…I’d like to show you another ad featuring children. Yesterday I criticized this one about man-made global warming. It features a child actress, and is designed to appeal to children especially, and to frighten them into pressuring their parents to … Continue reading →
In a recent Charles Krauthammer piece, he compares Obama’s dithering on Afghanistan to the wavering of Shakespeare’s Hamlet: …[Obama in his role as] commander in chief, young Hamlet, frets, demurs, agonizes. His domestic advisers, led by Rahm Emanuel, tell him … Continue reading →
I read Orwell’s masterful dystopic political vision 1984 when I was about twelve years old, old enough to get what it was aiming at but young enough to be especially frightened by some of its most memorable images, which have … Continue reading →
If you want to take a break and watch a glorious dancer you’ve probably never heard of, take a look at a 1979 clip of Lynn Seymour performing the bedroom scene from Macmillan’s “Romeo and Juliet” with David Wall’s Romeo, … Continue reading →
Studying the Polanski brouhaha, and most especially reading the columns and comments of his defenders and champions, puts me in mind of certain Romantic heroes and artists of old. I refer to the poet whose exploits—sexual and otherwise—were famous in … Continue reading →
Watch this; it’s spooky-scary. Obama’s fixed smile is described thusly (the nearly-fixed head position, which in my opinon is even more revealing, is not specifically mentioned): Ladies and gentlemen, your President is a robot. Or a wax sculpture. Maybe a … Continue reading →
Mary Travers, of the 60s’ Peter Paul and Mary, is dead at seventy-two. There were three people in that group, but Mary was its beating heart. The two men seemed to be merely her backup singers (sorry Peter, sorry Paul), … Continue reading →
By now you’ve probably read the news that Patrick Swayze has died. Swayze was an actor and dancer who became famous for the surprise blockbuster film “Dirty Dancing.” But I liked him best in “Ghost,” which didn’t even feature his … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Today, when framing a comment, I came across this previous post of mine. I think it’s so important—and so relevant to another heated discussion we had recently on this blog, that I decided to repost it.] I first read … Continue reading →
Perhaps many of you have heard of writer Raymond Aron before, but I hadn’t until I picked up a collection of essays by Roger Kimball published in 2002 and entitled Lives of the Mind. Aron was the author of a … Continue reading →
…and the Duggars are expecting.
Continue reading →This is for those among you who, like me, were huge fans of the early TV show “Science Fiction Theater.” It was the forerunner to a much better (and better-known) series, “The Twilight Zone.” But “Science Fiction Theater” had its … Continue reading →