READER BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Reader Ben Dolfin writes: “I really loved that Westerly Gales story you recommended a while back. I found this book on Amazon Kindle Unlimited that I quite enjoyed. I was hoping you could suggest it to your audience since many of us enjoyed that previous book? The author is a Royal Navy vet and the book only has three reviews so I was trying to do him a solid favor. I have no affiliation with the author.”
The book is Chris Durbin’s The Colonial Post-Captain. I haven’t read it, but on this recommendation I’ll order it.
As Varad Mehta of the Ace of Spades Decision Desk tweets, “Congrats, journalists, every time you protest you’re not partisan and are just trying to do your jobs and report the facts, this @nytopinion stunt is going to be hurled in your faces and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
In art, as in life, anyone with a developed sense of morality has to confront situational examples and modeled behavior where people make mistakes and have tragic flaws, then make judgments separating the good behavior from the bad. Yet for 50 years popular entertainment has been a one-way cultural ratchet designed to make once damnable behavior more acceptable. Liberals haven’t wanted stimulating and provocative art that forces too much self-examination of their own actions. They want art that reinforces their mores, while simultaneously afflicting people who disagree with their politics, which are far too often indistinguishable from their artistic sensibilities. (A friend of mine has long joked that since Hollywood makes so few films that don’t appeal to liberal themes, “a conservative is someone who thinks Easy Rider had a happy ending.”)
Dederer is not wrong that “Manhattan” is shocking to watch, but she doesn’t began to wrestle with the most shocking thing about it: A movie about a grown man having sex with a teenager wasn’t shocking 40 years ago, and not only that, it was the height of “culture.” Allen and Hemingway were both nominated for Oscars, and the film won a Golden Globe for Best Drama.
Frankly acknowledging this might suggest that the liberals have endorsed ideas — e.g. oxymoronic notions of “sexual liberation” — that have been deeply harmful to women, all for the sake of knocking down obstacles to political power. I wonder how much betrayal Allen must feel now. He did his part to push a liberal sexual and political agenda, was celebrated for it, and now he’s being drummed out of polite society for enjoying the fruits of these efforts?
I’m not sure how “shocking” Manhattan was to 1979 audiences; it was Allen’s highest-grossing film in America for years* and currently has a solid 8.0 rating at IMDB. As I asked a few years ago at Ed Driscoll.com, “is it possible for an opening title sequence to be so powerful, it completely distorts the meaning of the film that follows?” Allen correctly gambled that the triple-play combination of his funny “Chapter 1, he adored New York City” opening dialogue, the stunning Gershwin “Rhapsody in Blue” opening music under its lush Panamax widescreen opening credit sequences (and Gordon Willis’ stylish black and white cinematography throughout the movie) would woo audiences into easily accepting the Weimar on the Hudson plot to follow. Because Allen was still so associated with Diane Keaton (who co-starred in Manhattan), little did we know that we were watching Allen testing the waters for how the Soon-Yi debacle would ultimately play out in public.
* Stardust Memories, Allen’s next film, savaged his own fans and alienated mainstream American moviegoers, who understandably repaid the favor, becoming, as Spinal Tap’s manager would say, much more “selective” about attending his future movies.
CHANGE: GOP to reduce tax relief by $350B to win over deficit hawks. “Senate GOP leaders have agreed to roll back $350 billion in tax relief in response to a procedural ambush by deficit hawks led by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) that nearly killed the GOP tax-reform bill. . . . Conservatives pounced on Corker on Thursday night, accusing him of breaking his agreement with Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) to set the total size of the tax package at $1.5 trillion.”
China’s DJI, the world’s-largest maker of consumer and business drones, is pushing back strongly on what it calls an “insane” memo issued by the federal government claiming the company is essentially spying on the U.S. for the Chinese government.
The unclassified memo, issued in August by the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) in Los Angeles, argues that DJI may well be leveraging its drones to provide “U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government [and that the company is likely] selectively targeting government and privately-owned entities within these sectors to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive U.S. data.”
The document, which U.S.-based DJI spokesperson Adam Lisberg says first appeared on the internet last week, is attributed to information gathered from “open source reporting and a reliable source within the [drone] industry with first and secondhand access.” It further states that software powering DJI’s consumer and business drones can “automatically tag GPS imagery and locations, register facial recognition data even when the system is off, and access users’ phone data.”
True or not, in an age of cyberwarfare, letting your chief opponent manufacture virtually all your hardware is crazy.
CNBC, just now: Dow rips 331 points higher, closes above 24,000 as chances of Senate tax bill passing rise. “The Dow Jones industrial average surged 331.67 points to close above 24,000 for the first time, with United Technologies leading advancers on the 30-stock index. The S&P 500 advanced 0.8 percent to close at 2,647.58 — an all-time high — with industrials and information technology among the best-performing sectors.”
Imagine what someone in the room could do with your digital assistant when you step away to go the bathroom. That mischief ranges from a prank — setting your system to play loud music in the middle of the night — to a serious privacy violation — asking about your doctors’ appointments.
If the purchasing option is turned on, they could go shopping. Echo has this enabled by default. You can set a four-digit PIN (highly recommended) or disable the feature.
Earlier this year, it was reported that a six-year old girl in Dallas made a $170 purchase when she asked Alexa for a dollhouse and cookies. To her parent’s great surprise, an expensive doll house and four pounds of sugar cookies showed up on their doorstep.
I’ve always been a gadget freak and an early adopter, but it’s going to be a long while before I put one of these in my home — if ever.
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