Dr. Frankenstani

“The assumption all along has been that the Islamic genie released by Dr. Brzezinski’s ‘excellent idea’ could be controlled through its eventual reduction to yet another humanistic project in self-celebration, through it adherent’s immersion in the consumerist culture, and through their children’s multicultural indoctrination by state education. How well it has worked we can see …

And Some People Think the Religious Right Created the Taliban

“In the event, President Carter secretly authorized $500 million (closer to a billion in today’s money) to help create an international network that would spread Islamism in Central Asia and ‘destabilize’ the Soviet Union. The CIA called this ‘Operation Cyclone,’ and in the following years poured over $4 billion into setting up Islamic training schools …

But What a Choice

Marvin “Gaye is a special case, of course. But the same forces that propelled this troubled artist into the ooze made ‘love men’ out of many other talented musicians . . . The assumption was that any woman in her right mind would prefer the love man’s smooth-talking, satin-sheets-on-the-waterbed approach to the ear-blistering screeching of …

Pseudo-Satanism in the Hedge Row

“In their ongoing effort to be naughtier than the Beatles, the Rolling Stones began making satanic allusions in 1967 . . . Jimmy Page, the lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin, was a Crowley fan even before he accepted the Lucifer Rising job . . . By this route Satanism became heavy metal’s semiofficial religion, observed …

Lord of Tomorrow Morning

Convocation Remarks 2007 Fleetwood Mac exhorted us all plainly. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.” Well, okay. And politicians consistently tell us that they want to be elected so that they can build a bridge to the future—as though we could go anywhere else, whether we build that bridge or not. But behind these bromides is …