Category Archives: Cultural

Does the American media really want to live in a wasteland?

Posted on by
Reply

Here it is. The media in the US (and Australia for that matter) must either decide whether they wish to live in a wasteland run by the party of the left rather than live in a secure and prosperous nation run by the more conservative party of the right. The President and the Democratic Party are ruining what the United States once was and turning it into an impotent backwater.

The media can say it’s not us, it’s the people who decide. But say what they like, the massively left-leaning media have shaped the political debate so that the common sense of the past is now seen as extremism. But they, too, will live in the wilderness they have helped to create. It will give no satisfaction to anyone else that they will have to share this tumbledown shambles of a nation with everyone else, but they will.

Obviously a joke

Posted on by
Reply

The kind of nonsense you find on the web all the time. Who could take any of this seriously? Via Instapundit:

The following is the God’s-honest truth from the perspective of an imperfect man who was taught chivalry, respect, and love for women. Opinions are solely his and the hundreds of other imperfect men he’s spoken to about this subject in one way or another.

1. We think it’s stupid when feminists think it’s cool to not know how to cook. We don’t give more respect to a woman who thinks keeping her home organized and tidy is weakness. We find a woman who hates babies and children kind of off-putting, even if we don’t currently want a child. We don’t think it’s edgy. We think it’s silly that they think this somehow makes women strong and independent. Our mothers did all the above and more, and we recognize her as super strong. Do they think they’re better than our Mom? NO ONE is better than our Mom.

2. No, we don’t think women can do most physical jobs just as good as us. We’re built for tougher physical exertion than you. We have more muscle mass than you do. On a base level it insults us that feminists claim your strength is equal to ours when we clearly see it isn’t. You have strengths and we acknowledge them, even find them sexy in some regards, but physically demanding tasks generally require a body built for it. It’s why construction sites, ranches, and other physically-demanding jobs primarily consist of men. Women are physically weaker than us, and it hacks us off that feminists only want to recognize that fact in a courtroom.

3. We want to wear the pants in the relationship, and we want you to wear the pretty sundress. Believe us, WE invented pants and have regretted it ever since. They aren’t that great.

4. There’s no “wage gap” between our sexes. If you get paid less than a man it’s probably because he’s been there longer, or works harder, or has a higher title than you. Men do a lot to climb the ladder to make a better living, and often times it’s to make a better living for you. Don’t buy the feminist lie that the literal man is keeping you down.

There is no grand evil patriarchal scheme. There are too many women CEO and managers making more than men out there to give credence to this claim. Also, if a woman gets paid less than a man for doing the same amount of work, then why would a business ever hire a man?

5. We’re wired for destruction. Boys play games that mimic violence of their own accord. We’re not taught that like feminists like to claim. We’re hyperactive because we’re built to hunt, kill, conquer, and protect later in life. We get a rush out of doing these things.

We think it’s stupid that feminists think that’s stupid. We think girl stuff is boring. We don’t think feminine stuff is bad, it’s just boring to us.

Shoes: Boring

Makeup: Boring

Clothes: Boring

Gossip: Boring

Home and Garden Magazines: Boring

Shopping: Boring

Underwear: Boring… unless we get to see it on you, and even then our goal is to get it off you.

Also, if masculinity is so evil then how come feminists are constantly trying to put themselves on level with it? Why do you want to be like us, but not let us be us?

6. Yeah, we’re wussies when we’re sick. There is nothing better than being taken care of by a woman. We love the gentleness and reassuring touch that only a woman has. Even science says you make more thorough and caring doctors.

On top of that you look like an angel when you’re caring for us. It inspires us to get better, to regain our strength so we can get back to being strong for you. We find the feminist concept that it’s a bad thing for a woman to be caring and gentle utterly ridiculous and a waste of natural girl power.

You don’t see us asking our bros to run fingers through our hair with our head in their laps or put vapor rub on our chest…you know…outside comedic reasons.

7. We live in a wam-bam-thank-you-ma’am promoted culture where young girls are fed the feminist lie that it’s empowering to dress like a skank and make a guy do everything in his power to take you home, and even let him succeed at it. Then feminists tell you that it’s not your fault that you can’t seem to land a good guy because men are dogs.

NEWSFLASH: IT IS YOUR FAULT!

