Just in time for spring, the winter 2009 issue of the Claremont Review of Books (subscribe here ) has been published. Taken as a whole, this may be the richest issue of the magazine yet published. RealClearPolitics has already posted editor Charles Kesler’s editorial on the Tea Party movement. Our friends at the CRB have given us the opportunity of selecting three pieces to preview here for our readers. We’ll be following up this post with the issue’s two articles on Winston Churchill on Thursday. Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is one of the best books published in the past year. It joins Mark Steyn’s America Alone , Bat Yeor’s Eurabia , Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept and Melanie Phillips’s Londonistan on a small bookshelf of books addressing the Islamization of Europe. In “The Incoming Tide,” Professor Gerard Alexander concisely relates Caldwell’s argument that a constant influx of Muslim immigrants is weakening the bonds that hold Europe together. Meanwhile, most Europeans have failed to muster the courage to defend their way of life. Professor Alexander holds out hope that the Islamic fervor gripping Europe’s Muslim population might fade in a decade or two. This hope is tempered by his lack of confidence that Europe, in every sense of the term, can afford to wait it out.
This new Robert Alter book, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible , sounds terrific. On the same theme, I very much enjoyed Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired .
This new Robert Alter book, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible , sounds terrific. On the same theme, I very much enjoyed Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired .
In Impromptus today , I mention Orlando Zapata Tamayo — the Cuban political prisoner who died on Tuesday after a hunger strike. He was an amazingly brave and valuable man. I will write about him more in the next issue of NR. There is one thing I did not say in my column (well, many things, but I’m thinking of one in particular). The support for the Cuban dictatorship among free peoples, such as Americans, rests on three myths: 1) The regime has been good for black people (“Afro-Cubans”). 2) The regime has made Cubans literate. 3) The regime has set up excellent health care, which we should all envy.
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Today, in 1778, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben arrived at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to begin formal training of the Continental Army. The Minutemen and state Militias were important in the early days of the Revolution, but we didn’t win Independence until we had a professional, disciplined regular Army. Something to keep in mind this year.
Keep beating that chicken. “Plainclothes beat Zahra Rahnavard by baton when she tried to attend the revolution Day rally in Tehran,” Mousavi’s website Kalemeh reported. “She was rescued by Mousavi’s supporters.” More protests as Iran’s theocracy celebrates its 30th blood-drenched…
Keep beating that chicken. “Plainclothes beat Zahra Rahnavard by baton when she tried to attend the revolution Day rally in Tehran,” Mousavi’s website Kalemeh reported. “She was rescued by Mousavi’s supporters.” More protests as Iran’s theocracy celebrates its 30th blood-drenched…
I would ordinarily offer THIS story with a title of “Offered without Comment” but I have a couple I must present for consideration: Iran is now a ‘nuclear state’, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced this morning. He spoke as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Tehran to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution. There are fears of violence as opposition and pro-government supporters are expected to meet at rallies in a show of popular strength unmatched since the revolution itself.
Frances Fox Piven, honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America , can arguably be considered the mother of ACORN. At least, her ideas and theories set ACORN, and its parent, the National Welfare Rights Organization, onto a path of creating and manipulating crisis situations to further their agenda of a more equal “distribution of wealth” in America. In other words, socialism. It’s a path, I believe, that runs contrary to our country’s original intent. But Piven doesn’t think so. In her book, “Challenging Authority,” she quoted both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. What I found most bizarre was the apparent disconnect in Piven’s mind between individual rights and property rights, particularly the idea of acquiring as much wealth as one wishes without fear of government encroachment
With her quip, “America is ready for another revolution,” Palin wins the understatement of the year award. The revolution has already begun; just ask Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), and Bob McDonnell (R-Va.).
