Fond of beer in swarthy nooks, but happiest among his books. Change happens very quickly these days, and it has always interested me that people born in the same year as me are (more or less) the youngest ones to remember life without the Internet. The younger siblings of friends have no experience, in particular, of being computer literate while not … [Read More]

It is an age-old question: what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The force in question is the farming community of Argentina, once among the agricultural powerhouses of the world, and the object is the country’s slippery presidential couple, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband (and predecessor in the top job) Néstor Kirchner. From all the … [Read More]

Victor Davis Hanson has suggested in his “Letter to the Europeans” (National Review Online, January 6, 2006) that we Americans believe the European Union is a “flawed concept”. But is it possible to make such a pronouncement when there exist such varying definitions as to what precisely is the “concept” behind the E.U.? The original concept (at least the version released … [Read More]

There is a fascinating little British film from the middle of the century named “It Happened Here” which depicts life in Great Britain after the Nazis cross the channel and subjugate the island. Using not a single frame of archive footage, it was made by two British teenagers over the course of eight years before it was finally released in 1965. … [Read More]

Over in Great Britain, the House of Commons recently passed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which, among other things, keeps the time limit on abortions at twenty-four weeks (in spite a hope that it would be lowered), authorizes the creation of “savior siblings (brothers and sisters deliberately created in a lab solely for their organs to be harvested for use … [Read More]

Quebec, la belle province, was once a land as Christ-haunted as Flannery O’Connor’s American South, with classical parish churches at the heart of towns and cities, and crucifixes in classrooms, courtrooms, and most prominently looking down from on high above the Speaker’s Chair in the Parliament of Quebec. (Alfred Hitchcock’s “I Confess” superbly depicts Quebec’s Catholic society in the 1950s). While … [Read More]

For those who haven’t been keeping up with Caledonian affairs, Scottish independence has been brought onto the agenda by the victory of the anti-unionist, pro-independence Scottish National Party in the general election for the Scottish Parliament last year. The SNP victory comes after about half a century of solid domination of Scottish politics by the Labour party (now in regional opposition … [Read More]

The realm of prophecy and prediction is a notoriously dangerous territory in which to venture if one takes things too seriously, but I hope you will forgive a light little wander into that domain. The question at hand is the rise and fall of nations. The period since the collapse of European Communism from 1989 to 1991 has witnessed a great … [Read More]

In the latest issue of the periodical formerly known as The Times Higher Education Supplement (it now calls itself simply “Times Higher Education”), the philosopher Simon Blackburn takes a stab at what he sees as the top ten “modern myths”. For those blessed enough to be ignorant of Mr. Blackburn, he is an atheist academic at the University of Cambridge and … [Read More]