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Aaron D. Wolf is Chronicles' associate editor.
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Articles and Posts by Aaron-d-wolf:

  • Sexualizing Children: NBA Edition(46)

    The national celebration of sodomy continues thanks to Sports Illustrated‘s new cover story featuring the first “major sport” athlete to come out of the closet while still an active player.

  • Neocon 101: Art of the Pooh-Pooh(0)

    That stalwart set at National Review known as “The Editors” has done what it always does to a genuinely conservative display in the halls of power.  Far from a radical denunciation, which may invite a more thoughtful reading of events and sentences, they’ve taken to light pooh-poohing.  Rand Paul is providing “great entertainment,” and “We salute his brio.”  Yet please, they snortle: Drones are “suddenly the world’s most feared weapon”?  And just imagine the absurdity of a drone strike on Americans “at cafes”!  (Paging Janet Reno!)  Obviously, obviously a President who ordered such an attack would be impeached.  Senator Paul is “tilting at drones” and “fighting a phantom menace.”

    Reading that pooh-pooh reminded me of a key passage from Sam Francis’s “Neoconservatism and the Managerial Revolution” (collected in his indispensable book Beautiful Losers):

    “Neoconservatism rejected all forms of extremism and all suggestions of a need for far-reaching change. . . . Moderation, gradualism, empiricism, pragmatism, centrism became the watchwords of neoconservatism, whereby confrontation with the fundamental mechanisms and tendencies of the managerial system and fundamental changes suggested by either the Right or the Left were avoided.  In the neoconservative view of America, there was nothing seriously wrong with the society and government that had developed between the New Deal and the Great Society, and it was the goal of neoconservatives to communicate the soundness of the managerial system to the adversary intellectuals of the Left and to co-opt the militant activists of the New Right.”

  • Left-Wing Christians: A Failed Tradition(0)

    Tom Piatak has trained his sights on Garry Wills and emptied a large-capacity clip into him.  Be sure to read this excellent piece here.

  • Civil Unions and Kissing Cousins(18)

    From the archives: Aaron Wolf points out the hypocrisy in Illinois’ civil-unions legislation. Is there love that can be denied?

  • Handgun Culture(38)

    The tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut, eclipsed the conversation about Jovan Belcher, handguns, and domestic violence—not to mention one elephant in the room that is not likely to get much media attention. (From the January 2013 issue of Chronicles.)

  • The ACLU and the WNBA(0)

    Getting some play today is a news story from Cranston, Rhode Island, about a ridiculous decision by the Cranston school board banning father-daughter dances.  It’s the old pattern.  A girl felt left out because she had no one to take her to the father-daughter dance.  Mom called the ACLU.  The ACLU, which couldn’t care less about the feelings of teenage girls, used the mom’s disgruntlement to push its agenda of eliminating “gender stereotyping.”  One threat was enough to make the school board kneel in submission and avoid legal fees.

    What’s especially insidious is the language used by Rhode Island ACLU Exec. Dir. Steven Brown, in a statement issued on September 18: “the school district recognized that in the 21st Century, public schools have no business fostering the notion that girls prefer to go to formal dances while boys prefer baseball games. This type of gender stereotyping only perpetuates outdated notions of ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ activities and is contrary to federal law.”

    Of course there are no such things as girl and boy activities, which is why Rhode Island public schools have separate boys and girls basketball, cross country, ice hockey, indoor track, lacrosse, outdoor track, soccer, swimming, tennis, and volleyball.  I’m sure they have unisex locker rooms and showers, and I bet they’ve eliminated all urinals, as the very presence of those oppressive ceramic commodes would constitute, I dunno, genital-specific excretory discrimination.

    I’m sure they’d have great success if they’d just inaugurate some Father-Son Dances and Mother-Daughter Tractor Pulls.  I bet they’d be as popular as the WNBA.

  • Breaking: Some Yahoo Wrote a Paper(35)

    A scrap of papyrus contains the phrase “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife . . . ‘” before ending unceremoniously with a fibrous tear. And somehow, if the NYT and Harvard are to be believed, this changes everything. And it does—if by everything we mean nothing at all.

  • Chronicles Unbound on Facebook(0)

    Click here to see the Facebook page for Chronicles Unbound, the weekly live radio show and podcast of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

    Today, Srdja Trifkovic joins us live from Belgrade to talk about the surge of anti-Americanism in the Middle East and the killing of an American diplomat.

  • Mormon Apocalypse, Pt. 2(10)

    In response to the Republican National Convention, here’s Part 2 of Aaron Wolf’s analysis of American Exceptionalism as the fulfillment of Mormonism. (From the November 2010 issue of Chronicles.)

  • GOP: Adios, WASP!(0)

    I’d be the last one to suggest that the Republican National Convention should be a bastion of Christian orthodoxy, and I’m sure no one goes there for the liturgy.  But still.  The schedule ought to tell us something about the “values” of the GOP, don’t you think?  I mean priorities, what sort of face you want to show the world.

    Several have already pointed out the fact that, should Romney-Ryan win in November, we’ll have us the first dynamic White House duo in which neither is Protestant.  Yes, of course, none of us Prots should want to claim the Current Occupant, and it becomes a fun game if you go backwards down the list of PsOTUS with the Nicene Creed in your other hand and compare/contrast.  What I’m getting at is the symbolism.

    To the point: There is not one single WASP scheduled to deliver a prayer at the 2012 Republican National Convention.  Forget the Anglo-Saxon part of the acronym: There’s not one white Protestant scheduled to talk to God on behalf of the Republicans.  In fact, the only “P” on the list is the Rev. Sammy Rodriguez, “President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference,” a slicked-back Pentecostal holy roller who Tweets about what a bigot Sheriff Joe Arpaio is.  (Fun fact: Sammy’s wife, “the Rev. Eva Rodriguez,” offered the Benediction on Wednesday of 2008′s Republican National Carnival.)

    Tuesday kicks off with Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of New York City.  Wednesday opens with Ishwar Singh, a Sikh, and closes with His Eminence Methodios, Metropolitan of Boston.  And Thursday’s opening bell comes from Ken and Priscilla Hutchins, Mitt Romney’s friends who have likely received the Second Token of the Melchizedek Priesthood.  The affair will be brought to a close by His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

    Now I’m not trying to open a can of syncretistic worms, nor seeking a debate over prayers to the Triune God in a diverse room.  I’m just wondering: They couldn’t find one Southern Baptist whose face they wanted on the jumbotron? Or some pastor from an Evangelical Free Church, or a Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Willow Creeker, Fundamental Baptist, etc., etc.?

    You know, all those folks who represent the base?