RIP David McCallum

The New Neo Posted on by

David McCallum was one of my favorite actors when I was young. I only saw him in two things, but I loved him in both. I’m not sure I could explain why, either. I found his blond looks exotic and attractive, but that alone wouldn’t have been enough. He was an understated actor, but I was very drawn to him.

The first role was in the TV show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”:

I had forgotten that Leo G. Carroll – aka “Cosmo Topper” – was in that show.

I was hardly alone in my adolescent crush on McCallum:

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., intended as a vehicle for Robert Vaughn, made McCallum into a sex symbol, his Beatle-style blond haircut providing a trendy contrast to Vaughn’s clean-cut appearance. McCallum’s role as the mysterious Russian agent Illya Kuryakin was originally conceived as a peripheral one. McCallum, however, took the opportunity to construct a complex character whose appeal rested largely in what was shadowy and enigmatic about him. Kuryakin’s popularity with the audience as well as Vaughn and McCallum’s on-screen chemistry were quickly recognized by the producers, and McCallum was elevated to co-star status.

Although the show aired at the height of the Cold War, McCallum’s Russian alter ego became a pop culture phenomenon. The actor was inundated with fan letters, and a Beatles-like frenzy followed him everywhere he went.

The second of McCallum’s early roles that I well remember was the character Ashley-Pitt in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Great Escape (1963). I saw the film in a movie theater when it first came out. I was a youngish teenager and was expecting an adventure story with a happy ending. I got something quite different and far more moving and tragic, as well as humorous at many points. Lots of male pulchritude, too.

For this post I was looking for a particular clip of McCallum – anyone who knows the movie probably recalls the scene I mean, which takes place at a train station after the escape. I couldn’t find it, so the following one will have to do. It’s brief. His role wasn’t a huge one, but he made a deep impression on me nevertheless:

Apparently, McCallum was a nice guy and a family man:

His son Peter made a statement on behalf of his family, saying, “He was the kindest, coolest, most patient and loving father. He always put family before self. …

“He was a true renaissance man — he was fascinated by science and culture and would turn those passions into knowledge. For example, he was capable of conducting a symphony orchestra and (if needed) could actually perform an autopsy, based on his decades-long studies for his role on NCIS.

“After returning from the hospital to their apartment, I asked my mother if she was OK before she went to sleep. Her answer was simply, “Yes. But I do wish we had had a chance to grow old together.” She is 79, and dad just turned 90. The honesty in that emotion shows how vibrant their beautiful relationship and daily lives were, and that somehow, even at 90, Daddy never grew old.”

He lived to be 90; not a bad run. He kept on acting, explaining that he was doing what he loved and what he was born to do. What a blessing.

I’m all for this sort of lawfare

The New Neo Posted on by

I saw two encouraging signs today. The first is this story about a lawsuit against an “anti-racism” DEI trainer because of a suicide that occurred in Canada. Here’s the story in a nutshell:

Kike Ojo-Thompson, a Toronto-based diversity trainer and founder and CEO of the KOJO Institute, told a class of about 200 administrators that Canada is more racist than the United States, according to a lawsuit filed by Richard Bilkszto in April.

Richard Bilkszto, a progressive and principal of Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute and Adult Learning Center, challenged Ojo-Thompson’s assumption by citing Canada’s publicly funded education system and socialized health care, according to the lawsuit and audio obtained by The Free Press. …

[Thompson replied,] “What I’m finding interesting is that, in the middle of this Covid disaster, where the inequities in this fair and equal healthcare system have been properly shown to all of us. . . you and your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on with black people—like, is that what you’re doing, ‘cause I think that’s what you’re doing, but I’m not sure, so I’m going to leave you space to tell me what you’re doing right now,” she responded.

Bilkszto killed himself July 11. Several of his friends noted that he was not doing well and struggled after the public discussion with Ojo-Thompson because he felt his character was assassinated for being labeled a “white supremacist,” The Free Press reported.

Lawsuits could get them right in the pocketbook, which might be where it hurts.

Note the language in the article – Bilkszto “struggled” after the discussion. That struggle is of course the point, because these confrontations are less physically violent forms of leftist struggle sessions a la the Chinese Communists, a public shaming meant to tear a person down and replace his or her ideas with new ones conforming to the cult:

Struggle sessions or denunciation rallies were violent public spectacles in Maoist China where people accused of being “class enemies” were publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured by people with whom they were close. Usually conducted at the workplace, classrooms and auditoriums, “students were pitted against their teachers, friends and spouses were pressured to betray one another, [and] children were manipulated into exposing their parents”. Staging, scripts and agitators were prearranged by the Maoists to incite crowd support. The aim was to instill a crusading spirit among the crowd to promote the Maoist thought reform. These rallies were most popular in the mass campaigns immediately before and after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China and during the Cultural Revolution.

The denunciation of prominent class enemies was often conducted in public squares and marked by large crowds of people who surrounded the kneeling victim, raised their fists, and shouted accusations of misdeeds.

