Share and Enjoy. So the question becomes, what are Republicans to do with a Republican party that would allow a progressive populist boasting Mondale’s trade policy and McGovern foreign policy — that is, a leftist Democrat that looks for all the world like an angry and retouched Circus Peanut — to carry its flag? And… Read More Jeff Goldstein: Let the GOP Go the Way of the Whigs. Time for a New Party.
Yes, I changed the theme again. I wanted some red. I used to have a Blogger blog devoted solely to politics, Revolutionary Nonsense. It’s been five years since I wrote anything there, but when the primary campaign produces its inevitable disappointment, I occasionally meander over there to see if anything from the time when I pretended I was… Read More And Now, Some Throwback Political Dudgeon
I’m voting for Gary Johnson. That means I don’t care enough about NotHillary to make NotHillary President. That means I’m a bad Republican, a bad patriot, and a dirty cuck. At least, so speaks the voice from the whirlwind of Twitter, right now. My thoughts are thus: And I mean that. I’m not playing the… Read More Observing the Election as a Disinterested Bystander
A kid tries to get him to sign “The Communist Manifesto” under the guise of an “economic textbook”. Cruz signs it with the note “Millions have died because of this.” Then shakes the young man’s hand and thanks him for coming out. Why anyone prefers Trump to this man, I cannot fathom.
There was a news item some time ago about a veteran who wanted to put a flagpole in his backyard and was denied by his HOA. According to Snopes, the political pressure arising from the controversey led to the HOA backing off. But a similar story arose late last year. Gary Pittman lives in Rock… Read More How To Hate Homeowners Associations, Build Flagpoles, and Influence People
The inestimable John McWhorter: It’s been a shoe that had yet to drop. The praise for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical phenomenon has been resoundingly unanimous. There are already plans for a touring production, one in London plus a sit-down production in San Francisco. Miranda has performed for the president. The cast album has won a Grammy,… Read More There are Never Enough Witches for the Witch-Hunters: Hamilton and Race-Flailing
You’ll read these for the reason they are making their way ’round the internets: bad reviews are themselves a form of entertainment, and a necessary corrective to the fear that we are drowning in the swill that pop culture produces. It is thus both pleasing and useful to announce to the heavens that The Love Guru… Read More Roger Ebert’s Hilariously Vicious Bad Reviews, and How to Survive Them
Click here for story: It’s not racist now, because it was a black man wearing it to make a cheeky point about sports mascots. Speaking Truth to Power or whatever the usual formula is meaning permissible. When White people start wearing it? Could be problematic, on three levels: The Right Sorts of White People wearing… Read More How Soon Before the “Caucasians” Shirt Becomes Racist?
In the first place, the countries are hardly exemplars of the free market: With the notable exception of Iceland, these are not countries I would describe as “capitalist”: Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Egypt. They’re countries where kleptocratic government officials amass money not through commerce, but through quasi-legal extortion, or siphoning off the till. This is an… Read More McArdle: Corruption is not an Indictment of Global Capitalism
Bad Catholic for the win, as the kids don’t say anymore: Unless we have an assurance that the people we love will never suffer and die, to accept an invitation to love is to accept an invitation to fear. Love does not comfort, then, but “ups the ante” of human existence, making higher the highs… Read More On the Fear of Hell
