History
October 27, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same “offense.” She was taken to jail and later placed on indefinite probation. Colvin was 15 years old at the time. So why didn’t Colvin become a civil right hero? She cites three reasons. First, she wasn’t entirely non-violent.
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October 21, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
My conservative cousin, formerly of New York, looks at past instances in which leaders have been publicly abused by disenchanted citizens. He writes: There are plenty of precedents for political leaders being jeered by sports fans. In ancient Constantinople the appearance of the Emperor at chariot races sometimes caused jeering Hippodrome crowds to erupt in violence. American crowds are a bit less raucous in displaying disapproval of their leaders. Some
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October 19, 2021 — Scott Johnson
New Criterion editor and publisher Roger Kimball posed the question to “Visiting Critic” Conrad Black. Roger introduces Black and Black provides the answer to the question Roger posed in the New Criterion’s third annual Circle Lecture, posted online here and embedded below. Black discusses his lecture and other topics with New Criterion executive editor James Panero in an interview that is also posted at the link. The email alerting readers
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October 18, 2021 — Steven Hayward
Well, it appears Nicole Hannah-Jones, the impresario of the New York Times‘s egregiously awful 1619 Project, is at it again. No stealth corrections? How, then, does she explain these changes? Was the Times hacked? Move along, nothing to see here. (Hat tip: Phil Magness.) Chaser from the Times today: Jefferson Statue May Be Removed After More Than 100 Years at City Hall Black, Latino and Asian City Council members who
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October 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Yale classicist and historian Donald Kagan died this past August. In the current (October) issue of the New Criterion his former student Paul Rahe draws on his long relationship with Professor Kagan for the tribute “Donald Kagan, 1932–2021.” It is a moving portrait of a great teacher. Indeed, one can infer the qualities of a great teacher from Rahe’s portrait. It is worth reading and thinking through on that ground
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October 10, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Tomorrow is Columbus Day. Or, at least, it used to be. In many places around the country, like Minnesota, Columbus is out of favor. Last year, “activists” encouraged by the state’s governor and lieutenant governor tore down the statue of Christopher Columbus that stood on the grounds of the Minnesota Capitol. The statue has never been restored, and its removal exemplifies a new intellectual order premised on the belief that
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October 10, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Ruth R. Wisse is a leading scholar of Yiddish literature. To many conservatives, she is best known for her frequent contributions to Commentary magazine. Wisse has published her memoir. The book is called Free as a Jew: A Personal Memoir of National Self-Liberation. Cynthia Ozick, Wisse’s fellow Commentary comrade-in-arms, calls the book an “intellectual autobiography. . .of profound moral force and scathing political discernment.” I agree. The book begins with
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September 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I’ve watched every documentary that has popped up on cable about Muhammad Ali over the years and enjoyed them all. None annoyed me, or annoyed me as much as Ken Burns’s documentary Muhammad Ali (written and co-directed by Sarah Burns, Burns’s oldest daughter, and her husband, David McMahon). Running nearly eight hours over four episodes, the documentary includes extensive footage of Ali that makes it worth viewing. Despite its length,
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September 24, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Gen. Mark Milley proves that a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing when accompanied by a fevered imagination and barely a glimmer of analytical ability and common sense. James Hohmann of the Washington Post gushes that Milley “owns thousands of books in his personal library” and “attended Princeton before starting his climb up the officer’s ladder.” The general is
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September 15, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Jews begin the observance of Yom Kippur at sundown tonight with the Kol Nidre prayer service. Ten years ago our friend Rachel Paulose asked to join us at our service. Since then she has regularly attended the service with us and joined my family when we break our fast, as she will do again this year. The first time around she pointed in our prayer book to an adaptation of
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September 2, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Somewhere along the line, Joe Biden got a reputation for being empathetic. I’m not sure how this happened. It’s true that Biden seemed to empathize with the unborn, but that was before he seemed to empathize with pregnant women who want to destroy their unborn babies. He seemed to empathize with the victims of crime, but later seemed to empathize with the criminals who harm them. Actually, Biden cares only
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August 27, 2021 — Steven Hayward
The telos of the leftism’s new soft-on-crime mentality arrived today when a California parole board granted parole to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. The Los Angeles district attorney, the leftist George Gascon, declined to send anyone from the DA’s office (the LA DA prosecuted Sirhan back in 1969, and as such is the prosecutor of record for Sirhan) to lobby against Sirhan’s parole. It had
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August 15, 2021 — Steven Hayward
That Richard Nixon announced that the United States was abandoning the Bretton Woods monetary system that anchored the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce, and added on a helping of wage and price controls to boot. Here’s my narrative of the scene from volume 1 of The Age of Reagan: On a more substantive level, Nixon decided to do what he could to stimulate the economy with the federal
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August 4, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The big news out of Disney’s Magic Kingdom is the reopening of the Hall of Presidents after a long hiatus. The reopening featured the debut of animatronic Joe Biden. Walt Disney World News Today reported the story along with several photos and the video below (h/t Loree Hinderaker). In the Hall of Presidents lineup animatronic Joe stares ahead vacantly in a slightly more lifelike fashion than the character who struggles
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July 21, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Chris Flannery is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute and a contributing editor of the Claremont Review of Books. Chris holds down the fort for Claremont in The American Story podcast. It’s also linked over in our sidebar. In his current series of three podcasts — each just over six minutes in length — Chris takes up the question of slavery and the American founding. In the series he
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July 11, 2021 — Scott Johnson
This weekend comes news that the city of Charlottesville has officially removed the statue of Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park. Fox News story on the removal of the statue is posted reports: “Viewing areas for the removal of the statues were erected so that bystanders could watch cranes lift the statues from their plinth blocks; the process was nearly complete just before 9 a.m.” Politico reports: “Spectators by the
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July 7, 2021 — Scott Johnson
The case of Nikole Hannah-Jones stands at the crossroads of racial mania, journalistic degradation, historical fabrication, and educational descent. She appears to have walked out of an unwritten essay or novel by the late Tom Wolfe. Would that Wolfe were alive to do justice to her today. Spectator deputy editor Dominic Green puts me in mind of Wolfe in his column “The rights and wrongs of Nikole Hannah-Jones.” Here is
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