Bookworm Room

Tweet I highly (really highly) recommend that you read Paul Kengor’s piece in today’s American Thinker, Return of the Dupes and the Anti-Anti-Communists. In it, he describes a struggle I remember well from the 1970s (when I became politically aware during the end of the Vietnam era) through the 1990s (during which time I was [...]

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Tweet There was a round-up of illegal aliens in Marin County. The story included the obligatory reference to the children who had to watch their parents being arrested for illegal activity: Wilson said children watched while their parents and other adults were taken away by authorities. Some were removed while accompanying children to the school [...]

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Tweet My father was a very angry man. At whichever job he had, he was pretty darn certain that management was out to get him. At stores, he knew he was being cheated. My mother always attributed this anger, not to the poverty and dislocation of his youth (placed in an orphanage at 5, refugee [...]

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Tweet In an earlier post, I asked how America in the 60s managed to swing over to and completely accept its enemy’s way of defining the situation. That is, the logical American point of view should have been that we were defeating Communism, which is an evil scourge that was trying to take over the [...]

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Tweet Although I’d willingly vote for him if he were the Republican candidate, I’ve never liked McCain as a politician.  To me, his “iconoclasm” (which is how the Press has always labeled it), hasn’t been the sign of an independent mind but a lack of fixity of purpose.  Having said that, though, I’ve always strongly [...]

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Tweet Okay, the title of this post isn’t quite true, because it would take a whole book, or maybe a series, to rejigger American conventional wisdom about Communism.  Nevertheless, Randall Hoven makes an incredible start here, debunking myriad myths, and I urge you to read it.

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Tweet Michelle Malkin has a good photo essay about the gathering in front of the Marine Recruiting Station in Berkeley the other day. The San Francisco Chronicle also ran a story about the protest, which I found interesting only because of this quotation from one of the anti-War protesters: “They represent the social base that’s [...]

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Tweet Mr. Bookworm has liked the singing duo Indigo Girls for as long as I can remember, and I’ve disliked them, very much, for equally long.  To my ear, there is a bullying, hectoring tone to their singing that is just a complete turn-off.  Considering how little I like them, I somehow was not surprised [...]

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Tweet Bibi is a larger than life figure, who has allowed hubris to damage his political career. Since I think he’s one of the few Israeli politicians who understands both the Islamist forces arrayed against Israel and America (where he lived), and who has the smarts to put his understanding into effect, I’m glad he’s [...]

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Tweet The Left (both at home and abroad) likes to revile the infamous American President “Chimpy-BusHitler,” but they seem to be taking a pass on some people that even the Left would have to concede have a bit more blood on their hands. Mike Adams and the American Thinker take on the results of that, [...]

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Tweet Here’s an old joke from the Soviet era: Rumor in Moscow has it that the grocery store has cans of meat. Despite the fact that it’s a very cold day, a long, long line instantly forms outside the store. After a couple of hours, a Communist official comes out of the store and announces, [...]

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Tweet It’s getting so that, every day, every where, more and more people are beginning to challenge the “debate is over” pronouncement regarding global warming. My two favorite from today are an interview with Christopher Horner, an environmental lawyer and (former?) liberal who wrote the The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism), and [...]

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Tweet Bush has shown remarkable courage in sticking to his guns in the war. However, his actions are not matched by his words. He’s too polite, too worried, to well-counseled, too restrained for whatever reason to call things as they are. John Howard, Australia’s Prime Minister, is not so constrained, as you can see in [...]

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Tweet I’m reading two really wonderful books right now, each of which has gotten me thinking about my own history. My starting point for this post is David Horowitz’s Radical Son, about his journey from Red diaper baby to outspoken conservative. He describes a childhood completely defined by party doctrine, intrigue and paranoia. It’s quite [...]

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