The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

1

GI Jane Jive–Women in Combat

Of all the areas of our lives negatively effected by this absurd doctrine [equality], perhaps few could be construed to be as dangerous as the move to institutionalize women in combat. Tennesseean Mark Atkins explores this in the recent release from Shotwell Publishing, Women In Combat: Feminism Goes to War. Hollywood continuously produces films showcasing nature-defying feats of diminutive women who have the ability to grapple in one-on-one combat with men two or three times their size and emerge successful. But these fanciful characterizations are as real as Santa Claus. As Atkins explains at length, aside from unusual exceptions, the God of nature has not endowed women to be combat warriors. 

11

Our Saudi Friends and Allies

Why are Americans getting so ticked about a Saudi or two acting up in Pensacola.  They are our good allies and buddies, right?  Saudi businessmen were pals of the Bushes, and who really cares if members of the royal family and other Saudi billionaires  are funding Jihadi schools in America?  After all, they’ve been paying good money to both parties in Congress.  Besides, there’s money to be made.  It’s oil, man, oil.  Either get with the plan and pick up the crumbs under the Bushes (and the rest of the GOP’s table) or go off and sulk and kiss your...

1

Wednesday’s Child: Letter from London

Apart from mudslinging at Prince Andrew for his alleged peccadillos, first sexual and now financial, British newspapers are occupied with exposing the “anti-Semitism” of Jeremy Corbyn.  “What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government?” asked Britain’s Chief Rabbi in what the Times of Israel has described as “an unprecedented intervention into partisan politics.” As in the case of Prince Andrew, discussed in this space last week, I’m not an admirer of Corbyn.  In fact, I would go as far as to say that should Labour win the general election next Thursday...

6

More Birthdays: Podcast

An 18 minute podcast on Bat Masterson, Joe Di Maggio, Emperor Komnenos, John Bunyan, William Blake, Berry Gordy, Jimi Hendrix, Merle Travis, Voltaire, C.S. Lewis, Gregory of Tours, Jonathan Swift, Theodor Momsen,

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VOA Propagandizing Americans on Ukraine

The Voice of America is part of the U.S. government’s Ministry of Truth. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 prohibited it from directly broadcasting to the American people. It did some good during the Cold War, with programs aimed at those behind the Iron Curtain and elsewhere. With the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the rise of the Web c. 1994, it should have been abolished. But as Milton Friedman said, there’s nothing so permanent as a temporary government agency. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 gave the VOA the OK to broadcast directly to Americans, supposedly...

5

A Happy Real American Thanksgiving

how, once upon a time, some footloose Englishmen came to the New World seeking easy gold, free land, and the right to spit tobacco when and where they wanted.  As good Anglicans, these adventurers, roughnecks, and proto-cavaliers were too busy minding their business to worry to much about minding yours. The few who who survived the initial attempts to settle various spots in Virginia, beginning with Jamestown, were reminded of their own weakness and from time to time their leaders decided it was time to give thanks to the Almighty for letting them survive in this savage land.  So, with one accord, the men brought what game they could shoot, along with their jugs of corn-squeezings and stashes of tobacco, whipped out their fiddles, and had themselves a great time

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Climate Change, Face Book, and Other Nonsense

On the basis of what authority are you entitled to declare all criticism of manmade climate change to be rightwing ideology? I know several people who never got beyond 9th grade general science but are forever sounding off on FB on the idiocy of “conservatives”–by which I think they mean supporters of global capitalism–who deny what all right-thinking men are supposed to know. Of course all right-thinking men once upon a time believed in Phlogiston, spontaneous generation, phrenology, and the possibility of a successful Marxist economy. It is true that we all have opinions, most of them unsubstantiated by any stronger proof than an editorial in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or perhaps it was something we misunderstood once back in Music Appreciation 101. That is what ideologies do to the brain, and it scarcely matters if it is the ideology of Al Gore or Alfred Rosenburg. If Mr Henman, so absolutely certain he is on the right side of history (or should I say the left side), thinks he is an expert on climatology, how did he come by his expertise?

1

Judge Napolitano’s Abuse of Roman History

For some reason Judge Andrew Napolitano is obsessed with pushing flimsy reasons to impeach President Trump. He gave Reason mag a list of five reasons to do so. But that’s “Loserthink,” as Scott Adams explains in his new book of that name. If you can’t come up with one good reason for something, such as impeachment, then it’s just a “laundry list,” with every item weak.  The judge even started out saying “three or four” reasons, then ended up with five. He’s a self-parody out of the old Monty Python “Spanish Inquisition” sketch, in which the inquisitors kept increasing the...