Author: Gary North

Tonight the Smithsonian Channel will present a documentary that offers extracts of rare films of Malcolm X’s speeches. I can make a unique claim. I sat in a mostly white audience to hear a lecture by Malcolm X in the spring of 1962. For one semester, I was an undergraduate student at UCLA. Some campus organization invited Malcolm X to speak. I would estimate in retrospect that he had about 200 people in attendance. He spoke in the student union. I don’t think many white people ever saw him speak in person. I’m glad that I did. I was a good … Continue reading →

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I must confess, I discovered Ry Cooder late. Better late than never. I recall exactly where I was: a movie theater in Durham, North Carolina. It was 1978. I had just watched Jack Nicholson in a piece of fluff: Goin’ South. The movie closed with a panoramic scene of a desert. Then a song started. It had nothing to do with the closing scene. I could not believe my ears.  The credits started to roll. The song was still playing. I always stay for credits, but this time, nothing could have tempted me to leave. I waited for the end, … Continue reading →

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The murder of 17 innocent high school students in Parkland, Florida reminds us that public schools are dangerous. Too dangerous for children. Yet there are pro-public school ideologues who refuse to face the facts. They shut their eyes to reality. They spout their slogan: “Public schools don’t kill public students. Killers kill public school students.” We have heard this for 50 years. Yet the killers are always one of these: (1) enrolled public school students, (2) public school graduates, or (3) expelled public school students. It’s time to turn a deaf ear on the refrain about public schools not killing public school … Continue reading →

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Two hundred and nine years ago today, the sun rose over the English village of Shrewsbury. Susannah Darwin was about to give birth to her fifth child, Charles. Her husband Robert was a financier. Her father was a Wedgewood, of pottery fame. Times were not tough in the Darwin household. The sun moved over the Atlantic, heading for Hardin County, Kentucky. Later in the day — the Darwins’ day, anyway — it passed over the log cabin of Thomas and Nancy Lincoln, whose son Abraham had just been born. Times were always tough in the Lincoln household. All in all, … Continue reading →

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Randy Newman is part of the Newman clan of musical geniuses. The dynasty got its start with Randy’s uncle, Alfred, who at age ten began earning a living a a piano player. He became a fixture at 20th century Fox. He was nominated for an Oscar 45 times, and won nine times. His brother Lionel, Randy’s father, was nominated ten times. He won in 1970 for Hello, Dolly. Together, the Newman family has been nominated for an Oscar 70 times. Their story is here. Randy has been nominated 17 times. He won twice: 2002, “If I Didn’t Have You,” Monsters, Inc, and 2011, … Continue reading →

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In order to understand the title of this article, you need to watch a video. I regard this video as the finest low-budget cartoon ever produced. It is titled “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” It was made in 1969. This will take you only 90 seconds.  On very rare occasions, a public event takes place that represents a turning point. It is not that the public event causes the great turn; rather, it illustrates it or represents it. Such an event took place in December 1998, when Matt Drudge published his brief article on the decision of Newsweek to suppress the story of … Continue reading →

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I share something with all four Koch brothers: prostate cancer. They have survived for over 20 years. I hope to as well. Charles Koch is interested in free market education. He has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into free market organizational oases located on Keynesian/Democrat university campuses. These campuses remain Keynesian/Democrat. What if he could teach a million high school students Austrian economics every year . . . permanently? Or two million? All over the world? Meanwhile, over the last dozen years, Salman Khan has created the most successful educational program in history. He did it with no money initially. … Continue reading →

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Dave Brubeck played piano. He became the most famous jazz piano master in the second half of the twentieth century. He got started in 1942. He played until he died in 2012. That was a 70-year career. He studied music at the College of the Pacific. Only toward the end did one of his professors discover that he could not sight-read music. He was allowed to graduate only by promising never to teach piano. That was in 1942. He was immediately inducted into the Army. He got started with jazz when he was stationed in Europe. He played for the … Continue reading →

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I began writing Marx’s Religion of Revolution in 1965. I was in graduate school at the University of California, Riverside. It was published in 1968. I was 26 years old. I got the idea from R. J. Rushdoony. In 1965, he wrote a 20-page pamphlet, The Religion of Revolution. It was published by St. Thomas Press, the book publishing outlet of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Houston. The pastor was a conservative, T. Robert Ingram. The booklet was going to be a chapter of a book. He wrote the following at the end of his January 1966 newsletter: During December, I spoke 31 times, … Continue reading →

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She was cute in 1967, at age 20. She just kept getting more striking. Turn down the awful cover music, and watch this: age 40 to 70.  Here, the late John Hartford introduces her to an appreciative audience. This was a performance by the singers in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). It was held at the Ryman Auditorium, the home of the original Grand Ole Opry, on May 24, 2000. This unique evening was filmed. It was released as Down from the Mountain that December. I was in Nashville in the week it was released. I went to a late-night showing at … Continue reading →

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Every January, the elite gather in Davos, Switzerland to do business deals and listen to boring lectures by people who don’t have either money or power. It’s called the World Economic Forum. Every year, the Left-wing foundation, Oxfam, simultaneously publishes its latest finding, which never changes much, that 1% of the world’s population owns half of the wealth. These are public relations operations. The WEF’s message: “We’ve got it, and you don’t.” Oxfam’s message: “They’ve got it, and we don’t.” They are made for each other. They are joined at the hip. DAVOS The World Economic Forum is Duffy’s Tavern for the … Continue reading →

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When I say “modern jazz,” I mean post-World War II jazz. Two things characterize it: (1) small bands; (2) it is for listening, not dancing. Big band jazz was different. The era of the big jazz bands, meaning swing bands, lasted a decade: from about 1931 (Harlem’s Chick Webb) through 1942: mobilization during World War II. It was Benny Goodman’s band, beginning in 1935, that made the music popular. The year 1942 was also the beginning of the strike of the musicians’ union. The union refused to allow its members to record music, except for the Armed Forces Radio Network, which was … Continue reading →

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The topic of sanctuary cities comes up every once in a while. It should come up a lot more often. We need sanctuary cities. That is because we need relief from federal regulations and laws. We also need relief from state regulations and laws. There are vastly too many regulations on the books. There are so many laws and regulations that there is no way to keep track of all of them. Every year, the Federal Register publishes over 80,000 pages of fine print, three-column regulations. There is no way that these regulations are part of a coherent plan. There is no … Continue reading →

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I like Peggy Noonan. I am a wordsmith. She is a tremendous speech writer. I appreciate her abilities. Recently, she wrote a response in The Wall Street Journal to the Netflix series The Crown and Steven Spielberg’s movie on The Washington Post, appropriately called The Post. She pointed out historical inaccuracies in both dramas. In both cases, these inaccuracies had to do with politics. She is an expert on politics. Here’s how she ended her column: Why does all this matter? Because we are losing history. It is not the fault of Hollywood, as they used to call it, but Hollywood is a contributor to it.When people … Continue reading →

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Anthony Easton offered insights on the coup here. There was a follow-up by a site member on a forum. August 1991 Coup attempt “The failed coup against Gorbachev occurred on August 18, 1991” My wife and I were returning from a couple of months in Eastern Europe, mostly in Russia. Our hosts were Ham Radio operators that had invited me to tour Russia. My call sign was well-known worldwide and that is why it happened.We later learned how the Coup was stopped. Our Russian Ham Radio friends just happened to have a Ham Radio station in the building where Gorbachev … Continue reading →

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