Author: Thomas Fleming

1

From Abraham to Napoleon: Conclusion

The empire of the Babylonians was not fated to last, and Cyrus the Persian, after entering the city in triumph in 539, promulgated an edict authorizing the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem.  It has been conjectured that the Persians were rewarding Babylonian Jews for their covert assistance in the defeat of Nabonidus, the last Babylonian king, but, there is no need to posit such a special relationship.

22

Junk Flick Nation

None of the Indiana Jones movies was anything but a waste of time. Harrison Ford cannot act, the writers and directors were, if not hopelessly incompetent, then entirely cynical in their willingness to profit from the degradation of the American people. The first one was not only anti-German but anti-Christian. Watching movies made by people who hate and despise you makes you in the end despicable.

3

Donald Rumsfeld, R.I.P.

Some conservatives are already ridiculing an Atlantic Monthly hit job on the late Donald Rumsfeld. Apparently, they don’t realize that a magazine staff writer is an expert on war and management. (This guy brags about how astonished DOD aides were, when he outlined his critique of the Iraq War.)
Journalists are like doctors: They know everything, especially in fields they have no experience in.

1

The Blondes of Wisconsin–Bukoski’s Best

In recent decades Anthony Bukoski has emerged as one of the best writers of short fiction, not just in America but in the English language.  He has turned the ugly streets of his native Superior, Wisconsin,  into a literary landscape as mythical as Faulkner’s Mississippi and Tolkiens Middle Earth and populated it with unforgettable characters whose failures and follies are redeemed by their self-respect and their capacity for love.   Of his earlier collections, I wrote previously:   Anthony Bukoski is one of the finest fiction writers in America. Stolidly remaining in the grim ruins of Superior, Wisconsin, he has...