The St. Croix Review speaks for middle America, and brings you essays from patriotic Americans.
What Now?
I conclude from the presidential election that more voters were seduced by the Robin Hood ideal than those who believe in liberty, responsibility, and constitutional principles.
Clues to the event came from the two national conventions: the personal story of Senator Mark Rubio, a star in the Republican party, rising from family hardship through hard work to prominent position and power, meant too little. Even though he is Hispanic, an ethnic group lavished with attention by both parties, his story did not resonate. The core Republican approach did not impress.
The Democrats received a lift from a convention promoting women's rights, the demise of Osama bin Laden, the hypnotic charisma of Bill Clinton -"Listen to me now: No president, not me, not any of my predecessors, no one could have fully repaired all the damage that he found in just four years" - and the empty words of Barack Obama.
Mitt Romney based his campaign on repairing the economy and creating jobs. His was a simple message, and he was the perfect spokesman, with his business experience. But he was successful demonized as a rich, heartless, capitalist - unconcerned with the fate of ordinary Americans.
The progressives/liberals have occupied the cultural high ground long enough for the values and principles espoused in The St. Croix Review to be incomprehensible for too many young people. When Mitt Romney talked about the stifling effects of government regulation on business he was not understood. Barack Obama was able to demonize Mitt Romney's work at Bain Capital because greedy and polluting businessmen have been made stock villains in our movies and on T.V. for years.
How many voters have heard of Milton Freidman or have an understanding of free market economics, or can appreciate the wealth-producing power of capitalism? We have an educational challenge of explaining our point of view. The free market ideal is a precious truth that must be communicated through the generations.
We are working against a tide of influence emanating from the arts, education, entertainment, and media dominated by the left. Our challenge will be to neutralize the march through the nation's institutions that the left has made. Fashions change: Fashion is a destructive, acidic, churning, never ceasing pursuit of "the new." And an intolerant leftist establishment will make great fodder for satire and parody. We could do with an updated version of Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal," on the subject of late-term abortion.
Eventually the young are going to figure out they are being stuck with the geezers' bills: How will they react? How then will they use their still-considerable American freedom? We must look forward to the day when the liberal establishment is overthrown.
But as conservatives we have to sharpen our thinking, so that we are clear in our own minds: how can affordable healthcare be brought to those without the means to afford it? We can't know the answers abstractly. If the fifty states were allowed to experiment, various methods and means would emerge - methods and means emerging under pressure of necessity - and the best ways would be discovered.
Change is coming. The policies of Barack Obama and the Democrats lead to inescapable national bankruptcy. Eventually rising interest rates on servicing the national debt will crush the presumption of the arrogant left. There will be stagnation and suffering.
Leftists are shallow, their motive is power, their method is deceit, and their victory will encumber the nation. We hold a hard-won faith in liberty and humility before God. We are on the cusp of the exhaustion of their system (watch Greece), but we are also in the midst of a technical and information revolution, the successor of the industrial revolution, that will produce unimaginable new industries - human enterprise and inventiveness persist. New technology combined with economic suffering will produce unimaginable new ways and means - there will be tension between imposing government and pioneering enterprise: Don't underestimate enterprise. Besides, pretty soon, we won't be able to afford the pensions of politicians and bureaucrats anymore.
We have to remain prepared for the future. *
We would like to thank the following people for their generous contributions to The St. Croix Review (from 9/7/2012 to 11/14/2012): John D. Alt, George E. Andrews, William D. Andrews, Gordon S. Auchincloss, William G. Buckner, Mary & Fred Budworth, David Bundsen, Thomas M. Burt, Dino Casali, John B. Charlton, Laurence Christenson, William D. Collingwood, Garry W. Croudis, Joseph R. De Vitto, Dianne C. DeBoest, Jeanne L. Dipaola, Alice DiVittorio. Paul Dynis, Donald R. Eberle, Neil Eckles, Francisco Figueroa, Joseph C. Firey, Reuben M. Freitas, William W. Frett, James R. Gaines, Richard P. Grossman, Weston N. Hammel, Elizabeth R. Harrigan, James E. Hartman, Paul J. Hauser, John H. Hearding, Bernhard Heersink, Gregory A. Hight, David Ihle, Margaret Kearney, William H. Kelly, Robert L. Kemper, Alan H. Lee, Leonard F. Leganza, Cary M. Maguire, Howard S. Martin, Peach McComb, Karen McNeil, Roberta R. McQuade, John M. Nickolaus, Jeanne I. Reisler, Patrick L. Risch, Steven B. Roorda, Philip E. Rosine, Richard P. Schonland, Richard L. Sega, Richard H. Segan, Alvan I. Shane, Philip Stark, Lee Stoerzinger, Frank T. Street, Norman Swender, Michael S. Swisher, Paul B. Thompson, Edmund B. Thornton, Elizabeth E. Torrance, Jack E. Turner, Donald E. Westling, Robert C. Whitten, Robert L. Wichterman, Florence T. Wiechecki, Gaylord T. Willett, Robert F. Williams, Lee Wishing, and W. Worman.
The following is a summary of the October 2012 issue of The St. Croix Review:
In "Hollow Words Again," Barry MacDonald compares Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC to the actions of his government.
Mark Hendrickson, in "A Book Review of Brian Sussman's Eco-Tyranny," shows the anti-capitalist, anti-people "green team" is not in retreat - even though their claims are discredited; in "Obama's Popularity with Young Voters," he says that young people need to see below President Obama's attractive personality to his policies that harm them.
Herbert London, in "Why a Campaign Should Consider More than Economic Issues," writes that the Romney-Ryan team should promote societal ethics, foreign policy strength, and optimism; in "The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the Body Politic," he says that the world is leaderless without a confident, moral America; in "Why Is the World Different?" he remarks on the chaos and the resurgence of evil in our culture; in "From Social Security to Federal Benefit," he describes the twisting of truth used to conceal a Ponzi scheme.
Paul Kengor, in "Egypt and Libya: Shades of 1979-80," he compares the rise of Islamic militancy faced by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama; in "Remembering Gene Kelly," he remembers the dancing celebrity, and tells how he and other Hollywood stars were duped by Communists; in "Obama's Progress," he points out how "progressives" have no first principles, and are tearing down all traditions; in "Gay Marriage: Killing the Democracy of the Dead," he asks whether we want to give big government the "right to remold such ancient terms."
Allan Brownfeld, in "Remembering Milton Friedman on the 100th Anniversary of His Birth" describes the words and deeds of a most powerful proponent of freedom; in "Recent Events Show That Honor and Integrity - Once Valued and Transmitted - Are Increasingly Rare in Today's Society," he cites examples of cheating at an elite high school, of negligence at Penn State, and of corruption in Congress; in "Those Who Are Serious About Cutting Spending Should End Depression-Era Farm Subsidies," he shows how wealthy farmers lobbying both parties pays off.
Robert L. Wichterman, in "A Watershed Election," draws up a list of harmful and devious actions by President Obama.
