Kathy Shaidle's Blog, page 27

Will Trump fire “Mad Dog” Mattis for not saying “radical Islamic extremism”?

Guess not, since he didn’t mention it yesterday himself, as Mark Steyn writes:

…for the first time since we launched SteynOnline in 2002, we did not re-post material from September 11th 2001 and the days that followed. (…)

As I mentioned yesterday, the President forbore to mention Islam at all: Instead, we were attacked by “horrible, horrible enemies” and “enemies like we’ve never seen before”. Well, we’ve seen a lot of them since, and they appear to have certain things in common – things that this President was once not shy about mentioning. Yet, insofar as Islam got a look in from officialdom, it was a passing reference in the speech of Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis:

Maniacs disguised in false religious garb thought by hurting us they could scare us that day.

Well, whoever they are, these “maniacs” can evidently scare grizzled hard men called “Mad Dog” into concluding that, when it comes to mentioning the I-word, discretion is the better part of valor.

Gavin McInnes: A Future Letter From a Socialist to President Trump

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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One day all the Boomers will be dead. One day…

Just as [Joyce Maynard] dropped the depth charge of her mother’s quasi-incest into an early chapter of At Home in the World yet expected readers to stay focused on the fact that J. D. Salinger was a bad boyfriend, The Best of Us tucks a whopper into an opening chapter. At age 55, her children grown, Maynard had “missed being a parent as much as a person crossing the desert misses water.” So she sent away for a CD-rom from an international adoption agency, liked what she saw at an Ethiopian orphanage, and traveled to Africa to adopt two sisters: “They were ravenous for meat. ‘I love you I love you I love you,’ they told me.” But she soon tired of the responsibility. After 14 months, she drove them across the country and handed them off to a different family, and they were adopted a second time.

Exactly: In the 1970s, you wanted ‘to leave home for a life of your own, even if it meant living in a hovel’

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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“John Derbyshire Tries To Read Genius T. Coates’s Latest Blackety-Black Effusion, Falls Asleep”

Derb:

Look: I’m no stranger to hard-to-read stuff. When I was a college student I read all the novels of Jean-Paul Sartre, just because everyone else was reading them. For academic purposes—by way of getting a degree, I mean—I read Riesz and Szőkefalvi-Nagy’s Functional Analysis, Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic, and the first 56 chapters of Russell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica, which is mostly written in a symbolic language they invented for the purpose.

Then in later life, as a book reviewer, reading for money, I have forced myself to read a lot of stuff that brought to mind Dorothy Parker’s alleged response to some tome she had been asked to review,: “This book should not be set aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.” Eh, one has to make a living.

Genius T. Coates, however, I just cannot read. The prose is impenetrable.

Mark Steyn: ‘Kathy Shaidle has a fascinating meditation on dead Playboy playmates…’

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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Bumpkinry: This “American Thinker” column by Ed Lasky is why conservatives can’t have nice things

I clicked on “How to Dry Up Hollywood Funding for Democrats” — how could you not? — with some degree of anticipation.

Oh dear.

Ed Lasky is absolutely right about a lot of stuff we’ve all known for decades.

But that “how” in the column title peaked my interest. Maybe Lasky is some kind of Hollywood semi-insider, a Friends of Abe type?

No, apparently he’s an Illinois lawyer (his sole connection to Abe…) and long time Tea Party type guy who runs the American Thinker site, which explains why he has so many articles on it.

Because this one is terrible.

Want to know the “how”? Are you sure you can take it? Are you ready to learn the secret to bankrupting the showbiz arm of the Dems?

Lasky was inspired by a New York Times article which theorizes that the Rotten Tomatoes site has become so influential that it’s costing Hollywood millions in box office revenue.

Lasky writes:

The column points out claims that movies that have basically been all but destroyed at the box office by postings on Rotten Tomatoes. The irony is that Rotten Tomatoes is headquartered in the belly of the beast (Beverly Hills) and is owned in part by movie studios and Fandango.

So how can you, John Q. Citizen register your disapproval of not only movies but the liberal powerhouse that Hollywood has become (one pines for the days of Ronald Reagan)?

Register to become an official critic on Rotten Tomatoes. The requirements are relatively easy –just ask reviewers such as Screen Junkies and Punch Drunk Critics (yes, they are actual Rotten Tomatoes critics).

