Monthly Archives: May 2023

by Ethel Lina White

 

Possibly because this was White’s first published mystery novel, Put Out the Light isn’t quite on par with her later, more-polished works like The Lady Vanishes and The Spiral Staircase (my reviews of them here and here).

But White does create one truly memorable villain in “Anthea Vine.” Vain, scornful, and sharp as a tack, the wealthy spinster (White’s word, not mine) personifies a 1930s career woman who evokes either empathy or disdain — depending on your perspective, I suppose.

The plot: Anthea rules stately Jamaica Court, where cohabitating relatives and visiting sycophants all kiss her butt in hopes of finding favor in her will.

But someone doesn’t want to wait for Anthea to die of natural causes. And then … whodunit?

 

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This Week on “Culture Wars”

 

 

To Boycott, or Not to Boycott

 

Bud Light was an easy boycott for me. Could have something to do with the fact that I quit drinking 14 years ago.

 

Target is also an easy boycott. I needed a new coffeemaker, something I might have purchased at Target two weeks ago. Yesterday I got one at my grocery store, instead.

 

 

Who needs fucking Bud Light? Who needs fucking Target?

 

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I stopped watching Fox News a couple weeks ago. I’ve been getting my news fix from Newsmax, Tim Pool, YouTube and Twitter.

 

My advice: If you can’t bring yourself to boycott Budweiser, Target, Fox News, Disney, or professional sports, at least do the next best thing and cut back.

 

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Mayors of sanctuary cities whining about immigrants and demanding taxpayer relief? Fuck them.

They’re getting what they asked for.

 

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Reparations that turn your black neighbors into instant millionaires — at your taxpaying-expense? The idea would have appealed to Charles Manson, who dreamed of instigating a race war.

 

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Henry Kissinger still in the news at age 100? More evidence that only the good die young.

 

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Wish I had a better handle on who would do better in the general election, Trump or DeSantis.

I need a damn crystal ball.

 

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Now that anyone who displeases the left is a racist — thinking of you, bicycle lady — does the word no longer have meaning?

 

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FUBAR on Netflix: The most striking thing about the show, to me, is Arnold’s face.

Aging stars need to accept that wrinkles look much better on them than the freak-show number that plastic surgery does.

 

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My ancestors lived in a village called Sunndalsora, located in central Norway.

I learned from this video that, during the Viking Age, the toughest Vikings in Scandinavia came from Norway. Not Sweden, not Denmark — Norway.

Within Norway, the toughest of the tough Vikings were from central Norway. You guessed it, the same region that includes Sunndalsora.

 

So don’t fuck with me. If you do, I might feel compelled to rape and pillage.

 

 

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A Nightmare on Elm Street

 

It’s been years, probably decades, since I watched the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. I wanted to see how well it holds up — or doesn’t. My takeaways:

 

1)  Surprisingly, Freddy Krueger isn’t on screen all that much. Although his presence is very much felt, the emphasis is on the tormented teens and their bad dreams.

2)  The nightmare sequences, with their heavy dependence on set design and special effects, are dated. Sequels and other rip-off horror movies have left A Nightmare on Elm Street in the dust.

3)  The soundtrack is quite good.

4)  Johnny Depp’s debut performance: About what you might expect from a debut performance — not much. The future superstar is practically unrecognizable as one of the teens. And this movie confirms what I’ve always suspected: Depp’s later, odd accent seems to be an invention of his own choosing. There is no affected speech from Depp in this film; he is just an ordinary-sounding bloke.

5)  The indominable John Saxon: I’ll bet that when Saxon launched his Hollywood career, he had no clue that his eventual legacy would be starring in not one, but two groundbreaking horror movies (the other being 1974’s Black Christmas).

 

Overall, the movie does not hold up as well as contemporaries like Halloween or Alien. But as an example of typical 1980s white-kids-in-suburbia-terrorized-by-fill-in-the-blank, it’s nostalgic fun. It’s just not particularly scary.  Release: 1984  Grade: B

 

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Compassion Fatigue

 

What do Dianne Feinstein, John Fetterman, the fat airline passenger, the dead Michael Jackson impersonator, illegal aliens, and transgender pronoun-changers all have in common?

Answer: When they do something bad, you are not allowed to think ill of them, much less punish them. If you do, then you are a “bad” person.

 

Fuck that. Here is why each of them is undeserving of our sympathy:

 

 

Dianne Feinstein — The senator makes feeble-minded Joe Biden look like Albert Einstein. She is physically and mentally incapacitated, and yet there is nothing wrong with her queen-sized ego. Retire already, lady.

 

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John Fetterman — Progressives railed that Donald Trump was “unfit” for office. But because Fetterman suffered a stroke, we are expected to ignore his obvious unfitness (and lack of fashion sense) and simply feel sorry for him.

 

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Fatso on the airplane — Doesn’t matter that she’s obviously a Twinkies addict, the rest of us must accommodate her travel discomfort by paying for her additional space on airplanes. The world is expected to conform to her, not the other way around.

 

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Transgender, et al., pronoun changers — Listen, as far as I’m concerned, you can call yourself whatever you want. But you do not get to change the English language. You are not a “they.” This is another case of the world expected to conform to a bitter minority, not the other way around.

 

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“Asylum seekers” — We need to stop letting the left frame the debate by referring to illegal border crossers as “asylum seekers.” The migrants might call themselves that, but only because it helps them achieve their real goal: better-paying jobs in the U.S. The vast majority of them appear to be healthy young males, not families fleeing from evil dictators.

