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  • The Crusades: When Christendom Pushed Back

    Were the Crusades really expansionist ventures by an imperialist Europe? Or were they something else entirely?

    Crusades Battle By Selwyn Duke

    The year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a
    mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim
    Moors are on the march.
    Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is
    known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old
    Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria
    and Iraq fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even
    an Arab land, fell in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under
    Muslim control by 709. Then came the year 711 and the Moors’ invasion
    of Europe, as they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and entered
    Visigothic Iberia (now Spain and Portugal). And the new continent
    brought new successes to Islam. Conquering the Iberian Peninsula by
    718, the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Gaul (now France)
    and worked their way northward. And now, in 732, they are approaching
    Tours, a mere 126 miles from Paris.

    The Moorish leader, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, is supremely confident of
    success. He is in the vanguard of the first Muslim crusade, and his
    civilization has enjoyed rapidity and scope of conquest heretofore
    unseen in world history. He is at the head of an enormous army, replete
    with heavy cavalry, and views the Europeans as mere barbarians. In
    contrast, the barbarians facing him are all on foot, a tremendous
    disadvantage. The only thing the Frankish and Burgundian European
    forces have going for them is their leader, Charles of Herstal,
    grandfather of Charlemagne. He is a brilliant military tactician who,
    after losing his very first battle, is enjoying an unbroken 16-year
    streak of victories.

    Read the rest here.

  • Culture in the Rye

    Field of Rye By Selwyn Duke

    Many years ago, I was told a
    story by a woman I knew whose son had been diagnosed with “A.D.D.”  She said that she finally had to take from
    her boy a book a therapist had given him about how an A.D.D. child acts.  The problem? 
    Her son was reading it and then imitating the behavior of the child in
    it!

    Then I remember when someone I
    know well told me about her 13-year-old’s reaction to being confronted about
    his misbehavior.  He said something to
    the effect of, “Well, mom, you know, I’m at that age.”  But how did he know he was at “that age”?

    (more…)

  • Scott Brown, Glenn Beck and the Spirit of the Age

     1991659_blog By Selwyn Duke

    Scott Brown may be the Massachusetts
    man of the moment, but it sure didn’t take him long to commit his first gaffe. The
    scene was the podium at his Senate-campaign victory speech, where, flanked by
    his two scantily clad daughters, he proclaimed to the
    world that they were “available.” No, Bill Clinton was not in attendance.

    At this point one could
    probably make a crack about politics’ frequent association with prostitution,
    which, as Eliot Spitzer proved, is sometimes more than a figurative nexus. But
    the truth is that Brown’s statement — a poor effort at humor — shocked many,
    including commentator Glenn Beck, who blasted
    the senator-elect on his radio show.

    Read the rest here.

  • Reader Email: Uncle Santa Clause, I want a Pony

    It’s Christmas Eve and Jimmy has just been tucked
    snugly in bed.  The anxiety for the day
    to come has him plum tuckered out.  As he
    drifts off to sleep, the last vision that passed across his mind is a
    photographic memory of the crayon written letter he sent to Santa:

    Dear Santa,

    It’s me
    Jimmy.  I have been a very good boy this
    year and I got all A’s on my report card. 
    All I want for Christmas is a pony; a brown pony with white spots is
    what I really want but any pony will do if you can’t find one with spots.

    Thanks,

    Jimmy

    (more…)

  • Earthquakes Aren’t Man-made, Poverty is

                         The tragedy behind the tragedy in Haiti

    Hurricane Devastation By Selwyn Duke

    Natural disasters are bad.
    They’re far worse when they combine with unnatural disasters. We’re all calling
    the recent Haitian earthquake devastating, but it’s more correct to say that in
    Port-Au-Prince there is tremendous devastation. And there is a difference, as
    more “devastating” quakes have caused less devastation in other places.

    Famed
    economist Walter Williams brings this to light in a recent column.
    He points out that while Haiti's 7.0 quake has a death toll of more than
    200,000, northern California's 1989 Loma Prieta 7.1 quake and San Francisco’s
    1906, 7.8 quake — which was about eight times the intensity of Haiti’s —
    claimed respectively, only 63 and 3,000 lives.

    Read the rest here.

  • Tuesday’s Savage Nation Appearance: The Quayled Lady — Why You Should Forget about Sarah Palin

    https://selwynduke.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/savage-presentation-the-quayled-lady-01-19-10.mp3 The Quayled Lady: Why You Should Forget about Sarah Palin – 01/19/10

  • Obama’s Healthcare Discrimination: Making Some More Equal than Others

    Bad Doctor By Selwyn Duke

    One thing we get with our
    mother’s milk today is revulsion for what civil-rights lawyers call “invidious”
    discrimination.  For the civil-rights
    lawyers who attained their status through the invidious discrimination known as
    affirmative action, the parenthesized word means “likely to
    create ill will” or “offensively or unfairly discriminating.”  Now, the problem with judging invidiousness
    is that it requires you know what fairness is. 
    For instance, it certainly creates ill will when Americans are rejected
    simply because they’re too white or too male (yes, it makes sense — think San
    Francisco), but the government doesn’t trouble much about that.

    (more…)

  • What is More Troubling than Pat Robertson’s Remarks?

    Lightning Storm By Selwyn Duke

    Of all the responses to the
    devastation in Haiti, the most copy-worthy is televangelist Pat Robertson’s
    claim that the earthquake was divine retribution.  In making his case, he told a story about how
    Haitian leaders long ago made a pact with Satan, promising to serve him if he
    would help vanquish their French oppressors. 
    The Devil delivered, said Robertson, but the consequence is that the
    nation has ever since been cursed, with one disaster befalling it after
    another.  It was reminiscent of when the
    late Jerry Falwell said — and Robertson agreed — that those who have authored
    America’s descent into sin were partially responsible for 9/11.

    (more…)

  • The Quayled Lady: Why You Should Forget Sarah Palin

    Back to School Duncecap By Selwyn Duke

    Really, there’s precious little
    fairness in the world.  People tend to be
    slaves to emotion, and prejudices often reign supreme even (in fact,
    especially) in those who rail against prejudice.  This is why we’ll see millions of Americans reflexively
    dismiss a politician simply because of the letter following his name; it is why
    people will often oppose a position they would otherwise support simply because
    it’s being advocated by someone they dislike. 
    Ah, that troublesome human nature.

    This brings us to Sarah Palin,
    the Wasilla woman often billed as the best hope of the GOP.  She certainly isn’t one of those plain
    vanilla characters who inspire blasé reactions, that’s for sure.  It’s just so often the case that people either
    love her or hate her, believe she is the cat’s meow or the pig with lipstick, a
    political sensation or a puerile simpleton. 
    I’m in neither camp.

    (more…)

  • Trial Begins for Woman Who Cut Baby from Womb

    412294_low By Selwyn Duke

    It sounds like a dark story from the days of ancient pagan rituals:
    A person tears open a woman’s womb while she’s still alive and takes
    her baby from it. I wrote about
    such a crime in August of last year, but, tragically, it was no
    isolated event. And now a different case of this kind is coming to
    trial, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    Forty-year-old Andrea Curry-Demus of Wilkinsburg, a Pittsburgh
    suburb, wanted a baby badly. Very badly, it seems. So her hopes must
    have been buttressed when a urine test showed that she might be
    pregnant — yet a subsequent blood test would dash those hopes. This is
    when Curry-Demus put a deadly plan into action, one that would leave a
    woman dead and a baby motherless.

    Read the rest here.

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