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Post by jdredd on Dec 9, 2014 15:07:30 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/284093/gospel-according-peanuts-lee-habeeb/page/0/1"The half-hour special aired on Thursday, December 9, 1965, preempting The Munsters and following Gilligan’s Island. To the surprise of the executives, 50 percent of the televisions in the United States tuned in to the first broadcast. The cartoon was a critical and commercial hit; it won an Emmy and a Peabody award. Linus’s recitation was hailed by critic Harriet Van Horne of the New York World-Telegram, who wrote, “Linus’ reading of the story of the Nativity was, quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season.” A Charlie Brown Christmas is equaled only perhaps by the 1966 How the Grinch Stole Christmas! in its popularity among young and old alike. Thank God the Grinch-like executives at CBS chose to air the special back in 1965 despite their misgivings. If it had been left to their gut instincts, we would have had one less national treasure to cherish come Christmas time. — Lee Habeeb is the vice president of content at Salem Radio Network, which syndicates Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt. He lives in Oxford, Miss., with his wife, Valerie, and daughter Reagan." Does this prove that the culture is stagnant, or that cultural "stagnation" could be a good thing? Who doesn't like "Charlie Brown Christmas"? You'd have to be a grinch.
But I do find amusing this guy, who gives us so many of those right-wing religious types on AM radio, named his daughter Reagan. Why I am not surprised he is from Mississippi? Hasn't Southern "culture" taken over lots of America? I believe it has.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 14, 2014 14:21:30 GMT -5
www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/a-painter-steps-back-to-look-at-the-big-picture/2014/12/11/627f67fc-7a63-11e4-b821-503cc7efed9e_story.html?hpid=z13" Steven Cushner did the same thing over and over again, until he didn’t. The Washington artist made paintings — some small, some medium-size — with bold, symmetrical, repetitive patterns, utilizing rote gestures to evoke forms both natural and man-made. “If paintings are at all self-expressive, which I think they are, I’m an endlessly repetitive person,” he says. “I’m monogamous to things that I like, so the paintings are, too.” Cushner did this for decades. Then, last month, he decided to do something new. “I wanted to do a painting that I didn’t know how to do,” he says. He didn’t know how to paint big. But now Cushner is working on his biggest canvas ever, and it’s visible to the public from a storefront window at 1700 L St. NW. Through an arrangement with developer the Lenkin Company and gallery owner George Hemphill, who represents his work, Cushner fashioned a studio out of the commercial space early this month, and he’ll continue working there through Dec. 31." Every painter is looking for a gimmick so they can stand out, but painting is deep, deep, deep into stagnation IMHO. Still, bigness is always a big seller, and art speculators are driving the prices of works by the superstars of painting through the roof.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 19, 2014 2:42:32 GMT -5
www.thenation.com/blog/193281/what-colbert-report-taught-us-about-psychology-conservatives"No one thought that Stephen Colbert, the character, would last this long. His right-wing, self-regarding, bloviating pundit was a shtick, a bit, good for a year or two, tops. As Colbert said Monday of the soon-to-retire Michele Bachmann, “Godspeed, Michele, Godspeed. I cannot believe you kept up that crazy conservative character for eight years.” But for nine years now Colbert has been reminding us that politics, and the right-wing shtick in particular, is a performance.* For his last show, tonight, the Grim Reaper will reportedly be taking him out. But we can thank his longevity in part to the still longer reigns of his sources of inspiration—“Papa Bear” Bill O’Reilly, of course, but also Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Steve Doocy, and the Fox News mindset itself. We can also thank these last nine years to the very thing that made them seem improbable: as a character, and not merely a critic, of the right, Colbert held a unique key to the riddle of modern conservatism: How do they keep getting away with it? Why have so many conservatives turned into such small-minded haters and deniers of science, of reality? Voters tend to disagree with their actual policies, so why do they keep voting for them?" "His braggadocio disguised the fact that he was a coward and a big baby. (In that, the character closest to Colbert would be Lawton Smalls, Marc Maron’s old right-wing foil who’d break down and sob when he could no longer maintain his political delusions.) Every now and then Colbert would come apart at the seams, hiding under the desk, or going off on how we have to wipe bears off the face of the earth! Conceivably, bears stood for Russia, as in the Reagan “Bear in the Woods” commercial, or maybe for Papa Bear. But more likely, Colbert’s bear fear was fear itself, an irrational dread of something he’d never encounter, like death panels or jack-booted government thugs coming to take his guns. Were they going to take “Sweetness,” the pistol he’d caress and which was, as far as we know, Stephen’s only serious love interest?" Yes, I discovered the same thing in here: Most righties are cowards and big babies. (Not you b, Turk, Tired, Cem...)