In "The St. Croix Review Goes to a Meeting," John Ingraham attends a gathering of doctors and scientists, as a representative of the St. Croix Review, to hear much-needed opposition to the left-wing takeover of environmental science.
In "Romney's Historic Opportunity: Low-Cost Energy Fuels Economic Recovery," S. Fred Singer exposes the folly of President Obama's energy policies, and he shows the way to lower gas, electricity, fertilizer, and food prices. He presents stunning facts.
Jigs Gardner in "Complexities" tells of a shock in his neighborly relations that stayed with him for fifty years.
In "Inside a Folk Culture," Jigs Gardner describes the vanished 19th century fishing culture of Great Blasket Island (three miles off the southwest coast of Ireland) through the prose/poetry of Maurice O'Sullivan.
In "The Fatuous Wendell Berry," Fayette Durlin and Peter Jenkin chide the National Review for publishing an essay praising a left-wing environmentalist who poses as a conservative.
In "The American Pantry," Cornelia Wynne presents the Jusko family traditional Thanksgiving dinner, including a unique flavor of red spaghetti.
Cornelia Wynne explores the cooking traditions of Americans through their distinctive foods and dishes and through their stories. These assert our defining traits of independence, resourcefulness, and a can-do spirit.
When Hank and Pat Jusko sit down to Thanksgiving dinner, they have much to be thankful for. Both from hardworking farming families, they have raised their children to value family ties, the kind that brings four generations together, 25 people, to share in the festivities.
The menu is a mix of traditional foods - roast turkey with all the fixings - as well as dishes that have become a part of the Jusko family celebration, handed down from parents, aunts and uncles, and ever-refreshed from the contributions of the evolving extended family. Whatever their source, these assorted foods are cherished, giving a distinctive flavor to the Jusko's Thanksgiving, and, no doubt, to Thanksgivings across this land.
Now, for instance, although the table groans under the weight of a 25-pound turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, candied yams, mashed turnip, squash, string beans, fluffy rolls, cranberry-orange relish, pickles, desserts, and every year Red Spaghetti - a tradition introduced by Hank Jusko's family - this is still the all-time favorite. What was once considered just a cheap, filling food for the poor has been elevated to star status because everyone loves it. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving for the Jusko family without it.
A little background: Hank's father came to America from Poland on a freighter, earned his daily bread as a carpenter and married. He and his wife had six children, and although there were three-four milk cows and a huge vegetable garden, the family struggled. The large dish of Red Spaghetti on the Thanksgiving table ensured that no one would go hungry on this special day. I've heard similar stories from Italian families about the large dishes of lasagna that appear on their Thanksgiving tables.
The day before, Pat makes her famous fluffy rolls (from the Duncan Hines cookbook many years ago), yams are partially cooked and peeled, pies are baked, and the cranberry relish is prepared. This is also when the tables are set up because, as Pat says, this can take a while; you always have to make sure there are enough chairs. Plates are set out, too, and the clear water glasses decorated with a gold trunk and branches that belonged to Pat's late mom. This way the family always has a little something that was a part of her on this day. One plate is set at the end of the table for the weary traveler if one should stop by. "At one time," Pat notes, "we were all here, and now when I set that plate I remember my deceased brothers and sister."
They start cooking the turkey at 5 a.m. in Pat's grandmother's thick roasting pan with a vented lid. It is basted from time to time during the day, and toward the end, with a turkey baster that sucks up the bottom juices. The cover is removed about a half hour before the turkey is done to brown it on top.
All the food is set out on the kitchen counter and on the stove, then we go to the dining room and living room, where the tables are set up, to eat. We like to say the Lord's Prayer before we start the meal, sometimes as we gather in line. Without taking too much time, one of the family will get our attention and give special mention to the smaller children, about something they have excelled in at home or in school. Several years ago, our son's daughter then seven, wanted so bad to say what she was thankful for. She was very proud to say, "Freedom." It had been talked about in school the week before.
"Thanksgiving is a wonderful day," Pat says, "and as Hank and I get older, it means more and more to us to be with family."
Here are directions for making Red Spaghetti. I guarantee you won't find this in any cookbook.
1 1/2 -2 pounds spaghetti (regular, not thin)
2 cans Campbell's tomato soup
2 sticks butter
1 cup turkey drippings from the roast turkey before you take them out to make gravy
salt and pepper
Cook spaghetti. Drain. In a large pot or frying pan put tomato soup and the butter. Heat until the butter melts and stir well so it is mixed into the soup. Add turkey drippings, stirring them in well. Add the spaghetti and mix well. The spaghetti should absorb the liquid so it isn't wet or runny. Add salt and pepper to taste and more tomato soup if needed. That's all there is to it. What gives this dish its distinctive flavor is the combination of tomato soup and pan drippings. *
Fayette Durlin and Peter Jenkin write from Brownsville, Minnesota.
We are sorry to have to say it, but we must reluctantly agree with those critics who claim that conservatives are so obsessed with national politics that they are astonishingly unaware of significant trends, not immediately political - developments under their very noses. So they were blind to the dangers of Greenism until quite recently, and they still don't fully understand it (as we shall see). A sad example of this conservative naivet appeared in the 7/30 issue of National Review: "A Jeremiah for Everyone: Why Left and Right Like Wendell Berry."
The first two paragraphs describe Berry's speech at the Kennedy Center in April, when he delivered the prestigious Jefferson Lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The speech itself was preceded by Berry's remarks thanking the NEH for its "courage" in letting him speak and for not asking to see the speech beforehand, remarks that "provoked anxious laughter from the audience" according to the writer. The speech was a "jeremiad on the ravages of a free market," a collection of cliches: pollution, species extinction, erosion, fossil fuel depletion, big bad agribusiness executives, overconsumption, waste, unsustainability, and so on.
The third paragraph says that those are also the views of many conservatives, citing the award to Berry of the Russell Kirk Paideia Prize for "cultivating virtue and wisdom," and the publication last year of The Humane Vision of Wendell Berry by the conservative ISI Books.
At that point the scene shifts to Kentucky where the writer interviews Berry and is completely taken in by the old fraud who puts on a pose of modesty immediately challenged by the writer, who compares his fiction to Faulkner's and cites an award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers as well as National Humanities Medal. Then he says that Berry is
. . . almost impossible to categorize politically. He can sound at times like an agrarian populist, and environmental radical and a family-values traditionalist.
He quotes an essay "Why I am not going to buy a computer" (reprinted by Harpers "to acclaim" and notoriety) in which Berry "takes a stand":
I would hate to think that my work as a writer could not be done without direct dependence on strip-mined coal.
He also writes during the day "so he doesn't have to use electric light."
The writer is much taken with Berry's book The Unsettling of America, an attack on large scale farming that praises
. . . the small holder farm . . . as an essential component of a living culture that values strong communities and ecological stewardship. The healthy farm sustains itself in the same way that a healthy tree does, by belonging where it is, by maintaining a proper relationship to the ground.