The second piece of encouraging lawfare news is that some gender clinics are halting puberty blockers, hormones, and so-called “gender-affirming” (Orwell take note) surgeries on minors, for fear of the lawsuits that are just beginning:

There has been a wave of bans on gender-affirming care for minors in Republican-led states in recent years, but some states allowed those already receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapy to continue.

Two such states, Missouri and North Dakota, have halted children’s prescriptions because medical providers are wary of harsh liability provisions in those same laws.

The article doesn’t treat this as good news at all. But as a person who is against the medical transition of minors because it is not empirically supported and is often dangerous in its effects as well as spread by social contagion, I see it as good news.

Looking back at Churchill’s “Finest Hour” speech

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve said many times that I don’t much care for political oratory. In my lifetime, I don’t recall any political speech that interested me at the time, although in retrospect I would rate some of Reagan’s as quite good. But I think Lincoln and Churchill were geniuses of the art, with Churchill maybe edging out Lincoln but just by a hair.

Yesterday I had occasion to quote this famous 1940 speech of Churchill’s, and it got me to thinking:

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

There are so many things about that speech that would never be said today. The first is a statement about the Western world that characterizes it as “Christian civilization.” The second is the idea of Empire as something of which to be proud; even in Churchill’s time, speaking that way was somewhat of an anomaly and he was considered an old-fashioned throwback. But he was the throwback Britain – and the West – needed at the time. And the idea the speech conveys of World War II as a nearly apocalyptic crisis, pitting the forces of good against evil, was actually not an exaggeration.

But it’s this sentence that seems so apropos to me: “But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.” Does it not feel as though we’re on the brink of something like that now, only not from an external enemy but from internal weakness? A sort of cultural, moral, and spiritual suicide being committed by the West? And science has only become more and more advanced as well as more “perverted” in its uses, particularly the propaganda and surveillance and control made possible by the internet.

It’s certainly not our finest hour. But we can hope that our finest hour will come – perhaps in some way we can’t foresee – and that we’ll measure up to it. And let us also fervently hope it doesn’t involve carnage, unlike the terrible catastrophic bloodbath that was World War II.

The polls and Biden

The New Neo Posted on by

They are many indications from polls that Biden is in trouble for 2024, and lots of articles and posts about it. I refer you to this, this, and this, to take just a few examples.

So, is Biden in trouble in terms of the 2024 presidential election? I have my doubts. Here they are:

(1) I’ve long said I think he will run, because a good alternative (and a way to get rid of Kamala) hasn’t presented himself. But it’s certainly possible that things will become so bad for Biden that they’ll “retire” him and decide on someone else. I still don’t think that will happen, but it would hardly surprise me if it did.

(2) Polls, especially at this point in time, probably don’t mean much. For example, most Democrats I know might be worried that Biden is cognitively challenged and might yearn for someone better to run, but that someone would always be a Democrat. They would never vote for the Republican. But they might stay home if not enthusiastic, right? Not if Trump is the opponent. They would crawl over broken glass to vote for the proverbial yellow dog Democrat if it’s that or Trump.

(3) National polls don’t tell much, even close to the election, because it’s swing state polls that matter. I haven’t read anything about those.

(4) Who knows what might happen with Trump’s trials, and how much that could affect the vote in 2024. Right now is the relative calm before the storm. Mollie Hemingway believes that persecuting/prosecuting Trump and other opponents has hurt the Biden administration and the Democrats. Again, I’m not at all sure, although it certainly doesn’t seem to have helped them. I hope Hemingway is correct and that as the trials go on, more and more Americans will find the whole thing repellent and take it out on the Democrats. But I don’t know.

(5) The amount of fraud that the left can pull off, and whether it will matter enough, is a wild card.

I like to look at singers while they sing

The New Neo Posted on by

I find that I like to be able to see singers when they sing. That means I prefer watching live performances of my favorites.

I wonder why. Maybe I like to see the physical effort. Also, the emotion on the face seems to matter to me. And, since most of the singers I like happen to be men, I can’t eliminate the element of sex appeal – which is not necessarily handsomeness in the conventional sense (although that certainly doesn’t hurt), but just some je ne sais quoi.

Singers reveal themselves when you watch them sing – tough or tender, cold or warm, schmaltzy or cool, tense or relaxed. The Gibb brothers and Mickey Thomas (in “Fooled Around and Fell in Love“, anyway) and the Beatles in their younger days seem to be having so much fun while singing. Joplin wore more than a piece of her heart on her sleeve. Dylan does little for me; he just seems so detached. Mark Knopler’s concentration is very deep and still and yet he moves me greatly, perhaps because his guitar expresses so much emotion. Leonard Cohen has a knowing air, sometimes sardonic. Richard Thompson is another favorite of mine who stands still in concert without seeming to emote very much, and yet his voice has that sob in it and there is always a bittersweet quality of experience.

