VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
The Boston Globe has an interesting article on a fascinating man who lives down the road from us (90 miles or so -- everything in the Central Valley is "down the road"). Victor Davis Hanson is a rasin farmer who also heads up the classics department at California State University Fresno ("Fresno State"). Good thing he has a day job -- raisins are pretty much a loosing endeavor these days. They over-planted in the 90's when the price for raisins was high.

Anyway, a sample from the article: "These are confusing times, and Hanson wields a few simple ideas with blunt force. Western culture, in his view, emanates from ancient Greece and prizes consensual government, private markets, self-criticism, and rational inquiry. Where such values are found, political, economic, and military preeminence follow. The non-Western world lags behind the West because it does not share in the Greek cultural legacy, having opted instead for despotism, theocracy, illiberal markets, and the plain old laziness that has men whiling away afternoons playing backgammon in the cafes of the Middle East."