Archive for September, 2010

Joseph Sobran, R.I.P.

We are sad to announce that Joe Sobran has passed away. In the comments attached to this post you will find some brief remembrances of our friend and colleague from the editors of, and contributors to, Chronicles. Grant to your servant, O Lord, blessed repose and eternal memory.

—The Editors

The Wrongs of Women’s Rights II: Coverture

In the Anglo-American tradition of Common Law, the status of wives was defined by the principle of coverture, which meant that the wife’s legal identity was merged with that of her husband. When Hamlet is taken to task for addressing his stepfather as “mother,” he replies: “Father and mother is man and wife, man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother.”

The Message of Tokyo’s Kowtow

The Chinese have just made a serious strategic blunder. They dropped the mask and showed their scowling face to Asia, exposing how the Middle Kingdom intends to deal with smaller powers, now that she is the largest military and economic force in Asia and second largest on earth.

A Nation Starting (Maybe) to Turn

A nation of 300 million souls—richest and most powerful in the world, for all its messes and perturbations—needs a turning radius wide as the future. But you know what—realization precedes intellectual assent, which precedes needed action. There’s much to be hopeful about as the nation goes in for its electoral physical.

Re: Despicable Tedium

Tom, you must be joking.   Whatever else Nolan is, dreary he’s not.   His films have refreshed and elevated popular entertainment.  Employing the tool box made available by contemporary filmmaking technologies, he never settles for what other directors so often do today: spectacle for spectacle sake.  His films from Memento onward challenge the audience [...]

The Wrongs of Women’s Rights

The recent decision to deploy women on submarines has been hailed as a victory in the continuing struggle to liberate women from the oppression of the domineering male sex. Conservatives have generally deplored the move, citing the inevitable sexual tensions and lowering of morale that will result from putting young males and females in such close quarters for long periods of time.

Bill Clinton and the Ground Zero Mosque: A Perfect Fit

Former President Bill Clinton declared his strong support for the Ground Zero mosque in an interview broadcast on September 12. He also suggested a clever new spin to the promoters of the project. Much or even most of the controversy, he said, “could have been avoided, and perhaps still can be, if the people who want to build the center were to simply say, We are dedicating this center to all the Muslims who were killed on 9/11.”

The Worst GOP Candidate In History

“Conservative” Joseph DioGuardi’s “sensational” election as the GOP Senate candidate in New York has shaken up the Republican Party, gloats the Tropoja-based Albanian Minerals President M. Mujaj. What Mr. Mujaj does not mention is that former Congressman DioGuardi is the founder and well endowed president of the Albanian American Civic League, a lobby group for the KLA-run “independent” province of “Kosova.”

Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner

“Blacks for Gray, Whites for Fenty,” ran the nuanced headline on page one of the Washington Examiner. The story told of how black Mayor Adrian Fenty, who got rave reviews for appointing Michelle Rhee to save District of Columbia schools, was crushed six to one in black wards east of the Anacostia River, as he rolled up margins of three to one in the white wards west of Rock Creek Park.

Atheism: What a Joke

Assuming, no doubt, our anxious world could use a good laugh, Stephen Hawking undertakes to provide one. He says the universe created itself. The theory itself isn’t the joke. The joke is the dogged persistence of atheists trying in the face of common sense to persuade the world as to the wisdom they see in their every utterance. Another way of putting it would be, atheism is the joke.