National Review articles from September 2005

National Review archives from September 2005

Challenging Chavez.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
September 12, 2005... NATIONAL REVIEW does its readers a great disservice by publishing "The Chavez Challenge" by Mark Falcoff (August 29). Many of his basic facts are incorrect, and his conclusions do not follow from his own reporting. Minimizing the...

Not so intelligent.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
September 12, 2005... While many, including me, may be partial to the points made in "For Devolution" (The Week, August 29), I cannot accept the halfhearted neutrality into which the editorial eventually falls. NR should have explicitly stated opposition to teaching...

London will apparently crack down on Al-Tajdeed Radio, which preaches violent jihad.(The Week)
September 12, 2005... * London will apparently crack down on Al-Tajdeed Radio, which preaches violent jihad. But what about the BBC?

Let's say you're a Democratic senator.(The Week)(John Roberts)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... Let's say you're a Democratic senator. In the last few weeks, you've been having some, well, impure thoughts about the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts. Maybe he should be confirmed, you think, or, at least, maybe you should not try to...

"Roberts Resisted Women's Rights," headlined a front-page Washington Post article examining memos the Supreme Court nominee wrote as a young counsel in the Reagan White House.(judicial nominee John Roberts)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * Roberts Resisted Women's Rights," headlined a front-page Washington Post article examining memos the Supreme Court nominee wrote as a young counsel in the Reagan White House. "Neanderthal," proclaimed NOW president Kim Gandy about Judge...

The "Able Danger" controversy is a moving target.(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * The "Able Danger" controversy is a moving target. Able Danger was a late-1990s Defense intelligence program; some of its officials now allege that it identified Mohamed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as terrorists early in 2000-over a...

Ohio's Bob Taft was never our favorite governor.(The Week)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * Ohio's Bob Taft was never our favorite governor. Although a Republican, he oversaw steep spending increases and received one of only four failing grades in the Cato Institute's latest fiscal-policy report card. Governor "Taft and Spend"...

William Weld, Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997, now wants to be governor of New York.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * William Weld, Republican governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997, now wants to be governor of New York. If Weld won, he would repeat the feat of Sam Houston in becoming governor of two states (Tennessee and Texas), though how Weld might...

In the teeth of fierce accusations of "racism" and "elitism" by opponents, and with the support of Mayor Shirley Franklin (who is black), the city council of Atlanta has enacted a measure to ban panhandling from a large zone of the city's downtown.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * In the teeth of fierce accusations of "racism" and "elitism" by opponents, and with the support of Mayor Shirley Franklin (who is black), the city council of Atlanta has enacted a measure to ban panhandling from a large zone of the city's...

Was there anyone not offended by our August 8 cover of Sen. Charles Schumer as an inquisitor?(The Week ...)
September 12, 2005... * Was there anyone not offended by our August 8 cover of Sen. Charles Schumer as an inquisitor? Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center thought the depiction of Schumer with a prominent nose "would make Julius Streicher proud," while William...

The druggies' drug of choice these days seems to be meth, but the drug warriors' drug of choice is still pot.(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * The druggies' drug of choice these days seems to be meth, but the drug warriors' drug of choice is still pot. Dr. Sally Satel, of the American Enterprise Institute, explained why in a recent essay in the New York Times. The White House Office...

In the Iraqi city of Mosul, Faris Yunis Abdullah and two other Sunni election workers were putting up voting posters.(The Week ...)
September 12, 2005... * In the Iraqi city of Mosul, Faris Yunis Abdullah and two other Sunni election workers were putting up voting posters. The three men were abducted and then publicly murdered by gunmen, one of whom declared: "This is the punishment for those...

The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (created by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003) held hearings recently in San Francisco.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (created by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003) held hearings recently in San Francisco. Victims told their stories; stones would weep. "What they took from me went beyond sex," said a...

The Israeli military evacuated the last Jewish settlers from Gaza.(The Week ...)
September 12, 2005... * The Israeli military evacuated the last Jewish settlers from Gaza. The pathos of their eviction is that they were encouraged by a string of Israeli leaders, including Ariel Sharon in an earlier incarnation, to move to Gaza in the first place....

The campaign against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq has scrambled the geopolitical cards far and wide.(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... The campaign against terror in Afghanistan and Iraq has scrambled the geopolitical cards far and wide. Previously unthinkable, democracy has now reached Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Ukraine, and neighboring China and Russia, two would-be...

