Category: Fleming

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All Paid Subscribers / Feature / Fleming

18 Apr, 2024

The Government We Deserve, Part II (of 4)

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In the off chance that this screed might be read by people who do not already know the score, I ask such imaginary readers  to imagine a visit from Jefferson or Twain or Mencken or even some reasonable politician like Robert Taft or Sam Ervin, who asks us to take him on a guided tour of these United States.  We might begin their tour by taking them to see New York or San Francisco or Chicago or Portland, in fact to  any major city in to witness the complete breakdown of law and order, sanitation, and public decency.   

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Fleming / Free Content

17 Apr, 2024

Trump-Musk in ’24

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A lot of my friends, wife included, are outraged by the purge trials against Donald Trump. I certainly agree with them that the American legal system is making a flashy display of its contempt for law, confirming the global expression that the US has joined the ranks of the banana republics.

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Fleming / Free Content

17 Apr, 2024

BOMC

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I am reviving our Book of the Month in a less pedantic and exhaustive format.  We’ll put up a list of books in the probable order in which we shall take them up.  I’ll post an introduction.  We can have as much or little commentary as readers wish to provide, though I do ask everyone who is reading one of the books to put up a brief comment to that effect.  

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All Paid Subscribers / Fleming

13 Apr, 2024

The Crusading Pirates of Pisa

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Pisa helped the maritime cities in Southern Italy to resist Saracen attacks.  As early as 828 Pisan vessels were raiding North Africa and in 871 they defended Salerno  Her ships fought them in Calabria in the 10th century and drove the infidels out of Reggio in Calabria.

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All Paid Subscribers / Fleming

9 Apr, 2024

Pisa: Early History

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If the most popular legend of its founding had any validity, Pisa would have been originally a Greek colony, founded by people from Elis in the Peloponnesus, who named it after their own Pisa, the nearest town to the site of the Olympic Games. 

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All Paid Subscribers / Fleming

2 Apr, 2024

Pisa, I: Prologue

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In Pisa every year on the last Saturday in June, two groups of representatives from the different areas of the city meet at either end of the Ponte di Mezzo.  The representatives are dressed in Medieval garb and divided into two teams, one for the north side of the river, the other for the south.

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All Paid Subscribers / Fleming

29 Mar, 2024

Tuscan Communes, The Big Picture

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The creation of the city-commune in Pisa, Lucca, Siena, and Florence would have enormous ramifications for the future of the Europe.  The institution of the commune is a more fundamental revolution than the establishment of the nation-state, and it will outlive the nation-state, in whose birth it played a significant part.