The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli, first published in 1513, 176 pages, ISBN 978-0553212785

The worst that a prince may expect from a hostile people is to be abandoned by them; but from hostile nobles he has not only to fear abandonment, but also that they will rise against him;

In 1513, early into the Great Wars of Italy, an Italian politician, ambassador, soldier, and political philosopher was on the losing end of one of the many internal conflicts that followed the Reniassance. After being tortured and eventually released, he moved to his beloved Florence and settled down on a farm to write what is probably one of the most important treatises on politics written - Il Principe, The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli. Full Story »

When I was asked to do a writeup for Oscar Zeta Acosta as our latest Scroguero, I was happy to do it. I, like most people who hear Oscar’s name, know him for his literary works, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972) and The Revolt of the Cockroach People (1973). As I was doing my research, though, I realized that Oscar—a legendary, compelling figure in Chicano history—remains in the shadows of the general American culture. He has never really gotten his due.

Acosta’s name is not one that rings many bells today, and if it does, most people remember him as being the inspiration for Dr. Gonzo, the character immortalized in Hunter S. Thompson’s book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In Fear, the character of Dr. Gonzo—a man with a gargantuan appetite for food, drugs and dangerous living—is the perfect complement to Thompson’s journalist alter ego, Raoul Duke, who uses his assignment to cover an off-road race as an excuse to overindulge in booze and drugs in Vegas.

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“Nuclear war must be the most carefully avoided topic of general significance in the contemporary world. . . . almost everyone seems to feel adequately informed by reading one book about nuclear war.” – Paul Brians, chronicler of nuclear culture

At one time we ducked the topic out of stark, raving fear. Whether Russia or the US started it, we were all going to be blown up. But today we tune out because we believe that the Cold War is over and that civilization is safe from total annihilation.

What’s more, we’d like to keep it that way. Which may explain why, according to a recent Zogby poll, more than half of us support a strike against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.

But it will take more than that to keep us safe. In truth, the United States and Russia still keep one-third of their strategic arsenals on launch-ready alert. Also, the US plans to franchise Star Wars (the Strategic Defense Initiative) to Poland and the Czech Republic as if it were just another latte hut. Full Story »

Matt Taibbi is perhaps the premier political writer of his generation. He made his bones with Mark Ames at Russia’s legendary expat rag The eXile before moving on to The Beast and New York Press. He now writes for Rolling Stone and will soon release his fourth book, ‘The Great Derangement.’ He’s also covering the ‘08 campaign in a special RS diary entitled “Year of the Rat.” His caustic wit often compared to Hunter Thompson, he’s called Mitt Romney “a poll-chasing stuffed suit with a Max Headroom hairdo,” Tom Tancredo a “vengeful midget,” President Bush “a retarded Christian AA version of Woodrow Wilson” and gets Fred Thompson confused with Joe Don Baker. Taibbi was kind enough to answer some questions from S&R’s Mike Sheehan.

Taibbi: They’ve done some good things. In the 109th and the other Republican Congresses the two-day work week was standard, and even those two days were often half-days. This Congress has brought back the five-day week. They’ve eliminated for the most part the “vampire congress” late-night sessions and phased out the holding open of votes to intimidate recalcitrant members and that sort of thing. But on the other hand… the Democrats came in amid much fanfare and announced that they were reforming the system, eliminating earmarks, etc. After the first Continuing Resolution they passed (I think it was on January 31), Rahm Emanuel was bragging about how it was an “earmark-free bill.” But there are all sorts of earmarks in it. A guy I know named Full Story »

I recall once hearing in a lecture that the Easter Rising rebels were influenced by the poetry of William Butler Yeats, and that they perhaps even read his work amongst themselves during the seven days they occupied Dublin’s General Post Office in April 1916. I can’t find a source to verify that they were reading Yeats while awaiting slaughter, but he was certainly a major player in the renaissance of Irish culture in the years leading up to the rebellion. He was also a prominent national figure after the Rising, being appointed to the new republic’s Senate just six years later.

