Times reported:nThe spectre of the Cossacksnwho were murdered after...

in the Old City. There they sangnpatriotic songs and chanted ‘freedom,nfreedom.’ Some wore black armbandsnto commemorate Lithuanians who fellnvictim to Stalin.” Reports from Riga,nthe capital of Latvia, spoke of “a crowdnof 2,000 gathering to protest againstnSoviet influence in the republic,” andna similar demonstration took place innTallin. Simultaneously, “Long newspapernarticles gave the Soviet interpretationnof the 1939...

British officer, Major DenisnHills, who was unsympathetic [!]nto the notion of repatriation.nBritish policy, however, wasnclear: if any of the Ukraniansnwere Russians, they would benreturned [my italics].nPoor Major Hills! Unsympathetic to thennotion of murder! He must have been anUkrainian, not a Russian like Mr.nGecas or Mr. Linnas . . .nBut back to Count Tolstoy. On Januaryn25...

S4 I CHRONICLESnPOP CULTUREnMusic of the Peersnby Gary VasilashnI recently attended a performance bynthe quartet known as Montreux, angroup which, as you may know, recordsnfor Windham Hill. I had first seennMontreux perform a couple years backnduring Detroit’s international jazz festivalnthat’s called, coincidentally enough,nMontreux/Detroit. Those whose sensibilitiesnwere shaped by rock and rollnmay know Montreux-the-city onlynthrough the...

ber of units will continue to rise.nAs is well-known and documented,nrecord companies (will they becomenknown as tape and disc companies?)nhave an obvious financial interest innpushing the acts that will sell the greatestnnumber of units. Marginal acts arensimply too expensive to support in anmarket where even a Bruce Springsteenncan sag. The additional expenses relatednto CD’s —...

CS-LiuynIJwChwkhil YOURS FREEnYou may have started reading these stories around the age ofneight. And it’s safe to say you’ll still be reading them at 88. Nownthe children you love can meet…n”The Christian author kids lilce best”n—CATHOLIC TWIN CIRCLEn”The books offer excitement and adventure enough to pleasenrestless young readers, and Christian teaching transparentnenough ‘to get the...

4 I CHRONICLESnCui bono? That is the question to asknnow that the fur and feathers havensettled from the celebrated Januarynmatch between gamecock Vice PresidentnBush and wildcat Dan Rather.nClearly the answer is George Bush.nBefore the encounter Bush had twonserious liabilities: a general impressionnof wimpishness and a lingering taint (atnleast among grass roots conservatives)nof Liberal Republicanism.nAll that,...

breathtaking. There is even a surprising,nperhaps significant element of militarynmetaphor: combative, powerful,nforceful, penetrating, attacking onnevery front. One book, all by itself, isnfull, rigorous, perceptive, subtle, faithful,neducational, path-breaking, andnoriginal — all in three sentences. This,nthough, is a book about Derrida, andnthe reader is Derrida, so we shouldnprobably make some allowances fornuncritical enthusiasm, even for egotismnand coxcombry.nIn...

BI CHRONICLESnand a conservative. When the newneditor of the American Journal of Philology,na European with many commentariesnand critical editions to hisncredit, opined that it was still interestingnto discover what a word meant in anspecific context, there was a specialnopen session held at the annual professionalnmeetings where some 50 peoplenmocked the idea that “in 1987 anyonencould...

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81 CHRONICLESnPERSPECTIVEnHOMAGE TO T.S. ELIOT by Thomas FlemingnNineteen eighty-eight is the centennial year of T.S. Eliot’snbirth, and there is sure to be a flood of tributes to a writernthat has changed the course of poetry and criticism andnwhose reactionary pronouncements on politics and religionnhave been an inspiration to conservatives of every description.nInstead of offering to...

understanding. Like miners in pursuit of subterranean gold,nwe have turned Llooming landscapes of the spirit into slagnheaps as poisonous as they are ugly. In our relentless searchnfor knowledge, nothing is spared, nothing is sacred, not evennthat inner man or woman we think of, from our earliestnyears, as our real self. Beginning with Freud’s first crudenattempts,...

There is, however, an essential difference between thenCubist painters and the poetry of Pound and Eliot: althoughnthe technique is similar, a painting nevertheless presents anreality while a poem tells a story. Or said another way: anpainting is static whereas a poem elapses. Regardless of this,nthe true origin of this simultaneous manner of representingnreality was still...

essential affinity and agreement between philosophy andnpoetry. And this again has to do with the plainness ofnlanguage. But first of all I have to say what Aristotle andnThomas mean. They mean what they say: Philosophy andnpoetry are both dealing with what they call the mirandum.nThe mirandum means that which gives rise, or which oughtnto give...

biographical studies and some illuminating personal recollectionsnabout the man — including Herbert Howarth’snFigures Behind T.S. Eliot, T.S. Matthews’ Great Tom, and,nmost recently, Peter Ackroyd’s T.S. Eliot: A Life. But suchnbooks are “unauthorized,” written without the assistancenof—and without the information possessed by — Eliot’snwidow, Valerie; hence, there is still the nagging suspicionnthat Old Possum indeed had...

