Tag Archives: The American Spectator

For your Spectation

I continue to yammer to all and sundry about the novel The Last of the Vikings. Today The American Spectator printed a second review by me.

There’s a fascinating section in The Last of the Vikings where the fishermen ask Lars to read to them from A Happy Boy, and they’re all transported by the story: “It had never struck them before that a house and land can be so beautiful despite their being small. They did not know that poor people could have so much sunshine.”

And then another fisherman comes in carrying a radical newspaper called the Dawn. He’s been bringing copies in periodically for Lars to read aloud, and they’ve all enjoyed reviling the greedy capitalists. But now the fishermen’s attitude has changed. They tell the agitator, to his shock, to get out and take his paper with him…

Read it all here.

For your Spectation

I have once again gathered up my hubris and sent an essay to The American Spectator. And once again, for unaccountable reasons, they have published it.

Honestly, I’m kind of proud of this one. It’s more upbeat than my usual stuff, and shows the influence of my recent Dave Barry reading.

It’s called “Liberals On the Border.”

St. Thomas’ Day, brother

The longest night of all the year, as the poet tell us. The winter solstice. St. Thomas’ Day. And the anniversary of the death of Erling Skjalgsson of Sola, hero of my Viking novels, at the Battle of Boknafjord. It’s a tribute to Erling that we know the precise day of his death, thanks to the saga writers. There are a lot of eminent medieval characters, especially that far back, whose dates are unknown or disputed (indeed, we can only guess when Erling was born).

Anyway, I like to honor the day.

In other news, after many months I finally have an essay in The American Spectator today. It’s often said that our times are beyond satire. In my case they seem to have overloaded my capacity for wry commentary. But I found one thing to write about at last: In Praise of Younger Sons.

Remember, after today the days get longer.

Colder, but longer.

Whenever I think about that paradox, it seems to me somebody didn’t read the small print.

For your Spectation

I wrote a new piece for The American Spectator Online, and they published it today. I called it Not a Defense of Bill Cosby.

Fairly controversial stuff. They tell me the comments are burning the place up. I, of course, never read them.

Killing Cupid

I haven’t written for The American Spectator much recently, because – frankly – I’m having trouble finding anything to say. Mere anarchy, it seems to me, has been unleashed upon the world, and it’s hard to find a side to defend.

But Robert Stacy McCain is a braver man than I, and he wrote a piece for Valentine’s Day that I wish I’d written. Instead, I linked to it on Facebook. I quoted the following passage there:

Of course, even if a young woman today did want Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet, he might be afraid to attempt it. If he admired Cinderella’s beauty, feminists would condemn Prince Charming for objectifying her with the “male gaze.” If a man talks to a woman, whatever he says is denounced by feminists as “mansplaining.” Any man who attempts to initiate a romantic relationship with a woman is guilty of “harassment,” according to feminism, and any expectation that a woman might enjoy sexual activity with a man is “rape culture.”

This excerpt may have been poorly chosen by me. A number of the people who commented on the link assumed I’d chosen it primarily to complain about the fact that I can’t get a date. I can understand the mistake – my almost magically pathetic love life is of course one of the most noticeable things about me.

Maybe I should have quoted the following paragraph, which I almost chose instead: Continue reading Killing Cupid

For your Spectation

My latest essay for The American Spectator Online is here.

In fact, the real question — the actual historical anomaly — is why, after everybody else had got the question wrong from the beginning of time, the Christians suddenly figured the answer out, and abolished slavery. Nobody else did that. Not the Egyptians. Not the Chinese. Not the Aztecs or the ancient Greeks. I understand the Greek Epicureans rejected slavery, but one of the distinctions of the Epicureans is that they never tried to build a civilization.

And building a civilization is the precise nub of the historical problem.