While me and mine could seriously do with a lot more discipline, it is EXTREMELY difficult for us to resist sexual temptation. We think about it constantly, and it’s everywhere we look nowadays. From a man’s perspective I can honestly tell you that it’s MADDENING. It’s not because we’re pigs, we’re wired that way, and while we’re physically attracted to easy half-naked women, we sure don’t respect you mentally.

In fact, I hate to burst the feminist bubble, but respect isn’t what comes to mind at all. We hold these women to the level of “useful tool.” This is done very subconsciously, and men aren’t very good at fighting instinct, nor should we in the face of an easy woman. We’re taught as boys that putting value in something cheap ends badly.

8. We fully believe we’re dumber than you in many ways. In fact we hope our woman is smarter than us when it comes to day-to-day things, but we also fully believe we’re smarter in many ways too. Sadly it’s become politically correct to say women are smarter, and a man can’t argue that without a woman nearby getting angry. Men believe women to be very intelligent, intuitive thinkers. We believe you make great leaders.

That said, intelligence comes in a variety of flavors, and we think circles around women in many ways. We’re primarily responsible for technological and scientific breakthroughs. We’re highly logical, creative thinkers. The pop-culture portrayal that we’re close to the intelligence of apes is both insulting and laughable.

Do women outwit men? All the freaking time. They outwit them while they drive cars utilizing internal combustion engines around high-rises, guided by traffic lights that harness electricity. Men are pretty stupid, huh feminists?

9. You can’t tell a man to respect you like he would another man, because you’re not another man. Weirdly that’s something the feminist has a hard time with. We’re naturally competitive and recognize manly respect through manly occurrences whether it be from masculine acts, masculine chats, or masculine urges mental and sexual.

This doesn’t mean we don’t welcome the feminine to take part in these things, but it will never mean the same to you as it does to us. Even a girl inclined towards masculine activity retains too many feminine traits to truly bond with us on the level feminists are demanding us to.

We are different from you.

10. Ladies, let me crush a silly idea that feminists have made popular: You don’t need to “elevate” yourself to where men are. You don’t need to be “just as good.” Men are not on a platform above you where the sun shines richer and we reap a bountiful supply of deserved ego. We’re not better or worse than you, we’re just not the same. Our needs diverge and intersect with yours because we’re tied to each other, but this doesn’t mean we need to be equal on every ground.

Feminists say they want “equality.” That’s a lie. What they want is neutrality if not dominance for themselves. Nature can’t and won’t abide the feminist idea of masculine and feminine, and honestly neither will us men. We honestly find the idea laughable and stupid. I’m willing to bet most women do too.

America in the eyes of its domestic enemies

Posted on by
Reply

This is the text that comes with the trailer:

Having made the second-highest-grossing political documentary of all time, the team behind 2016: Obama’s America is now, as promised, following up with America. Sending up some fireworks of his own to rival the ones 2016 generated, producer-writer and kind-of host Dinesh D’Souza says of his new docu, “We answer the central moral challenge of America’s critics, which is that America’s greatness is based on theft, plunder and oppression.” Listen for other red-button phrases from interviewees describing the USA as “the new evil empire” and a “predatory colonial power” as well as referring to Mount Rushmore as “a symbol of oppression and genocide to our people.” Director John Sullivan’s film comes out two years after its predecessors — hitting theaters on the Fourth of July.

It is these enemies who are now running America. There are some who believe that America can be restored to what it once was. But then I think of D’Souza’s up coming trial and I say to myself, it’s all over for America, all over.

The ANZAC tradition gone west

Posted on by
Reply

I have been following Mark Steyn’s writings since the days when his only book was about American musicals and his only columns were movie reviews in the English Spectator. From such a background who would have expected him to become the finest and clearest writer on foreign policy issues in the world, which from a Western point of view means he writes the most depressing analysis of what’s going on to found found anywhere. Today’s post, befitting Anzac Day, is All Quiescent on the Western Front which dwells on the downfall of Western civilisation led by – well not really “led by”, more like hastened by – the election of the most incompetent fool ever to lead a Western nation. Still, having said all those nice things about Mr. Steyn, I am merely going to repeat something he had picked up from someone else, in an article by John Hulsman with the title, It’s time to read the writing on the wall: Why the West no longer exists. This is the bit quoted by Steyn:

