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Culture War

“The Dark Knight Rises”: Arise, capitalism and freedom….

Has anyone seen The Dark Knight Rises? I haven’t. Not that I have anything against Batman. It’s just not a movie that was on my A-List (and nothing need be said about the killings last week in Colorado; this is about the movie, not the apparently insane killer).

Now it is.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, novelist and PJ Media contributor Andrew Klavan has a fascinating interpretation of the movie. In the Journal column, Batman Battles the Politics of Resentment Klavan shows the movie to be “a bold apologia for free-market capitalism [and] a graphic depiction of the tyranny and violence inherent in every radical leftist movement….”

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The Hunger Games

I read all three of these in record time.  Two this past weekend.  And while there are some curious stabs at environmentalism, and the can’t we all just get along meme, the most power full themes are the terror of absolute tyranny and the fact that we are all damaged goods. I highly recommend them. … Read more

Red Box Review – The Darkest Hour

Steve Casting with a Twist.  The culture is always fodder and all politics all the time makes Johnny chop a hole in the bathroom door with an axe.   So here’s a different flavor of Audio Pod-casting juice for your thirsty ears.  A Red Box movie review: The Darkest Hour.

Notes:
Thanks for your continued patience as I try to fine tune the end product.   FireFox 13.0.1 users may not be able to see this audio player–just follow this link instead.  If you’d rather read the transcript you may do so on the jump.

[jwplayer mediaid=”26396″]

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As the culture turns: What is cool? (Hint: It ain’t liberals and modern liberalism….)

On the left, thinks he's cool. On the right, is cool....

This from Roger Simon at PJ Media, who collars those who still think modern liberalism (aka statism) is cool. It’s not, and hasn’t been for some time. Everyone with the proverbial IQ above room temperature has come to the same conclusion. While that’s interesting, what is far more interesting is the political cohort that Simon fingers as today’s cool….

So go on. Guess. Can’t? Okay. In retrospect, it’s a head-slapper. Why? Because “cool” today is just about as opposite as you can get from modern statist liberalism, aka “yesterday’s cool.” After all, today’s cool people are all…

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Coolest President Ever?

Not Obama, Lord no.  147 years after his presidency he’ll be lucky if there’s any mention of him beyond his being the first black president (After Clinton, of course. That and, perhaps, almost doubling the deficit in three years.)  I am referring to Abraham Lincoln, whose “past” has taken a turn toward the macabre in … Read more

ABC Cancels GCB – Too Much Competition from DCB?

ABC Canceled GCB.  (That’s the family Friendly Disney/ABS’c short-lived controversial program about so-called Christian women who do not behave according the The Word.)  Who among us is without sin?  ABC certainly cannot claim otherwise.

While I’m sure GCB could have played well enough in the coast cities and liberal ghettos, it must–after all–be a show based on how Democrats actually approach the faith (you write what you know, yes?) no one else seems to have cared for it.  And why would they?  We already have the ugly version of this progran running 24/7 in DC called Democrat “Christian” Bitches (DCB).  (I’m not being sexist here–most of the ‘bitches’ in the Democrat party are actually men, and most if not all the of the “Christian” Democrats are simply hypocrites.)

ABC's GCB

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You’ve Come A Long Way Baby

Adele-wins-two-Grammys middle finger in check
I think Madonna has a bra just like this.

The singer Adele (Adele Laurie Blue Adkins), has joined the pantheon of modern celebrity -women who believe that flipping the bird in front of alarge public audience (on television) is a reasonable way to behave.

And maybe it is.

Perhaps M.I.A. (and now Adele) will do to the middle finger what Bill Clinton did for the ‘Lewinsky.’   Oral sex isn’t even sex anymore nor is is, is.  So it can only be a matter of time before the middle-finger replaces the handshake–somewhere around 12-21-2012 if the Mayan’s were right.

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Noteable Quote: Russell Kirk

All Values are not the same, nor all impulses, nor all men.  A Natural gradation teaches men to hold some sentiments dear and others cheap.  Leveling radicalism endeavors to put all emotions and sensations on the same level of mediocrity, and so to erase the moral imagination which sets men apart from beasts. -Russell Kirk … Read more

Correct. We Men Have Nothing To Say About Reproductive Rights

“Ah, yes, divorce… from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.”  —Robin Williams

Again, My associate Steve Mac Donald hits another home run with today’s entry. In the wake of the  Komen for the Cure Planned Parenthood funding controversy, Steve recaps for us what the die-hard blow-hardettes had to say. Steve writes,

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Why did M.I.A. Flip off my 11 Year Old Daughter?

