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August 31, 2006
"The perpetual adolescent strain in post-WW2 culture"
Before the 50s, when there were actual problems like an interminable Depression and Nazis, adolescents were mostly unseen in the culture. You had kids, and you had grown-ups. Adolescents were young grownups, expected to adhere to the same general rules of behavior. It was an adult culture, and adolescents were the interns. The culture would tolerate some things like Bobby Soxers, but with wry eye-rolling amusement. After the war, though, the adolescent was not only the focus of the culture’s attention, he was taken seriously. He was an inarticulate oracle, a mumbling sage, a jeering jester with a switchblade. One of the dumbest lines in cinema is one of the most famous: asked what he’s rebelling against, Marlin Brando’s character in the “The Wild Ones” says “Whaddya got?”Oh, I don’t know. The Pure Food Act, antibiotics, an industrial infrastructure that makes it possible for you to ride your bikes around, paved roads, a foreseeable successful conclusion to rural electrification, sewers, the ability to walk into any small café and order a Coke and know you won’t be squitting your guts out 12 hours later into a hole in the ground alive with squishy invertebrates. Little things. No wonder they fretted over the Juvenile Delinquents – they’d known not hard times nor war, and they acted as if they’d been born into the sixth circle of Hell. If pressed, JDs would respond - with their trademark mommie-took-my-rattle petulance that they were against the whole phony world, man, because there’s nothing the adolescent finds more contemptible than hypocrisy. Somehow they find the fact that their Old Man lied about Santa Claus – lied, man, stood there and lied with a big old smile on his big old face, dig it – is a piercing insight to the machinations of adulthood. Please don't tell me they were alienated by the threat of nuclear war. So was my generation. We reacted with Disco and "Supertrain."
"My weekend?" by James Lileks, The Bleat, August 21, 2006
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August 23, 2006
Eisenhower Golfocracy = "the go-to era for the modern Dark Ages"
But back to the brave daring Anti-Disney play. Wouldn’t be interesting to see a play about actual contemporary anti-Semites whose power extends beyond the confines of an animation studio? But you’re far more likely to see a play about the sex-doll origins of Barbie, for example. Why? Because it would shock town squares to learn that the doll with the tiny waist, long legs and hella-portion hooters might have something to do with sex. It would reexamine – nay, examine for the first time – this culture’s notions of sex, a subject no one ever dares to raise.Some day someone may pen a biting satirical look at a government so nervous about sex and the irresistible lies of Mad Ave they banned Barbie, Western Pop music and American ads themselves.
If such a play’s performed, it won’t be in by expats in Scotland; it’ll run in Tehran after the Mullahs fall. Among the wise and brave in the west, the Red Scare and the Eisenhower Golfocracy will remain the go-to era for the modern Dark Ages, a time when talented, witty people couldn’t glibly support a collectivist blood-soaked totalitarian system without fear their boss might get the wrong idea. You can see why the “Mouse is Dead” premise, however historically flawed, was catnip for the playwrights. Disney = Mickey, and everyone loved Mickey Mouse. He was cheerful, brave, industrious, ingenious, faithful, fair, scrappy and true. He was everything the grownups said we should be.
God how we hate him.
"My weekend?" by James Lileks, The Bleat, August 21, 2006
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August 17, 2006
Castro
Scene: a secret Havana military hospital. An old frail man snaps awake, and stares: there’s a stranger seated next to the bed, a long, unlit cigar in one hand. He leans back and smiles.“Don’t be alarmed,” says the stranger. “It’s just me, the Angel of History. I like to have a chat with men of your stature at times like this. Good run, old chap; dying in bed. Well played! A little advice? Pretend to die just as you’re telling them the secret Swiss bank account numbers. Drives them mad, and it’s most amusing to watch. Mind if I smoke?”
The old man’s eyes are wide and frantic; the uninvited guest leans forward. “What’s that? Right, right, your funeral. You want to know. Oh, next week, next month, hard to say. There’s the usual jostling for power right now. Odd, really: in this democratic, egalitarian nation, the only man you saw fit to follow happened to be your brother. What are the chances of that, eh? Most people in America don’t know a thing about him. ‘Another Castro?’ the Americans think. ‘They had a spare?’
“When it all shakes out, and enough people have been put against a wall, you’ll get a funeral. Second-tier diplomats will attend, mostly Europeans who will privately complain that you didn’t have the dignity to die in a cooler season. The show will be stolen by Chavez, of course. He’s rather like you, without the iconic facial hair and rhetoric that was stale when Woody Allen was funny. He has money, too. Good suits. I have my eye on that one. But we were talking about your funeral, weren’t we? The general consensus will be simple: at least it wasn’t as long as one of your speeches.
"The Scene," by James Lileks, Screedblog, August 10, 2006
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"Bleeding-heart ignoramuses"
All across the board, Lebanese civilians are referred to as "civilians" where Israeli civilians are referred to as "Israelis" - an eerie and sinister difference pointed out by the non-Jewish stand-up comic genius Natalie Haynes, and one which very few people appear to have noticed - even me, until then.
. . .
