Archive for 2019
December 22, 2019
OPEN THREAD: God rest ye merry gentlemen (and ladies).
A REMINDER THAT THE PEOPLE WHO RUN OUR INSTITUTIONS ARE IDIOTS: School Spends $53K to Reprint Yearbooks Because Students of ‘Various Races’ Made ‘OK’ Sign.
IT AALL DEPENDS ON WHOSE OX GORES YOU: The Democrats Impeachment Dilemma.
This is a PJM VIP piece. If you haven’t signed up for ad-free PJ VIP yet (and why not?) you can get a discount with promo code CHARLIE.
THEY EXPECT PROFESSIONAL COURTESY FROM HOLLYWOOD: Reporters Enraged Over Media Portrayal in ‘Richard Jewell.’
Maybe they should ask themselves: “Are we the baddies?”
ACTUALLY, IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN: The Year Socialism Became a Dirty Word—Again. “It was a bad year to be any kind of socialist in Europe. The decline has been long and agonizing for a once-dominant force, but in 2019 falling popularity reached new depths and raised questions over whether reinvention can lead to a revival.”
ELECTIONS MATTER: Trump having his revenge on California as he remakes once-liberal 9th Circuit court. The URL of this L.A. Times article, possibly its first headline, is even better; it spells out: Could the changing makeup of the 9th Circuit end California exceptionalism?
And from the Washington Post: 1 in every 4 circuit court judges is now a Trump appointee. “In total, Trump has installed 187 judges to the federal bench.”
AT AMAZON, shop Last-Minute Deals. Bargains galore, while they last.
DONALD TRUMP NAMED Christian Of The Year, beating out Pete Buttigieg.
AT AMAZON, Top Gift Ideas.
HELP! I’M BEING HELD PRISONER…
You’ve probably heard the old joke about the guy who opens a fortune cookie, and the paper says: “Help! I’m being held prisoner in a Chinese fortune cookie factory.”
Well, it actually happened, only it was a greeting card factory.
In Communist China. Read the whole thing.
WHY DAVID SUCHET MAKES THE PERFECT POIROT:
It is no doubt as Poirot — a role that he has played repeatedly on television over a period of 25 years in all of its incarnations in the voluminous canon of the writings of Agatha Christie — that Suchet figures most prominently in the public imagination. The screen enables a far wider circulation than the stage. Suchet estimates that at one point ‘Poirot was being watched by 750 million people worldwide’.
He prepared for the role with meticulous care:
I read every book and made a dossier of all Poirot’s characteristics: his clothes, his move from wearing a pocket watch to a wristwatch … how he refused to eat two boiled eggs that were not the same size.
And at the beginning of each new series:
I would get out my cane, in my house, walk around the garden like him, speak out loud like him, attempt to look at the world through his eyes. And if I had two boiled eggs at home, even though I’d never insist on their being the same size, I’d notice if they weren’t.
Like Poirot, Suchet is a perfectionist. He is also a successful and happy man. One finishes reading his book with the feeling that he fully deserves the rewards that his professional life has brought him.
I can’t think of any other actor attached to a long-term TV or movie franchise who aged into his character; invariably, it’s the reverse. Roger Moore as James Bond, William Shatner as James Kirk, and, because M*A*S*H the TV series ran far longer than the actual Korean War, Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce all aged painfully out of their characters. Even James Earl Jones’ previously stentorian voice sounded a bit shaky as the otherwise mighty Darth Vader in 2016’s Star Wars: Rogue One. But Suchet started playing Perot, who would have been in his late 50s, if not older during the show’s 1930s setting, when the actor was 42. He last played him at age 67. It also helped that as both the character and actor aged, the series took a darker and more serious tone when it was rebooted for its ninth season.
FASTER, PLEASE: Britain Enters A Long Overdue Neo-Disraelian Moment.
Both Disraeli and Bojo rose to power within the Conservative party. Grandees may have been skeptical of the bona-fides of both, but both were beloved by not only the ranks but also the files.
Nor has this bond across time gone unnoticed. Disraeli and Johnson “have a natural flair and love of publicity,” F.H. Buckley writes (the scrupulous scribe throws in President Trump, making a triumvirate). “Politics is grimly serious, as practiced by the left, and we naturally look for a respite from the politician who entertains us,” Mr. Buckley believes. Disraeli won the hearts of the people “with his colorful clothes, his novels and his wit.”
“That’s also,” Mr. Buckley adds, “how Johnson climbed to the top of the greasy pole.”
Disraeli-like, Mr. Johnson is forging links “in what were once the Labor heartlands of the Northern and Midland working classes,” Madsen Pirie muses. The new premier is appealing to “the basic patriotism they embrace.” Touching on Boris’s bravado, the venerable co-founder of the Adam Smith Institute characterizes the Prime Minister’s message one of “an independent and proud Britain that stands up to bullying and threats from overseas.”
The possible end result? US ambassador to Britain Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson says the UK will enter the ‘Roaring Twenties’ after Brexit is delivered.
And since this is the holiday season and we’re discussing Bojo: ‘Britain wouldn’t be Britain without its Jews.’ UK PM Boris Johnson shares Hanukkah message to British Jewish community: ‘Every decent Brit is fighting by your side against anti-Semitism.’
IT’S GOING TO BE HARDER TO GET NAMING GIFTS IN THE FUTURE: Sackler Family Members Fight Removal of Name at Tufts, Calling It a ‘Breach.’ “Two weeks after Tufts University became the first major university to remove the Sackler name from buildings and programs over the family’s role in the opioid epidemic, members of the family are pushing back. A lawyer for some of the Sacklers argued in a letter to the president of Tufts that the move was unjustified and a violation of agreements made when the school wanted the family’s financial help years ago.”
No matter who you are, there’s a chance that the fickle winds of PC wokeness will make you radioactive on campus at some point. Why take the chance? There are lots of other places to put your money.
RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Secrets, Not Constitutional Authority, Are Now the Coin of Power in Politics.
By 2017 it was obvious that the 20th-century institutions were reeling under the impact of the information revolution. The old hierarchies and the authority they had wielded from prestige, authority and celebrity were, if not in a state of collapse, at least badly degraded. The leak of secrets showed how incompetent and mendacious the elites were and the MeToo and Jeffrey Epstein affairs demonstrated how venal.
The last redoubt of establishment legitimacy rested on the claim that it was democratic, protected individual rights against the power of the police; kept the secrets of the ordinary people from any would-be STASI and that the Will of the People as expressed through the ballot box was supreme.
Now, even this last claim has collapsed.
Read the whole thing.
BAN ALL THE THINGS! Why Do Government Officials Want to Ban Ham Radio? It’s Already Begun in California.
GREAT SKY FIRE RETURNS! Wait, Now It’s Winter?.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Muslim public school student takes off hijab, teacher says she will notify her parents “because it’s your culture.”
More here: J.K. Rowling & Vaclav Havel’s Greengrocer: “A culture war is a struggle over who has the power to name what is real.”
UPDATE: Fellow leftist Martina Navratilova tweets her support to Rowling:
Earlier: Martina Navratilova Is At A Political Change Crossroads, Whether She Realizes It Or Not.
(Classical reference in headline; updated and bumped.)
CHRISTIAN TOTO: The Force Fails, Big Time, in Rise of Skywalker.
And speaking of Hollywood failing bigly: “Universal Notifies Theaters ‘Cats’ Is Being Updated With ‘Improved Visual Effects.’ The move is unheard of for a finished film already in release.”