The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

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Wednesday’s Child: More Awls in Sackcloth

A month or so ago, at the end of November, in a post entitled “An Awl in Sackcloth” I mentioned Vladimir Medinsky, who is Russia’s current minister of culture.  I have since been reading up on the man, and the things I’ve learned are literally boggling my mind, weakened as it is by holiday overindulgence.  I hope I may be permitted, in the scope of a longish post, to broaden the hapless minister’s appeal by boggling yours. Some of the scandals in which Medinsky has been embroiled are of scant concern to me personally, though the Russian internet – as...

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Obama’s Disastrous 8 Years

By John Seiler How should we judge a president? Some say by economic growth. Or advancing global democracy. Or pushing into law new social programs. But there’s only one way: How well did he follow his oath of office? It’s specified in Article II, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It’s similar to a man taking a marriage vow, “forsaking all others.” If he cheats...

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More Pots and Kettles

According to Amazon-owned Washington Post, President-elect Trump has been warned that he had better watch out.  The mouthpiece for Jeff Bezos cites a top official on government ethics, Walter M. Shaub, jr., who has informed the world that Trump must do a thorough job of vetting before trying to push through his cabinet appointment.  And who, is Walter M. Shaub, jr.   The simple answer is that he is the improbably titled “Director of Government Ethics,” which is the political equivalent of a “Director of Business Integrity” at Goldman Sachs, or a “Director of Responsible Non-Violent Resistance at the New Generation drug cartel or,...

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Black Pots, Gray Kettle (Free)

Joe Biden–or was it Neil Kinnock?–has told Donald Trump to “grow up” and accept the verdict of his administration’s intelligence commissars.   Is this the same Joe Biden who has not been content to make  fool of himself at every point in his career  and then, as vice president, by his shenanigans dragged the whole country into disrepute?  This is the poor fool who actually stooped to plagiarizing the platitudes of  socialist Neil Kinnock, and then offered his defense that it was staffers who were responsible–the staffers who put the words into his mouth he was incapable of writing himself. VP...

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Jerks, Chapter 2: Taxonomy–More on Randy Individualists (Free)

The extreme case of false individualism is the libertarian sect, rooted in the teachings of Ayn Rand,  known as Objectivism.  Only in America, I sometimes think, could a political movement be based on a writer of pop fiction.  The thinness of Rand’s erudition is matched only by the banality of her imagination, which ran to most of the clichés of soft pornography.  I never got farther than a few chapters into Atlas Shrugged, but I did once manage to finish The Fountainhead, and even though I skimmed it rather quickly, my gag reflex was hard to suppress.  In her defense,...

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President Obama’s Missed Opportunity on Race

I didn’t vote for Barack Obama in 2008, mainly because he was about as pro-abortion as one could get. But in discussing him with my conservative friends, some of whom actually did vote for him, two things stood out: First, he was not John McCain, the Republican nominee.  Insane McCain, like Hillary in 2016, was obsessed with confronting Russia, even if that meant sparking a nuclear war.  So far, although Obama is ending his term with several pointless provocations of Moscow, we still haven’t been atomized. Second, we thought he might–just might (but no more)–improve race relations, including the status...

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Wednesday’s Child: This Way Up (4)

With the Pasternak centenary in 1990 came several full-length biographies of the poet, and a discussion of their merits in the literary pages.  Reviewing Christopher Barnes’s Pasternak, Peter Levi, who has no Russian, startled readers of the Independent with the theory that “Doctor Zhivago was his masterpiece, but only a poet could have written it.”  “He has some Russian,” lied Peter France, who does not have enough Russian to know he was lying, reviewing Levi’s Pasternak in The Scotsman. Reviewing Levi’s Pasternak in the Observer, Anthony Burgess, who had expended what Russian he had ever had on A Clockwork Orange,...

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The Xanthippe, Part 2

Part II Xanthippe is saved by the noisy entrance of a semi-intoxicated young man . Xanthippe: “Why, it’s Pheidippides, that new student of yours at the Phrontisterion.  What does he want?  I hope he’s come to pay his bills.” Socrates:  You know I do  not charge for my instruction.  The sophists take money, because they claim to be able to teach their students how to succeed.  I only want my young friends to understand, and who would pay for that? Xanthippe:  Some of them, at least, bring me presents—good wine and oil for dressins greens, not that lamp oil you...

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Travel Diary I: Through Mordor in a Taurus or Getting There is Not Half the Fun

We set out on our unheroic journey on a cold Friday, December 30.  It is a thousand mile trip, from Northern Illinois to Sullivan’s Island, and, if one were to judge from what can be seen from the interstate highway system, there is not much in that thousand linear miles that cannot be reduced to a numerical grid of I-39, I-64, I-75, I-40, I-26 intersected by identical lodging, food, and gas opportunities. Entering into the grid is something like an adventure in dystopian time travel—an episode of Startrek, perhaps where Kirk, Spock, Scotty, and all the other noble agents of...

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The Year 2016

Shostakovich, our last monumental composer–before the light of the ability to write more than ditties flickered out of our civilization – used years for two of his symphonies. Symphony No. 11 was The Year 1905, for that year’s Russian Revolution. And Symphony No. 12 was The Year 1917, dedicated to Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. (The links lead to YouTubes of performances of the works, if you’re inclined to listen. I did writing this.) The Year 2016 was such a year. I’ll highlight three monumental events: Brexit, Trump’s victory and the coalescing effort to stop Pope Francis from scratching adultery...