Hawaii senator Daniel Akaka, a Democrat, is proposing legislation that would allow native Hawaiians to govern themselves in the same manner as American Indians.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * Hawaii senator Daniel Akaka, a Democrat, is proposing legislation that would allow native Hawaiians to govern themselves in the same manner as American Indians. Akaka ran into a bit of trouble recently when he acknowledged to NPR one possible...

Poor Kofi Annan. It must be so hard to run the world when everyone around you is a crook.(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * Poor Kofi Annan. It must be so hard to run the world when everyone around you is a crook. There's Benon Sevan, former head of the Oil for Food program, who hightailed it to Cyprus when he was accused of salting away $147,000 in program funds;...

The appointment of Jay Lefkowitz as the new U.S. human-rights envoy for North Korea might be dismissed as an exercise in futility.
September 12, 2005... * The appointment of Jay Lefkowitz as the new U.S. human-rights envoy for North Korea might be dismissed as an exercise in futility. Kim Jong-Il has built a state apparatus so pathologically cruel, and so isolated from the rest of the world,...

John Paul II founded World Youth Day, a periodic religious gathering, and conditioned us to see such events as Roman Catholic Woodstocks (minus drugs, sex, and most of the mud).(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * John Paul II founded World Youth Day, a periodic religious gathering, and conditioned us to see such events as Roman Catholic Woodstocks (minus drugs, sex, and most of the mud). Benedict XVI, attending his first such event in Cologne, drew a...

We are told ad nauseam that European diplomacy is superior to George W. Bush's "unilateralism.".(Irani nuclear program)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * We are told ad nauseam that European diplomacy is superior to George W. Bush's "unilateralism." Since naming Iran part of the Axis of Evil, the unilateralist has acted in fine multilateral fashion, backing Europe's efforts to bribe the...

Primary reform.(presidential nominations)
September 12, 2005... Every four years, America goes to the polls to elect a president, which invariably leads to complaints about how we choose our nation's leader--a process that begins with the inordinate political and media attention given to the New Hampshire...

It is hard for the visitor to Italy to avoid the impression of a country not well run, perhaps even a sort of First World failed state in the making.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * It is hard for the visitor to Italy to avoid the impression of a country not well run, perhaps even a sort of First World failed state in the making. These dark thoughts were reinforced recently when Standard and Poor's downgraded the...

The NCAA has declared that it will begin banning schools from using "hostile" or "abusive" nicknames and logos during post-season sporting events, in an effort to force some 18 colleges and universities to drop team names such as the Braves and the Indians.(The Week ...)(National Collegiate Athletic Association)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * The NCAA has declared that it will begin banning schools from using "hostile" or "abusive" nicknames and logos during post-season sporting events, in an effort to force some 18 colleges and universities to drop team names such as the Braves...

Bug-Out Fever.(The Week ...)(Poem)
September 12, 2005... BUG-OUT FEVER It started with Benedict Arnold, Afflicted Jane Fonda, and now The usual ninnies are having Another-call Surgery-cow. In heat that would suit an iguana, They picket the president's ranch, ...

Hunter S. Thompson, the counterculture's favorite writer, who shuffled off this mortal coil six months ago by firing a bullet into his drug-addled brain, has finally been laid to rest in an appropriately eccentric style.(The Week ...)(Obituary)
September 12, 2005... * Hunter S. Thompson, the counterculture's favorite writer, who shuffled off this mortal coil six months ago by firing a bullet into his drug-addled brain, has finally been laid to rest in an appropriately eccentric style. Thompson's ashes were...

To the history of high culture in the land of l'art pour l'art, add this episode: In Strasbourg's Palais de la Musique, the German conductor Volker Hartung mounted the podium to lead his orchestra in an encore, gave the downbeat--and was promptly dragged from the stage by French police.(artists with no work permits)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * To the history of high culture in the land of l'art pour l'art, add this episode: In Strasbourg's Palais de la Musique, the German conductor Volker Hartung mounted the podium to lead his orchestra in an encore, gave the downbeat--and was...

"Oompah Loompah doompadee doo, I've got a perfect puzzle for you.".(The Week)
September 12, 2005... * "Oompah Loompah doompadee doo, I've got a perfect puzzle for you." Thus sang the cute little Oompah Loompahs in the 1971 Gene Wilder movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The puzzle is, why anyone would go through life pretending to...