This flapdoodle impressed Russell Kirk, who wrote that "Humane culture has no better friend today than he." The writer sees what he thinks is conservatism here: "suspicion of progress, support for local autonomy, and a preference for the old way of doing things."
But enough. The article is a disheartening demonstration of conservative naivete. The writer is the national correspondent of the most prominent conservative magazine and yet he is taken in, as befooled as the audience for the Jefferson Lecture (actually more befooled, since it's probable that many in the audience took Berry's speech as entertainment), by a man whose phoniness is obvious, as we shall see. Those who are taken in want to be taken in.
The first thing to note is that Berry plays the old role of the gadfly, as in his remarks before the lecture. He knows that it took no "courage" to invite him, and the laughter of the audience was "anxious" only in the ears of the stupefied reporter, because the pose of danger is always a pose with the gadfly, who can be defined as an expert at knowing how far to go in going too far. He flatters us, he makes us feel good about ourselves because we dare to appreciate this supposedly outspoken maverick. When we look at Berry's speech, we see that it is nothing more than the cliches of the day, readily accepted by all right-thinking people. Some conservatives, like the reporter, may think this is red-hot stuff, but Lefties and Greens have been saying it for so long that it is now conventional wisdom among the haut monde.
The absurdity of his writing practices is another ploy: we see it as extreme, but by golly, here's a man who takes a principled stand and lives up to it! The writer, obviously prompted by Berry, reports that a correspondent "suggested mockingly, that perhaps Berry thought the Sierra Club should quit printing its magazines and instead have its members pass around a hand-copied manuscript." Berry shot back:
This is what is wrong with the conservation movement. It has a clear conscience. The guilty are always other people, the wrong is always somewhere else.
Berry's response is not an answer to the mocker, who has a sensible point, but he uses the occasion to show off his "guilt" and to pose as the principled hero. That the writer is taken in is shown by his approving "Berry shot back."
Berry's attacks on modern farming reveal the profound selfishness not only of Berry, but of his self-satisfied audience. Our agriculture is a tremendous force for good in the world, feeding not only Americans but millions of people overseas. But Greens are intent on destroying it, fondly imagining small farms of a high colored 19th century vision as replacements. The effect of such a dire step would be similar to the suppression of fossil fuels, another goal of Berry and his followers: our impoverishment. The smug audience of the Kennedy Center, however, is indifferent to consequences; the titillation of the moment is all.
What is so depressing about this foolish article is not that the writer was fooled by this consummate phony, but that he failed to see the radically destructive implications of Berry's cliches. None of the claims in his speech or his books are true, but the writer, like too many conservatives, does not understand Greenism and so becomes another victim of its chicanery. *
Jigs Gardner is an Associate Editor of the St. Croix Review. Jigs Gardner writes on literature from the Adirondacks, where he may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
On a bright February morning Fred drove in the yard, bringing with him Hank, Eldon, and Miff, Hank's brother, all crammed into the pickup, to enlist my aid in his latest deal. Elias Turgeon had had woodland he owned near the bottom of the hill cruised by the country forester, marking trees to be felled, and now he had induced Fred to do the work, paying him by the thousand feet of logs and cord of pulpwood, the job to be finished by the end of May. Fred rattled off the details with practiced ease; this wasn't the first, nor the tenth time he had recited them. Warming up, he couldn't stay in his chair; the subject required expansive gestures in the middle of the room, where now he spread his arms wide and declared, "It's all gravy, Jigs, all gravy!" This was his crew - a showman's sweep of the arm introduced the unholy three seated side by side on the couch - all it needed was a good man to stack the pulp - the other arm pointed to me - at seven dollars a cord, "All gravy!"
Whenever Fred invoked gravy, my heart sank. I knew that if Turgeon, a shrewd farmer, had any quantity of saleable wood to be cut, he would have sold it to a regular logger for stumpage; most of what the forester had marked would be small thinnings and dead stubs. And a deadline, too! I looked at the crew, which was looking a bit sheepish. They didn't seem to share Fred's enthusiasm, nor to give hearty credence to the "gravy line." They had heard it all too many times, they had been stung before by Fred's schemes (I recalled how disgruntled Eldon had been after the hay deal). But there are men like that - I have known them in other times and places - men like Fred, enthusiasts of the improbable, and men like Miff and Hank and Eldon, who resignedly sign on once more and shove off, with a feeble cheer, in the leaky boat. I knew that no one, and that included Fred, would ever see any gravy on that job, and I knew it as infallibly as I have ever known anything. Of course I didn't say that; I explained that my inexperience would hold them up, that I was too green to be of any help. Fred was disappointed, his spirits easily cast down by rejection. I assured him several times that the job sounded great and was obviously chock full of gravy, and he went away mollified.
Well, I said to Jo Ann, that's one fiasco I avoided. I spoke too soon.
Thinking about Fred and his offer awakened me to the significance of my relations with these men, and to other relations in our life. We had less and less to do with Willie and people of his class and more to do with Toonervillians. We had shifted our social base somewhat, and our social life would never again be as it had been. Our middleclass ties were not severed and never would be, but they were attenuated. Although we would be in and out of middleclass situations over the next several years, we continued to farm (if that's not too hifalutin a name for it), and we were regarded with puzzlement and some distrust, as people who disconcertingly did not quite fit into expected categories. We were obviously educated, cultured, competent people, but our ideas and opinions, insofar as others knew them, were at odds with theirs, and we lived such a strange life (we kept a cow in our garage in one place), doing things no respectable people did. We would never be fully at home again in the middleclass milieu. Not that we joined the rural proletariat. We certainly drew closer to the Toonervillians, but again there was a gap. Our education and culture, and all the interests and behavior engendered thereby, made them uneasy, a little apprehensive, just as our middleclass acquaintances were put off by the earthy aspects of our life. Of the totality of our life and thought, only fractions were shared by either group, a situation that made for some loneliness, but it broadened our perspective and freed us (to some extent) from the narrowness of a single class viewpoint.
That our state was ambiguous and that I, at least, was confused by it, was vividly, appallingly demonstrated one day late in the winter. Thinking to impress a visiting Tweedy student with my tough guy bootlegger role, we got in his car and took a couple of jugs of cider to Toonerville. Fred wasn't home, so we drove on to Hank's place, a once imposing Victorian house with a wide porch around two sides and elaborate gingerbread ornament. Only fragments remained; most of the intricate woodwork, along with some of the porch, had gone into the stove. The windows were broken, covered with cardboard or stuffed with rags; the whole house, long unpainted and with clapboards missing here and there, was a sagging ruin. Fred had complained to me once of Hank's improvidence: a water pipe froze, and since he was too lazy to thaw it, everything froze and cracked, and now there was no running water at all in the house.
