Culture

Our Depraved Young People

Featured image 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 »

A Speck in time

Featured image 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 »

A phase in the crowd

Featured image 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 »

High and Low

Featured image 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 »

The lives (and words) of others

Featured image 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 »

Am I Racist?

Featured image Last night, American Experiment held a pre-release screening of the Daily Wire’s new movie, Am I Racist? for an invited audience of 230. Justin Folk, who produced and directed the film, attended the showing and answered questions from the audience afterward. Am I Racist? stars Matt Walsh, who appears in nearly every frame. It was produced by the same team, Matt Walsh and Justin Folk, that created What Is a »

In Paris, a Stumbling Start [Updated]

Featured image The opening ceremonies of the Olympics have stirred a lot of controversy as a result of their tastelessness and offensiveness. Most notorious has been an apparent drag satire on the Last Supper, which by now everyone has seen: French Olympic authorities have not been able to keep their story straight on this one. Some have claimed that the tableaux had nothing to do with DaVinci’s painting or the Last Supper »

Missing Bob Newhart

Featured image I am sad to note the death of comedian Bob Newhart at the age of 94. The New York Times has posted an obituary, a 2019 interview, six performances to stream, and a 2014 profile — “Master of the one sided conversation.” Newhart was a laughter is the best medicine kind of guy. He will be remembered and he will be missed. RIP. I saw Newhart perform live in Minneapolis »

Truth and Consequences

Featured image This is from Britain’s Telegraph, but I think we would see similar numbers in other countries, and worse in some: Only one in four British Muslims believe that Hamas committed murder and rape in Israel on Oct 7, a major report has found. The numbers are even worse for “educated” Muslims: Younger and well-educated Muslims were the most likely to think Hamas did not commit atrocities on Oct 7, with »

Dawn of a Brighter Day?

Featured image When I was growing up, most families I knew had four children. More, if they were Catholics. That is one of the fundamental ways in which our society has changed: today, people generally have fewer children. And now, if you show me a family with four children, I will lay heavy odds that they are Republicans. In the New York Post, Glenn Reynolds writes about the fact that the world »

Margaret Thatcher, Villain?

Featured image From the London Times: Margaret Thatcher has been listed as a “contemporary villain” alongside Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden in a display at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The former Conservative prime minister is named as one of several “unpopular public figures” in the exhibition on British humour through the ages. Thatcher served as Prime Minister for nearly 12 years, the longest such tenure in British history. A casual »

Artists Try to Ban Israelis

Featured image The Venice Biennale is one of the world’s biggest art shows. The show has a national focus: Held since 1895 and considered the world’s top art event, the Venice Biennale, which starts in April, gives nations the chance to show off their best artists at national pavilions. That is the hook for pro-mass muder artists to try to boot Israel out: A petition to kick Israel out of the Venice »

How Wimpy Are Our Kids?

Featured image This picture of kids on a playground in 1912 popped up on my Instagram feed: It got me thinking: if you encouraged that sort of activity today, someone would call the police. No one would consider it safe for kids to play that way, and when it comes to children, safety–or “safety”–is the supreme value. I have been working, on and off, on a memoir about what it was like »

Edward Jay Epstein, RIP

Featured image Last week I declared Edward Jay Esptein’s Assume Nothing: Encounters With Assassins, Spies, Presidents, and Would-Be Masters of the Universe my book of the year. I followed up with Ed by email, asking him how he was doing and telling him I wanted to visit him in New York. Ed responded that he was “just recovering from [his] first bout of covid” and asked how I was doing. I am »

Cotton’s Commentary

Featured image Senator Tom Cotton was the guest of honor at Commentary’s annual roast this past November 12. That means he was the roastee. In the January issue editor John Podhoretz turns over the space reserved for his monthly editorial on the issue’s first page (and in this case a few more) to Senator Cotton’s Guest Commentary (“Now More Than Ever”) — his remarkable speech paying tribute to Commentary at the roast. »

There’s something about film noir

Featured image Before Eddie Muller took over the Saturday night/Sunday morning niche on TCM with his Noir Alley, I was only familiar with a few classics of film noir such as Double Indemnity (directed by Billy Wilder, starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (directed by Tay Garnett, starring John Garfield and Lana Turner). Whoever loves well-made movies with a kick must love those films. Following Muller’s »

Ye is sorry: A footnote

Featured image Commenting on the “apology” tendered by the rapper formerly known as Kanye West for causing “unintended outbursts,” I quoted the text verbatim. I also drew on Christopher Kuo’s New York Times story reporting on the denial of anti-Semitism reflected in the title track of his forthcoming compact disc Vultures. On the album’s title track, the Times reports, “Ye raps that he cannot be antisemitic because he had sex with a »