Is there a doctor in the house?(The Week ...)(Richard Brookhiser)(Brief Article)
September 12, 2005... * Is there a doctor in the house? There is certainly a doctor in our house: Richard Brookhiser, our longtime senior editor and shining scribe, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Washington College, in Chestertown, Md. Rick is, of course, the...

Our country's educational system has lost a gem with the recent death of Johns Hopkins University professor Julian Stanley.(The Week ...)(Obituary)
September 12, 2005... * Our country's educational system has lost a gem with the recent death of Johns Hopkins University professor Julian Stanley. For much of his life, he stood like a rock against the wayward currents of the educational establishment. While...

Enforcement first.(immigration policy)
September 12, 2005... FOR the first time since the Republican Revolution ten years ago, the politics of immigration is shifting in favor of those favoring tighter laws. On August 12, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, became the first of two...

Two Sheehans.(Cindy Sheehan's protest)
September 12, 2005... A GRAVE makes a painful and unignorable podium. Cindy Sheehan made bad use of the grave of her son, Spc. Casey Sheehan, for the weeks she camped outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Grief can give one a right to speak, or add...

Birth pains.(Iraqi negotiations for constitution)
September 12, 2005... As we go to press, Iraqi negotiators are still working on arriving at a constitutional compromise acceptable to all parties. The current draft tips toward the creation of a federal state and gives Islamic law a greater say than previously in...

Notes & asides.(Letter to the Editor)
September 12, 2005... Memo to: WFB From: Dorothy McCartney We've been getting some mail, some quite interesting, asking you to expand on your letter published in the New York Times. To remind you, here is that part of your letter about which these readers are...

Hating America, hating humanity: yup, that's what they do--especially the intellectuals.(ESSAY)
September 12, 2005... ANTI-AMERICANISM is a phenomenon which, though common and ubiquitous, is difficult to explain because it is illogical, irrational, contradictory, and mysteriously primitive. A good deal of it is parroting. And, oddly enough, a parrot has...

Cindy's movement: is this what the antiwar people really want?(Cindy Sheehan)
September 12, 2005... IN mid-August, the liberal Internet organizing group MoveOn.org sponsored a series of candlelight vigils across the country to support Cindy Sheehan, the woman camped outside President Bush's Texas ranch to protest her son's death in Iraq. As...

The Arafat model: some leaders in Iraq are following it, and they must not get away with it.(AT WAR)
September 12, 2005... Erbil, Iraq IRAQIS gathered around television sets as midnight approached on August 22. They watched as constitutional drafting-committee members and political elites whispered among themselves. When the Speaker of the National Assembly,...

Rules of the game: how Democratic senators will try to trip John Roberts up.(THE COURTS)
September 12, 2005... JOHN ROBERTS's Senate confirmation hearings are set to begin on September 6. They could be a useful opportunity for exploration of the character and qualifications of President Bush's first nominee to the Supreme Court; more likely they will be...

Ethnic cleansing, continued: the fate of Serbs in Kosovo.(THE BALKANS)
September 12, 2005... Orahovac, Kosovo YOU see a lot of barbed wire here. Orahovac used to have more than 3,000 Serbs, but only 500 are left, and the barbed wire, which runs the length of the single street on which they live, helps protect them from their...

Yes to senator no: an interview with Jesse Helms.(PERSONALITIES)
September 12, 2005... THEY called him "Mr. Conservative," after Barry Goldwater relinquished the title. They called him a lot of other names, too--one was "Senator No." Today, he says, "I was tempted to send a thank-you note to the newspaper that first called me...

The GOP's immigration problem: will the elites get a clue?(Grand Old Party)
September 12, 2005... IMMIGRATION has long been the great sleeper issue in American politics, with two-thirds of the voters wanting less of it and the political and business elites wanting a great deal more. Time and again it has looked likely to break through this...

Not so realistic: why some would-be immigration reformers don't have the answer.
September 12, 2005... THE Senate is again considering various proposals to address our massive illegal-alien problem, and the competing bills have one thing in common: They claim to offer "realistic" solutions to the supposedly unrealistic desire to enforce the law....

Who are we? An ancient, many-faced question, now with acute relevance.
September 12, 2005... WHO are we? It's an eternal human question, and though it is only three words long, it can be posed in three radically different ways. "Who are we?" can be the question of the newly independent country or the newly liberated group: Where do we...