I should say a word here about Hank and Miff. The former I saw sober only once, the opening day of the deer season, when Fred's father banned alcohol from the clan so they wouldn't shoot one another. Hank was stupid, maudlin, obsequious, and nasty. Miff was altogether different, quiet, sad-looking, with a wry sense of humor. He didn't drink nearly as much as his brother. They were beside the house, desultorily splitting wood. Oh yes, Hank would gladly buy cider, and he went inside for the money, while we kidded around with Miff. Hank came to the doorway, holding out the bills, but when I reached for them he retreated, luring me into the house. "Come on and see the missus." I knew she was an invalid with some form of arthritis, but the one time I had seen her, in a car with Hank, she had looked blooming, with a round full face and a rosy complexion. Somewhat uneasily, I stepped after Hank. The door led directly into a large room and sudden darkness: the broken windows were covered over, and the only light came from the open door. Charitable people gave the family old clothes, had been doing so for years, and this was the warehouse as well as the dump for their own cast offs, a mass of boxes, bags, heaps of old clothes, dirty, moldy, rank with filth, mixed in with junk - worn tires, a wheel rim, a baby carriage crushed flat - and piled so high, right up to the ceiling, that only a narrow passage led through the room, straight to a grimy kitchen range, its top covered by tottering piles of dishes so encrusted with the remnants of old meals that they could not have been washed in what? weeks? months? Understand that our progress was not slow, we did not dawdle to gaze around, and in fact I tried, after the third step, not to see anything.
At the stove we turned right, following another tunnel to a door that opened into what had originally been a parlor and was now the master bedroom. At the other end of the large room were three bay windows miraculously intact; before them was a small table and two rickety, wired-together straight chairs; just inside the door against the left wall was a camp bed, with another farther along in an alcove. The incredible, overpowering feature was against the wall on the right: a single bed raised on a foot-high dais, and everything about it - the framework, the sheets, the pillow, the blankets - was immaculate, absolutely spotless, bright, shining. Hank's wife lay in the bed, her rosy face turned to the wall. Stunned by the passage through the "kitchen," this completed my stupefaction.
Hank said in his wheedling voice, "Here's Mr. Gardner to see you, honey."
I mumbled greetings. Her face remained obdurately turned to the wall.
"She's got a little mad on at me," he said, gingerly sitting on one of the chairs. The student sat on a box near the door. Miff invited me to join him on his camp bed. Aside from the dais, the rest of the room was clean in the sense that there was no litter, no piles of garbage, but nothing less than a fire would ever rid its gray splintered floorboards, its cracked plaster walls, and its greasy wainscoting of the dirt of decades. Still reeling, blinking at the vision of the bright bed, my brain and will suspended, not knowing where to look in the awkward silence, I imitated Miff and stared down at the ornate grill in the floor at our feet. Inanely, I asked him what it was.
"Register for a hot air furnace. Don't work no more. . . . At night you can watch the rats runnin around," he answered in a low tone. Not low enough. Hank immediately took fire.
Oh, my brother's too good for his present quarters! Payin nothin, doin nothin, eatin my grub, drinkin my liquor, but he don't like the 'commodations. He was glad to crawl in here from that trailer, but now he's too good for us. Listen, Gardner: I seen the time when I got down on my knees and begged his highness here for money for a drink an he wouldn't give me a dime, not a goddamned dime! No, no, he was too good for that. He didn't drink, he wouldn't touch the stuff. Oh no, liquor was bad an I shouldn't drink it, an he pushed me out the door!
Bent over the register, I glanced furtively at Miff. His eyes were shut tight.
You never knew him when he was a farmer, did you Gardner? Yes, him, he owned the home place free and clear, paid off the mortgage, had a fine herd o' Jerseys with pretty names, too good for his brother he was in them days. But somethin happened to goody goody Milford an he took to the bottle jes like his nogood brother, an he'd lie on the floor dead drunk, and the cows wasn't milked, an they wasn't fed, an -
"Stop!" I cried, unwilling to hear what had happened to the innocent animals. In the sudden silence I could feel my normal functions returning; the shout had shaken me awake. A sense of horror; revulsion, and indignation rose in my throat.
Why do you live like this? Why don't you clean up the place? You could do it, you're able, you -
But he was having none of that.
Who do you think you are, Gardner, comin in here an tellin me what to do? A lotta people wonder about you, what you're doin up there on the hill. Who are you? Where do you come from? Whaddaya do for a livin?
He had struck at my weakest point. What account could I give of myself - even to myself? Defensively, I started to say I had been a teacher, but then I saw, what no one else in the room could see, Hank's three children running towards the house. "Here come your kids, and we have to go." I was out of the room, through the dark passage, and rushing into the fresh air and sunlight in seconds.
What the student thought, I never knew. I was in a rage of shame, and it was weeks before I could think of the episode with any degree of calm, years before I would remember it without an inward cringe. Recalling it now, writing it out like this gives me a new distance, so while I duly shake my head over my inadequacies - to put it charitably - I am no longer so concerned with myself, with my stupidity and weakness of character, with the confusion of class attitudes. I leave those judgments to the reader; the scene needs no gloss from me. But now it seems to me to spring to life, like a little play, and the complexities and ambiguities stand out as the very stuff of dramatic action. Nearly fifty years have passed, but as I write these words, the curtain rises, I can hear Hank's voice, I can see Miff's profile, and in the background, dominating the scene, there is the immaculate bed, there is the woman with her face turned to the wall. *
S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics. An expert in remote sensing and satellites, he served as the founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service and, more recently, as vice chair of the U.S. National Advisory Committee on Oceans & Atmosphere.
This Essay was first published by the American Thinker; they have given permission for republication.
Energy, the life-blood of the economy, is the Achilles heel of President Barack Obama. Mitt Romney can win the November election if he concentrates his campaign on a sensible energy policy.
As a presumed candidate for the U.S. presidency, Romney should spell out now a coherent policy of low-cost and secure energy that would boost the U.S. economy, ensure jobs and prosperity, and raise people up from poverty. Fundamentally, he and his surrogates must educate and inspire the public.
He should pledge specific goals: Lower gasoline prices; cheaper household electricity; cheaper fertilizer for farmers, and lower food prices for everybody; cheaper transport fuels for aviation and for the trucking industry; lower raw material costs for the chemical industry. He should also indicate the kind of people who would be part of his team, who would fill the crucial posts and carry out these policies. His running mate should have a record of endorsing these goals.
It's a winning situation for Romney; Obama has already provided him most of the ammunition:
* Under Obama, the price of gasoline has more than doubled, from $1.80 (U.S. average), and will likely reach $4 a gallon. His Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu, wanted the price to rise to "European levels of $8 to $10." It is really hurting the middle class, particularly the two-car couples who must commute to work. Yet everything Obama has done or is doing is making the situation worse.
* He has vetoed the Keystone pipeline, which would have brought increasing amounts of oil from Canada to Gulf-Coast refineries, created "shovel-ready" jobs, and improved energy security.