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Post by jdredd on Dec 27, 2014 3:41:49 GMT -5
Just can't shake the feeling there is rot at the center of civilization and it is all about to collapse around us. But I've been feeling that on and off for 40 years now and civilization has just gotten bigger and richer. So maybe it's simply magical thinking on my part.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 28, 2014 17:06:13 GMT -5
I was in my local Cajun restaurant today picking up some jumbalaya and the TV was on, and it was the NFL on the Fox network. That kinds of sums up the sorry state of modern American "culture" to me. By the way, which NFL whore will be the musical act for the Superbowl halftime this year? I still haven't forgiven U2.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 8, 2015 16:13:56 GMT -5
Listening to 91X in my car today during what they call "Yesterday's Lunch", and heard the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the UK", and decided that the punks were as big of poseurs as the hippies, both wallowing in faux rebellion, and both becoming identical cogs in the consumerist wheel. Unless you buy a Harley, which makes you a big outlaw, especially if you make it run really loud. Or so I hear.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 12, 2015 17:57:59 GMT -5
I wonder what it means for a culture to be at almost permanent war for 75 years? Nazis, Japs, Commies, and now Islamists? I'm not sure, maybe nothing.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 17, 2015 13:56:49 GMT -5
Just reading an article in the NYT about SNL having it's 40th season. And the Super Bowl will be #50 next year. Has the culture not progressed in the last half century or what? Of course, what do I know? I'll be going to Comic-con again this year, which I believe will be #46. And Star Wars will be 40 soon. So maybe you can put a finger on when the culture stopped evolving between 40 and 50 years ago.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 18, 2015 16:06:39 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/396608/brigadier-general-james-taylor-kevin-d-williamson"The spectacle of the Obama administration’s dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to “share a big hug with Paris” as James Taylor — who still exists – crooned “You’ve Got a Friend” is the perfect objective correlative for American decline: The pathetic self-regard of John Kerry and James Taylor’s Baby Boomers meets the cynical, self-serving, going-through-the-motions style of Barack Obama’s Generation X as disenchanted Millennials in parental basements across the fruited plains no doubt injured their thumbs typing “WTF?” It is the substitution of celebrity for power, of sentiment for analysis, of sloppy gesture for clear-headed commitment." I am impressed and envious. National Review's chief culture warrior has managed to insult the Boomers, Gen X, and the Millennials in ONE paragraph. Hats off to ya, Kevin.
But I'm wondering...does the right perceive cultural stagnation as "American decline"? In their eyes are dynamic cultures the ones who are engaged in endless military adventures?