A man who knew his century: Arthur Koestler, born 100 years ago.(APPRECIATION)
September 12, 2005... IN a slightly dingy side street, not far from the center of Budapest, stands a house with a plaque on its brick wall recording that on September 5, 1905, Arthur Koestler was born in an apartment on the first floor. The course of his life was to...

Clinton hits a bump.(HELP!!!!)(Poem)
September 12, 2005... CLINTON HITS A BUMP Things had been going swimmingly; Her dorsal cut the waves Irritably as great white's when A tummy, cranky, craves. Then, surfacing like Moby Dick For New York's primary Pops Mrs....

Politically correct.
September 12, 2005... YOU TOO ARE A FAN OF CANDY SHEEHAN. THE BUSH-HATING. LEFTIST MOM WHO LOST HER SON IN IRAQ? NO CASEY SHEEHAN [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

From the Cindy Sheehan inbox, September 2006 ...(the long view)
September 12, 2005... TO: csheehan@americasmother.org FROM: frich@nytimes.com SUBJ: Cindy Sheehan has sent you an Evite! Got your voicemails and email. Can't make your birthday party, sorry-- Frank Sent wirelessly with BlackBerry TO:...

Redemption at Hogwarts.(Young Adult Review)(Book Review)
September 12, 2005... Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J. K. Rowling (Scholastic, 652 pp., $29.99) REVIEWING a Harry Potter book is the ultimate superfluous act. No critic can hope to lay a glove on J. K. Rowling's series, which long ago passed into...

Myth.(Poem)
September 12, 2005... MYTH What is the appeal of myth? Why does the human mind like A story? Why does Plato end The Republic with a tall tale? The reasoning is that of Godel's Indetermining principle. The extent Of truth is...

Mother wit.(Book Review)
September 12, 2005... The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter, by Katherine Ellison (Basic, 279 pp., $25) WITH the arrival of our latest baby, I became the mother of four and have gotten perhaps seven hours of sleep in the past several months (not per...

Edmund Wilson, at last.(Book Review)
September 12, 2005... Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature, by Lewis M. Dabney (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 656 pp., $35) THIS splendid biography of Edmund Wilson, decades in preparation, was worth waiting for. Author Lewis Dabney met Wilson during the 1960s and...

Mozart minus one.(MUSIC)
September 12, 2005... Salzburg, Austria IN a way, this summer is the calm before the storm--because next year marks the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, and the Salzburg Festival will go all out. What will they do for the homegrown hero? Mainly, they'll...

Grand Tour.(THE STRAGGLER)
September 12, 2005... 'LIKE a military operation!" I boasted to my brother, flourishing the book in front of him. The book was actually a sheaf of 79 pages that I had hole-punched and bound up in a plastic report cover. Through the clear plastic front could be read...

Next-day thought in Britain.(on the right)
September 12, 2005... EDINBURGH, JULY 19 SOME critics of Tony Blair have pounded on the point that one of the four bombers had been identified by the security people as mischievously connected with aggressive elements of the Muslim community. So why had...

The Cesspool.(on the right)(Jonathan Zarate)
September 12, 2005... NEW YORK, AUGUST 9 THE Randolph Killing, we may as well call it, freezes the blood and all but estops the working of the mind. What does thoughtful analysis yield? Have we learned anything in any sense new? Surely--we need to comfort...

Looking ahead--oil.(on the right)(Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel)(Book Review)
September 12, 2005... NEW YORK, AUGUST 12 RAYMOND J. LEARSY has written a book memorable in the sense that nightmares can be memorable, but also useful. If the nightmare is that you died of a drug overdose, and the memory of it causes you when in command to...

Of bureaucrats and bedsores.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
September 26, 2005... Ramesh Ponnuru obviously does not want to let the facts get in the way of a good story; his article "Social Injustice" (August 29) begs for correction. First, the Florida nursing-home bankruptcies were not caused by frivolous lawsuits or...

Wit, humor, weeds.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
September 26, 2005... Richard Brookhiser's column "Upstate Burgeoning" (August 29) is a sheer delight: vegetables and weeds and Frost and Whitman frolicking together on one neat page, a flowing fountain of good wit and good humor. It made my morning--actually, more...

For years, we said they blamed Bush for everything but the weather.(The Week)
September 26, 2005... For years, we said they blamed Bush for everything but the weather. Better rethink that.

