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 …
The Differences Between Riches and Wealth
“According to the World Bank, the total exports of the Arab countries (other than fossil fuels) amount to less than those of Finland, a country of 5 million inhabitants. There are at least 50 Arabs to each Finn” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 206).
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 …
When Fundamentalists Read the Text More Clearly
“The revival of the model of early Islam in a modern form absolutely mandates the reaffirmation of uncompromising animosity to non-believers and the return to violence as a means of attaining political ends. Islamic terrorism, far from being an aberration, became inseparable from modern-day jihad. It is legitimized by it, and it is its defining …
In Other Words, Not Breaking On Through to the Other Side
“Morrison never made the sustained effort needed to write even passable free verse, and his emotional range—from petulant narcissism to dead-serious angst—is far narrower than that of the least of his poetic idols . . . booze became the formaldehyde in which his adolescent hangs-ups were preserved” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 238).
Not Much of a Difference
“The only difference between Muslim ‘conservatives’ and misnamed ‘fundamentalists’ concern the methods to be applied, not the final objectives, which are the same: to rekindle the glory that was Islam under the prophet and his early successors” (Serge Trifkovic, The Sword of the Prophet, p. 204).
Ain’t It the Truth?
“Like free jazz, art rock proves once again that total freedom is enabling for a handful of geniuses, but disabling for everyone else” (Martha Bayles, Hole in our Soul, p. 222).
Straight Out of Tennessee Williams
This letter to the editor ran in response to some stuff in our local newspaper about Trinity Fest. My comments are interspersed. “Wilson neither honorable nor brave” This is a title calculated to mortally offend the kind of man that Keely Mix takes me to be. And if I were a strutting embodiment of the …
The Closing of the Islamic Mind
“Not even a prime location at the crossroads of the world could supply an antidote to the slow poison of Islamic obscurantism. The Ottoman interlude concealed and postponed the latent tension between the view of world history as the fulfillment of Islam and its triumph everywhere on the one hand, and the reality of the …