Cicero: The Writer
Cicero was one of the most important men of the Roman world. Although he ultimately failed as a statesman, as virtually every statesman does, but he only increased in stature as the years went on.
Author: Thomas Fleming
Cicero IV: An End and a Beginning
Cicero played an ambiguous role in the final years of the republic. He loyally supported Pompey in the vain hope that he would uphold the old order, but he also allowed himself to be courted by Caesar.
Greek Interview with Thomas Fleming
Thomas Fleming was recently interviewed (10 November) by Nikolaos Hidiroglou for the Greek newspaper Ελεύθερη Ώρα (Eleftheri Ora). Is Donald Trump the man for the job in the White House for the Republicans? The “Grand Old Party” has been fielding impossible presidential candidates that have made Republicans a political joke: Bob Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney. Perhaps the worst was George W. Bush, who won two elections, squandered money and lives on a pointless and fruitless war in Iraq, and bankrupted his country. How could Trump do any worse? Trump’s great strength is his candor: He openly talks of...
Meditations of a Dog: Getting Ready for Greece
We used to have a dog named Robert or, to be more precise Robert the Bruce. Robert was a Scottish Terrier of a particularly independent mind. Though he obeyed me, loved my life, and loyally guarded the family, it would be misleading to say we owned him. The reverse was closer to the truth. If previous Scotties in the family had been “jaunty,” as almost all of them are, Robert went them one better in being cocky or, rather, arrogant. Although each of us was of two minds about Robert, we all agreed at his funeral, as we drank the ...
Huis Clos (No Exit) from Terrorism
If you listen to the official press or even look at comments on news websites, Islamic terrorism is some sort of natural disaster caused by sun spots, global warming, or the political equivalent of fracking. One comment on the Washington Post summed up the popular despair. The commenter wanted to know why our government could not stop these attacks, but added he had no idea of how it could be done. On leftist news sites, a favorite talking point is to blame religion in general. Yes, those vicious Buddhists, Confucianists, and Neo-Platonists, for centuries they have been waging war on...
Cicero III: Great Caesar’s Ghost
Although Julius Caesar comes down through history as a great conqueror, he did not gain a military reputation until late in life. He was better known a reckless spendthrift, a political adventurer involved in every plot against the Senate.
More Second Thoughts, Round Three
At first glance, President Obama’s selection of this years’s winners of “The Presidential Medal of Freedom” seems bizarre. Lee Hamilton, Willie Mays, Yogi Berra, Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Mikulski, music entrepreneur Emilio Estefan, Gloria Estefan, Indian activist Billy Frank, Stephen Sondheim and Stephen Spielberg, Barbara Streisand, James Taylor, and Jap rights activist Minoru Yasui. Gee, what is warhawk Lee Hamilton doing with these freaks? The only other straight white male with a name ending in a consonant, James Taylor, is a drug-using mental patient. On second thought, perhaps it is perfect. This is the face of the new America–‘athaletes,’ entertainers,...
Rumors
President Obama has informed African American voters that he will take it as a personal affront to his “legacy” if they do not rush out to support Hillary Clinton. Rumor has it that he has also threatened to declare himself officially “White” and to produce his authentic Kenyan birth certificate to prove that while he may be African, he is decidedly not American. Stay tuned for this developing story.
The Art of Degradation, Part I
It is a good thing that rhetoric is a lost art, because anyone with the most elementary knowledge of rhetoric would be sticking blunt objects into his ears to keep from hearing not just the politicians’ speeches but, even more, the pundit’s comments and questions. I am not referring to the bad grammar and mispronunciation of NPR newsreaders who cannot pronounce words like “tour” but invariably say “tore” or even to the effeminate and uncontrolled sing-song chanting of the announcers. Delivery is a part of oratory but only a part. From the rhetor’s perspective of 2500 years or so, political...
Wednesday’s Child: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Some six months ago, at the end of March, I wrote here about the sensational case of the Ukrainian Joan of Arc, Nadezhda Savchenko – then in captivity in Moscow and undergoing a farce of a trial – who has since been exchanged for some Russian prisoners of the undeclared war and is now in Kiev. Now, it may be that Savchenko is not the Ukrainian Joan of Arc, and that in reality she’s a war criminal, a madwoman, a villainess, a CIA agent, or even a Russian police provocateur; none of that matters in the least for making sense...
