Poems of the Week: R.L. Stevenson for Children plus a wretched imitator
Some of my own childhood favorites from A Child’s Garden of Verses, plus a modernist poem possibly inspired by Stevenson.
Author: Thomas Fleming
Fleming Foundation’s Five Minutes: Separating Parents from Children
Welcome to the first installment of this new feature, available to all registered subscribers. Thomas Fleming and Rex Scott give 300 seconds on a big news story.
Scribes, Pharisees, Hypocrites on Immigration
Christian pastors and leaders throughout history have often been stupid, ignorant, and corrupt, always eager to twist the Faith to fit whatever opinions are fashionable, but the current generation of vipers is really the limit.
Poems of the Week: Henry Timrod
These poems of Henry Timrod, the finest poet of the War Between the States, are posted courtesy of Vince Cornell:
Anthony Bourdain, R.I.P. (Free to Registered Subscribers)
I genuinely pity most of the rich and/or famous people I have known. It is as if the savages were right to fear the black box that would take their soul. People who spend their lives on screen seem to end up drained of all reality, hollow shells.
Trump Loses Again
I never liked Robert de Niro as an actor–it’s all just mugging for the camera. I’d rather watch Jerry Lewis. But you gotta admit he’s right on Trump. I mean there is nothing too low for this charlatan, including sucking up to the world’s meanest dictator. And for what? Getting a declaration that the funny little fat guy is going to denuclearize Korea. Who cares. Bring it on. Now, Obama, there was a real negotiator. He knew how to give billions of dollars of paybacks and benefits to Iran and Korea, and so far we haven’t had a war. If...
Humpty Dumpty on Democracy
In the early years of the new millennium I wrote a series of short columns on the political and ethical distortions of language. This bit of fluff, trifling as it is, should be enough to debunk the nonsense of democracy The People, No! Nobody can define democracy–probably nobody wants to–and if any honest man succeeded in defining it, the liars (always in the vast majority of mankind) would stone him to death for his pains. Democracy means, literally, rule by the people or rather, As Roger Scruton puts it (in his very useful Dictionary of Political Thought), “by the people...
St. Thomas and the Defense of Liberty
Many libertarians and classical liberals regard St. Thomas Aquinas as one of the enemies of liberty, of economic liberty in particular. According to these critics (and to some self-described Thomists), Thomas is supposed to have devised an abstract and systematic theory of an ideal state, which would have the power to regulate the marketplace by establishing a quasi-Marxian “just price” for all goods and by prohibiting all interest on investments. This opinion of Thomas’s economic views is substantially wrong, both in the details and in its overall point of view. Although Thomas was far from being a classical liberal, his moral and political philosophy, once properly understood, gives no support to statism in any form.
“Which Clash, What Civilization?” Conclusion
This is the meaning behind Herodotus’ still famous tale of Solon and Croesus. The Greek philosopher was visiting the fabulously wealthy Lydian king, who asked him to name the happiest man on earth. Solon tells him of an Athenian who lived well, produced a good family, and died fighting for his people. When Croesus, a little crest-fallen, asks him if there is a close second, Solon tells him the true story of Cleobis and Biton, who, when they could not find the oxen to yoke to the cart, died after pulling their mother to a festival of Argive Hera. “Well,...
Ransom Notes May 21: The Pope’s Theology of Evil
Pope Francis has once again managed to use a private conversation as an opportunity to make a heretical statement, reserving the right to take it back or fall back on issue clarification, should the storm of outrage prove to be too furious. According to Juan Carlos Cruz, an alleged victim of clerical sexual abuse, the Pope told him : “Juan Carlos, that you are gay does not matter.“God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care.“The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.” As a matter of course...
