The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
Sometimes I slip, almost by accident, into some other universe, such as the Byzantine Empire in the Tenth Century or Stuart England or Paris before World War I. I am not quite sure how it happens. Sometimes, it is because I have started reading a book or it might happen that I hear a piece of music. Once, in the short drive from my office (when I had an office) to my house, I was asking myself whether or not I should do a program in Scotland. My schedule was busy, but to plan such a program ten or twelve...
HilaryClintonHilaryClintonHilaryClintonHilaryClintonHilaryClintonHilary ClintonHilaryClintonHilary Had enough? I know I have. Not a day goes by that Ms Clinton’s critics and defenders do not make her candidacy front page news. Let me say it here for the first time—and, believe me, I am going to say it many times in the coming months: News is a waste of time. It it is simply gossip about strangers that distracts us from the duties of everyday life. News commentators are like the bored English housewives and secretarial spinsters who spend their days tittle-tattling about the Royals. Turn them off and fix breakfast for the...
19 May: Spiritual Advice Four dinner parties in a row is three too many. Two of them were to celebrate a visit from an old friend, whom I serve as “spiritual advisor.” The does not mean that I provide counseling aimed at edifying his soul. My advice has strictly to do with spirits of the sort they bottle in Tennessee and her neighbor to the north. I am not a whiskey snob or even a wine connoisseur. I have connoisseurs of every kind. You know the sort—people who take wine appreciation classes and torture the poor waiter or wine steward...
Under the Rubble I: Cryin’ Time Again in Boston Thomas Fleming The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been as weepy as a Roy Orbison song. The killer seemed to be crying when his aunt testified to what a good little boy he had been. A cousin told the jury that Dzhokhar had cried watching The Lion King with his father. Prosecution witnesses were full of tears and sorrow—unaffected and justified—for the victims of the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, but Sister Helen Prejean claims he told her that no one should have to suffer as his victims did. The only issue...
Remember when a “Conservative” was someone opposed to change? “Any change, at any time, for any reason is to be deplored,” as The Duke of Cambridge (Victoria’s uncle) once declared. Back in the 1950’s, the word got restricted to the meaning “anti-communist/capitalists who believed in a strong defense and a free economy, and it was embodied in the unlikely person of Barry Goldwater. By the election of 1980, Conservatives had taken the initiative and were now the bold innovators in economic and foreign policy. Most conservatives were delighted with the change of image—from Tory squire to progressive, from curmudgeon to...
