First Word

Christian Incrementalists never tire of telling us that when it comes to election time, we should follow the principle of choosing the lesser of two evils. This principle constitutes the major premise of their syllogism which always concludes that we should vote for the leading Republican candidate. The minor premise is, of course, Rudy, Mitt, and Fred are less evil than Barack, John, and Hillary. Indeed, the premise is actually much stronger. Rudy, Mitt, and Fred are good while Barack, John, and Hillary are bad. (more…)

This is another post-reunification attempt to come to terms with the story of communist East Germany. Other efforts with this motive include two reviewed earlier in these pages, The Tunnel and Goodbye, Lenin.

The two parties to the conflict are several officers of the Stasi (state security force/secret police) on the one hand, and a circle of artistic types on the other. The Stasi group (led by Ulrich Mühe and Ulrich Tukur) is portrayed, not just with chilling and inhuman competence, but (more…)

This is one of those movies that is quite stunning and moving in the watching, but afterwards you realize you’ve been cheated. (more…)

Russian sub runs aground on New England island. Crew comes ashore to try to acquire a power-boat to help dislodge the sub. As more and more islanders realize there are Russians around (recall: this is at height of cold War), crazy, tongue-in-cheek panic breaks out everywhere. At length, an armed Mexican standoff between the Russians and islanders develops, when a boy falling out of a church window leads to an unexpected resolution. (more…)

During Churchill’s brief tenure as a junior officer stationed in India, he occupied his time in four main activities. (1) playing as much polo as possible; (2) taking long vacations – far more than were normally permitted to a young officer in India; (3) systematically reading through classics, to attempt to remedy his deficient formal education. The reading program was in service to ambition, not knowledge for its own sake. Macaulay, Gibbon, Plato and others, he wrote to his mother, “must train the muscles to wield the sword to the greatest effect” (Gilbert 70). The fourth activity may have required the least amount of actual time, but was probably the most important for understanding his future course: namely, there was scarcely an armed conflict anywhere in the world which he failed to inveigle himself to the front lines of. (more…)

There are many dates that are full of meaning for Americans. July 4, December 7, and November 22 each mark pivotal events in our history. When historians write about the downfall of America (which is coming sooner rather than later) 911 will be seen as the pivotal date. It will not be seen as the beginning of the end, that goes back to the 1860’s if not June 21, 1788, but as the beginning of the end of the end. (more…)

Winston Churchill was educated in four schools. First, was St George’s near Ascot, where he attended from age 7 to 9. The main thing of note here is that the physical discipline was quite harsh, in the manner that has been made famous by English “public schools” of that period; only more so. Delicate health led to transfer to Brighton, where the family doctor resided. Next was prep-school Eton-competitor Harrow, aged 13-17. Winnie was not a particularly good student, and at some point Lord Randolph decided on a military trajectory for his career (but noting that, if worse came to worst, he could tap his connections with the Rothschild family to get Winny started in a business career [Gilbert 32]). (more…)

Earlier, I broached the subject of the ethnic epithet. There are two issues that still need to be explored: (1) should some kind of distinction be made between the merely ethnic and the racial? and (2) in any case, is there something ethical that needs to be spoken to this usage?

Prior to addressing these questions, however, there is a bit more “phenomenology” that should be unpacked (more…)

It is traditional in biography to begin with some notes on genealogy: a bit of background on members upward on the family tree.

Little Winston Spencer Churchill was born into partial British nobility on the father’s side, and American wealth (more…)

One of the stock political villains of my Republican youth was George McGovern. As a teenager with a head addled by congeries of contradictory ideas that perhaps only the Republican Party of the second half of the twentieth century has had the audacity to simultaneously advocate (small government, yet world imperialism; low taxes, yet massive welfare state; localism, yet pro-“civil rights” movement), I saw McGovern as the epitome at once of socialism and stupidity. Never mind that there was not much content behind my judgment. (more…)