The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

17

Wednesday’s Child: The Paradox of Interest

I have often wondered about the principle of disclosure, which is so easily taken to interesting lengths.  Of course like others I can applaud when a journalist doing a story on some Fortune500 company is criticized for not revealing that the CEO is his brother-in-law, or when a juror is prosecuted for concealing an intimate connection with the man on trial.  But beyond that?

5

The Impossibility of Democracy, Part II: The Fourth Estate

Most Americans are convinced that they live in a democracy.  Who can blame them?  They have been told nothing else throughout their lives.  Until not too long ago, there had been a remnant of conservatives who insisted that the Founding Fathers had established a republic, but the constant jeers from the Leftist Mainstream have apparently forced them to drop this affectation.  

9

Time for My Second Presidential Campaign

Many years ago, to test the gullibility of colleagues and readers, I started the rumor that I was being considered as a possible Presidential candidate.  No one I know could be that gullible?  Think again, one prominent libertarian-leaning conservative called to find out if it was true.  Obviously, he was sounding me out for a cabinet appointment. A few years later, I printed a piece, which I explicitly attributed to a dream, in which I was being dragged to the Hague to be put on trial for complicity in Slobodan Milosevic’s genocidal policies in Kosovo.  Again, who would believe it?...

4

Western Silents

America’s movie industry committed to the western almost immediately, what with the sensational success of The Great Train Robbery (1903). Feature-length westerns came about a decade later, thanks to the nascent star system

9

Free Speech Will Thrive

With the ongoing repression by the Democratic Party-Silicon Valley-Mainstream Media Axis, some of my friends are worried America will become a tyranny, with no free speech. We could have some rough times, but in the end freedom will prevail.

10

Our January Book, With Fire and Sword

As I explained in a comment, Curtin was a famous folklorist and historian of the Mongols, whose  death was lamented by Teddy Roosevelt.  He can be long-winded and takes for granted a breadth of reading which not everyone possesses.  Nonetheless, his introduction is very useful.