* He has kept much federal land off limits for oil and gas production - particularly in Alaska and offshore (including my home state Virginia). The Alaska pipeline is in danger of running dry. Even where exploration is permitted, drilling permits are hard to obtain because of bureaucratic opposition
* To Obama, oil is a "fuel of the past;" not so to millions of drivers. He's looking to put algae in their gas tanks - the latest bio-fuel scheme! In his 2008 campaign, Obama promised that under his regime electricity prices would "skyrocket." He seems to have kept his promise - with help from the misguided "Renewable Electricity Standard," which mandates utilities to buy costly "green" energy from solar/wind projects and effectively become tax collectors.
* He also promised that potential builders of coal-fired power plants would go "bankrupt." That too would happen, thanks to extreme, onerous EPA regulation. The latest EPA plan would stop the construction of new coal-fired power plants by setting impossible-to-obtain emission limits for carbon dioxide. True, EPA has made exceptions if the power plant can capture and sequester the emitted CO2; but the technology to do this is not available and its cost would be prohibitive.
* His EPA is on a warpath against the use of coal. It seems likely that, if Obama is re-elected, EPA will use the CO2 excuse to also close down existing coal-fired plants - and may not permit the construction of any fossil-fueled power plants at all, including even those fired by natural gas, which emits only about half as much CO2 as coal. The California PUC has already banned gas plants (on April 19, 2012) in order to reach their unrealistic goal of 33 percent green electricity.
* One can see the signs of impending EPA efforts to stop the exploitation of shale gas by horizontal drilling, using the claim that "fracking" causes water pollution. What's next?
The only explanation for this irrational behavior: The Obama administration, from top to bottom, seems possessed by pathological fear of catastrophic global warming and obsessed with the idea that no matter what happens to the economy or jobs, it must stop the emission of CO2.
The situation is tailor-made for Romney to launch an aggressive campaign to counter current energy policy - and the even worse one that is likely to be put in place if Obama is re-elected.
Romney has to make it quite clear to potential voters why low-cost energy is absolutely essential for economic recovery, for producing jobs, and for increasing average income - especially for the middle-class family, which is now spending too much of its budget on energy essentials. Romney should hold out the entirely realistic prospect of U.S. energy independence - often promised but never before achieved - or even of the U.S. becoming an energy exporter.
* Romney can confidently promise to reduce the price of gasoline to $2.50 a gallon or less, with a gracious tip of the hat to Newt Gingrich, who had proposed such a goal in one of his campaign speeches. To accomplish this, the world price of oil would have to fall below $60 a barrel from its recent $110.
* But this bright energy promise is entirely possible due to the low price of natural gas, which has fallen to $2 from its 2008 peak of $13 per mcf (1000 cubic feet) - and is still trending downward. All that Romney has to do is to remove existing regulatory roadblocks to the largest extent possible.
It is essential to recognize three important economic facts:
* Since many of the newly drilled wells also produce high-value oil and NGL (natural gas liquids), natural gas becomes a by-product that can be profitably sold at even lower prices.
* Natural gas currently sells for less than 15 percent of the average price of crude oil, on an energy/BTU basis. This means that it pays to replace oil-based fuels, such as diesel and gasoline, with either liquefied natural gas (LNG) or compressed natural gas (CNG). This may be the most economical and quickest replacement for heavy road-vehicles, earth movers. diesel-electric trains, buses, and fleet vehicles.
* It also becomes profitable to convert natural gas directly to gasoline or diesel by chemical processing in plants that are very similar to refineries. Forget about methanol, hydrogen, and other exotics. Such direct conversion would use the existing infrastructure; it is commercially feasible, the technology is proven, and the profit potential is evident - even if the conversion efficiency is only modest, say 50 percent.
Thanks to cheap natural gas, Romney's promise for lower gasoline prices is easily fulfilled: With reduced demand and increased supply globally, the world price of oil will decline and so will the price of transportation fuel. So by satisfying transportation needs for fuel, it should be possible to reduce, rather quickly, oil imports from overseas; at present, 60 percent of all imports (in dollars) are for oil. At the same time, oil production can be increased domestically and throughout North America. The U.S. is on its way to become not only energy-independent but also an exporter of motor fuels - with a huge improvement in its balance of payments.
Another promise Romney can confidently make is that he will cut the price of electricity in half - or even lower. This promise can be fulfilled not only by the low price of natural gas but also by the much higher efficiency of gas-fired power plants that can easily reach 60 percent or more, compared to the present 35-40 percent for nuclear or coal-fired plants. Higher efficiencies reduce not only the cost of fuel (per kilowatt-hour) but effectively lower the capital cost (per kilowatt).
Efficiencies can be raised even higher with "distributed" electric generation, if such gas-fired power plants are located in urban centers where co-generation becomes an attractive possibility. This would use the low-temperature heat that is normally discharged into the environment (and wasted) to provide hot water for space heating and many other applications of an urban area: snow and ice removal, laundry, and even cooling and water desalination. Again, this is proven technology and the economics may be very favorable. Distributed generation also improves security (against terrorism and natural disasters) and simplifies the disposal of waste heat.
Low-cost natural gas can also provide the basic raw material for cheap fertilizer for farmers, thus lowering food prices, and feedstock for chemical plants for cheaper plastics and other basic materials. Industries can now return to the United States and provide jobs locally - instead of operating offshore where natural gas has been cheap.
With the exploitation of the enormous gas-hydrate resource in the offing, once the technology is developed, the future never looked brighter. Somehow, Romney must convey this optimistic outlook to the voting public.
Romney should speak out on the "hoax" (to use Senator James Inhofe's term) of climate catastrophes from rising CO2 levels. He should also make it clear that there is no need for large-scale wind energy or solar electricity - and even the construction of nuclear plants can be postponed. Many environmentalists will be relieved to avoid covering the landscape with solar mirrors, windmills and - yes - hundreds of miles of electric transmission lines and towers.
In his book Throw Them All Out, Peter Schweizer reports that 80 percent of the Department of Energy's multi-billion green loans, loan guarantees, and grants went to Obama backers. Romney should proclaim that there will be no more Solyndras or other boondoggles, and no need for government subsidies for "green energy" or for crony capitalism. The marketplace would decide the future of novel technologies, such as electric cars, solar devices, etc. Many Washington lobbyists will lose their cushy jobs.
There's absolutely no need for bio-fuels either. Yes, that includes algae as well as ethanol, which is now consuming some 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop. The world price of corn has tripled in the past five years - even as EPA plans to increase the ethanol percentage of motor fuels from 10 to 15 percent! True environmentalists are well aware of the many drawbacks of bio-fuels, the damage they do to croplands and forests in the U.S., and overseas, and to the vast areas they require that could be devoted to natural habitats.
Finally, Romney should make it clear that if elected he would appoint a secretary of energy, secretary of interior, administrator of NOAA, and administrator of EPA who share his convictions about energy. Above all, he should recruit a White House staff, including a Science Adviser, who will bring the promise of low-cost, secure energy to the American economy. *
John Ingraham writes from Bouquet, New York.