Personally, I'd far prefer the Jews to be angry, aggressive and alive than meek, mild and dead - and that's what makes me and a minority like me feel so much like strangers in our own country, now more than ever. I've always loved being a hack, but now even that feels weird, as though I'm living among a bunch of snatched-body zombies who look like journalists but believe and say the most inhuman, evil things.
"Bleeding-heart ignoramuses," by Julie Burchill, HAARETZ, August 2006
Posted at 06:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Bigotry , Ignorance , Nihilism , Stupidity , Terrorism
August 16, 2006
Post-Modernism = Neo-Luddites
Aside from the massive waste of public monies on professorships and student loans for useless degrees, I guess that is what bothers me most about Post-Modernism - it gives neo-luddites an Academic gloss for their idiocy.
"True, False, or Bloody Stupid?" by John Jay, Chicago Boyz, August 6, 2006
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August 14, 2006
"Purportedly 'moderate' Muslim leaders"
To the President of Indonesia, the West acts, Muslims merely react. Thus Israel must be stopped, even though it was provoked by Iranian-backed Hebollah in the first place. If not, benighted Muslims will have no choice but to become “radicalized,” and perpetrate even more acts of terrorism.
Why doesn’t this work the other way around? Why not demand the destruction of Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda, or Western “moderates” will become “radicalized” and demand a more hands-on approach to the Middle East? Why can Westerners control their actions, and Muslims merely offer irrational, uncontrollable reactions?
"A 'Moderate' Threat?" Wizbang, August 6, 2006
Posted at 11:57 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Gynephobes , Terrorism
August 13, 2006
Inexpensive food - "a considerable historical achievement"
But critics of cheap food forget that its attainment is a considerable historical achievement. Most of human history involved a constant struggle to find enough food. The battle against hunger was the norm. This is still true in much of the developing world, where the World Bank estimates that 815million people ate too little to meet their daily energy needs in 2002 (13). So to have achieved a situation where, at least in the developed world, food scarcity is virtually eliminated is a tremendous achievement. As well as being good in itself, it also allows people to spend more time on other things rather than struggling to meet their most basic needs.
"Why people hate fat Americans: Today's attacks on obese Yanks are motivated by a broader unease with affluence," by Daniel Ben-Ami, Spiked, September 9, 2005
Posted at 01:17 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Economics
"Recognising Muslim 'anger' for what it is"
Muslim 'moderates' in Britain are calling for changes to British foreign policy as the only way to prevent Muslim 'extremists' in Britain from attacking the rest of us.
This is of course the same approach used by Sinn Fein and other Republicans in Northern Ireland, who held that only by political engagement and accommodation with 'moderate' political figures (i.e. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness) could the wicked IRA be stopped from blowing people up. Of course the fact Sinn Fein and the IRA were actually inseparable parts of the same movement was something only a reader of the Guardian could have failed to notice.
And so a 'moderate' Muslim, a member of the Tory Party no less, tell us that 'Muslim anger' must be recognised (our old chum root causes). Is that so? Well I think increasingly it is being recognised. It is being recognised as an excuse used for getting non-democratic Muslim veto over British foreign policies just as a majority of Muslims also appear to want a Muslim veto over freedom of expression in Britain.
"Recognising Muslim 'anger' for what it is," samizdata, August 13, 2006
Posted at 12:37 PM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Terrorism
August 07, 2006
Anti-religious hysteria
The artistic representation of religious conviction is frequently stigmatised with terms such as 'fundamentalist', 'intolerant', 'dogmatic', 'exclusive', 'irrational' or 'right-wing'. As a secular humanist who is instinctively uncomfortable with zealot-like moralism, I am suspicious of the motives behind these doctrinaire denunciations of films with a religious message. Such fervour reminds me of the way that reactionaries in the past policed Hollywood for hints of blasphemy or expressions of 'Un-American values'. Replacing the zealotry of religious intolerance with a secular version is hardly an enlightened alternative.
"The curious rise of anti-religious hysteria," by Frank Furedi, January 23, 2006
Posted at 10:17 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Bigotry
August 06, 2006
Grievances of ... seeing unveiled women ... the Jewish people ... the heresy of democracy ... a work of fiction ... the existence of black African Muslim farmers ... etc., ad nauseum
It's a long, and nauseating, list of grievances ....
We know very well what the "grievances" of the jihadists are. The grievance of seeing unveiled women. The grievance of the existence, not of the State of Israel, but of the Jewish people. The grievance of the heresy of democracy, which impedes the imposition of sharia law. The grievance of a work of fiction written by an Indian living in London. The grievance of the existence of black African Muslim farmers, who won't abandon lands in Darfur. The grievance of the existence of homosexuals. The grievance of music, and of most representational art. The grievance of the existence of Hinduism. The grievance of East Timor's liberation from Indonesian rule. All of these have been proclaimed as a licence to kill infidels or apostates, or anyone who just gets in the way.For a few moments yesterday, Londoners received a taste of what life is like for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose Muslim faith does not protect them from slaughter at the hands of those who think they are not Muslim enough, or are the wrong Muslim.
