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Post by jdredd on Aug 29, 2014 20:34:53 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/386468/year-culture-broke-armond-white/page/0/1 "Here is where the culture broke — by breaking tenets of decency. After the media’s misrepresentation of Gibson’s faith and after Moore’s propaganda, all rationality and taste were rendered irrelevant. New low standards were set in place and have held sway over the past pitiful ten years. Hollywood’s one-sided approach to art, religion, and politics initiated superficial and thoughtless responses to Americans’ multifaceted personal and political views. From 2004 on, even “entertainment” movies were made and received with deleterious political and moral bias." I saw both movies, and while Moore's documentary has a point of view, Gibson's doesn't seem to have a point. The only thing I got out of POC was that the death penalty sucks.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 3, 2014 22:11:51 GMT -5
So FX got big ratings among the Millennials for showing a Simpsons Marathon. Really? A show that's been peddling the same humor for 25 years now (while making Murdoch a bazillion dollars), longer than some of the Millennials have been alive? Are we ever going to get Something New?
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Post by jdredd on Sept 9, 2014 14:32:38 GMT -5
War in Iraq, war in Ukraine, who cares? It's football season!!! Time for you Millennials to gather 'round the 99 incher and get sloshed! Now what sane young Muslim wouldn't want to live just like you?
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Post by jdredd on Sept 18, 2014 21:38:23 GMT -5
So the Scots appear to be rejecting independence. I guess three hundred years of English rule has domesticated them into complacent consumers. Good thing George Washington and his compatriots weren't more interested in their bank accounts than their self-determination.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 19, 2014 0:01:29 GMT -5
Perhaps a symptom of cultural stagnation is satisfaction with the status quo.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 27, 2014 19:40:15 GMT -5
Just speculating here, but I'm wondering if part of the conflict between Western values and militant Islam is the age-old rivalry between hedonism and puritanism. The West long ago succumbed to the lure of hedonism (which I think the majority of humanity prefers), but fundamentalist puritanical Islam does appeal to a lot of "losers" (as I have heard them called by a number of big-mouthed pundits) among Muslims in the West. Time to bomb those party-poopers.
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Post by jdredd on Sept 28, 2014 14:14:38 GMT -5
IMHO, one symptom of Cultural Stagnation is all the guys who still wear their baseball caps backwards. How long has that been in style now? (I always though that once you turned around your cap your perceived IQ dropped 30 points. But I hate baseball caps in general) I'm seeing forty-somethings with their caps on backwards, and it sure looks stupid.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 3, 2014 13:39:53 GMT -5
Tonight is the debut of the all-Disney animated "Star Wars" reboot. It's been almost 40 years now since "Star Wars" hit the screen (Some righty commentators claim it was what made war cool again after Vietnam), and it seems to still be popular as ever. Lots of explosions, the lure of space travel, and father issues. I guess those never go out of style. I know they still work for me. What has changed is the globalization of Hollywood: "Star Wars: Episode VII" is being made in England, and "Star Wars Rebels" is animated in Taiwan. (You righties want to complain, why don't you complain about the outsourcing of Hollywood? Oh, your phony hyper-patriotism doesn't extend that far, does it? I wonder what Walt Disney would think? Actually, I believe he was a greedy basperson too)
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Post by jdredd on Nov 2, 2014 5:18:46 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/sunday-review/mired-in-mediocrity.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=c-column-top-span-region®ion=c-column-top-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0"Arguably, all of this cultural and political mediocrity is related to Ms. Lagarde’s economic mediocrity; as conventional wisdom goes, when the economy is slow, both businesses — creative and otherwise — and individuals tend to play it cautious, opting for incremental change to known quantities or for milquetoast recreations of what succeeded before, as opposed to radical change. This is particularly true in the current global environment, where some countries are experiencing signs of a positive upswing, while others languish on the downward slope. When it’s all bad, there’s no choice but to take risks to jolt people into awareness (or purchasing: You have to give ’em something they definitely could not have bought before). But in this state of uncertainty about where markets are going, there’s security in the familiarity of a fur-lined Birkenstock. No matter how ridiculous it might be. We get locked in a vicious cycle of same-old-safe-old. You see it in the endless fetishization of the sneaker, the vampire-meets-girl retreads and the obsessive fixation on yet another maybe-possible Clinton/Bush standoff. That’s a political drama at least we think we know."
