The Doctor Is In.
Rex asks Thomas Fleming a hard question: What is Honor? The answer ranges from Homer to Clint Eastwood, from Coriolanus to Bill Clinton, and ends with a commentary by Miss Peggy Lee.
The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
The “Genius of the People”
Our Founding Fathers in their deliberations often referred to “the genius of the people.” It was a concept long familiar in Western civilizational discussions of society and government. What did they mean?
Wednesday’s Child: From an Old Notebook
The other day, sorting through some files, I came across a notebook of mine from exactly thirty years ago, a foppish little thing from Smythson of Bond Street, its robin’s-blue pages and black leather binding lending it the air of authority so becoming an unsuccessful writer in his prime.
Poetry: George Meredith
Meredith is best known as the author of such novels as The Ordeal of Richard Feverel and The Egoist, but he was also, at his best, a fine poet. Unfortunately, much of his poetry is more like fiction in verse.
The New Index, Revised: Deleting the Bad Great Books
Reading Rousseau can be entertaining and at times ennobling, but it is a bit like practicing white magic or playing with Tarot cards. We are inviting the demon into the house of our mind. Fugite hinc. Latet anguis in herba.
Fiona Hill Explains It All for You
I can’t remember the last time a Foreign Affairs article made a stir among the commentariat. But this week it was Fiona Hill’s “The Kremlin’s Strange Victory: How Putin Exploits American Dysfunction and Fuels American Decline.”
Resisting Evil, IV: The Duty to Defend
Christ’s equation of physical violence with internal anger raises questions that juries often have to face: What are the circumstances that might justify the use of lethal violence in self-defense? Specifically, when an argument leads to a violent altercation, does the one party bear any responsibility for the consequences if, though the other party struck the first blow, his own anger was a contributing factor?
Not Just a Number, Episode 10, Hammer Into Anvil
One of the more literary and artistic of the episodes we have discussed so far, this one features allusions to Cervantes, Bizet, and Goethe.
The Silents: The Classics: Good Start!
The silents were perforce the medium in which most masters of the talkies learned their profession. Indeed, many first showed their mastery in silent features. Four titles on my list of favorite silents attest to their makers’ gifts very early on.
