Media Maniacs
I have often imagined award ceremonies to pay tribute to what is most typically American. My first thought was a PT Barnum Award for the American who most contributed to the degradation of the American character.
The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
Summer School Texts and Information Updated #6 Key Terms added
July 7-12 2025
The Archaic Age of Greece
From Independence Day to July 4 to 14 Juillet: Two brief comments
In short, Lafayette and his ilk symbolize how the good intentions of the American founding paved the American Hell.
Wednesday’s Child: The Coins of Virtue
I am well accustomed to there being no money in the house, but recently something seems to have changed. In the old days I used to joke…
The Mentality of Walter Scott
For the average Scottish or English reader, Waverley must have been an exhilarating backwards trip through time and history, which enabled him to see both the feudal and tribal loyalties of Scots who adhered to the Stuart cause in much the same way their ancestors had flocked to the standards of Wallace and the Bruces.
Musk’s Third Party Would Fail
Elon Musk is a brilliant rocket engineer. But he is ignorant of the basic binary structure of American politics: only two parties. The reason is the Electoral College
Trump Faces Three-Front War
“One war at a time,” Abe Lincoln famously replied when aides urged policies that might have plunged the Union into wars with France and England. Two-front wars rarely go well.
Walter Scott, Preface
Although we have been wrapped up in the history and literature of Archaic Greece, we should not entirely neglect more recent phases of our history and civilization. Once or twice a year, I return to the works of Walter Scott, on whom I have, over the years, written one or two essays and given several lectures.
Wednesday’s Child: Shock of a Lifetime
In the 1956 American musical comedy, The Girl Can’t Help It, the music promoter played by Tom Ewell gets the shock of a lifetime when the girl of the title, Jayne Mansfield, sings beautifully in the closing scene of the film.
“Don’t Panic!”
As an opponent of every war the USA has provoked and entered since the justifiable Mexican War, I am less than delighted with the acceleration of US aggression against Iran.