Why did M.I.A Flip off my 11 year old daughter?
Why did M.I.A Flip off my 11 year old daughter?

I know that media and entertainment people live in intersecting bubbles where hordes of grovelers kiss their backsides 24/7/365 for the chance to ride on the coat-tails other peoples fame.  I get that even the most grounded among them will begin to believe that everything they do and say is as great as all the butt-kissers tell them it is.  But what kind of performer comes to the conclusion that giving 100 million people the finger (including my 11 year old daughter) is a form entertainment?

“What, this isn’t pay cable?”

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Are 3D Movies The Future Of Cinema?

Is 3D worth the extra cost and is it the future of cinema
Is 3D worth the extra cost

I read somewhere that within the movie industry there is a growing consensus that 3D movies are the future of the big screen experience.  My initial reaction was that this is only true the way unemployment is the future of job growth in Obama’s America.  Just because Nancy Pelosi says it is doesn’t make it so. ?

And the problems are related.  Movies in 2D are already too expensive.  3D, which is the Mc Donald’s Drive-Thru cashiers equivalent of adding the apple pie to every order because there is no alternative, puts the big screen experience for the average American family out of reach.  My response to that is to just stay home, and not just because you can’t get a lower ticket price if you bring your own 3D glasses.  I have discovered what I like to call my Red Box mentality.  It goes something like this.

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Grocery Stores And Courtesy…NOT!

“Anyone who believes the competitive spirit in America is dead has never been in a supermarket when the cashier opens another checkout line.” —Ann Landers

"Let me call my Manager while I pretend to care about your damned problem"
"Let me call my Manager while I pretend to care about your damned problem"

Your Turn, NH, a weekly New Hampshire Union Leader feature, gave ink to young Natasha Cole of Hudson, a U-Mass Lowell Student and cashier to speak out to the diseased and afflicted unwashed masses. Cole asks customers to, “Have some courtesy for your cashiers this holiday season,” and not to spew her with your collection of germs and bodily juices while shopping at the local grocery store. The points made by Cole are valid. No dispute there. I know nobody who desires to get sick over the holiday season, much less anytime.

I, as a consumer, being forced to use such establishments, am not lost on Cole’s underlying sentiments.  In fact, those very establishments that Natasha speaks of have overtly acknowledged the need for such disease consciousness with the installation of sanitary wipe dispensers at the grocery store point of entry. Customers are able to wipe down the shopping cart handle. Waterless hand sanitizer is also often present. But while the topic of exposure minimization would appear to be the thesis, the underpinning thesis  her topic is couched in, is courtesy.  Grocery stores! absolute fodder for social scientists and cultural commentators like me, so I would be remiss pass up such an opportunity to address…even expand the concept of grocery store courtesy.

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Could We Ever “Just Be Friends?”

The video seeks to resolve the question of whether men and women can ever be “just friends.”   A platonic relationship without any aspirations of hooking up.   Given that this “research” was conducted in a University Library, the outcome seems obvious but it is still instructive to see the parade of college-age women who think … Read more

“Slow societal suicide”

From Victor Davis Hanson at PJ Media:"[T]here is a growing realization that today’s brand of liberalism is really a form of slow societal suicide. "We see red states recovering from recession; blue states are still broke. Greece is a mess; so is the entire anti-democratic, statist, and redistributive EU. "Keynesian economics is about as dead … Read more

National Right to Carry And Its’ Opponents From Within

“Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?” —Thomas Sowell

Gun_in_Truck_GROK.jpg

 The Union Leader’s Mark Hayward features a front page story today entitled, “Activists: Feds’ bill would lead to gun control“. The thesis of Hayward’s article is that two activist are against the bill because it gives the federal government a toe-hold into states’ rights and is a pretext to arbitrary national gun control.

 The National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act, HB 822, passed in the U.S. House yesterday and enjoyed strong support. The intent of this legislation is to allow law-abiding citizens with a concealed-carry permit in one state to carry concealed in states with similar systems. Obviously, the bill must have some strong support because Charlie “the RINO” Bass is a co-sponsor.