The greatest global political risk can’t be found in Kiev, eastern Ukraine or any of the other hotspots that get the media so excited. It lies in the perception of Western weakness among those countries that find themselves dissatisfied with the current global establishment. For them, the enfeebled state of the West, as laid bare in Ukraine, means the possibility of expansion…

As seen from Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Damascus and Tehran, this is the inspiring, hopeful narrative of Western decline. These countries know they must be careful not to miscalculate, not to press too hard as the lessons of this calamity for the West slowly dawn. But in the medium term, it looks like Iran’s nuclear programme is safe, that Assad can soon pop the corks in Damascus, that for North Korea, torturing Seoul at the edges looks like a no brainer, and as for China, well, the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands await. With time, and after Putin’s groundbreaking efforts, the way history is moving couldn’t be clearer. The West simply doesn’t exist anymore.

Wars do matter. Defending yourself makes a difference. As we head out to ANZAC Cove, it’s worth recalling the fateful consequences of how a single battle in 1453 changed everything about the world ever since. In looking at the current American president, I am reminded of his predecessor who in 1984 pointed out that “history teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” Obama not only makes aggression appear cheap, he makes it look to others as if there are virtually no costs at all.

FURTHER THOUGHTS: The ANZAC tradition is, of course, still pretty good in Australia. But there is also plenty of this, picked up at Andrew Bolt:

Tasmania’s Governor has used his Anzac Day speech to urge Australia to spend less time paying homage to the Anzac legend and more time examining the causes of war and Australia’s involvement in conflicts.

Peter Underwood spoke about the cost of conflict while addressing the crowd at Hobart cenotaph.

“We should spend less time studying Simpson’s donkey and more time looking at why we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for so long,” he said.

Andrew thinks he should be sacked, and perhaps he should, but as I say, there’s plenty of that around. And when it comes to the American president, there’s this on a posting called, Obama’s Staggering Record of Failure:

It’s not simply that Mr. Obama has fallen short of what he promised; it’s that he has been, in so many respects, a failure. Choose your metrics. Better yet, choose Mr. Obama’s metrics: Job creation. Economic growth. Improving our health-care system. Reducing the debt. Reducing poverty. Reducing income inequality. Slowing the rise of the oceans. Healing the planet. Repairing the world. The Russian “reset.” Peace in the Middle East. Red lines in Syria. Renewed focus on Afghanistan. A new beginning with the Arab world. Better relations with our allies. Depolarizing our politics. Putting an end to the type of politics that “breeds division and conflict and cynicism.” Working with the other party. Transparency. No lobbyists working in his administration. His commitment to seek public financing in the general election. The list goes on and on.

And the list does indeed go on. That he is a profound failure on every parameter that matters is not in question. The only issue is whether it is high incompetence or deliberate.

And with the headline at Drudge today, we really do see where we are now at, UKRAINE OFFICIAL SAYS HE FEARS RUSSIAN INVASION:

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister said Friday he fears an imminent Russian invasion.

“We have the information we are in danger,” Danylo Lubkivsky told reporters at the United Nations.

He spoke as an official in Ukraine confirmed that pro-Russian forces had detained a team of military observers with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The official said the team would be released after further investigation.

So which camp are you in? It will never happen, or it doesn’t matter? Because if it does happen it will matter a very great deal.

Art and culture 30,000 years ago

Posted on by
Reply

An interesting article by an anthropologist by name of Collin Cleary, The Stones Cry Out: Cave Art & the Origin of the Human Spirit. Mostly about the sudden emergence of an artistic ability in Europe 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. This was an ability found nowhere else on the planet at the time.

In truth, we are not just talking about the origins of representational art. During the same period, in Europe, we find stone tools that are not only far more advanced in their utility and functionality than what we find in earlier periods, they are also aesthetically more advanced, some decorated with elaborate and beautiful carvings. We also find elaborate burials. In one case, found at Sungir in Russia and dated to 32,000 years ago, two adolescents, a boy and girl, were found buried with strands made up of thousands of beads, a belt decorated with canine teeth from polar foxes (63 of which would have been required to supply all the teeth), an ivory statuette of a mammoth, an ivory lance carved out of a mammoth tusk, and other items.[11]

This find is suggestive for several reasons. As others have pointed out, it may very well show the emergence of belief in an afterlife. Thus, such graves may be indications of the coming of religion.

