Taki's Daily Blog
Perhaps the greatest compensation for trading cramped digs in Rome for a spacious house in the U.S. is that I have my beagles back. Susie and Franz-Josef are out back now, sniffing the trails of long-scampered squirrels, and howling merrily for blood. One advantage of living in New Hampshire instead of New York is that “out back” refers to the spacious … [Read More]
Should pro-lifers keep citing Margaret Sanger’s scathingly racist statements, and her program of eugenics—which directly influenced Hitler, and led to laws in a dozen or so American states forcibly sterilizing or even castrating thousands of the “unfit” who flunked primitive I.Q. tests? Good question. What matters most is whether such a rhetorical attack works at undermining liberal and non-white support for … [Read More]
I just flew in from Rome, and boy is my liver tired. Given the turbulence you get in trans-Atlantic flights—this was only my third flight from Europe—a high-strung sanguine choleric like me needs some kind of chemical cocktail to keep him from panicking every time the Airbus goes Boeing-Boeing-Boeing. I used to take a leftover dental Vicodin and wash it down … [Read More]
As a son of a letter carrier, as someone who only got interested in politics because of the social issues--I was inspired by the heroic housewife Ellen McCormack, who ran for the Democratic nomination on the right of unborn children to escape the abortionists’ knife-- I have a complicated reaction to Barack Obama. After hearing his spiel about men like my … [Read More]
Sunday’s NY Times story talks about the divergences between one-time running mates (and popular vote winners) Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman. Noting that Lieberman has moved to the “right” by becoming hawkish on Iraq, while Gore has moved to the “left” by staying true to his initial skepticism about that war, and becoming an activist on the subject of global climate … [Read More]
Some months ago I blogged lightheartedly about the “bone church” in Rome, whose crypt is entirely decorated with the disassembled skeletons of friars. But today I actually went there—a starkly different experience, and one that provoked a few sharp thoughts about the task which faces us on the Right. The Church of the Immaculate Conception is a haunting little brown, stone … [Read More]
It has happened at last. The oh-so-clever marketers of Absolut have managed to create a political incident with one of their ads for their undistinguished liquor, giving me a pretext to blog about the history of vodka. Many of you might already have heard about the ad, which ran in Mexican media, pandering to those among that populace who yearn for … [Read More]
When you’re rebuilding something from the rubble, it pays to listen to men who have experience doing just that. Men like Wilhelm Röpke,whose books helped construct a viable centrist Right for post-war Germany, and whose economic advice helped launch its “economic miracle.” The state of conservatism today is nothing like so bright as post war Germany, but the comparison is apt. … [Read More]
As the writers on this site manfully struggle to imagine a future for genuine conservatism in the wake of the intellectual decay that has crippled the movement, and the electoral rout which faces us no matter whoever wins, I think it’s worthwhile to point readers’ attention to a figure whose thought cuts to the heart of the modern condition, whose prescriptions … [Read More]
The latest media chatter concerns whether a certain cover of Vogue is “racist” because it portrays model Giselle Bundchen alongside basketball player LeBron James in a pose that reminds some people of Fay Wray and King Kong. Or Jessica Lange and King Kong. Or Naomi Watts and King Kong. Or something. I suppose this is progress over the reaction that might … [Read More]