The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
The period of the Persian Wars and the aftermath were a period of intense political activity at Athens. In one generation, Athenians had expelled the tyrants, completely reorganized their commonwealth, and beaten back two Persian invasions. Such success was bound to inspire confidence in the Athenian commonwealth, a confidence that would lead first to to the hybris of the Athenian Empire and then to the ruin Athens suffered in the war with Sparta and her allies.
Yesterday evening (Thursday, April Fools Day) I rushed home from a long day of pub-crawling in Southern Wisconsin to keep my promised appointment with “Dissident Mama,” a blogger and podcaster I met last Fall in Charleston.
A priest in Russia was visiting a prison last week and, as the Orthodox are now in Lent, advised the inmates “to ready yourselves for the coming of Easter, to cleanse yours souls of sin, to limit your consumption of victuals and to deny yourselves worldly diversions.”
In their terror, the maidens imagine all the horrors of a city taken by storm, and while the audience would have sympathized with their agitation, Eteocles is right to crack down, but his reaction is extreme, calling them immediately “unendurable” before declaring that neither in good times nor bad would he share a house with womankind.
The moment I learned of the existence of Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South, I set about acquiring my own copy. For the book in question deals with an important and fascinating subject which has been mostly “memory-holed” by Catholic pop media which is more interested in celebrating the ostensibly “Catholic” side of Mohatmas Ghandi than in recalling those of our forebears who stood on “the wrong side of history.”
For millions of Americans President Trump has become the symbol, voice, and hope of saving their America from ongoing destruction. Though the hope he raised remains spectacularly unfulfilled, he is still its recognized representative.
A young man in social media has posted a complaint, which has been going around. His girl friend wanted to go out with her female friends to visit a place the man thought unsafe and unsuitable. He made her promise not to go, and the next day he learned she had gone, with the predictable result of rape and battery. How should the boyfriend respond?
A FB friend posted a good quotation from Jefferson about the importance of the family. Since this aroused some mild skepticism, I posted this answer, one that has been strongly influenced by my reading of Jefferson’s own words, the biography by Dumas Malone, and, above all, by the admonitions of my friend Prof. Clyde Wilson. It is a trivial observation and overstated, but perhaps it will help parents of children who are being taught the old Classical Liberal bilge. One way of looking at our third President is to see him as a split personality. There is the typical Enlightened...
Home no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.
Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather:
Thick drives the rain and my roof is in the dust.
In this podcast, free to Silver, Gold, and Charter subscribers, we explore the war being waged by American governments–Federal, State, and Local–against the rights of property owners.
