High life
Dear old Dixie
Taki
A few minutes from the centre of Rich- mond, at the gateway to Virginia plantation country, lies Petersburg, where the longest siege in America's history took place. Once Petersburg fell to the dirty Yankees, the surrender of General Lee followed in a few days. It was at Appomattox plantation that
. . so she became a celebrity and disappeared.' the capitulation was signed, signalling the end of graciousness and the victory of greed.
Yet the spirit of the old South lives. My old alma mater, the University of Virginia, about an hour's drive away in Char- lottesville, boasts not only the most beauti- ful campus by far — the university was designed by Thomas Jefferson — but also works on the honour system, an unheard-of phenomenon in today's avaricious world. A gentleman simply doesn't cheat or lie at the University of Virginia, and during my time there I cannot remember anyone even coming close. (Mind you, Ted Kennedy was attending law school at the time, having been kicked out of Harvard for cheating, but not even Ali Forbes would dare call him a gent.)
The reason I was back down in God's country was to give a commencement speech at Virginia's Commonwealth Uni- versity, located in Richmond and as beauti- ful a place as its sister campus in Charlottesville. The inn I stayed in used to be Edgar Allan Poe's childhood play- ground and his inspiration for the enchant- ed garden in his love poem 'To Helen'. The Linden Inn is at the end of Richmond's most famous avenue, Monument Avenue. It is a wide, elm- and magnolia-lined street with a long grass separation in the middle. The houses on each side have not been touched and every quarter of a mile or so there is a roundabout with a monument to people like J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jack- son and, of course, Robert E. Lee. Walking down Monument Avenue is Gone with the Wind stuff. Although I didn't run into Rhett Butler, I felt as if the Yankees had never come down and ruined the place. Everyone greets each other, people smile at strangers and even the blacks seem cheerful and friendly. All the time I was there I thought how more gracious Ameri- can life would be if the South had not been destroyed. Better yet, how much more self- sufficient her people.
Ignoramuses of the left loathe the South because of slavery. That evil system would have been abolished in time and what would not have taken place is the slavery of drugs and poverty that the ignoramuses imposed on blacks, says Taki. My speech, however, was not about the South. It was about the Fourth Estate and how in Ameri- ca the blow-dried types think they are above the law. When I wrote it I had not realised that there would be many Vietnam veterans sitting in the audience as parents of graduating students. So when I attacked the egregious Ted Turner and his paramour Hanoi Jane, people stood up and cheered. I was interrupted three times and they were the three best interruptions I've ever had. The head of the college, Tom Donahue, an old friend, told me afterwards that the Dean of the University had called it the most politically incorrect speech of the last 30 years. Needless to say, that was a great compliment.
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