The Jaundiced Eye, # 1

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Nancy Pelosi’s daughter is shocked by a doctored video that makes her mother seem drunk and claims that Nancy does not even drink.  To think that you can be that dumb and crazy just on prescription meds!  Somebody call the FDA.

News stories are reporting that a quarter of Americans are running up credit card debt to pay for necessities.  I know these people, and what with buying beer and cigarettes, paying for cable television and the latest Apple products, eating out at Chilis and the Outback, they can barely afford to buy the Fritos, Cokes, and Little Debby Snack Cakes for the children’s lunches.  

USA Today is reporting that as airplanes have become automated and computerized, pilots may be losing their edge:  

“Appearing before a House subcommittee earlier this month, FAA acting administrator Daniel Elwell expressed concern that pilots in both jets appeared to have made mistakes in trying to deal with the emergencies.”  What did anyone expect.  The more we robotize our lives, the less competent and less human we become.  There is a specter haunting the developed world,. and it is not communism but the ghost of Philip K. Dick

Pictures of Teresa May crying for the cameras reminds us why women should not be allowed to run for office.

Boris Johnson may be the next Prime Minister of the UK.  I wish I hated Britain, because if I did, Boris’s elevation would be a reason for drinking in the morning.  Here is a man who acts like a fool in public, carefully avoids any serious political discussion, combs his hair with an egg-beater, and as a statesman makes a pretty good prankster.  

I don’t just say this because when he was editor of The Spectator he allegedly blacklisted me to curry favor with the New York Neoconservatives, but because he is the disaster waiting to happen.  He is as big an egomaniac as Donald Trump but with this difference:  Trump, love him or hate him, seems genuinely motivated by patriotic instincts.  Boris, despite his decent education and pretty good mind, is simply high on Boris.  Anyone who has read Chesterton’s dystopian masterpiece, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, will recognize in Boris Johnson the character of Auberon Quinn.

 

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Thomas Fleming

Thomas Fleming is president of the Fleming Foundation. He is the author of six books, including The Morality of Everyday Life and The Politics of Human Nature, as well as many articles and columns for newspapers, magazines,and learned journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Greek from the College of Charleston. He served as editor of Chronicles: a Magazine of American Culture from 1984 to 2015 and president of The Rockford Institute from 1997-2014. In a previous life he taught classics at several colleges and served as a school headmaster in South Carolina

3 Responses

  1. James D. says:
    May 25, 2019 at 7:36 pm

    Dr. Fleming,

    Don’t forget the lotto tickets. The sheeple love their lotto tickets. As for Boris Johnson, the sight of a grown man biking to work in a suit while wearing a helmet, is unsettling.

  2. Avatar photo Thomas Fleming says:
    May 25, 2019 at 9:01 pm

    Yes, excellent point, and the Pandora subscription.

  3. Dot says:
    May 27, 2019 at 11:36 am

    I look with a Jaundiced Eye especially at opticians. The eye surgeon said I had time to get cataracts removed but this optician had purchased the business from my previous optician and stated he couldn’t do an eye exam until I had the cataracts removed. Well, the cataracts were removed in Jan. 2017. I have not had an eye exam yet except for the required check after the eye surgery. How I see it is that he purchased a business and had bills to pay. No, I don’t have a whole lot of trust in people. They have their own self interest at hand.