161 CHRONICLESnAutumn Daynby Rainer Maria Rilken(translated by Alban Coventry)nLord! It is time. The summer days were full;nNow lay thy shadows on the warm sundials,nAnd loose the wind upon these grassy isles;nBid the unfallen fruits ripen and swell;nGrant them just two more days of sunny clime;nUrge them to their perfection and instillnThe final sweet into the...

;« / CHRONICLESnelaborate set of electric trains. He readily admitted it. “Inhave no general ideas to exploit,” he once said, “I just likencomposing riddles with elegant solutions.” And here, it isnnot the words “general ideas” which should alert us (afternall, what great writer except, perhaps, the later Tolstoynwould openly proclaim his concern for “general ideas”)...

him. Thus, Edmund Wilson, who was Nabokov’s truenfriend till the publication of Lolita catapulted Nabokov intonstardom and wealth, presented him with a copy of To thenFinland Station with the inscription: “To Vladimir Nabokovnin the hope that this may make him think better of Lenin.”nWith Nabokov, however, such hopes were bound to fail.nNabokov never truly belonged...

learning, a place where Bergson used to teach. The thesis isnthat Greek thinkers understood their function not as schoolmastersnbut as therapeutes of the soul. Rather than speak ofnthe “unity of Western philosophy,” we might, withoutndenying this aspect of speculation, add to it an aspect ofndiscontinuity, the break occurring by the 12th century whennScholastics, later the...

221 CHRONICLESnQuartet (Quarteto)nby Octavio Pazn(translated by Michael Schmidt)nOre, fermate il volone, carolando intornona I’alba mattutinanch’esce de la marina,nI’umana vita ritardate e’l giorno.n— TassonI.nKNOWN yet always strange, the lie of the land,nthe riddle of the palm of one’s own hand.nThe ocean sculpts in each wave, stubbornly,nthe monument in which it falls away.nAgainst the sea, a will...

24 / CHRONICLESnjoined them.n”Aye!” someone shouted and thousands threw their capsnin the air, thundering, “Hurrah!” after the Serdar reviewednthem.nWith his scimitar, the Serdar pointed across the river andnthe men cheered and stomped towards the fords. Soon, theirnred vests choked the river, churned by shot and rifle fire.nThe Montenegrins scrambled up the other bank and raisedna...

The Highlanders, drawn up in uneven, frozen ranksnabove the plain, merely looked at him.n”With God’s help then, let us avenge our shame! Christnis Born!” cried the Serdar.n”Indeed He is Born!” shouted the Montenegrins andnheld up their long, Russian rifles.n^ ‘^ ^nVukota watched the Austro-Hungarians advance throughnthe drifts, shouting. Their skirmishers lay in the snow, thennrose...

261 CHRONICLESnshall be punished. Long live the House of Savoy!” and hensnapped the Roman salute.nIn the meanwhile, Vukota and other refugees climbednthe trail to Trmanje.nH; ^ H<nNot long after, Communists came to Rovca: MarkannVlahovic and Vujica Sobajic, both commissars.n”Dad,” Markan said, “we need help in organizingnRovca.”nVukota looked at his eldest son, hard, noting the crisscrossednleather...

In the ramshackle Kolasin prison, Vukota received hisncousin Panto Vlahovic.n”You’ve got to escape,” whispered Panto to Vukota, whilenthe Chetnik guard slouched by the door. “Friday night thenguards will not be watchful — nobody but that dog LjubonMinic wants to see an elder shot. Take this,” said Pantonloudly and handed Vukota a bundle.n”The visit’s over,” said...

set down, Octavio Paz will be included,nand he will stand out among the othernnames as one who deliberately fashionednhimself into this kind of poet, anman who realized there was a choice tonbe made, a position to fill.nThere was first of all the matter ofnapprenticeship. We cannot say that Paznis the disciple of any single poet...

30 ‘/ CHRONICLESnbecame philosophy,nits drivel has covered thenplanet.nThe warmest attraction of these linesnis the evident fact that they are writtennmore in sorrow than in anger. Thenbelated recognition of common humannfrailty in the youthful utopists is a freshntheme and genuinely pathetic. In ordernto write these lines, the poet has hadnfirst to experience, and then to over-nLiberal...

321 CHRONICLESnperiod kept their options open and theirnpowder dry as they cast about for somethingnand someone to adhere to. Mr.nSmith correctly notes that “the propernstudy of treason … is the study of thenentire sink and puddle of sixteenthcenturynpolitics.” Also correctly, hendwells on the ineptitude of Tudor traitors,nwho often detailed their conspiraciesnin letters to each other...

ership and bending to every breeze ofnforeign exchanges, and where crucialnforeign poHcy decisions are vetoed bynaUies in Europe, Japan, and the MiddlenEast, how can anyone expect routinenfaithfulness to, much less willingnessnto risk life and fortune for, thenfatherland? What is extraordinary isnnot that there are so many traitors andnspies in contemporary America butnthat there are so...