Category: FF

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FF / Heiner

19 Apr, 2016

The Web, Our Brains, and You

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I recently had the chance to read The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.  The author of this 2010 book is Nicholas Carr, who originally penned a 2008 article for The Atlantic entitled, “Is Google making us stupid?” The title of that article can be off-putting to those who are, like myself, steeped in the hot bath of the digital universe.  Surely this is some Luddite ranting, one might think at first.  But on second glance … 200 pages of ranting? Unlikely. It might be because I conducted the vast majority of my schooling and created many of...

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FF / Podcasts

15 Apr, 2016

Christianity and Classical Culture, Episode 4: Sophocles Part I

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This month our exploration into the links between Christianity and Classical culture take us into the world of Greek tragedy, specifically the world of Sophocles. Dr. Thomas Fleming explains how Greek tragedy was delivered and acted, how it was composed, and how the seven plays we do have of Sophocles may have managed to survive for 2,500 years. In the second half of the episode we explore Oedipus Rex, the first in the cycle of the Theban plays. How do the Greeks view this tension between free will and divine foreknowledge? How can we compare the Greek view to the...

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FF / Podcasts / TBR

14 Apr, 2016

The Best Revenge, Episode 3: Why Poetry Matters Part I

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In this episode of our regular series, The Best Revenge, Dr. Fleming makes the case for poetry. Not just the “poetry” that is the affectation of the dirty hippie, but the poetry that yearns to breathe deep within our souls. Dr. Fleming prescribes poetry as a “mental health remedy” and points out that there is indeed such a thing as “good poetry” that goes beyond a matter of subjective taste. If you are what you eat, so too poetry can enrich the rational animal that we are. Listen too if you wish to hear one of the rare times that...

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FF / Heiner

13 Apr, 2016

Book Review: Return to Order

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Part of restoring the best of what has passed is understanding where we came from.  Only then can we start to put together commonsense solutions for how to go forward.  Few books in today’s publishing world do this better than John Horvat II’s Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I only read this book recently, even though it has been in print since 2013.  The impetus?  I recently traveled to the United States to visit my parents and there were two books they had bought and sent me since...

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FF / Heiner

13 Apr, 2016

Palio

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On an intercontinental flight these days one has dozens of options.  Not only do they have the most recent movies available for your enjoyment, but classics as well.  They even have classic television.  I pulled up an episode from the original Man from U.N.C.L.E. (I gave it at least 15 minutes of my time). There was a documentary section that offered a film that I was particularly interested in: Palio.  It’s shot mostly in Italian (with subtitles, of course) and is about the annual horse races that occur in Siena during July and August.  It’s beautifully filmed and follows two different riders...

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FF / Heiner

12 Apr, 2016

Why you should go to South Carolina this summer

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I recently described  Dr. Clyde Wilson as one of the most important figures in my intellectual formation about true American history.  While I met him first at a Rockford Institute event, it was at four different Abbeville Institute events that I got to hear his lectures and have many more conversations and meals with him and other unrepentant unreconstructeds.  I think you might enjoy not just his company, but that of our namesake, Dr. Thomas Fleming, this summer in South Carolina. Dr. Donald Livingston, the creator and driving force  behind the Abbeville Institute, has put together a great series of talks this year,...

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Feature / FF / Heiner

9 Apr, 2016

The indefatigable Dr. Clyde Wilson

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I was in my late 20s when I first met Dr. Clyde Wilson at a Rockford Institute event.  If you’ve ever had the privilege of meeting Dr. Wilson and listening to that singular gravelly voice, you’ve known learning and gentility bound together with a ready smile, no matter how curmudgeonly he might be in other fora. I remember sitting on a porch with him on Johns Island, South Carolina, at my first Abbeville Institute event (I would go on to attend four more).  I had a question related to what I then referred to as the “Battle of Antietam” (my yankee-addled...

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Feature / FF

7 Apr, 2016

Merle Haggard, Requiescat in Pace by Robert Reavis

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This tribute was penned by our Okie friend Robert Reavis, who  frequently comments on this site. Country singer, song writer, and middle American poet, Merle Haggard, died at his home in California this past Wednesday at age 79.  To paraphrase one of  his acquaintances, the blind poet Ronnie Millsap,“ his life was almost like a song but not too sad to write.” In many ways Merle Haggard was an old Ghost Rider in the Sky who had roots in Oklahoma that dried up with the dust bowl that sent his mother and father to California, where Merle was born.  To be...

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FF / LAT / Podcasts

6 Apr, 2016

Latin, Episode 3

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In this episode of our regular series, Latin, Dr. Fleming reviews the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, in Latin and examines more deeply some of its sentences by looking at how they are rendered in Latin (and originally, in Greek). He then goes on to discuss the second declension, the genitive case, and begins to look at the subjunctive. He ends the episode on a fruitful tangent by exploring true and false “restoration” when it comes to languages…and art. Original Air Date: April 6, 2016 Show Run Time: 1 hour 17 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Stephen...

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FA / FF / Podcasts

5 Apr, 2016

Foreign Affairs, Episode 2

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In this episode of our occasional series, Foreign Affairs, Drs. Trifkovic and Fleming discuss the recent rulings regarding “war crimes” and “genocide” as applied to Radovan Karadzic and Vojislav Seselj. What is the significance of these verdicts both regionally and for greater Europe? We apologize for some cuts in Dr. Fleming’s audio which could not be repaired and for the occasional phone ring in the background. Dr. Trifkovic is in high demand!​ Original Air Date: April 5, 2016 Show Run Time: 52 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Stephen Heiner The Fleming Foundation · Foreign Affairs,...