The Tomatometer (that aggregates scores from reviewers) has become a very important barometer that audiences check across a wide variety of formats (including Fandango and Comcast viewer guides) before deciding whether to purchase tickets.

How to make life as miserable for Hollywood as many of them have played a role in making Americans miserable?

Hit them at the box office –where it hurts. Become a critic for Rotten Tomatoes and post scathing reviews.When only idiots go to movies, maybe they will get the message.

Lasky clearly thinks that “Screen Junkies” and “Punch Drunk Critics” are a couple of basement dwellers, based on their “weird” names, which are only weird if you’re a bumpkin.

In real life, Screen Junkies has 6 million YouTube subscribers. I’m one and enjoy their stuff.

Punch Drunk Critics, which I’m less familiar with, looks fun but serious, with lots of Variety-type reporting on casting, hiring and firing, release dates and projects in development.

So: Not a couple of loser weirdos, but pretty solid enterprises.

But let’s take Lasky’s word for it:

The requirements for becoming one of these influential Rotten Tomatoes critics are “relatively easy.”

Lasky doesn’t link to it, so I found the relevant page at Rotten Tomatoes. It’s pretty long.

Now, I don’t know where Screen Junkies fits in, but along with having over 6 million YouTube subscribers, they’ve been around for almost ten years and boast almost 2 billion views.

I presume Punch Drunk Critics would fall under Rotten Tomatoes’ “Online Publications” category. Here’s the criteria:

Online publications must achieve and maintain a minimum 500,000 unique monthly visitors according to comScore, Inc or Nielsen Net Ratings and reviews must have an average length of at least 300 words. Publications must also show a consistent standard of professionalism, writing quality, and editorial integrity across all reviews and articles. Lastly, site design and layout should also reflect a reasonable level of quality and must have a domain name specific to the property.

Online critics must have published no less than 100 reviews across two calendar years at a single, Tomatometer-approved publication, and all reviews should have an average length of at least 300 words to be considered for individual approval.

In all cases applicants should have two years’ worth of published reviews available online, and all applicants must be able to demonstrate that their reviews have editorial oversight.

In some cases, critics that are publishing reviews on a Tomatometer-approved outlet and have membership in select critics associations may be considered for individual approval. However, membership in a critics association does not guarantee approval.

Does that seem “relatively easy” to anybody else?

And if it’s so easy, has Ed Lasky successfully applied? Apparently not.

But if they did, would they be “idiots”? Because:

Become a critic for Rotten Tomatoes and post scathing reviews. When only idiots go to movies, maybe they will get the message.

Or is he encouraging his (imaginary) army of (non-idiot) critics to “post scathing reviews” without going to the movies themselves?

And does he really believe that Rotten Tomatoes — which is a pretty damn valuable property, certainly more valuable than American Thinker — doesn’t already have processes in place to reduce the ability of saboteurs to game the system?

This column by Ed Lasky represents American “Conservatism” at its worst:

Blowhardy, male-menopausal, tone deaf, “get off my lawn” crabbiness, but with the added awfulness of being embarrassingly naive, stylistically sub-par and factually-challenged, while convinced of one’s own cleverness — and then not even taking one’s own advice.

It would be better if people like Lasky didn’t write columns like this at all.

Self-indulgent foolishness like this does far more harm than good.

 

Mark Steyn: ‘Kathy Shaidle has a fascinating meditation on dead Playboy playmates…’

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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Today in our bulging “America vows to pick its own damn cotton next time” files…

David Cole on apparently the most “racist” cartoon ever this week…

It’s racist because the black child is “small” compared with the adult. Seriously, I ought to be hardened enough by now that it shouldn’t bother me that a college professor thinks it’s racist to portray a black child as being smaller than an adult. But no. Even with all the outrageous nonsense I cover each week, this one stands out as uniquely retarded.

The cartoon was pulled from the IPI website, and four of Rauner’s staffers were forced to resign. And most important, the “scandal” wiped away all memory of Rauner’s post-Charlottesville Trump denunciation and anti-racist prostrations. Rauner was now the worst Nazi of all time, because of a cartoon he didn’t draw that appeared on a website he doesn’t control.