As one watches armed gangs rape and pillage their way through New Orleans, it is easy to think like Hobbes: Sever the cords of law and order, and man's savagery will be unleashed at its ugliest.(The Week)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... As one watches armed gangs rape and pillage their way through New Orleans, it is easy to think like Hobbes: Sever the cords of law and order, and man's savagery will be unleashed at its ugliest. There is truth in that view--but not quite the...

"Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being," was how Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz began an article celebrating the "activist stance" of emotional reporters covering Katrina's devastation.(The Week)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... "Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being," was how Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz began an article celebrating the "activist stance" of emotional reporters covering Katrina's devastation. Kurtz must have been...

Peddlers of racial grievance act like hyenas.(The Week)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Peddlers of racial grievance act like hyenas. They prowl in packs, encircle their prey, and make a great deal of hideous noise. Their latest victims are two news services. An Associated Press photographer snapped a black man wading through New...

One of the many lessons of Hurricane Katrina is that great leaders aren't always on the scene when they're most needed: nobody is mistaking New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin for Rudy Giuliani.(The Week)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... One of the many lessons of Hurricane Katrina is that great leaders aren't always on the scene when they're most needed: Nobody is mistaking New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin for Rudy Giuliani. Yet in the region struck by the storm, Mississippi...

With only the flimsiest of conditionals, Pat Robertson called for the murder of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.(The Week)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... With only the flimsiest of conditionals, Pat Robertson called for the murder of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than...

The base-closing commission voted 8 to 1 to keep Ellsworth open, thereby avoiding collateral damage to South Dakota senator John Thune.(national security)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... The base-closing commission voted 8 to 1 to keep Ellsworth open, thereby avoiding collateral damage to South Dakota senator John Thune. He had promised to use his ties to the Bush administration to spare the state's second-largest employer. The...

Justice Scalia, in a California speech: "Now the Senate is looking for moderate judges, mainstream judges.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Justice Scalia, in a California speech: "Now the Senate is looking for moderate judges, mainstream judges. What in the world is a moderate interpretation of a constitutional text? Halfway between what it says and what we'd like it to say?"...

Trial lawyers love drug companies: with deep pockets, poor reputations, and a customer base composed largely of people who are already sick and dying, they make the perfect targets for big-money lawsuits.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Trial lawyers love drug companies: With deep pockets, poor reputations, and a customer base composed largely of people who are already sick and dying, they make the perfect targets for big-money lawsuits. A jury in Texas has awarded...

Five members of "Able Danger," a Defense Department intelligence program, have said that Mohamed Atta was identified as a potential terrorist long before the 9/11 attacks.(intelligence reports management)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Five members of "Able Danger," a Defense Department intelligence program, have said that Mohamed Atta was identified as a potential terrorist long before the 9/11 attacks. The Pentagon has found no documentary corroboration that this is so,...

As though we needed another reminder that terrorists are not just overseas, the Justice Department has indicted four men in Los Angeles for conspiring to wage war against the United States.(The Week ...)(Jam'iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... As though we needed another reminder that terrorists are not just overseas, the Justice Department has indicted four men in Los Angeles for conspiring to wage war against the United States. Their conspiracy is said to have included plans for...

Texas police said they stopped Al Sharpton's car as it was going 110 mph, trying to catch a plane after a meeting with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Texas police said they stopped Al Sharpton's car as it was going 110 mph, trying to catch a plane after a meeting with Cindy Sheehan in Crawford. Sharpton denied his driver had been going that fast, and said the accusation smacked of "Texas...

The draft Iraqi constitution is going to a referendum on October 15.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... The draft Iraqi constitution is going to a referendum on October 15. Given the circumstances, it is a remarkably fair and thoughtful document, recognizing the role of Islam in Iraq but not instituting a theocracy; creating a federal system that...

A particularly heartbreaking photographic sequence shows a huge mound of shoes on a bridge over the Tigris in Baghdad, and people picking over them as they search for missing relatives.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... A particularly heartbreaking photographic sequence shows a huge mound of shoes on a bridge over the Tigris in Baghdad, and people picking over them as they search for missing relatives. Atrocity overwhelmed a peaceful pilgrimage of hundreds of...

