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What Maisie Knew
(Reviewed June 6, 2013)
An interesting updating of Henry James’s novel chiefly worth seeing for the performance of its title character
Full Review
Frances Ha
(Reviewed June 5, 2013)
Almost a pastiche of a Truffaut-like coming of age picture, but without Truffaut’s magic touch
Full Review
The Great Gatsby
(Reviewed May 28, 2013)
A proud vulgarization of Fitzgerald’s novel by Baz Luhrmann
Full Review
Love is All You Need (Den skaldede frisør)
(Reviewed May 23, 2013)
A disappointing outing for one of the greatest directors working today
Full Review
Teach English with a Degree in Elementary Education.
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Diary
ENTRY from May 17, 2013
President Obama, in the midst of scandal to the right of him (the IRS) and scandal to the left of him (the AP wiretaps), scandal behind him (Benghazi) and scandal ahead of him (Obamacare implementation) is outraged about — sexual assaults in the military, which has apparently reached "crisis" proportions. And who can doubt it when Sally Quinn is, in her own words, "sputtering with outrage" about it — always an infallible indication of crisis. Yet she also professes to think that "sexual assault is part of the military culture." Well which is it? If it’s a crisis, it can hardly be part of the military culture, which has been around for a very long time, and if it’s part of the military culture, it can hardly be a crisis.
Perhaps the problem lies with Ms Quinn’s very odd idea of what constitutes the "sexual violence" she, along with her heroine, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), believes can and should be utterly eradicated from the military culture. However, she writes,
that is not going to be a cakewalk. Take the Cadets for Christ, a religious group at the Air Force Academy. According to Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, they espouse the idea of "the shepherding movement for female cadets. [The women] must be shepherded by males, even lower-ranking males. They are told that their value is that they have eggs. They are asked, ‘What are you doing here? This is not want Jesus wants.’" . . . If this is a tolerated group at the Air Force Academy (and the other military academies are not much better), how on earth can anybody, even the president, demand zero tolerance overnight? The fact is he can try. But nobody is going to pay attention. Not until people actually start going to jail.
 My new book Media Madness, is now published and available for order from Encounter Books. Less a polemic than an attempt to understand the origins of the mass media’s folie de grandeur, the book is a warning even to those who are deserting the big networks, newsweeklies and large-circulation dailies not to carry with them into the more attractive world of niche media the undisciplined habits of thought that the old media culture has given rise to. To order this book, click here.
 Also available, now in paperback, is Honor, A History, which was first published in 2006. A study of Western cultural artifacts, from the epics of Homer to the movies and TV shows of today, it is focused on explaining why Western ideas of honor developed so differently from those elsewhere — and especially from the savage honor cultures of the Islamic world. The book then goes on to trace the collapse and ultimate rejection of the old Western honor culture from World War I until the present day and to suggest the conditions that would have to prevail for its revival.
Speak No Evil.
May 31, 2013.
Why should the media worry about government regulation when they’re all in the same elite club with the government anyway? — From The New Criterion of May, 2013 ...
Full Article
Wincing at Cumberbatch.
May 23, 2013.
Smackdown. "Parade’s End" vs. "Downton Abbey." Where is "the thinking man" to turn? — From The American Spectator of May, 2013 ...
Full Article
Oh, the Irony!.
April 30, 2013.
On the uses of irony for purposes of political manipulation — From The New Criterion of April, 2013 ...
Full Article
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