Culture
June 26, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I love the screwball comedies of the 1930s as well as the Peter Bogdanovich homage to them in What’s Up, Doc?, but I hadn’t even heard of Ball of Fire before I caught up with it on TCM in 2022. I watched it again last night in TCM’s lineup of films starring Gary Cooper. This is what I had to say about it the first time around. Billy Wilder and
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June 22, 2025 — Bill Glahn
Sometime after yesterday’s bombing in Iran, the word went out to local leaders for the need to closely monitor for the activation of Iranian sleeper cells. From DC’s ABC-7, The [DC] Metropolitan Police Department is closely monitoring the events in Iran. A sampling from around the country: CA Gov. Newsom: “Actively monitoring.” LA County Sheriff: “Closely monitoring” LA Mayor Bass: “Closely monitoring.” NY Gov. Hochul: “Closely monitoring.” IL Gov. Pritzker:
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June 2, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The Free Press has just posted Rod Dreher’s long column “The woke right is coming for your sons.” Having toured the United States in support of the documentary Live Not By Lies! based on his book of the same name, Dreher writes that what he found “shocked me to my core.” He saw “the deep inroads, in such a short period, that right-wing totalitarianism, expressed most often as antisemitism, has
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May 27, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Washington Post reporter and editor David Finkel spent eight months embedded with soldiers of the Army’s 2-16 infantry battalion in Iraq during the surge. Finkel’s devastating and widely praised The Good Soldiers (2009) is based on the time he spent with the unit in Iraq. “The good soldiers” are chewed up in the war waged on them by the terror masters in Iran. It is a book that made me
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April 25, 2025 — Scott Johnson
The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal has an informative and useful morning newsletter. Readers can sign up for it here. On a personal note, City Journal has proved a welcome home for my own work. I am grateful to managing editor Paul Beston for making it so. In this morning’s newsletter City Journal rolls out a new feature: Friday Face Palm (query whether “face palm” should be spelled as one word).
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April 23, 2025 — Bill Glahn
In this instance “Jelly Roll” refers to the stage name of Jason DeFord, age 40, a rapper turned country music star out of Tennessee. Apparently, Mr. DeFord was involved in some legal entanglements in his relative youth (robbery, drug charges, etc.) and is now seeking a pardon for his past convictions. According to this Associated Press (AP) story, he received a favorable recommendation from the state Board of Parole. The
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March 30, 2025 — Bill Glahn
I confess to complete bafflement at the obsession of our newspapers regarding luxury watches of a certain brand name. From today’s New York Post, Barron Trump was spotted Sunday afternoon sporting a Rolex as he arrived at Trump Tower in New York. The recent birthday boy, who turned 19 on March 20, appeared to be wearing a gold Daytona model of the luxury watch, which can cost about $50,000. Late last
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February 26, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I filed this report on Power Line in November 2011, but our player for the video I posted with it died. Revisiting Venice and Santa Monica a few years ago, I found the situation had deteriorated considerably. I have now restored my video to life via YouTube. Oblivious to the news cycle as I am tied up in court covering the Feeding Our Future case, I thought some readers might
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February 17, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Former Vice President Kamala Harris visited backstage with the cast and crew of Wonderful World on Broadway over the weekend. The New York Post helps with a transcription of a few of the quotable quotes from her remarks along with a great screenshot of Kamala in mid-flight. This is one of the quotes: “When we think about these moments where we see things that are being taken, but also let’s
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February 11, 2025 — John Hinderaker
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered that Fort Liberty–re-named such during the post-George Floyd hysteria–once again be called Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg was named after Confederate General Braxton Bragg, who fought generally in the Western theater and was from North Carolina, where the fort is located. Bragg was not a particularly good general, and he didn’t achieve anything noteworthy in civilian life. Fort Bragg was founded during World War
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February 3, 2025 — Scott Johnson
Once upon a time Naked Came the Stranger was a sort of literary put-on written as a joint project by 24 journalists under the pseudonym Penelope Ashe. At last night’s Grammys the stranger was one Bianca Censori, the wife of the artist formerly known as Kanye. She is a stranger to me, anyway, and she effectively naked disrobed for the photographers in attendance before leaving the show. Kanye himself remained
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February 3, 2025 — Scott Johnson
I went to see A Complete Unknown for a second time over the weekend. I enjoyed it the first time I saw it and thought it a work of art the second time. If Bob Dylan’s music rings your chimes, as it does mine, you won’t want to miss it. Here are a few observations and resources that may enhance your enjoyment in case you go. I grew up listening
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December 17, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Many have been shocked by expressions of approval for Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson on social media, in a few instances by journalists and other relatively prominent Democrats. But it turns out that those seeming outliers were speaking for many Americans. An Emerson College poll finds that Mangione’s murder is broadly supported by young people: A poll found 41 percent of adults under 30 consider the killing of UnitedHealthcare
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December 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Certain denizens of elite precincts are celebrating the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione. UnitedHealthCare is UnitedHealth Group’s insurance arm. They see Thompson’s murder as a blow against the system of health care and health insurance to which the left itself has contributed. Their celebration seems crazier than Mangione. The sick streak running through our elites grows wider every day. DISGUSTING: On a poll of 634 UPenn
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November 1, 2024 — Scott Johnson
I have no idea who will win the presidential election when all the votes are counted some time after November 5 and the new Congress tabulates the results in the Electoral College on January 6. To avoid disappointment, I hope for the best and expect the worst. I can only say that if my hope of a Trump victory is vindicated, I hope no one shows Kamala Harris the Eastman
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October 4, 2024 — Scott Johnson
At the moment TCM is playing Akira Kurosawa’s film High and Low (1963). You may want to seek it out online. It is a drama starring Toshiro Mifune as a wealthy executive who is told that his son has been kidnapped and being held for ransom. The executive faces a moral dilemma after he realizes that his chauffeur’s son was taken by mistake. Kurosawa’s films are entertaining in a profound
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September 24, 2024 — Scott Johnson
TCM is running a series based on the New Republic’s list of “The 100 most significant political films of all time.” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others (2006) came in at number 19 on the New Republic list: “Set in the 1980s, this German drama tells the story of a morally conflicted Stasi agent spying on two East German residents, a playwright and an actress.” The film made
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