SELF-DEFENSE: Anatomy of an Assault: The 5-Step Attack Cycle.
Archive for 2019
August 4, 2019
SOCIAL CHANGE? OR EDUCATION? What Are Schools For, Anyway?
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do Amino Acids Build Bigger Muscles?
RIP: Oscar winner D.A. Pennebaker, director of documentaries on Bob Dylan and Bill Clinton, dies at 94.
In the 1990s, Pennebaker returned to politics with “The War Room,” co-directed by Pennebaker and his wife, Chris Hegedus. This time, the stars weren’t the candidates, but those behind the scenes. The filmmakers were granted limited access to Clinton, so the documentary focused on the campaign headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, as political strategists and future media stars James Carville and George Stephanopoulos guide the young Arkansas governor’s march to the White House.
The film blended raw, ruthless moments such as Stephanopoulos’ threatening a phone caller who claimed to have evidence of Clinton’s adultery and high emotion.
Of course, that was long before Stephanopoulos transformed himself into an entirely objective journalist…
WAIT, I’VE SEEN THIS MOVIE: Researchers create human-monkey chimeras in China.
IT USED TO BE SEXIST TO MENTION THIS: Menstrual Symptoms Take Toll On Women’s Productivity, Study Says.
HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN: Expect More Attacks on Obama’s Legacy from 2020 Democrats.
HOTS ON FOR NOWHERE: Bill Maher: ‘I’ve Been Hoping for a Recession’ to Get Rid of Trump.
Shades of the “Depression Lust and Depression Porn” that Virginia Postrel spotted on the minds of numerous leftists at the dawn of the Obama era (the better to fulfill their concurrent fantasies that he was the next FDR) and the environmental doomsday nightmares that occupied the fever swamp left during the Nixon era. As Rick Moran writes about Maher, “It’s amazing what liberals daydream about. While many of us might imagine wealth, fame, or attractive women (sorry, Zsu-Zsu), Bill Maher dreams of a recession that would lead to massive job losses and foreclosed homes.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Survival cooking: how to cook with sticks.
‘MEDIA AND POLITICIANS DON’T GET IT:’ Brian Cates’ thread on the gunman’s alleged ‘manifesto’ is a must read.
Exit quote: “Mass shootings done for **fun** as the ultimate troll where these shitposters write confusing manifestos and then sit back & watch the fun as both sides claim he belongs to the other.” Read the whole thing.
Related: Social media as a virius of the mind.
WEIRD HOW ONLY ONE OF THESE GOT MUCH PRESS: Investigators find white supremacy, radical Islam materials in Gilroy shooter’s home. I can imagine, by the way, a really toxic blend of Islamism, white supremacy, and anti-feminism taking hold among a lot of young, marginalized men, given how they’re treated in today’s society.
A WORKING CLASS HERO IS SOMETHING TO BE: Pete Buttigieg Dominant in ‘Boat Shoe’ Strongholds of Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Cape Cod.
KEVIN WILLIAMSON: The Democratic Party Moves Far Left.
Somebody must have slipped some psilocybin into the Democrats’ potato salad at this year’s May Day picnic. Open borders? Check! Eviscerating the Bill of Rights? Absolutely, with one of those weird barbed Uncle Henry gut-hook knives! What else? I hope that whichever debate moderator finally presses this crew about the limits of late-term abortion is over 35, because Elizabeth Warren was pretty clearly ready to roll up her sleeves and perform an impromptu D&E right there underneath the Art Deco adornments and heavy brocade curtains of the Fox Theater in beautiful downtown Detroit.
Just a reminder: I’m the Case against Trump guy, the one who described Donald Trump as a half-assed would-be caudillo with a sensibility halfway between Caligula’s and Liberace’s. My anti-Trump credentials are platinum-plated and cryogenically sealed. And I’m telling you: These people are bonkers.
Heh. Or as the Babylon Bee quipped after her last debate, “Marianne Williamson Not Sure What She’s Doing Up Here With All These Crazy People.” Read the whole thing.
KATHY SHAIDLE LOOKS BACK AT VALLEY OF THE DOLLS:
Valley… is the most enduring example of what I call The Great Hollywood Hip Replacement: That blessedly brief slice of the Sixties when the geriatric studios were desperate to be “mod,” but didn’t quite “get” it.
Now, The Party is fun, and Wild in the Streets is deeper than it looks. But think (if you dare) about Skidoo, The Big Cube, Riot on Sunset Strip, What’s New, Pussycat?, The Love God, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, bits of Sweet Charity, and anything with “Dr. Goldfoot” in the title.
Those films are now just dated curios, precisely because they tried so painfully to be “of the moment.”
Whereas Valley of the Dolls endures (complete with its own Criterion edition) because while it too strove to be timely, it somehow did so without acknowledging Time’s reality beyond its own sprocket holes:
In the Valley… alt-universe, all the women have bouffant hairdos, same as on Star Trek. So we guess it’s the Sixties, but it can’t be: there’s no rock and roll, Vietnam War or Kennedy assassination; hell, even Old Blue Eyes mentioned the Civil Rights Movement in that preeminent Hip Replacement tv special, Frank Sinatra Does His Thing, i.e. the one where he wears love beads and a Nehru jacket.
George Jessel (!) hosts the Grammys (?) here in the Valley…, but the night’s big winner wears a Mary Quant knockoff; singers do 1940s “dancing hobo” routines in stuffy supper clubs one minute, and wear bikinis the next. We’re clearly meant to be impressed when Joey Bishop shows up. (Was anyone, ever?) No sooner has “Winchell’s column” been mentioned with hushed reverence than Jennifer’s boyfriend Tony gets out of what I think is a silver Corvette stingray convertible.
The great news is, this is a Sixties without hippies, too — not even of the ersatz Sonny & Cher variety.
Heh. Read the whole thing.
WELL, HE’S GOING TO THE RIGHT PLACE: Math prof who argues against ‘truths and knowledge’ to host Carleton College convocation.
RIP, #21: Former Raiders great Cliff Branch dies at 71.
WHEN SEDITION POSES AS PROFESSIONAL ETHICS: Prof demands ADA bar dentists from helping ICE.
THE ACTUAL #RESISTANCE: “Be Water!”: seven tactics that are winning Hong Kong’s democracy revolution: The strategies of Hong Kong protesters, honed through weekly clashes with police, offer a masterclass to activists worldwide. The Chinese government has considerable expertise in oppressing and intimidating its own citizens, but its own citizens have never lived under freedom. Hong Kongers have, and thus have a different psychology. What the Chinese government needs to worry about is that that psychology might spread.
UPDATE: From the comments: “Fortunately for China they have an ally in Google, which will help China do their best to keep as much of this hidden as possible from people in China.”