"We Cannot Surrender: States which shelter these killers will know no peace," by Christopher Hitchens, Mirror.co.uk, July 8, 2005
Posted at 08:47 AM · Categories: Nihilism , Terrorism
August 05, 2006
Desperate Grandmas
No, what grates about the Desperate Grandmas is not their optimism. It is not their determination to firm their glutes or to do good deeds in West Africa or, for that matter, to study the Kama Sutra like Orthodox Jews study the Torah. It’s their enthusiastic display of that chronic boomer disease: narcissism. Tom Wolfe once dubbed the 1970s "the Me Decade." Desperate Grandmas seem determined to make every decade a Me Decade. With its consciousness-raising, its denigration of family life, its rejection of the past, feminism has always flirted with excessive individualism, bordering on mere selfishness. Now, as Second Wavers like Steinem and Levine filter out politics, what’s left of graying feminism are the dregs of self-actualization, passionate pursuits, and sexual self-expression.
Not that Desperate Grandmas are entirely without social conscience. As in Juska’s case, blue-state politics seem to go with the territory. It’s a way for women to reassure themselves that they are filled with enlightened altruism, despite all the time and money they lavish on their self-actualization. Jong proudly describes the anger she stirred up when she gave an anti-Bush graduation speech several years ago at a Staten Island college. (The "Boos were honors," she writes. "They meant I was questioning authority, speaking truth to power. They meant I was trying to tell the truth—my quixotic calling.") Margot, the corporate-executive-turned-Peace-Corps-volunteer Suzanne Levine interviews, captures the combination of unapologetic self-absorption and liberal sensibility that characterizes the Desperate Grandma. When asked whether she will go back to work after she returns from Africa, she says yes. "Maintenance is expensive. Being a jazzy older woman costs money. And that includes plastic surgery--when I get back from the Peace Corps." As the saying goes, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
. . .
For these books do not simply recall their mothers’ profound, feminist-sanctioned self-absorption; they are expressions of it. Not all Desperate Grandmas are quite so ready to cross the boundary into Jong’s and Juska’s brand of exhibitionism, but their positive thinking shades easily into discomforting egotism. It’s not just that older women continue to enjoy sex; it’s that it has to be--in defiance of all common sense--Better Than Ever. It’s not that they like working to rescue animals; they’re Pursuing Their Passions. "They are the most amazing women our country has ever seen!" Levine quotes a gerontologist as gushing in Inventing the Rest of Our Lives.
Please. Narcissism is the last thing a society needs from its graying population. Their job is in part to counter youthful egotism, especially in an individualistic society like ours. No one should understand better than those getting on in years our dependency on one another. And no one should have a stronger intuition of our own fundamental inconsequentiality. We "fill a slot for a time and then move out; that’s the decent thing to do: make room," John Updike’s Harry Angstrom muses in Rabbit at Rest.
Desperate Grandmas may not need to move out yet. But it would be decent--quaint word!--if they would make some room.
"Desperate Grandmas," by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Summer 2006
This reminds me of Desparate Grandpa Hugh Hefner ...
Posted at 11:47 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Narcissism
August 04, 2006
Hezbollah in Lebanon
Israel’s war with Hezbollah is not about the kidnapped soldiers or Katiushas. It is about Hezbollah’s attempt to remain a state within a state, and, along with Syria, to threaten Israel with missiles while Iran completes its nuclear armament. The rest can be easily imagined. And as long as there is no strategic change in Lebanon, starting with Hezbollah’s disarming and having international forces taking the control of the Lebanese-Syrian and Lebanese-Israeli borders, the bombings may give Israel some time, but will eventually transform Lebanon into an extension of Iran.
Walid Phares, in an interview, "Tehran & Damascus Move to Lebanon," An NRO Q&A, August 2, 2006
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August 02, 2006
Jew hatred
Jew hatred is an ancient practice and has so many different rationales it is hard to pin it down. In the end it is mostly about the search for scapegoats to explain away failures and difficulties encountered in life. Enough Jews have been successful enough to cause weak-minded types to determine that this had to be due to some evil rather than hard work and diligence. It must be terribly galling to be any of Israel's neighbor states and see those horrible Jews prospering their asses off. And then when you fire up all the martial power of Allah to push them into the sea and liberate Palestine you get your asses handed to you.....regularly. I could see how this could chafe your cones after a while.So it is the Jews fault that we are in Afghanistan, and Iraq and that Southern Lebanon is about to get a close up look at IDF ground troops. Their stubborn insistence on survival continues to be a thorn in the side of otherwise peaceful Islamists worldwide. The simple solution is for us to throw Israel under the bus and then enjoy the peace that would spontaneously erupt.
"Mel Gibson is right," by Uncle Jimbo, Blackfive, August 1, 2006
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August 01, 2006
Anti-semites dressed up as pseudo-intellectuals
It takes a certain kind of person to see a liberal free society attacked by Islamicists, and find himself wondering: what are those crafty Jews up to now?
"Friday night," James Lileks, The Bleat, July 17, 2006
Posted at 06:37 AM · Comments (0) · TrackBack (0) · Categories: Nihilism