 

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Jordan Neely — Much like George Floyd, we are all expected to think of this guy as a benign fellow, a Michael Jackson impersonator who had the misfortune of running afoul of a deranged ex-Marine. We must ignore Neely’s scores of criminal offenses, including his penchant for punching 60-year-olds in the face. You know, just like we are expected to ignore Floyd’s penchant for pointing guns at pregnant women.

 

Screw “compassionate conservatism.” Where is the liberal compassion for pregnant crime victims, minimum-wage-earning citizens, cash-strapped airline passengers, and lovers of the English language?

 

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The Durham Report

 

I can’t get too excited about this report, which confirms what we already knew about government corruption. I can only get excited if, as a result of the report, big-shot heads begin to roll.

In other words, I will not likely be getting excited.

 

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It’s getting harder to find anything new worth watching on Netflix. I stopped watching Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto about one-third into the film because, unlike the similar-themed Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino, Otto was drab and depressing. 

 

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I’ve been playing catchup with Bill Maher’s podcast, Club Random. For the most part, it’s an entertaining show.

I say “for the most part” because, in nearly every episode, Maher lets his Trump Derangement Syndrome get the best of him and cannot resist goading his guest into agreeing with him that “orange man bad.” It’s amusing/annoying to watch this repetitive game, in which Maher tries his damndest to get hesitant guests like Aaron Rodgers, Kid Rock, Adam Carolla, and Jay Leno to join him in venting about Trump.

Much as Trump simply refuses to let go of the 2020 election, Maher simply refuses to let go of Trump.

 

On the positive side, it’s hard not to be amused at the sight of a drunken Richard Dreyfuss conducting his chat with Maher with his torso half on a chair, and half on the floor.

 

 

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Headlines!

(plus my two cents)

 

 

 

By firing and then smearing popular host Tucker Carlson, it looks like Fox News is hellbent on becoming the Anheuser-Busch of cable news.

Alienating your core customers in a misguided attempt to broaden your clientele does not shout: “winning strategy!”

Just as Budweiser’s decision to thumb its nose at Joe Six-Pack has backfired spectacularly, Fox’s dumping of Carlson is going to result in a viewer exodus.

 

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Best-case scenario for Anheuser-Busch: It looks to its left, then to its right, realizes it cannot win, and then reaches out to other corporate behemoths also being blackmailed/extorted by ESG and social-credit proponents. Anheuser-Busch says, “Let’s band together and fight this progressive bullshit.”

 

Yeah well, I can dream, can’t I?

 

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In my humble opinion, one reason the right can’t seem to gain any ground in the immigration debate is its decision to let the left set the ground rules.

Rather than focus on the core problem — millions of people choosing to break the law, aided and abetted by the Biden administration — the right seems to believe it can persuade by pointing out the plight of the migrants. They are portrayed first and foremost as victims, not as lawbreakers.

Never mind the migrants’ callous disregard of our laws, nor the impact they have on Americans in terms of lowered wages and costly drains on strained social services. No, above all, the bipartisan argument goes, we must slow immigration to help the immigrants.

Whatever you do, do not point out that the migrants willingly put themselves in harm’s way. 

 

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When they eventually shuffle off this mortal coil, I propose that Donald Trump and CNN be buried side by side.

Their story was the ultimate example of a love-hate relationship.

 

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Silly me. I thought that “E-Verify” was already a requirement.

 

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I can’t decide if this Mayorkas guy is stupid, mentally ill, or just plain evil.

 

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Now that House Republicans have finally come up with actual evidence of Joe Biden’s corruption (bank records), it’s disheartening, but not surprising, to observe the mainstream media’s response: crickets.

 

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I’ve been watching Newsmax. Too many of its hosts are media castoffs I’d forgotten about. It’s a place where former talking heads go to die. People like Greta Van Susteren, Dick Morris, and Eric Bolling. Newsmax desperately needs someone with heft. Someone like Tucker Carlson. Or Megyn Kelly.

Carlson and Kelly — now there’s a dynamic duo.

Another downside to watching Newsmax: I had hoped that moving away from Fox might spare me this, but no, those ulcer-inducing, hair-pulling, obnoxious My Pillow ads followed me there.

 

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Why does her crown look bigger than his? Is that why he looks sad?

 

 

British whoop-de-doo over the monarchy

 

As an American, I fall into the “mixed feelings” camp concerning Britain’s monarchy. I enjoy — sometimes immensely — shows like The Crown, The Queen, and Downton Abbey. The real royal family’s escapades are an endless source of soap-opera entertainment.

Also, I have little doubt that the whole monarchy thing benefits the psychology of Britons. It makes them feel special.

But intellectually and morally, kings and queens seem to me like an anachronistic waste of time, money, and resources.

But hey, so long as my tax dollars don’t go toward any of it, I’m happy to sit back and watch the show.

 

In related news …

 

Left, the pride and joy of Britain’s royal family. Right, the pride and joy of America’s royal family.

 

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Political Incorrectness

 

 

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Yup, methinks it’s time to resurrect the sobriquet so aptly coined by Arnold Schwarzenegger: “girly men.” You know, to describe folks like Dylan Mulvaney.

 

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I suppose we aren’t meant to ascribe literal definitions to the four archetypes described in the Strauss and Howe book The Fourth Turning (my review is here). But it gives me pause to think of myself as a “prophet” when the only thing I can safely predict in life is that the Minnesota Vikings will never win a Super Bowl.

As for the idea of millions of spoiled-brat Millennials acting as the world’s “heroes” … well, God help us.

 

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Red Pilled

 

In the AllSides chart below, I’ve circled the media I consumed ten years ago in blue, and the media I consume today in red. The Web site circled in purple is the only crossover.

This is what happens when you get older and wiser:

 

 

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