Was the immense popularity of the 1960s television series "Dark Shadows" some sort of cry for help during a decade of brutish violence and social sickness? After all, its central character Barnabas Collins was a vampire with moral compunction. I recently finished watching all 1,225 episodes of Dark Shadows, the campy gothic soap opera that [...]
If I had to use a single word to describe what is fundamentally wrong with government today, I would use the word fraud. Certainly nowadays—perhaps in every age—government is not what it claims to be (competent, protective, and just), and it is what it claims not to be (bungling, menacing, and unjust). In actuality, it [...]
“The Republican Party, which achieved its greatest vigor in this century during the presidential terms of Ronald Reagan, now seems in the sere and yellow leaf.” – Russell Kirk, February 27, 1991, the day before President George Bush declared victory with Operation Desert Storm. Scholars Bradley J. Birzer and Adam Fuller reflect on Russell Kirk’s [...]
I must confess that I dislike “Fiddler on the Roof.” I agree that the songs are cute and memorable and that it is wholesome entertainment. But as a story about tradition and the melancholy of cultural demise, it is vastly overrated. It is hard not to have seen the 1971 film adaptation of Fiddler on [...]
In 1990, the science-fiction writer, Larry Niven, wrote a short story titled, “The Return of William Proxmire.” In the story, the Wisconsin senator schemes to stop billions of dollars from being spent on space research by going back in time to cure Robert A. Heinlein of tuberculosis. For Senator Proxmire, the idea is simple: If [...]
Dr. Bradley J. Birzer’s recent essay about the late Daniel Bell is faulty. Professor Bell was one of the most gifted and independent-minded scholars of the last century. Although he was more a man of the left than a conservative, he was a valuable ally to conservative traditionalists. Dr. Birzer’s piece describes the late Professor [...]