It’s not clear, though, that Yeats ever dreamed of being a “sixty-year-old smiling public man” of an overtly political cast. Full Story »

I found this picture of African-American man of letters James Baldwin in a bio some years ago and it remains a favorite. He’s standing on a concrete islet in the middle of a busy street, his large, somber eyes hidden behind sunglasses, his dress casual, his posture seemingly relaxed; like Miles Davis, Baldwin could appear cool and calm even while volcanic emotions stirred within. It’s not clear where Baldwin’s been, where’s he headed, what he’s reading, what he’s feeling, or if anyone around him even knows who he is besides the photographer. Is his pocketed right hand at rest or clenched in tension? Is he looking at someone or something, or lost in thought? Are his lips in a sly smile, or a pensive frown? Is he in a hurry, or taking his time? Is he in America, or in Europe, where he spent much of his adult life?

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The mid-1970s were a wonderful time for music lovers. For starters, exciting and innovative new music was popping up all over the place. And when it did, it actually got played on the radio.

The UK was especially fertile ground during this period, as scores of punk and New Wave acts emerged (many from the “pub rock” scene) in the most dynamic explosion of music since the British Invasion. One of the most outstanding of these was Graham Parker, who in 1976 released not one, but two instant five-star classics - Howlin’ Wind and Heat Treatment.

While some of his contemporaries (most notably Elvis Costello) became wildly famous, arguably nobody in rock history has posted a more enduring legacy of critical success. Full Story »

Here I am once more in this scene of dissipation and vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted. - Jane Austen, Letters

Jane Austen might not have completely approved of Scholars and Rogues. But she would have liked us, nonetheless. And she’s certainly one of us.

Austen believed herself a deeply conservative member of her society - the landed gentry of Regency England. She approved of marriage, the monarchy, and Samuel Richardson’s novels. She disapproved of love affairs (whether casual or serious), rebellions (whether political or social), and Byron’s poetry…. Full Story »

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our newest scholar/rogue is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Most Americans, no matter what they think of him, know King’s story well. The son of a Baptist minister, King attended segregated schools (graduating high school at 15), then attended Morehouse College in Atlanta. From there he went to seminary and then to Boston University from which he received his PhD in theology. Barely more than a year after accepting his first pulpit, King accepted the leadership of the first great civil rights “direct action” campaign, the bus boycott in Montgomery, AL, in 1955. In 1957 King became president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a new organization founded to offer leadership and guidance to the burgeoning civil rights movement and a group that took its ideals from Christianity and its operating procedures from those of Gandhi. Over the next eleven years he “traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles.” Full Story »

On September 12, 2001, the day after The Attacks, Hunter S. Thompson wrote:

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives. It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. … We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Full Story »

The Scholar and Rogue on our masthead is Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967).

Dorothy Parker is best known for her caustic wit as a writer, poet, critic, and a founding member of The Algonquin Round Table.

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

Parker’s critiques, short stories, poems, and screenplays make up the majority of her life’s work. Her acerbic wit as drama critic for Vanity Fair eventually led to her dismissal as readers became more and more offended. Full Story »

In battle, if you make your opponent flinch, you have already won.

If you have ever been involved in business negotiations with Japanese businessmen, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with this situation: you walk into the conference room and, almost inevitably, the most senior businessman is seated furthest from the door. Full Story »

Note our new masthead. Our newest scholar rogue is Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007).

Hi Ho.

Most of you know Vonnegut as the author of the beloved counter culture sort of sci-fi/sort of philosophical/sort of satirical/inarguably great novels Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, and Slapstick. This is true.

It is also foma.*

Vonnegut was also more. He was a failed army scout, failed chemist, failed automobile mechanic, and failed anthropologist - by his own admission.

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Mrs. Miggins, there’s nothing intellectual wandering around Italy in a big shirt, trying to get laid. - Edmund Blackadder

That dashing, slightly dangerous character gracing the masthead above is none other than George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824). We have selected him as the coverboy for our first masthead, and if from this you deduce that other personages will feature on that mast in the future, good on ye.

While Byron is best known as one of the premier poets of the late Romantic era, along with Keats and Shelley, as well as for a string of decidedly roguish behavior involving ale and married women, we honor him here for a far more obscure accomplishment. Full Story »