The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
According to a virtual reality rag called The Hollywood Reporter, both Stephen Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein are planning separately to base one of their schlock movies on “the true story of the kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara.” Their true story is “about a 6-year-old Italian boy who in 1858 was taken from his Jewish parents by police and raised [sic!] Catholic.” The villain in the piece is Pope Pius IX, who will be played—if Weinstein has his way—by Robert de Niro! “Are you looking at me? Are you looking at me?” It’s too bad the Christophobic Christopher Hitchens has left...
I have known many rich people in my lifetime and had ample occasion to remark upon what seemed like an endless spiral of personal tragedies they invariably suffered. As a Christian, I always found this unfair. The rich are supposed to be thoughtless of God and careless of the salvation of their souls – with eternal anguish their likely posthumous lot – but here on earth their existence is meant to be cushy, replicating or evoking the serenity of paradise. Instead it looked like their future suffering unto eternity was merely a continuation of their present sorrows in this earthly...
Reading the leftist responses to Hillary’s condemnation of us “deplorables,” I was struck by the uniformity of tone. They run the gamut from self-righteous astonishment to self-righteous indignation. Occasionally, they tip their hand: People who use “politically correct” as an insult, they say, are bigots, and so is anyone who thinks there might be something amiss with affirmative action, open immigration, same sex marriage, and men in women’s clothing hanging out in the girl’s locker room. There is a curious contradiction in the American “liberal” mind. On the one hand, they are “all about” (an expression worth a few pages...
Though they are one of America’s distinctive creations, Jerks have been observed throughout history. Meet one from 17th century France, described by one of the most acute observers of human folly, Jean de la Bruyère: Gnathon lives for no one but himself, and the rest of the world are to him as if they did not exist. He is not satisfied with occupying the best seat at table, but he must take the seats of two other guests, and forgets that the dinner was not provided for him alone, but for the company as well; he lays hold of every...
This piece appeared in the first number of revamped Chronicles, in May 1985. Some readers found it alarming at the time. It now seems quite moderate, though many law-and-order neoconservatives would still deplore the call for self-help. We take too much for granted in America. Whenever we have a problem, we assume that somebody else is paid to solve it, somebody from the government. All the ancient burdens of the human flesh—poverty and envy, greed and arrogance—have been turned over to one or another bureaucratic agency. We sleep better at night knowing that somewhere someone is busy making life...
In this episode of From Under the Rubble Dr. Fleming reflects on the recent burkini controversy in France and its implications for so-called “religious freedom” both in the Old World and the New. Original Air Date: September 12, 2016 Show Run Time: 39 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Stephen Heiner The Fleming Foundation · From Under the Rubble, Episode 6: Burkini Ban From Under the Rubble℗ is a Production of the Fleming Foundation. Copyright 2016. All Rights are Reserved.
Defining the Duel The word duel is often used loosely to mean a fight between two men or even any competitive conflict between men or beasts. The historian Victor Kiernan has written an entire book on European dueling without ever, apparently, figuring out what a duel actually was. Let us begin by setting aside such metaphorical usages as “dueling egos,” “dueling banjos,” and “dueling roosters,” and restrict ourselves to violent encounters between two human antagonists, who may or may not ne accompanied by allies who may simply insure fair play or even take part in the action. If we are...
Without delving into “conspiracy theories,” the 15th anniversaries of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, continue to haunt America and the world, especially the 2016 election. 1. Hillary Clinton, currently running for president herself, was “co-president” for the eight-year run-up to the attacks. She’s running on her long experience in government. But the first (and one hopes only) Clinton administration left the country open to the attacks. For one, its open-borders immigration policy let in the 19 terrorists. For another, its obsession with bombing numerous foreign countries – Iraq, Serbia, Sudan – for no real reason except to keep...
Hillary Clinton’s take on a large percentage of the American people is drawing fire: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right, The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it,” and added, “some of those folks—they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.” The other half of Trump supporters are simply stupid and depressed, and people in Hillaryland should pity them. Let’s do some quick and very rough math. In round numbers, the country has about 280 million people, about three fourths of whom—or 210 million—are old enough to vote. ...
The generosity of a friend, like a magic carpet, took me to Rome over the weekend, and I am glad to report that the best restaurant in the world is still there and still serves the best tripe. Outside Italy, mastery over tripe is a useless yardstick of a chef’s eminence, since hardly anybody makes it, while a cook in England would probably get arrested if he dared to put the dish on the menu, containing as it does organic agents even more devastating to the human condition than gluten or traces of nuts. On our blessed peninsula, however, tripe...
