TUNKU VARADARAJAN: The Brady Bunch Ambassadors: Florence Henderson’s TV family brought America to India.

‘Here’s the story, of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls.” That’s the opening fragment of the theme song from “The Brady Bunch,” a sitcom that was, somehow, so much more than a sitcom.

The show, which ran from 1969-74 on ABC, offered a vision of America that left a lasting civilizational impression on the minds of young viewers, perhaps especially in the non-Western world. Watching reruns in India as a young boy, I formed some of my first clear ideas of America from “The Brady Bunch”—rose-tinted ideas, for sure, but also important ones. . . .

Theirs was an irrefutable wholesomeness that was at odds with the tumult outside the Brady home, a conciliatory counterpoint to the America of the Vietnam War. Cynics might say this was propaganda, but why sneer at a show that portrayed an unapologetically stable America that kept going without being torn apart? There was enough rawness on the TV news at the time; you didn’t need the Brady home as a canvas for Vietnam.

The Bradys’ America was a wondrous, clean-cut place: a kitchen with all the modern conveniences; an unruffled but not switched-off mom; an unflappable father who was an architect, a cool job in contrast to the salaried drudges who made up American manhood on TV. All this was presented in carefully curated multicolor, right down to the Brady women’s emphatic blondeness, a symbol of the Old Order in an increasingly multiracial America.

Viewers in the Third World marveled at the egalitarian treatment given to Alice, the housekeeper, a mere “servant.” Those of us with TV sets and maids were disconcerted, wondering why our own help was treated so differently.

Well, that’s America for you.

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS: Fashion Designer, Son of Sex Pistols Manager Burn $8M+ in Punk Memorabilia.

#OHIOSTATE FLASHBACK: Today was not the first time this year a machete was used in an apparent terror attack in Columbus.

BUT THAT WOULD INTERFERE WITH THE SMUGNESS: Vilsack’s tough message for fellow Democrats: Stop writing off rural America.

HERE’S SOME MORE OF THAT OBAMA LEGACY FOR YOU: Jobless by choice — or pain?

The work ethic is such a central part of the American character that it’s hard to imagine it fading. But that’s what seems to be happening in one important part of the labor force. Among men 25 to 54 — so-called prime-age male workers — about 1 in 8 are dropouts. They don’t have a job and, unlike the officially unemployed, aren’t looking for one. They number about 7 million.

Just what role, if any, these nonworking men played in Donald Trump’s election is unclear. What’s not unclear is that these dropouts, after being ignored for years, have suddenly become a hot topic of scholarly study and political debate. There’s been a sea change. In the mid-1960s, only 1 in 29 prime-age male workers was a dropout. The explosion of dropouts strikes many observers as dire.

The “detachment of so many adult American men from the reality and routines of regular paid labor . . . can only result in lower living standards, greater economic disparities, and slower economic growth,” writes Nicholas Eberstadt of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It is also a social crisis — and . . . a moral crisis. The growing incapability of grown men to function as breadwinners cannot help but undermine the American family.”

There’s also the permanent erosion of skills and productivity, which would otherwise be helping the economy to grow and reducing the strain on social services.

YEP, THIS IS CNN, ALL RIGHT: CNN mocked over glaring error in Fidel Castro obituary story.

LIVE FEED: Ohio State Campus Shooting.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1299.

THE WAGES OF SOCIALISM: Venezuela’s currency is so devalued it no longer fits in ordinary wallets.

GENERALISSIMO FIDEL CASTRO IS STILL DEAD: Castro Dead – Good Time to Talk About “Fake News”

“Journalists” are writing about “fake news” as if “bullshit” was something new.

If you don’t know the name “Herbert Matthews,” but you think you know anything about Fidel Castro, you don’t know shit. Matthews was the master of journalistic fiction, and he and the New York Times are why you even know Castro’s name.

Matthews covered the Italian invasion of Ethiopia for the New York Times. He didn’t even try and hide his bias in favor of the Italian Fascists. He wrote, “[i]f you start from the premise that a lot of rascals are having a fight, it is not unnatural to want to see the victory of the rascal you like, and I liked the Italians during that scrimmage more than I did the British or the Abyssinians.” He admitted that whichever side was “right” was of no interest to him. For throwing in with Mussolini, he became known as a “fascist.”

His next posting was in Spain, covering the Spanish Civil War. He arrived still somewhat Right-Wing, sympathizing with Franco’s forces over the Republicans. However, somewhere along the way he became friends with Hemingway, and switched polarities. Hemingway based Robert Jordan, the main character in For Whom the Bell Tolls, on Matthews. From then on, he was considered to be a dear friend of the Left.