It was the 30th annual meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, a group formed in 1982 to support efforts to prepare for the possibility of nuclear war or accidents by building shelters and developing civil defense responses. Its chief adversary was Physicians for Social Responsibility, which argued that to prepare defenses against nuclear war was to make it more likely. The DDP was led by physicians, and doctors are still prominent in the membership. As the years passed, the group expanded to include leading scientists as its mission grew to promote rational responses to the scientific issues of the day, such as those raised by the claims of Greenism. The Review decided that this would be a good venue for us to show the flag and also to learn more about these issues, so I embarked for the meeting with a badge on my lapel: The St. Croix Review.
I must say at once that these eminent men and women were invariably friendly, accessible, and patient with my ignorance. Over two days there were 17 presentations, each (with question period) lasting an hour. Nearly all were excellent, several were outstanding. The opening lecture by Dr. Willie Soon, an astrophysicist from Harvard, "Mercury Air Toxics Standards and the Extreme Punishment Agency," exposed the shaky science underpinning the EPA's war on mercury. Dr. Matthew Briggs, adjunct professor of statistical science at Cornell University, followed with "Statistical Follies and Epidemiology," a probing, amusing lecture opening my eyes to the endless devious ways of manipulating statistics. Author and expert on environmental and energy-related issues, Dr. Bonner Cohen's lecture was a tour de force in its scope and depth, "Energy Independence for the U.S.," in which he began by discussing, not just the Marcellus shale but the whole range of shale deposits in North America. Then, with the aid of a world map, he described shale deposits around the world, at the same time that he analyzed the energy policies of each country. That was followed by a description of the demographics of most of these countries, showing that only the U.S. of the Western countries (U.S., Europe, Russia) has a birth rate (2.1) sufficient to maintain the population, and what this may portend for energy use. He closed by returning to the U.S. to show how exploitation of our shale deposits can be a boon to our economy by providing cheap and abundant energy.
Karen Moreau, a lawyer and farmer's daughter from the Hudson Valley, showed a film at lunch about the need for shale development in New York, where it is currently banned. She was eloquent on the need, showing scenes of prosperity across the line in Pennsylvania where fracking is permitted. That was followed by an expert critique of wind energy, and two presentations on nuclear energy, one by Dr. Jerry Cutler, nuclear engineering specialist (he was with Atomic Energy of Canada for more than 25 years), about the nuclear accident in Japan in which the only fatalities were not from radiation but from the quite unnecessary evacuation. Dr. Howard Maccabee, a nuclear physicist and radiation oncologist, discussed "The Health Effects of Medical Radiation" in an illuminating way.
On Sunday, the first presentation was "Sustainability Realities" by Dr. Paul Driessen, well-known commentator on energy and environmental policy, who showed the absurdity inherent in the concept of "sustainable" which, to mean anything, must entail the ability to foresee the future. For instance, who knew anything about fracking and its promise 20 years ago? He brought out the selfishness of the Greens in using the sustainability mantra to prevent all development - consigning ordinary people to diminished lives. Dr. Fred Singer, a well-known figure (even to me) gave a talk whose title says it all, "Low-Cost Energy Fuels Economic Recovery." Dr. Richard Lindzen, distinguished meteorologist from M.I.T., spoke incisively about the corruption of science caused by the global warming hoax. This was one of the very best lectures because of his crisp delivery, his articulateness, and his apposite slides of graphs and statistics. Dr. Rael Jean Isaac, author of books about the dangers of Greenism, criticized the science behind "Climate Science." Dr. Steven Hatfill was very informative about "Biological Agents in Warfare."
I talked up the Review at every opportunity, passed out copies, and I am proud to say that everyone who looked into our magazine was enthused! *
For President Obama standing before adoring followers in a stadium, and before a nation-wide T.V. audience, blowing smoke is what he thinks he needs to do. It's an everyday practice, using the same lines over and over - his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was nothing special.
He paraded his list of villains and horrible deeds:
* The "avalanche of money and advertising" in campaigns.
* Republicans with "the same prescriptions they've had for the last thirty years: "Have a surplus? Try a tax cut . . ."
* "Spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy."
* Oil companies who want to "write the country's energy plan."
* "$4 billion in corporate welfare" (he's president, why didn't he stop it?).
* Banks, lenders, and Wall Street.
* Insurance companies who deny seniors the healthcare they need (better the government deny services).
* ". . . bailouts for banks . . ." (he supported bailouts in 2008 and 2009).
* "Lobbyist and special interests."
* "Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control healthcare choices that women should make for themselves."
* ". . . government is forever beholden to the highest bidder."
* "If a company releases toxic pollution into the air your children breathe, well, that's just the price of progress." (Who believes this? - nobody.)
The president mouthed conservative-sounding words about restoring American values that
. . . built the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known; the values my grandfather defended as a soldier in Patton's Army; the values that drove my grandmother to work on a bomber assembly line while he was gone.
They knew they were part of something larger - a nation that triumphed over fascism and depression; a nation where the most innovative businesses turned out the world's best products. . . . My grandparents were given the chance to go to college, buy their first home, and fulfill the basic bargain at the heart of America's story: the promise that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded; that everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules - from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington D.C. . . .
I've met workers in Detroit and Toledo who feared they'd never build another American car. Today, they can't build them fast enough, because we reinvented a dying auto industry that's back on top of the world. . . .
I've worked with business leaders who are bringing jobs back to America - not because our workers make less pay, but because we make better products. Because we work harder and smarter than anyone else. I've signed trade agreements that are helping our companies sell more goods to millions of new customers - goods that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America. . . .
We insist on personal responsibility and we celebrate individual initiative. We're not entitled to success. We have to earn it. We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system - the greatest engine of growth and prosperity the world has ever known.
And President Obama offered goals:
. . . goals in manufacturing, energy, education, national security, and the deficit, a real achievable plan that will lead to new jobs, more opportunity, and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation. . . .
Help me recruit 100,000 math and science teachers in the next ten years, and improve early childhood education. Help give two million workers the chance to learn skills at the community college that will lead directly to a job. Help us work with colleges and universities to cut in half the growth of tuition costs over the next ten years. . . . (How did he come up with these numbers? Why not a million math and science teachers?)
I'll use the money we're no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work - rebuilding roads and bridges, schools and runways. . . . (The money spent on war was borrowed money, so he is promising to borrow less - but he's just overseen four years of $1 trillion-plus deficits. Bush's largest deficit in 2008 was $500 billion.)
Yes, we will reform and strengthen Medicare for the long haul, but we'll do it by reducing the cost of healthcare - not by asking seniors to pay thousands of dollars more. . . . (He's taken $700 billion from Medicare over a decade to pay for ObamaCare; and ObamaCare will not reduce costs, according to the CBO.)
You can choose a future where we reduce our deficit without wrecking our middle class. Independent analysis shows that my plan would cut our deficits by $4 trillion. (He's never offered a credible plan to cut the deficit.)
