Category Archives: Celebrity
JFK and a Silly Little Communist
Kennedy Week was a very good week for Ira Stoll’s book Kennedy, Conservative. He makes the case that JFK was an anti-communist supply sider and would be a conservative today.
Maybe. Most of the other 11 year olds I knew in those days were anti-communist too. Not so sure about the supply side part – my peer-group wasn’t up to speed on tax policy. A quick look at Youtube, however, does show Kennedy was for tax cuts to increase employment and cut the deficit.
He was also in favor of civil rights. At least his wife thought so:
“He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It’s — it had to be some silly little Communist.”
Which brings us to this piece by Rich Lowry. He complains that James McAuley, in a NYT oped, pins the murder on “Dallas, a city of hate with a death wish in its eye”. (Now we know who shot JR.) Manny Fernanez, also in the NYT, blames it on an “angry anti-Washington culture”.
I think President Kennedy was swell but where can I sign up for this Angry Anti-Washington Culture?
JFK and A Silly Little Communist
The real conspiracy about the Kennedy Assassination is the myth built by the left that sinister right wing forces cut down the young president – when it was really just a silly little Communist.
Camelot
The MSM took our rulers on a pilgrimage to Camelot this week.
The first black president, along with the ersatz first black president, honored the first Catholic president on the 50th anniversary of his assassination.
President Clinton, earlier in the week, honored President Obama by telling him to stop lying about ObamaCare.
Red State Democrats ran away.
World Series Facial Grooming
Was looking for a distraction so I switched from Health.gov to the World Series. Being skilled at distraction, my attention drifted from the game to the elaborate facial grooming of the Red Sox players. It went way beyond the fuzz, stubble. and occasional handlebar you expect to see.
So I came up with this.
The cartoon had a caption but one admirer gushed, “it’s so insanely stupid it doesn’t need a caption”.
So, I shaved it.
Slates Amanda Hess grades the growth here.
Manning Up
Last week’s news of Bradley Manning’s desire to become a woman brought the typical response from Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. She stomped her feet and insisted that anyone not immediately referring to Manning by the female pronoun should be referred to by the adjective “shitty”.
Kevin D. Williamson at National Review says, “Mr. Manning…is what he is, and no amount of pronoun play, psychotherapeutic doublespeak, or wishful thinking can make it otherwise”.
Manning Score: Williamson Logic – 1, Ryan Name Calling – 0
Sometimes you are what you are. That goes for being a male as well as a traitor. Bradley can be Chelsea but he can’t be a she unless he changes his Y to an X.
Miley Cyrus
Miley Cyrus’ remains a leader in family entertainment. Her performance at the MTV Video Music Awards introduced American parents to a new power word for the day – twerking.
As usual, I missed the VMA show but, thanks to the web, still got to see Miley’s performance – and build my vocabulary. Her dance was weird. It reminded me of the guy in the creepy teddy bear suit in The Shining. But the full shock value was lost on me because, shockingly, I’ve never seen Hannah Montana.
So, for the choreographical merits I defer to the experts. Two of them Camile Paglia and Kathleen Parker, were not amused. But for different reasons.
Paglia found the perky twerky one’s attempted lewdness to be, “clumsy, flat-footed and cringingly unsexy, an effect heightened by her manic grin”. She considers Madonna, not Montana, to be the gold standard in this area:
“The greatest performers, like Madonna … know how to use suggestion and mystery to project the magic of sexual allure. Pop is suffering from the same malady as the art world, which is stuck on the tired old rubric that shock automatically confers value.”
Parker agrees with the mystery part:
“Provocation for the sake of provocation is rarely provocative. And sex in the hands of a Cyrus-gone-wild has all the appeal of rutting season at the zoo.
Whither mystery?”
What’s it all Mean?
The writer ladies part company on where this all leads.
Paglia laments, “Unfortunately, the media spotlight so cheaply won by Cyrus will inevitably spur repeats of her silly stunt, by her and others.”
But Parker hopes, “This time may be different. This time, even the young are offended…Just possibly, America has had enough. When all things are permissible, then permissiveness loses its allure.”
Here’s what a disillusioned and anonymous 11 year old Hannah Montana fan had to say, “I bet her dad is sorry he got her into music”.
