The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
An Italian friend has just been to St. Tropez, which of course does little to recommend him as a vacationer of any great discernment, seeing as here in Sicily the prickly pear is now in season and you can have your fill of the divine fruit from a street vendor, who peels it while you wait, for about $1 American. But anyway, tastes are tastes, as the Italians are the first to say. My friend brought back a curious souvenir of the famous watering hole, Nikki Beach, where one balmy afternoon he went to have lunch, and it occurred to...
The crisis created by Islamic migrants is one more proof of the failure of conservative movements. For several decades, I have watched the antics of various anti-immigration groups in the US, all of them reading from the same liberal prayerbook: Illegal immigration must be curtailed, because it costs money. How are they going to say no to all these middle class Muslims? The left, while condemning FAIR and co. as bigots, was happy to join battle on purely material grounds. For every “conservative” study detailing the cost of educating, feeding, nurturing, and jailing illegal immigrants, leftist groups would church out studies purporting...
“Why do they call it “Labor Day,” when it is a day when no one is supposed to work?” That question is probably asked several million times every year about this time. The simple answer is that this is just one more boondoggle put over on a gullible public by two sets of conmen—Big Labor and the Congress of USA—back in the early 1880’s. In theory, the day is set aside to honor the achievements of laboring men and their corrupt unions. Since labor unions, almost from the beginning, have been interested only in salaries and benefits and not in...
Pope Francis has been instructing Europeans to open their homes to Syrian migrants. Obviously, many Europeans, Christian and secularist alike, might feel some reluctance about welcoming people from a country where the rule of law does not seem to exist and where it is not unusual to engage in civil war and violence against those who do not share every jot and tittle of your brand of Islam. For secularists, unless they are strict adherents to the Marxist-globalist ideology that even Bernie Sanders dissents from, practical considerations should be enough. Christians, however, get uneasy. Our religion, after all, teaches us...
Kim Davis–Saint or Sinner? At first glance, the case of Kim Davis is clear-cut: A conscientious Christian who obeys the teaching of Scripture and refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. One more piece of anti-Christianity in the courts, and Kim Davis is being thrown to the lions, or, at least, in jail. On second thought, perhaps Ms Davis’s critics are right when they point out a major irony in her case. While she says repeatedly things like “I feel the institution of marriage was ordained by God in the Bible,” her own practice has been decidedly post-Christian. She is currently working...
Exiled Children of Eve, B Beatitudes, Not Platitudes It is commonly believed that, as Judas went away from the disagreement over the wasted oil, he was disgruntled over Jesus’ failure to lead a social revolution. It is certainly true that Jesus’ answer remains a powerful rebuke to those who would confound the gospel with one or another form of state-imposed socialism. The poor, whom we always have with us, will be taken care of properly only when we freely behave as Christians and not when Caesar, at the point of a sword, requires us to render doubly unto him so...
I have probably overloaded the discussion with far too much detail. My intention was partly to introduce readers to Sophocles’ career and mind-set and also to clear up some of the technical mysteries involved in reading a Greek tragedy.
The heartbreak of Tom’s departure made me want to get drunk. Living in Italy as I do, I rarely drink spirits – the climate is against it – and using even the cheapest wine to get plastered is a little like using the gold nib of an heirloom pen to open a bottle of Heineken. Then there is the problem of company, because downing vodka at the kitchen table, alone at three in the morning, is not how I wish my wife to remember me when I’m dead. Eventually a suitable candidate had been found, salted lard and sour pickles...
We all know that USA is the dumbest country in the history of the world—just turn on the television news for five minutes, if you have any doubts. But why, in the race to show off ignorance and stupidity, do Tennesseans have to try so hard to be in the forefront? Please do not misunderstand me. I have many friends in Tennessee, and I have enjoyed my many trips through the state. I like Tennessee whiskey and Tennessee music. I admire the writings of Andrew Lytle, Romulus Linney, Madison Smart Bell, and many other Tennesseans. I like nearly everything except...
When the German army overran France and Belgium in the spring of 1940, it acquired a fair number of surprised aliens, among them Mr. and Mrs. P.G. Wodehouse. After the outbreak of war, the Wodehouses had stayed on at their home in Le Touquet, P.G. working on a book, Mrs. P.G. doing her bit for the war effort by entertaining the members of the local RAF squadron. The British military and civil authorities in the area had assured them there was no immediate cause for fear, and so, refusing to imitate what seemed to them unworthy panic in those who...