 Yet my good friend and esteemed fellow gun advocate Representative J.R. Hoell opposes the bill.  J.R. asserts, “The federal government will then want a photo ID for concealed- carry. Then a microchip Real ID card.”  J.R, the feds already want that, irrespective of “how” or “who” regulates guns. And numerous attempts at nationalizing gun registration, gun control, microstamping of ammunition, suing gunmakers, the assault weapons ban and any other novel, unique or creative trick, dreamed up by the pablum-puking, ant-gun liberals has already dawned within the halls of our congress…irrespective of this legislation.

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Obama Golfs With Guy Who Solicits Whores

I suppose it is the state of media and their love affair with Mr. Obama that when in the midst of a hatchet job on a potential opponent over accusations of sexual misconduct that the leader of the free world gets a pass for golfing with a guy convicted of soliciting prostitutes.

Politco/White House Stenographer Jennifer Epstein

Obama is(sic) played with two White House staffers — Marvin Nicholson and Pete Selfridge — and with high school classmate Bobby Titcomb, according to a pool report. In April, Titcomb was one of four men arrested as part of an undercover prostitution sting. He was later released on $500 bail. In May, Titcomb didn’t appear in court as his lawyer offered a no contest plea

Whatever your own thoughts, prostitution is still illegal in most places and rumor has it the girls are not treated particularly well.  So there is something to be said for the timing and optics given the "influential men treating women as sex objects" smear Politco has been waging on Mr. Herman Cain.  While Cain is defending himself from Obama’s pit bull David Axelrod, most of the Staff at Politco, and a dyspeptic conga-line of publicity-seeking-future-reality-star/potential-tell-all-book-deal-signing gold-diggers, Mr. Obama is casually hitting a little white ball around exclusive Hawaiian country clubs, in golf slacks and a pricey polo, with a guy who solicits sex from whores.

Hey.  Hookers are a shovel ready job, right?! 

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A few reasons for Income Equality that have NOTHING to do with society…

…and all about what individual choices have wrought:

  • Youth, career beginning, and education debt
  • Single motherhood
  • temporary unemployment
  • Life style choice
  • Lack of marketable skills
  • Living where there are no jobs to match skills
  • Very bad luck
  • Mental illness, addiction, etc.
  • Lack of cultural mastery, whether via recent immigration or whatever
  • Chronic disabling illness
  • A history of poor decision-making and life strategizing
  • Low IQ
  • Character traits such as laziness, inability to get along with people, lack of organization, initiative, goals, self-discipline, or ambition, no discipline to save money, impulsivity, poor planning, lousy judgement, etc etc.
  • Income data gaps due to the numbers of people who work off the books (for a dramatic example, our clinic realised that there was a 30-woman prostitution ring working out of a nearby government housing project)
  • Choosing to work the welfare/disability/food stamp/child care etc. system (with a couple of kids, the all with full government benefits brings them up to a working class standard of living without working. That ought to be good enough, roughly equivalent to a $40,000 salary). Our support system will bring you close to $30,000/yr in cash and/or benefits including unlimited free medical care)
  • History of criminality or career criminality

16 items. 2 are obvious not an individual’s fault. 3 can go both ways (not your fault, perhaps it is).

But how often to the Occupy Wall Streeters bring these up (and if they do, merely a fleeting mention) as opposed to the hated "1%"?  To often, I get the impression that they (and many Progressives) simply blame "the system" or blame "society" – and never, ever, really want to consider that neither is to blame.  People DO make choices – and sometimes, those choices are sub-par.

With the OWSers, we have heard often that "hey, I have this Sociology degree, or one in Womens’ Lit, or one of a dozen different fields of study in which I ask – "and that can be directly applied to what kind of productive job?  And then they relate to the $10s of thousands of debt, and blame society for not holding up "the social compact" (as in "I was told that a college degree would give me a good living").

(H/T: Maggie’s Farm)

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A 21-year-old girl in Waco, Texas says “Put me in charge!”

This, from a 21-year-old female, was in the Waco Tribune Herald in Waco, Texas on November 18, 2010 (maybe…I haven’t checked it; but it sounds good anyway!).

"Put me in charge . . . "

Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza…

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Dorothy The Hooker of Oz

It’s kids, candy, wild grown up costume parties, and Dorothy the Hooker from Oz. Makes you wonder what song the boys from the Lollypop Guild might have sung if Dorothy from Kansas showed up dressed like this?

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