Mark Steyn discussing Brendan O’Neill interviewing George Brandis

Posted on by
Reply

A bit convoluted, but here goes. Mark Steyn has an article, Medieval Moralists, in which he quotes from an interview with George Brandis conducted by Brendan O’Neill which may be found in a posting with the heading, Free Speech Now. This is the passage Steyn has taken from that Brandis interview with O’Neill:

Brandis says he’s been a fan of free speech for ages. He reminds me that in his maiden speech to the Senate, given 14 years ago when he was first elected as senator for Queensland, he let everyone know that ‘one of my most fundamental objectives would be to protect freedom of thought and expression’. He tells me he has long been agitated by ‘the cultural tyranny of political correctness’. But there were two recent, specific things that made him realise just what a mortal threat freedom of speech faces in the modern era and that he would have to dust down his Mill, reread his Voltaire, and up the ante in his war of words against, as he puts it, the transformation of the state into ‘the arbiter of what might be thought’. The first thing was the climate-change debate; and the second is what is known down here as The Andrew Bolt Case.

He describes the climate-change debate – or non-debate, or anti-debate, to be really pedantic but also accurate – as one of the ‘great catalysing moments’ in his views about the importance of free speech. He isn’t a climate-change denier; he says he was ‘on the side of those who believed in anthropogenic global warming and who believed something ought to be done about it’. But he has nonetheless found himself ‘really shocked by the sheer authoritarianism of those who would have excluded from the debate the point of view of people who were climate-change deniers’. He describes as ‘deplorable’ the way climate change has become a gospel truth that you deny or mock at your peril, ‘where one side [has] the orthodoxy on its side and delegitimises the views of those who disagree, rather than engaging with them intellectually and showing them why they are wrong’.

He describes how Penny Wong, the Labor Party senator for South Australia and minister for climate change in the Julia Gillard government, would ‘stand up in the Senate and say “The science is settled”. In other words, “I am not even going to engage in a debate with you”. It was ignorant, it was medieval, the approach of these true believers in climate change…’

The great irony to this new ‘habit of mind’, he says, is that the eco-correct think of themselves as enlightened and their critics as ‘throwbacks’, when actually ‘they themselves are the throwbacks, because they adopt this almost theological view, this cosmology that eliminates from consideration the possibility of an alternative opinion’. The moral straitjacketing of anyone who raises a critical peep about eco-orthodoxies is part of a growing ‘new secular public morality’, he says, ‘which seeks to impose its views on others, even at the cost of political censorship’.

And as for free speech being free, if you go to the article you can find a bit of first-person experience shared by Steyn in replying to some Canadian nong, Adam Stirling, who finds it a bit tedious to hear Steyn go on about free speech:

The only reason Master Stirling can read me in a Canadian national newspaper is because Maclean’s and I fought a long, hard public battle and won it! And we’ve got seven-figure legal bills to prove it! How funny is that?

And therein lies a tale, which Steyn’s article also discusses.

UPDATE: Here is Mark Steyn again discussing The slow death of free speech. It all needs to be read but here is a bit from the middle:

I’m opposed to the notion of official ideology — not just fascism, Communism and Baathism, but the fluffier ones, too, like ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘climate change’ and ‘marriage equality’. Because the more topics you rule out of discussion — immigration, Islam, ‘gender fluidity’ — the more you delegitimise the political system. As your cynical political consultant sees it, a commitment to abolish Section 18C is more trouble than it’s worth: you’ll just spends weeks getting damned as cobwebbed racists seeking to impose a bigots’ charter when you could be moving the meter with swing voters by announcing a federal programmne of transgendered bathroom construction. But, beyond the shrunken horizons of spinmeisters, the inability to roll back something like 18C says something profound about where we’re headed: a world where real, primal, universal rights — like freedom of expression — come a distant second to the new tribalism of identity-group rights.

“A lot of these guys are basically shysters and crooks”

Posted on by
Reply

James Delingpole has a new book out, The Little Green Book of Eco-Fascism: The Left’s Plan to Frighten Your Kids, Drive Up Energy Costs, and Hike Your Taxes!. He is being interviewed here by Ed Driscoll.

