…(or–forgive the pun–perhaps “oxymorons?”) Historian Vincent J. Cannato has an op-ed in the Washington Post rightly critical of historians’ tendency to make instant judgments of Presidencies, both of Bush and others. I always thought historians were those who wrote about … Continue reading →
North Korea is a country formed by a war that never ended. Pacifists are fond of saying that war never solves anything. I beg to differ–war, for example, solved the problem of Adolf Hitler and German expansionist aggressiveness, although at … Continue reading →
I’m with Winston Churchill when he said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Truly democratic states, with guarantees of human rights and freedom of speech, press, and religion, are precious and yet rare … Continue reading →
It’s been a long time coming, but vindication is finally here for astronaut Neil Armstrong. That’s actually–ahem–Neil A. Armstrong. Don’t forget that A, like Armstrong did! Except it turns out he didn’t forget it, he just spoke it too quickly … Continue reading →
I’m going to talk about Iran and regime change. But first I’m going to take a detour for some news of the day. The latter may seem totally unrelated to the former, but please bear with me: though this be … Continue reading →
[Parts I and II.] For anyone who was alive at the time and old enough to pay attention to the news, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Revolution is the hostage … Continue reading →
Richard Fernandez of Belmont Club has posted the entire text of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 Harvard Commencement speech, in which the then-exiled Russian warned the Western world that its time might be up soon if it didn’t get religion. That’s a … Continue reading →
This piece from the Atlantic Monthly Online, “The Desert One Debacle,” about the Carter administration’s attempt to rescue the embassy hostages in Iran in 1980, is a sobering read. I vaguely remember the incident–just one in a long line of … Continue reading →
Christopher Hitchens (previously no special friend of Israel’s) deconstructs Juan Cole’s Dowdification of Ahmadinejad’s threats to Israel in this Slate article (via Austin Bay) entitled “The Cole Report: when it comes to Iran, he distorts, you decide.” Hitchens’s contention is … Continue reading →
One of my favorite authors is Milan Kundera. Yes, I know, I’ve said it before–I’ve discussed Kundera’s work here and here, as well as here and here. So, why Kundera yet again (and I doubt this will be the last … Continue reading →
Part of an interesting piece by Dr. Horsefeathers on the subject of Kipling, posted some time ago (ignore the spambot dump that the comments section of that post has managed to become) , is the following observation on Kipling and … Continue reading →
Gerard Van der Leun has written a rumination on the return of history, post-9/11. I offer a few excerpts here, although they don’t really capture the full flavor of the thing (to do that, it needs to be read as … Continue reading →