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Post by jdredd on Nov 7, 2014 5:46:32 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/391866/manifesto-dysfunction-editors"Lena Dunham, actress, television writer, and disturbing memoirist, is displeased that a National Review writer quoted passages from her book and characterized some of the episodes described therein as representing the sexual abuse of her younger sister, Grace. Her lawyers have threatened to sue the conservative website Truth Revolt for subsequently doing much the same thing." The National Review just can't leave Lena alone, can they? They seem obsessed.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 9, 2014 20:01:32 GMT -5
www.newrepublic.com/article/120027/not-kind-girl-review-lena-dunhams-callow-grating-memoir"Although Dunham is despised on the right, where she was Sandra Fluked in a National Review cover story by Kevin D. Williamson, the enmity of conservative bloggers, columnists, and fading, sputtering talk-show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh is part of the Punch-and-Judy show of the last wheeze of the culture wars, which the right ungallantly lost. They need to beat their chests about the likes of Lena Dunham to keep their tired circulation going. Each attack from the right fortifies Dunham’s loyalty from her own constituency on the creative-class liberal left, but a constituency isn’t the same as a fan base—it requires a higher degree of pampering and appeasing. Gender studies / cultural studies grads, who have set up camp on the pop-cult left, can be a prickly lot, ready to pounce on any doctrinal deviation, language-code violation, or reckless disregard of intersectionality. They like their artists and entertainers to be transgressive as long as the transgression swings in the properly prescribed direction. Otherwise: the slightest mistimed or misphrased tweet, ill-chosen remark during a red carpet interview or radio appearance, or comic ploy gone astray can incur the mighty puny wrath of social media’s mosquito squadrons, the hall monitors at Salon and Slate, and Web writers prone to crises of faith in their heroes. (The sly provocations of actor-comedian Patton Oswalt on his Twitter feed triggered a combination cri de coeur and excommunication edict from a disillusioned soul that was titled “Why I Unfollowed Patton Oswalt—and You Should Too.”) Dunham’s constituency needs her more than she needs them, yet she can’t unheed them, because her progressive pride and bona fides are at stake, and, besides, who needs the aggravation? Like it or not, Lena Dunham has graduated in record time from an indie darling into a Thought Leader, an honorific that was never hung on Nora Ephron. Lucky Nora, at least in that regard. She didn’t labor as the voice of her generation. She was nobody’s voice but her own." Well, first the National Review took a swipe at Lena, and now the so-called "liberal" New Republic is joining in, and slamming the "creative-class liberal left" to boot. Lena must be doing something right.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 9, 2014 20:23:51 GMT -5
www.theblaze.com/contributions/parents-do-your-jobs-or-your-kids-might-turn-out-like-lena-dunham/"If you’re already lost, let me offer a quick recap: Lena Dunham is a twenty-something feminist celebrity who stars in an ambling, pointless HBO sex comedy called Girls. In order to preserve my journalistic integrity (although I’m not a journalist) I did attempt to verify that characterization by watching one episode. I made it about 15 minutes and found myself fighting the unmistakable urge to stick my head in a food processor. The show apparently follows several obnoxious, spoiled, mid-upper class, liberal, elitist, self-absorbed brats as they traipse about New York City having sex and saying a bunch of obnoxious, spoiled, mid-upper class, liberal, elitist, self-absorbed things. I’m not sure how well this show does in the ratings but I was left feeling deeply concerned for the mental health of anyone who voluntarily watches the program on a regular basis. Have they all chopped their faces off with kitchen appliances by now, or am I the only one who felt moved in that direction? " MEANWHILE, on Preacher Beck's website, it's the usual character assassination of Lena. That this righty Millennial doesn't get her show is not particularly surprising, there is a lot about our culture they don't get. Which is perhaps why they are righties, I'm guessing.
ON THE OTHER HAND, righties do get military culture, the whole "Land of the Free Because of the Brave" thingy. Don't they know soldiers are employees of our Big Bad Government? Oh yeah, the job of a government is to kill "baddies" overseas, not pamper parasites here at home like your grandma. Silly me.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 14, 2014 17:00:05 GMT -5
I am just speculating, of course, but perhaps it is just SOME cultures in America that are stagnant, such as the Gun-and-Bible culture I mentioned elsewhere. Does rural Middle America really want people on the coasts to embrace their stagnant culture? Needless to say, I don't believe that sounds too appealing.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 15, 2014 16:09:49 GMT -5
www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-30045264"The Concert for Valor in Washington, DC on Tuesday was intended as a Veterans Day celebration for US military personnel - as popular musicians and celebrities took to the stage to honour military service and heroism. Beneath the good vibes, however, is a brewing controversy over the inclusion of the 1969 Vietnam War protest song Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival, played early in the concert by Bruce Springsteen, Zac Brown and Dave Grohl. The lyrics of the piece focus on the hypocrisy of politicians and the influential who supported the Vietnam War but made no sacrifices themselves. Social media soon lit up with tens of thousands of mentions of the song title and Springsteen, both critical and supportive." What, the right doesn't think our soldiers can handle a Blast From the Past? Sounds like some right wing form of Political Correctness at work here.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 20, 2014 1:49:25 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/393001/jon-stewart-leader-bubble-armond-white"Rosewater is no big deal as a movie. It’s no more authentic than the insipid Argo but it confirms that the Jon Stewart phenomenon — a comic turned into what Faye Dunaway in Network referred to as “a strip Savaronola” — illustrates an undeniable change in our politicized popular culture. (Only a lunatic would condone a political program on something called Comedy Central.) Stewart is from the “director as superstar” generation and seeks that same dated acclaim. Rosewater (with its psychological F/X where Bahari sees memories of dead family members in shop windows) mixes ambition and hubris; it’s as if Stewart attained the sanctity of Lenny Bruce without going to the trouble of ODing." The right hates Jon Stewart because he continues to kick their asses in the culture "war". Not that it helped the libs in the last election, but hopefully the youngsters will turn out in 2016. Plus, what better place for a political show than a comedy channel, considering how politics is filled with clowns.
But I do agree that "Argo" was insipid.
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