Repeal the Bush tax increase.(George W. Bush)
September 26, 2005... President Bush has appointed a commission to study tax reform and said that he wants to make his tax cuts permanent. However, no major tax reform will occur soon. One modest proposal for immediate reform is to make permanent a Bush tax cut that...

To have a pen, said Voltaire, is to have war, and Orhan Pamuk is learning this truth.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... To have a pen, said Voltaire, is to have war, and Orhan Pamuk is learning this truth. He is Turkey's most famous writer, author of prize-winning novels. Published last year, his novel Snow attacks Islamism, and he has said that fundamentalists...

Every time China's Communist dictatorship gets a new public face, he is toasted as the great moderate hope.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Every time China's Communist dictatorship gets a new public face, he is toasted as the great moderate hope. That hope is inevitably betrayed. Deng Xiaoping liberalized China's economy only to crush students with tanks at Tiananmen. Jiang Zemin...

The Disappearance.(The Week ...)(Poem)
September 26, 2005... THE DISAPPEARANCE Cindy Sheehan, where are you? Only yesterday you blew Into Crawford like a 5; Could it be Katrina? I've Tried to query Michael Moore And MoveOn, but that lot's dour As George Soros in a...

It would be a drab world of bourgeois conformity if there were not some colorful absolute monarch somewhere flaunting an extravagant lifestyle and exercising droit du seigneur over his female subjects.(The Week ...)(Reed Dance)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... It would be a drab world of bourgeois conformity if there were not some colorful absolute monarch somewhere flaunting an extravagant lifestyle and exercising droit du seigneur over his female subjects. In the case of King Mswati III of...

There may be a handful of our readers who are unfamiliar with the name and career of Mr. Kanye West.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... There may be a handful of our readers who are unfamiliar with the name and career of Mr. Kanye West. Mr. West is a rap singer from Chicago, whose past extracurricular activities have concentrated on propagandizing for the view that AIDS was...

For a few days in August, visitors to London Zoo were treated to a new exhibit: Eight human beings, minimally clothed, and caged in a rocky enclosure behind a sign with the legend: "Warning: Humans in Their Natural Environment.".(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... For a few days in August, visitors to London Zoo were treated to a new exhibit: Eight human beings, minimally clothed, and caged in a rocky enclosure behind a sign with the legend: "Warning: Humans in Their Natural Environment." The point of...

Readers of Joe Haldeman's 1975 novel The Forever War, which described military life and manners in an imagined future, will recall that enlisted soldiers were expected to respond to the commands of their drill instructors with a loud and clear "F*** YOU, SIR!".(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Readers of Joe Haldeman's 1975 novel The Forever War, which described military life and manners in an imagined future, will recall that enlisted soldiers were expected to respond to the commands of their drill instructors with a loud and clear...

In his essay "Decline of the English Murder" George Orwell lamented the eclipse of "the old domestic poisoning dramas, product of a stable society where the all-prevailing hypocrisy did at least ensure that crimes as serious as murder should have strong emotions behind them.".(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... In his essay "Decline of the English Murder" George Orwell lamented the eclipse of "the old domestic poisoning dramas, product of a stable society where the all-prevailing hypocrisy did at least ensure that crimes as serious as murder should...

Raining race.(The Week ...)(racism and the hurricane)
September 26, 2005... 'WHAT does it say about America that the people left behind are poor and black?" So asked countless cable-news anchors once they'd been given the green light to muster their prolier-than-thou rage. For the first day or two after Katrina's...

Here is one of our occasional reports from the world of art, which, as regular readers will know, has come a long way from the casting of bronze horses and the painting of still lifes.(The Week ...)
September 26, 2005... Here is one of our occasional reports from the world of art, which, as regular readers will know, has come a long way from the casting of bronze horses and the painting of still lifes. Recall that the death of the great Red Sox hitter Ted...

Jude Wanniski, supply-side guru and occasional NR contributor, died age 69.(The Week ...)(Obituary)
September 26, 2005... Jude Wanniski, supply-side guru and occasional NR contributor, died age 69. Richard Brookhiser remembers him on page 48 of this issue. R.I.P.

Robert Moog's contribution to the music of the spheres was a practical electronic synthesizer, which he developed in the Sixties.(The Week ...)(Brief Article)
September 26, 2005... Robert Moog's contribution to the music of the spheres was a practical electronic synthesizer, which he developed in the Sixties. We think of musical instruments as fixed quantities, which we learn to play as children, and whose repertoires...