President Obama has been in office for nearly four years; why hasn't he already accomplished these goals? He has goals but not plans to achieve them. And wasn't the $800 billions stimulus bill in 2009 supposed to have already rebuilt roads and bridges, schools and runways?
Let's look at what the president's government has been doing to turn around the auto industry and to see how he thinks the free enterprise system should work. In 2009 the Obama administration rescued General Motors with a $50 billion bailout, and dedicated more than $4 billion in subsidies for "green-car" development.
In August, 2012, the federal government owned 500,000,000 shares of GM, 26 percent of the company. The government would need to realize about $53 per share to break even on the 2009 bailout, but the stock as of August was valued at only $20.21 per share, with a loss on investment of $16.4 billion.
The government's GM stock in August is worth about 39 percent less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public after bankruptcy at $33 per share. From 2010 the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by about 20 percent, but GM shares have lost 49 percent of their value compared to the Dow. However, GM is in not danger of going bankrupt again - as long as Barack Obama is prepared to prop up the company with taxpayer money.
GM's premier "green car" is the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid. GM loses as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds, according to industry analysts and manufacturing experts. Sandy Munro, president of Munro & Associates, a company that analyses vehicles for manufacturers globally and the U.S. Government, says:
I don't see how General Motors will ever get its money back on that vehicle. . . . It currently costs GM at least $75,000 to build the Volt, including development costs.
Dennis Virag, president of Automotive Consulting Group said GM's basic problem is that "the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced." Potential buyers are put off by the difficulties of charging the battery for hours, a process that can be speeded up by installing a $2,000 commercial-grade charger in the garage. The Volt only runs from 30 to 40 miles on electricity, then the driver must turn to gasoline. The difficulties of owning a Volt are such that dealers have to "practically give them away," according to Reuters. Some Americans pay only $5,050 to lease a Volt for two years, for a car that costs $75,000 to build.
The sticker price for the Volt is $40,000, and the buyer gets a $7,5000 federal tax credit, reducing the price to $32,500. But the average American makes less than $40,000 a year, and the average per capita income of Volt buyers is $172,000 - this cannot be a car for the average family.
In a free market the price of a car responds to the desire of people to own it. If the Volt were popular, people would line up to buy it. The price would find its proper balance: GM would make a profit, but couldn't charge too much or they would be undercut by competition. The discipline of the market would require GM to make a high quality car at a price people will pay - but GM is no longer subject to market discipline.
President Obama has grotesquely "reinvented" GM. GM isn't concerned whether they are producing a hybrid that people want: nobody wants the Volt at the price that reflects the true cost of production: the Volt would be madly expensive, so GM has to give them away.
President Obama has transformed GM from a profit-seeking manufacturer into a company dependent on government subsidies. The GM state of affairs is not an example of "the greatest engine of growth and prosperity the world has ever known," but the emergence of crony capitalism, where the government directs, the company survives, and people make do with undesirable cars. Obama has not rebuilt GM "on a stronger foundation" but has compromised its independent spirit.
Let's look at how President Obama honors "the strivers, the dreamers, the risk-takers who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system."
In 2009 and 2011 the famous Tennessee guitar maker, Gibson, was subjected to two raids by government agents carrying weapons and wearing SWAT gear, with employees forced out of buildings, production stopped, goods seized, and with threats of the closure of the business. The agents seized $500,000 worth of exotic wood imported from India and Madagascar. The ebony and rosewood have been used for decades to make fingerboards and are essential to the style and sound of Gibson instruments.
Gibson settled with the government so that the feds wouldn't bring criminal charges, concluding a three-year investigation. Gibson admitted some of its imports from Madagascar violated environmental laws and agreed to pay a fine of $300,000, plus $50,000 to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for preserving forests.
Gibson's admission of wrongdoing applied only to Madagascan wood seized in 2009, but not to the Indian wood seized in 2011. The Indian imports were not found unlawful because of inconsistencies in India's tariff classification of ebony and rosewood fingerboards.
The federal raids were prompted by suspicion that the woods had been illegally harvested and exported according to the laws of India and Madagascar. Gibson had purchased the Madagascan wood from a German supplier T.N., an established Forestry Stewardship Council, chain of custody certified supplier. Gibson had sent a representative to Madagascar in 2008 (along with the environmental group Greenpeace) to verify the status of the wood, and had relied on the reputation of the well-respected German supplier.
The government contended that Gibson had not done due diligence to gain documentation of legal forestry practice from the areas of Madagascar where the wood came. A Madagascan law allows the export of finished but not "unfinished" fingerboard blanks. One Madagascan exporter was given a dispensation from the Madagascan law, but not the one used by the German supplier. In short Gibson got caught up in a tangle of complex and confusing foreign law.
The Wall Street Journal commented on Gibson position:
Gibson's predicament, which raises concerns for musical-instrument makers and other importers of wood, illustrated the pitfalls of complying with U.S. law while dealing with middlemen in faraway countries whose legal systems can be murky.
Even a good faith effort was not enough for Gibson to evade suspicion of criminal intent.
The U.S. government was not assured of success; Gibson might very well have won its case in court. But the cost of going to trial, the length of time before resolution, and the continued confiscation of wood needed for production compelled Gibson to settle.
Gibson CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz commented:
We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact by a caring human being representing the government. Instead, the government used violent and hostile means with the full force of the U.S. Government and several armed law enforcement agencies costing the tax payer millions of dollars and putting a job-creating U.S. manufacturer at risk and at a competitive disadvantage. This shows the increasing trend on the part of government to criminalize rules and regulations and treat U.S. businesses in the same way drug dealers are treated.
President Obama's government is encumbering American producers more then ever before, making the slogan "Made in America" more precious, as American manufacturing becomes more precarious.
President Obama may uphold with words
. . . the basic bargain at the heart of America's story: the promise that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded; that everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules . . .
but under his administration he chooses whom to reward and subsidize, and whom to punish, leaving every one exposed to the capricious exercise of government force.
[The information about GM and the Chevy Volt came from Erika Johnsen, Michael Reagan, Reuters News Service, and The Free Republic; and the information about Gibson's plight came from Mary Katherine Ham - thank you!] *
The following is a summary of the August 2012 issue of the St. Croix Review:
In "Barack Obama - A New Type of Hero," Barry MacDonald reveals the president's true character, which is out of tune with America's spirit.
Herbert London, in "The Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare: A Sad Day for America," lists the many reasons the courts decision is troubling; in "Obama's Julia," he cites the Obama's campaign creation of "Julia," a made-up person who represents President Obama's view: an ordinary woman who can't succeed without government's helping hand; in "The Sleepers We Choose to Ignore," he outlines the continuing threat militant Islam poses to America; in "European Future on the Ropes," he says the era of cradle to grave entitlements is over, and America will be effected by Europe's disease; in "Betrayal from Within," he cites examples of a left wing agenda, and a neglect of the best interests of Jews in two Jewish American organizations; in "Freedom and Constraints," he argues that constraints are needed to avoid licentiousness, confusion, and despair.