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Post by jdredd on Jan 19, 2015 15:36:18 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/movies/sniper-rules-weekend-box-office.html?&hpw&rref=arts&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well"LOS ANGELES — Hollywood is prone to superlatives, but this one is truly jaw dropping: “American Sniper,” which arrived in wide release on Friday, is expected to sell about $105.2 million in tickets in North America over the four-day holiday weekend. While America’s coastal intelligentsia busied itself with chatter over little-seen art dramas like “Boyhood” and “Birdman,” everyday Americans showed up en masse for a patriotic, pro-family picture that played more like a summer superhero blockbuster than an R-rated war drama with six Oscar nominations. Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper, “American Sniper” joins another unexpected hit, Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken,” in turning out a conservative, heartland crowd that surprised Hollywood in its size. “Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico — all absolutely massive,” said Dan Fellman, president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros., which released “American Sniper.” Interesting semantics. So people who aren't on the coast are "everyday" Americans, whatever that means. And they are in the "heartland", for what that is worth. But maybe he's right on that this movie is like a "superhero blockbuster", with this guy's snipering skills as his superpower, and Muslims (the new Nazis) as the targets. I haven't seen it so I'm just guessing. I suppose we can look forward to a s**tload of "patriotic, pro-family" movies coming to the screen.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 22, 2015 15:28:52 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/corner/396944/about-20-week-abortion-bill-kevin-d-williamson"Today is the 42nd anniversary of the decision in Roe v. Wade. I never need reminding of which anniversary it is — it’s always the same as my age. I was one of those who entered the world through a pregnancy of the sort we call “unplanned,” though as a Hayekian type I do not object to being the “result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.” I was born about three months — call it a “trimester” — before Roe." So the NR's chief culture warrior is right in the middle of Gen X, which makes sense. I would be way too old, even if I wasn't deranged. Also, I'm not surprised he's a Hayek fan. So am I. Oh, wait, it's Selma Hayek I am a fan of. Friedrich Hayek is a dirtbag, but not as big as von Mises. Also, if you want to be an effective modern culture warrior, you have to hide it if you are a religious fanatic, which I suspect Kevin is. If I wanted to hear about looney religious s**t, I'd be a Muslim.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 28, 2015 2:20:09 GMT -5
So I heard on the radio today that this Sunday's Superbowl will probably be the most watched TV event ever (is that just USA or the world? I don't know). The NFL cultural monstrosity continues to grow. While it would be fun to say America watches football while the world burns, frankly, the world is not burning. We could have decades and decades of Superbowls to look forward to.
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Post by jdredd on Feb 2, 2015 1:39:42 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/397654/belle-knoxious-kevin-d-williamson"There is more than one question that presents itself in the matter of liberty. The first, which commanded the attention of the fathers of this republic and continues to dominate the concerns of those contemporary partisans of individual rights who for whatever reason stand apart from the Right at large, is: How to get it? A second question involved in the matter of liberty is: What to do with it? Very often it is the case that as a person proceeds from the first question to the second, he also proceeds from the first camp to the second. He starts to realize that there is a critical difference between the people who tell you what you can’t do and the ones who tell you what you shouldn’t do. That generally happens around the time that he — or she — starts to understand that pornography is neither the result of a heroic commitment to individual liberty and expression nor an existential threat to civilization. Pornography is only business, and a distasteful business at that."
So here is the National Review's chief culture warrior trying to come to grips with a new generation of libertarian-influenced political/culture activists, and not doing a very good job of it. Of course, who am I to criticize when I am an anachronistic old lefty? The old pigeon holes of left and right are becoming more and more meaningless. Going into total speculation mode, is this all symptoms of Western Civilization in decline? Did Western Civilization peak when we had a Capitalism/Communism duality, and when Capitalism defeated Communism did Western Civilization actually fatally wound itself? I'd love to know what historians will be saying about it all in 2114. Of course historians are still arguing about 1914. And lots of people are now getting their history from clowns like Glenn Beck.
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Post by jdredd on Feb 3, 2015 11:00:39 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/blogs/scrutineer/2015/2/2/super-bowl-ads-fall-well-short-of-game.html"It isn’t enough that the Super Bowl is a culmination of an NFL season where every national game won its night in the television ratings, the year’s biggest telecast — which is said to have amassed 114.4 million viewers, surpassing last year’s record 111.5 million and making the most-watched show in U.S. history — is also a lesson in manliness, of what it’s like to be a dad, of hugs and puppies and trying to keep that cute kid from dying. A look at the advertising that filled the three-plus-hour telecast, where clients paid $4.5 million per 30-second spot, coalesced around no central culturally defining moment. The best of the spots could only offer a couple of ckles. More often they were alternately excessively mawkish or borderline offensive." Being a fan of a game glorifying aggression is one thing, but believe it or not some people get excited by the commercials.
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Post by jdredd on Feb 13, 2015 0:34:57 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/article/398429/destroyer-goeth-kevin-d-williamson/page/0/1What if the chief cultural warrior of the NR wrote an article about Jon Stewart's retirement from the Daily Show and had nothing to say? Which is why I posted no quote like I usually do. Heck, I have nothing to say on it but I will admit it. Media stars come and go. Even Rush Limbaugh will have to throw in the towel sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.
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