Following the heroic banishment of the evil doodle, I decided to try a little experiment.

 

America kicks itself for not picking its own damn cotton again in 5… 4…

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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Mark Steyn: “We run around fighting for worthless bits of barren sod like Helmand province in Afghanistan…”

“… while surrendering day by day some of the most valuable real estate on the planet, such as France and Sweden.”

Sweden: Kippah-wearing reporter assaulted in Muslim-dominated Malmo (video)

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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Hey, who wants to have a four-hour conversation about “The Running Man” (1987)?

The Projection Booth:

Andrew Nette and Aaron Peterson join Mike to discuss the film, its odd production history, and the resonance to today’s world. We also discuss the work of Robert Sheckley and his influence on “people hunting people” films including The Million Game, The Price of Peril, The Tenth Victim and Freejack.

BONUS:

Who’s up for a 2.5 hour podcast about ‘Watermelon Man’ (1970)?

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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Jim Goad: “The Plot to Kill Maxine Waters”

Jim Goad writes:

Last Wednesday during a hearing before a House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance, “Auntie Maxine” rattled off a litany of alleged domestic terrorist attacks committed by reputed white supremacists that have led to her being spooked about being killed by whites. And it’s a legitimate concern, seeing as how the plush LA neighborhood that she calls home is only 6% black—she’s surrounded by whites at all times. If she were truly that scared, she would move to the congressional district she represents, seeing as it’s only 15% white.

Among the incidents she listed were the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff in which three were killed. She failed to note that the three victims were a white federal agent and the white son and wife of Randy Weaver, who was a white separatist who wanted to get away from nonwhites, not a white supremacist who wanted to rule over nonwhites. People REALLY need to learn the difference between the two terms, and if the press continues falsely accusing people of being “white supremacists,” people should start suing their socks off.

When it comes to being killed, the biggest risk to black Americans are other blacks, since black perps account for 93% of black murder victims.

Jim Goad provides another reason not to go to New York

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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“There have been so many eye-gouging, weave-tugging brawls at Popeyes Chicken establishments…”

“one might be forgiven for suspecting that their recipe includes a secret ingredient that makes people violent. (…)

“Why is the black community so angry with Popeyes? It seems to provide a much-desired service for them. And it’s not like Popeyes is trying to sterilize black America like Church’s Fried Chicken was accused of doing.”

Conspiracy theories are kind of a thing in the black community (giving the term “urban legends” a half new meaning) which is why I can’t believe this movie wasn’t a bigger hit — other than the fact that it is pretty awful…

The tycoon, who sports a white moustache and beard curiously reminiscent of the young Col. Sanders (assuming he was ever young), fronts as a benefactor of the black community. But inside his Southern plantation he has other plans afoot. He’s invented a mysterious machine that will turn out exact replicas of black leaders, who can then be programmed to follow the evil tycoon’s nefarious schemes and eat lots of his ribs ‘n’ chicken.

The plot is foiled by an allgirl motorcycle gang…

NOTE: TCM has clips, but you can watch the whole thing below if you dare:

Jim Goad provides another reason not to go to New York

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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Why Jack Kerouac Loathed The Hippy Generation He Inspired

Greg Sorrell on Catholic Kerouac’s cautionary tales:

He was a deeply religious, lifelong Republican, and he loathed the counterculture that arose in response to his writing. But he was also a broken and remorseful alcoholic undeserving of his role as a moralist, and he freely admitted it (…)

At least the mad ones Kerouac followed around early in his life realized, as he did, that “If it hadn’t been for Western-style capitalism, free economic byplay, movement north south east and west, haggling, pricing, and the political balance of power carved into the U.S. Constitution, I wouldn’t have been able or allowed to hitchhike half broke through 47 states of this union and see the scene with my own eyes, unmolested.”

To Kerouac the beatniks were irritating, but tolerable. It was the politicized hippie movement, the bohemians that succeeded the beatniks in which Kerouac saw something truly sinister.

A few months before his death in 1969, Kerouac appeared on William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line” to discuss the hippie movement…

(via Canon212)

Steve Sailer reviews ‘Moana’

Kathy Shaidle's NEW book, Confessions of a Failed Slut, is available HERE.

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