Mark W. Hendrickson, in "The Question of More or Less Government," writes that deficit spending is wrong and dangerous - the federal government should shrink; in "The Euro Is a Frankenstein Currency," he says the euro is a monstrosity doomed to be rent asunder; in "Mitt and Me: Romney at Cranbrook - a Personal Glimpse," he tells what he knows from his experience of Mitt's character; in "Economics.
Allan Brownfeld, in "Out of Control Executive Authority Is a Growing Threat to Representative Government," shows how President Obama has become judge, jury, and executioner; in "To Reduce Government - and Debt - We Must Change the Incentive Structure for Politicians," he explains why neither party reduces federal spending; in "Finally, Attention Is Being Focused on Our System of Excessive Public Pensions," he cites cases in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Illinois, and California; in "Black-On-Black Crime: A Subject Which the African-American Community, Finally, Must Confront," he shows evidence of dramatic reductions of white bigotry and exploding violence among blacks themselves; in "Finally, Taking a Long-Needed Second Look at Vocational Education," he cites many examples of successful schools and students.
Paul Kengor, in "A Dad Like Jack: the Influence of Ronald Reagan's Father," relates how Reagan came to love and rely on God, and his father; in "The Nation's Top 'Progressives'. . . and Socialists and Communists," he lists the Left's nefarious heroes; in "The Catholic Bishops v. Obama? President Obama and Justice Ginsburg on America's 'Rather Old Constitution'" he relates Obama's disregard for, and Ginsburg's dismissal of our Constitution; in "Allen West and His Critics," in response to West's allegations that many Democratic members of Congress are Communists, he takes three views; in "Cuba Backing Gay Marriage?" he comments on why Communists would support gay marriage: as a tool to attack marriage and the family.
William A. Barr, in "Pacific War - Minus the Atom Bombs," ponders declassified, Japanese and American, operational plans and draws a picture of unavoidably grisly consequences of a U.S. invasion of Japan.
Haven Bradford Gow writes a loving tribute to his father in "Life after Death."
Jigs Gardner, in "Versed in Country Things - Summer and Fall," tells how they got rid of an unwanted house guest, how they settled into chores, how neighbors behaved, and how they had fun.
In "H. L. Mencken," Jigs Gardner writes of the brilliant, prodigious, one-of-kind stylist, along with his deep flaws of character, which he suffered from. He was America's first of the "adversary culture."
In An Extraordinary Essay," Fayette Durlin and Peter Jenkin review an essay by James Piereson, "The Fourth Revolution," using history as a guide to conclude that the New Deal governance is nearing collapse. Debt, obligations impossible to meet, stagnation, and political paralysis will bring about the end.
Robert DeMuro, in "Americans at Work Series: Country Doctor," tells how childhood chores on a dairy farm prepared him, how his early training misinformed him, and how the new government formulas fill him with misgiving.
In "Chickens and Reactionaries," John Ingraham explains the economics of raising chickens, and he takes a swipe at "Country Fakes"- leftists who profess to know more about what's best for the countryside than people who live and work there.
In "The American Pantry-Vera Bisek: Old World Baker," Cornelia Wynne tells an archetypal story, a Czechoslovakian couple who come to Brooklyn practically penniless and who eventually find their way. Vera's recipe is for Apple Strudel.
Cornelia Wynne explores the cooking traditions of Americans through their distinctive foods and dishes and through their stories. These assert our defining traits of independence, resourcefulness, and a can-do spirit.
Vera grew up in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and in 1959 she met Peter at a Communist youth rally. Four years later they were married. In 1965, eager to escape the repressive regime and build a better life in freedom, they managed to sneak out of the country to Malmo, Sweden. There they found work, Peter in a printing plant, Vera assembling electrical contactor switches. They worked hard and saved money for their main destination: America.
A Swedish cargo ship named MS Indiana brought them to a Brooklyn shipyard. They landed, frozen, on the shores of the "promised land" with two suitcases (one packed with clothes, the other with books), and $180. Unbeknownst to them, during their transit to America their sponsor in the United States had gone bankrupt, leaving them with no place to go, no one to aid them. Fortunately, a friendly co-passenger took them home with her and here they stayed a week, looking for work every day. Fortunately, an old friend from Prague helped Peter find a job in the printing business. Vera worked in a dry cleaning store. Ever industrious and thrifty, they eventually were able to buy a house on Long Island where they raised two children, and in 1986 launched their husband-and-wife typography business, Typrints Company.
In April, 1990, in a spirit of euphoria after the "Velvet Revolution" toppled the totalitarian regime in Czechoslovakia, they started a Czech-Slovak-American newspaper, Americke Listy, which became the most widely-read Czech periodical in the Czech language to be published abroad (it remained a Czech and Slovak language periodical even after the split of Czechoslovakia into two separate entities). In 1998, for their lobbying for the early acceptance of the Czech Republic into NATO, Peter was awarded the Medal of Merit First Order by Vaclav Havel, President of the new Czech Republic. In 2005, he and Vera received the Gratias Agit, an award from the Secretary of the Czech Republic "for spreading the good word of the Czech Republic abroad."
In 2010 they decided to retire and focus their time and energy on their family and four grandchildren (two of them in the Czech Republic where their son settled).
If awards were given for incomparable baking in authentic Old World style, Vera would be crowned queen. Her nimble fingers, trained from childhood to expertly bunch radishes and fresh violets for her father's market garden, still roll out strudel dough filled with the classic apple filling. The finely milled Wondra flour, produced by Gold Medal, is essential for a tender, flaky pastry. If you can't find it locally, google "calibex" on the Internet and type in "wondra flour" to find sources.
PASTRY
2 1/2 cups Wondra flour
2 sticks plus 1 tablespoon butter, softened
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons white vinegar
4-6 tablespoons milk
salt
2 large apples (Granny Smith), peeled and grated
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons bread crumbs
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped nuts
Put flour on a wooden board. Form a mound in the middle and add in butter cut in pieces, egg yolks, salt, vinegar, and milk. Knead with a fork or with your fingers until all the flour is incorporated and the dough is smooth and elastic. Divide the dough into three equal pieces. Wrap in clear plastic and leave in the refrigerator overnight. Next day, take it out and leave for several hours to become workable. With a rolling pin roll out one piece of dough in a square about ? inch thick. The sheet should be at least 18 x 16 inches. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and melted butter. Toss grated apples on the dough sheet, sprinkle with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon, raisins, and walnuts. Roll the long side up like a jelly-roll, place on a greased baking sheet, so that the seam is on the bottom. Brush the top of the roll with egg and milk mixture (1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon of milk) and bake in an oven preheated to 350 F for 45 minutes, or until the rolls are golden brown. Dust with confectioners' sugar.
Correction: the last "American Pantry" column should have stipulated 1/3 cup of shortening, not 1 cup. *