Drive By Shootings
By all means, the US and the UN should brand Hamas a terrorist organization, but who knows what can of–not worms but rattlesnakes–we might open up.
The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
One Year to the Election: Biden Wars Blow Dem Party Apart
I watched on Fox News some of the Saturday pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, D.C. It reminded me of the left-wing demonstrations I reported on 40 years ago when I was a journalist there. Most marches then were against Reagan’s nuclear arms buildup. One of the marcher groups was Women Strike for Peace, founded by far-left Rep. Bella Abzug, remembered for wearing colorful hats.
Yesterday’s Republican Debate and the End of Democracy
As to the debate, so-called, the best comment came from Vivek Ramaswamy when he blasted the NBC moderators for perpetrating the Russia Hoax for three years. He should have stormed off the stage. If he had, that would be the only thing anybody remembered.
Wednesday’s Child: The Political Tourist
The smell of burned cheese and cheap frying oil overhanging a street, such as Palermo’s savagely pedestrianized Via Maqueda, signals the presence of the mass tourist. The tourist is both predator and prey, the collective criminal and the collective victim of his crime. He is here on Sicily to pursue happiness, but instead has it rudely imposed on him by people whose idea of a transient’s happiness is their own enrichment.
Westerns Episode 13: Dances with Wolves (1990)
In this first episode of the final era in our Westerns series (1990-present) we will look at Dances with Wolves. Does Dances represent a breakthrough in Western film or just the complete breakdown of the American mind? Homework for next meeting: Last of the Mohicans.
Putting Americans First
If I were a Jewish American or an Arab American, I would naturally be inclined to a one-sided view of the current conflict, but I would, nonetheless, insist on putting the interest and justice of the American people and their government first. Unfortunately, I see very little evidence that either Jewish-Americans and Arab-Americans have even a sense of dual loyalty.
Superior Blues
America used to be a country with a bland national uniformity of culture and attitude that was belied whenever you entered the bizarre world of isolated small towns. In its own way, Superior is as strange a place as Charleston or New Orleans (the way it used to be) or the celebrated villages in the valley of the Miskatonic River
Wednesday’s Child: The Fruit of Progress
Hallowmas, which is today, marks the start of the pomegranate season, a fruit that evokes the myth of the goddess and her chthonic descent into winter. With persimmon and prickly pear, pomegranate forms a trio of late autumn fruit which, at least on this side of the Messina Strait, is largely overlooked by cultivators. A forager’s dream, they just grow, often by the roadside. They are the partridge, woodcock, and grouse of the fructiferous world.
The New Index: Montaigne
We are going to launch the New Year by taking nominations for the New Index of classic books to ban. To be eligible the book and writer must be either included in some Great Books series or, at least, be a staple of the postmodern curriculum, e.g., The Diary of Ann Frank or The Handmaid’s Tale or The Awakening.