Okay, so sue me – but I love love love Barry Gibb here. He was at the height of his looks and his voice, and strikes just the right regretful and poignant emotional tone (Streisand doesn’t quite do it for me emotionally, although her voice is lovely). Barry knows how to subordinate his voice when singing with someone else – after all, much of his career was based on singing with other people, in particular his brothers. And here he never loses focus on the interaction with Barbra and continues to face her for much of the song except the beginning part, when he hovers almost protectively over her. And no one – no one – can wear white like Barry:

Destroying Russell Brand

The New Neo Posted on by

I have come to detest the MeToo movement, which I actually disliked from the start. The idea that women don’t ever lie is an abomination, one that is used to ruin men’s lives and destroy the protections built into the legal system against false allegations and allegations that come so late in time that it is difficult or impossible to mount a defense.

Russell Brand recently has been accused by several women of sexual assault taking place many years ago. No doubt Brand was a promiscuous SOB when he was younger. He admitted that well before these allegations surfaced. He says all the sex was consensual and the women say it was certainly not.

Nowadays if someone accuses a person of sexual assault – especially a person whose politics aren’t sufficiently leftist and woke, and Brand fits that definition – then that person must be destroyed, including economically. Just send him to Siberia and be done with it. And yes, it’s interesting that the accusations against Brand have come out when he’s become a successful YouTuber who questions the standard messaging on COVID as well as challenging other kneejerk leftist positions. I don’t necessarily agree with Brand on a ton of things, but I strongly defend his right to say them.

He is innocent till proven guilty. Period.

What are the accusations? Here’s one, which happened in 2008. What is the statute of limitations on indecent exposure? Three years in California. Isn’t that convenient? So apparently, this can’t be heard in a court of law, so there would be no need to prove it and the allegations cannot be easily challenged.

The women are all anonymous. One says he raped her in 2012, also in LA. Another says she was 16 at the time of the alleged assault (not sure where that is alleged to have occurred, but in Britain 16 is the age of consent).

It’s interesting to me that all the allegations are of offenses that are alleged to have occurred between 2003 and 2013. That’s between ten and twenty years ago. They seem to have mostly been in California. The statute of limitations there for rape and certain other sexual offenses is open-ended; see this. However, that only applies to such crimes if committed after 2017. For crimes before that, the older limitation applies, which is ten years.

So it appears that all of these alleged crimes are past the time of the statute of limitations, if I am correct in my understanding of the law. That means that they fall into the realm of character assassination and never will be heard in a court of law – unless, of course, Brand defends himself a la Trump, calls his accusers liars, and is successfully sued for defamation.

Is Brand guilty? I don’t know. He’s certainly guilty of being a boor and sexually promiscuous. He apparently mended his wicked ways quite some time ago, and as far as I can tell these people have never come out of the woodwork with these accusations before in terms of pressing charges when they might have done so. To me, whether the charges are true or not (and I doubt we’ll ever know), this smacks of an orchestrated campaign to get Brand. And so far it has been very successful; you can read about a cascade of cancellations of gigs and demonetizations of videos by Brand.

Rumble has stood firm in its defense of Brand’s free speech rights and has refused to deplatform him. However, the anti-Brand forces are now out to punish Rumble and are having some success:

Major brands have started pulling adverts from Rumble, where Russell Brand broadcasts his weekly show, as the comedian vows to keep publishing videos on the platform in spite of claims of rape and sexual assault against him.

Burger King, Asos and HelloFresh are among the brands to have removed adverts from the platform, where Brand has amassed a following of 1.4m, according to the News Movement. He hosts a weekly live show on the platform at 5pm BST.

According to the News Movement, Burger King said it had paused advertising with the platform while investigations continue, while Asos said it had manually removed its ads from Rumble.

Apple and Amazon haven’t pulled their ads – not yet, anyway.

Why they nominated Biden in 2020

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed a discussion of the question in this thread, and I thought I’d reiterate my own opinion of why the Democrats wanted to nominate Biden in 2020.

They were desperate to defeat Trump, but their pool of candidates wasn’t strong. Sanders – who, by the way, is even older than Biden – seemed to have a good chance of being the nominee, and they were terrified that he would alienate so many people that they wouldn’t be able to pull him across the finish line no matter what they did, fraudulent or not.

So they turned to Biden, who had the following attributes: malleable and unprincipled, he would do whatever they wanted in terms of policy. Not only that, but they believed they could successfully sell him as a moderate (unlike Sanders), as well as a “uniter” because he supposedly came across as affable and avuncular. He may not have been the most coherent, but he was coherent enough for COVID times, because they could plausibly hide him away for the most part.

But probably his biggest plus was that he had been Obama’s VP for eight years. That Obama aura had rubbed off on him just a wee bit, and that was very much a plus. Obama’s reflected glow was also was a draw for the all-important black vote, for which Biden himself wasn’t necessarily a magnet. That’s also where Kamala Harris came in – both black and female, she was thought to be likely to lock in those two vital constituencies even further.

In 2024, it’s a bit different – although they still may be able to pull it off by hook or by crook. People have gotten to know how incompetent Biden is, as well as how leftist his administration has been, and they also see his mental decline. Harris is a dud (and that’s being kind). And yet alternatives to the two and a way to replace them are still not obvious, and the undead Trump has yet to have a stake driven into his still-beating heart, although not for lack of trying.