“I’m not a scientist and actually given what I’ve seen of scientists in my experiences following the global warming scam, I’m glad I’m not a scientist because a lot of these guys are basically shysters and crooks. They’re not some kind of white-coated elite with a special hotline to the truth. In fact, they’re just ordinary guys and girls trying to earn a living like the rest of us but slightly more dodgily than the rest of us in the one or two egregious cases.”

The left seems to have a system for achieving power by finding some element in every issue that is a giant step too far and then harping on it. No one is uninterested in “the environment” and everyone wants to preserve the planet whatever that might mean. But global warming is so inane and so lacking in evidence that it separates those who have common sense from some kind of herd of conformity. But it also absorbs almost all of the attention so that people who are not interested in seeing the Great Barrier Reef, let us say, ruined if it is in danger from some commercial proposal are still seen as outsiders to these crusaders for a green environment. Their extremism is the problem and their leaders are to an incredible extent in it for the money and political power it gives.

The solitary life meets longevity

Posted on by
Reply

This is such a depressing story, Hooray for sexual liberation! Now I can die lonely and poor. The central point:

I am a feminist, I really am (I’ve never let a man pay for anything), but feel the current generation of women in their 60s, the first to abandon the way of life of their mothers, which meant they pursued careers, married and had children late, had affairs then got divorced, all in the name of liberation, are now imprisoned in debt, alcohol abuse and loneliness, wishing they could die, and do it soon.

Long life only works if you are in the middle of a village-like family atmosphere. Old age has only terrors for those who must do it on their own.

[From FiveFeetofFury]

100-year collection of 85,000 historic films now on youtube

Posted on by
Reply

This is quite extraordinary if you are the sort of person for whom history is of interest. The above video of the Rolling Stones arriving in Sydney in 1965 is one example out of 85,000 news reels that are now on Youtube. This is the full story found in Variety under the heading, British Pathé Uploads Entire 85,000-Film Archive to YouTube in HD:

British Pathé, the U.K. newsreel archive company, has uploaded its entire 100-year collection of 85,000 historic films in high resolution to YouTube.

The collection, which spans 1896 to 1976, comprises some 3,500 hours of historical footage of major events, notable figures, fashion, travel, sports and culture. It includes extensive film from both World War I and World War II.

“Our hope is that everyone, everywhere who has a computer will see these films and enjoy them,” British Pathé GM Alastair White said in a statement. “This archive is a treasure trove unrivaled in historical and cultural significance that should never be forgotten. Uploading the films to YouTube seemed like the best way to make sure of that.”

Personalities captured in the newsreels include Princess Diana, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro, John Lennon, Salvador Dali, Mother Teresa, Muhammad Ali and Charlie Chaplin. British Pathé already makes numerous clips available on its website free for personal use, and it licenses the archive to TV and film producers and other companies and organizations.

This is the link to the entire collection.

Without God, people can do as they please

Posted on by
Reply

china christianity

One of the most enlightening books I have ever come across was The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success by Rodney Stark. And at the very end of this book there is a quote from a Chinese scholar who had been part of an investigation into the causes of Western economic success. This is a direct quote of what this Chinese scholar had said:

One of the things we were asked to look at was the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West, all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.

I was reminded of this by an article in London’s The Telegraph with the self-explanatory heading, China on course to become ‘world’s most Christian nation’ within 15 years. And while you may be sure the Chinese government has been keeping a watchful eye on where this might go, they have also not been attempting to stamp it out. And there are reasons for this, in keeping with that earlier study:

Some officials argue that religious groups can provide social services the government cannot, while simultaneously helping reverse a growing moral crisis in a land where cash, not Communism, has now become king.

They appear to agree with David Cameron, the British prime minister, who said last week that Christianity could help boost Britain’s “spiritual, physical and moral” state.

Ms Shi, Liushi’s preacher, who is careful to describe her church as “patriotic”, said: “We have two motivations: one is our gospel mission and the other is serving society. Christianity can also play a role in maintaining peace and stability in society. Without God, people can do as they please.”

In place of a moral order we now have political correctness and the pagan religion of Gaia and the environment. China, meanwhile, may become a Christian nation as we in the West depart from what may be the single most important part of the inheritance we have.