Read the whole thing.

AND YET HE’S DEFENDED BY PEOPLE WHO CALL CAPITALISTS “GREEDY:” Anti-capitalist vampire Castro sold blood of those he executed for $50 a pint.

FIDEL CASTRO, FAILURE?

The reactions to Fidel’s death have mostly fallen along predictable lines. There are the expected conservative condemnations of a dictator, and the equally predictable lefty eulogies of a man who defied American power and sought social justice. Liberals attack conservatives for bashing Fidel while giving right wing dictators a pass; conservatives attack liberals for overlooking Fidel’s dismal record when it comes to issues liberals claim to care about, like freedom of expression and gay rights.

But there’s something else to think about: whether you loved Fidel, loathed him, or fell somewhere in between, it was John Paul II who sized him up best. Fidel, the Pope said, was a man of destiny. But his destiny was a tragic one.

In some ways, Fidel has to be accounted a success. He took power in Cuba in 1959; almost 70 years later the island is ruled by his chosen successor. He wanted to assert Cuban independence of the United States; Cuba not only sided with the USSR in the Cold War, but it intervened against U.S. interests in wars in Angola, Ethiopia and the Middle East. He wanted a socialist revolution; he got one. He wanted to break the power of the old Cuban elite; he did. Fidel himself, the island he ruled and the revolution he created became global symbols of resistance to U.S. power and to capitalist order. In all this he succeeded, often brilliantly. The ruler of a small and poor island in the Caribbean succeeded in writing himself into the pages of world history in a way that no other Latin American ruler has ever done.

Yet with all this success, Fidel must ultimately be accounted a failure, and if he was honest with himself, he had to have known it. It is not just that Castro failed as a socialist; his greatest failure was as a Cuban nationalist. . . .

Lee Kwan Yew, Augusto Pinochet, Francisco Franco, Chiang Kai Shek, Park Chung-he: all of these dictators and authoritarians can mock Fidel Castro. They left their countries better off than they found them, and while many of them committed terrible crimes, they can also point to great accomplishments. Fidel has only the crimes.

Well, he was the incalculably wealthy absolute ruler of an island nation. So he had that going for him, which was nice.

THE INTERNET OF THINGS: SF Transit Hacker Demands $73K.

ANDREW MCCARTHY: Trump and Enforcement of the Immigration Laws.

Trump emissaries assert that the president-elect will step up border enforcement and prioritize the deportation of criminal aliens – i.e., those who’ve committed serious and/or repetitious state and federal crimes, not just immigration-law violations. Trump detractors, including Democratic mayors of major cities, respond with indignant vows to protect “undocumented” members of their communities who are living peaceful, essentially law-abiding lives.

If you’re thinking the Democratic response is not, well, responsive, you’re onto the game. The immigrants they make a grand show of protecting are exactly the people not being targeted by the Trump camp’s deportation plans. If Democrats oppose Trump on his own terms, they risk being revealed as champions of criminals preying on Americans. So the Left is going demagogue – turning a “right versus wrong” issue into “us versus them.”

Isn’t that always the case?

In either case, do read the whole thing.

MANNERS: Outrage as Prince Harry is forced to take part in an unplanned minute’s silence for ‘murderous’ Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during his trip to the Caribbean island of St Vincent.

Prince Harry was left in an awkward position when he was asked to take part in a moment’s silence after the death of Fidel Castro – despite some describing the Cuban leader as a ‘murderous dictator’.

The silence was observed when the prince attended a drinks reception on the island of St Vincent, during his Caribbean tour.

He had been at the reception as the guest of honour to present Duke of Edinburgh awards to young people.

But the country’s governor general Sir Frederick Ballantyne, who was hosting the event, asked his guests to mark the death of the international figure.

A source close to Harry said that the silence was not planned in advance and was called for by the Governor General.

Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke told MailOnline that forcing Prince Harry to join the minute’s silence was ‘very unfair’ and the government should make clear it was unacceptable.

‘Castro was a murderous dictator. He is dead, and good riddance,’ he said.

The politicalization of everything, up to and including a Caribbean cocktail party, continues apace.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: It’s sexist, apparently, for fraternities to oppose rape. “The University of Arizona Women’s Resource Center has cancelled a ‘Walk A Mile In Her Shoes’ march by one of the university fraternities because it thought the event to raise awareness about rape was ‘sarcastic’, ‘homophobic, transphobic, and sexist.'”

And they used the derisive term “fratboy” in doing it. It’s almost as if their starting point is reflexive hostility toward fraternities, and men in general. Why are they receiving state and federal funding? I hope the Trump Education Department will investigate what clearly seems to be a hostile educational environment for male students.

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