Category Archives: Celebrity

UPDATE III: ‘Duck Dynasty’: A Decoy For Dummies (Robertson’s Fans Not Working With Much)

Celebrity, Christianity, Homosexuality, libertarianism, Morality, Pop-Culture, Religion

“‘Duck Dynasty’: A Decoy For Dummies” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“… there is nothing wrong with making a good living catering to the base, voyeuristic demand created by many millions of Americans, as do the Ducksters. But are capitalists compelled to like their product because it makes money? No. It is perfectly productive, if far from lucrative, for me to criticize all aspects of the puerile Duck production.

The Ducksters are part of a debased culture—the right-wing answer to Kim Kardashian, whose deformed figure and ass elephantiasis you can ogle online and on late-night Leno (1.21 minutes in).

Then there is the matter of Duck-Dynasty religiosity.

“I think you’re missing an important point, Ilana,” said one perceptive Facebook Friend. “The [Ducksters] were selected for the show because they are how you describe them. Duck Dynasty was meant to be a redneck minstrel show. They were supposed to be objects of ridicule for cosmopolitan America. They are what blue-state America imagines religiosity to be.”

Arguably, this is precisely what being devout looks like in the USA.

Delve more deeply, and you’ll discover that Christianity in our country is a lot like what the Ducksters profess. No longer doctrinaire or demanding, the mishmash of pop-religion practiced in churches across America is an extension of the therapeutic culture: festooned with feelings, mostly misdirected. Untempered by intelligent interpretation of scripture.

As for the Ducksters’ occupation. I’ll leave you with Proverbs 12:10:

Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel. …

The complete column is “‘Duck Dynasty’: A Decoy For Dummies.” Read it on WND.

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UPDATED I (12/27): It should be mandatory for Myron my man to strike out for sanity and intelligence at WND Comments, when mouth-breathers get out of hand. Here he does it superbly:

Myron Pauli
• 4 hours ago

I have very little use for the 21st Century KulturKreig where every utterance has to be on one ‘side’ or other in some Culture-War conducted by people on both sides who are so insecure in their own beliefs that they apparently need to have everyone think exactly like they do. Additionally, I can’t be too optimistic for a country where Phil Robertson is elevated to our Thomas Aquinas and Sarah Palin is our Edmund Burke. Not surprisingly, those who do the elevation consider Ilana to be a “liberal … communist …” until, of course, the opposite side weighs in when she utters a criticism of Nelson Mandela and then she is magically transformed into a “racist-genocidal … Nazi” since in the dualistic Manichean world of 2013, thinking is an inconvenient freakish diversion from knee-jerk feelings.

Where are all the other brilliant pals and patrons of this site?

UPDATE II (12/27): ROBERTSON’S FANS NOT WORKING WITH MUCH. Wow. Not since I came out, on 9/19/2002, against Bush’s invasion of Iraq have I received so much hate mail. The country is in serious trouble if this is Red-State America. These people are not working with much. Their Hosannas belong not with Robertson—who, understandably, protects them from the gays who’re clearly gunning for them in a big way—but to Jehovah for seeing to it that breathing is involuntary, governed by the autonomic nervous system.

If not for G-d, they’d forget to breathe. Here’s Letter of the Week.

From: Lostboys Son [mailto:moveoutdrawfire@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, December 27, 2013 8:57 AM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Hey dumb bitch!!!

Are you mad because you are a half breed with no values or heritage? Are you pissed because you idol kim CRACKHOEAGAIN, got knocked up by your ex boyfriend? I bet your mad because any decent white man wouldn’t even touch you with a 10 foot poll. I wouldn’t even hit you with my car, I wouldn’t have sex with you with someone else’s dick!! You look like a troll. Go back to your lame overcrowded smog invested, std having, gang filled, slum hood, and don’t worry about duck dynasty or its viewers. You are not at all a trustworthy person, thats why you go from man to man your whole life, all while talking about other peoples lives, where in fact you should only worry about yourself!!
DUMB BITCH!!

Write to Lostboys Son (email: moveoutdrawfire@yahoo.com), to let him know you appreciate his contribution to civilization.

Gorgeous. Poetry. As for grammar and syntax: I’m ready to hang up my hat as a writer.

UPDATE III: To look on the bright side, quite a number of letters from high-IQ Christians have been received and were appreciated. Many thanks to those who’ve defended sanity, and chimed in @ Comments on WND.

Writes a lady editor:

The BEST of the Duck Dynasty articles that we read yet! I am really glad now that I haven’t wasted a second of my time watching it.

Another man of letters said:

A great column!

This really needed to be said.

My guess, though, is that columns like this will not be popular at WND!

And here’s another nice note:

I loved your column in regard to ‘Duck Dynasty’ and religiosity. And you are correct in your assessment that it is all for entertainment value and appeal to the “blue-American”. I used to watch A&E for concerts and performances; as it was known as Arts & Entertainment Network. Now, it is just an embarrass- ment. Keep up the good work.

If Made To Choose, My Favorite Celebrities Would Be …

Celebrity, Foreign Policy, Gender, Hollywood, Pop-Culture

So, the wonderful Mike Tyson slapped a woman. Shut up! Who hasn’t felt like doing that!

MIKE TYSON. I’ve always thought he sounded interesting in interviews, but I lacked the interest and time to pursue further. Today, while reading the Wall Street Journal, I stumbled upon this by Mr. Tyson (I can identify with Tyson’s motivation for reading-material choice):

I love reading philosophy. … Nietzsche’s my favorite. He’s just insane. You have to have an IQ of at least 300 to truly understand him. Apart from philosophy, I’m always reading about history. Someone very wise once said the past is just the present in funny clothes. I read everything about Alexander, so I downloaded “Alexander the Great: The Macedonian Who Conquered the World” by Sean Patrick. Everyone thinks Alexander was this giant, but he was really a runt. “I would rather live a short life of glory than a long one of obscurity,” he said. I so related to that, coming from Brownsville, Brooklyn.
What did I have to look forward to—going in and out of prison, maybe getting shot and killed, or just a life of scuffling around like a common thief? Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, even a cold pimp like Iceberg Slim—they were all mama’s boys. That’s why Alexander kept pushing forward. He didn’t want to have to go home and be dominated by his mother. In general, I’m a sucker for collections of letters. You think you’ve got deep feelings? Read Napoleon’s love letters to Josephine. It’ll make you think that love is a form of insanity. Or read Virginia Woolf’s last letter to her husband before she loaded her coat up with stones and drowned herself in a river. I don’t really do any light reading, just deep, deep stuff. I’m not a light kind of guy.

So Tyson slapped a woman. Shut up! Who hasn’t felt like doing that! (This is my version of a Jeselnik-style Joke.)

If forced to choose someone other than Anthony Jeselnik, another favorite celebrity would be … DENNIS RODMAN.

Dennis Rodman has a road-map to peace: “building trust and understanding through sport and cultural exchanges,” as he put it. It’s slow, laborious and precludes lobbing bombs at North Korea or depriving its poor, long-suffering people of contact with the world.
Rodman says this about his frequent visits to Pyongyang: “I know in time Americans will see I’m just trying to help us all get along and see eye to eye through basketball and with my friendship with Kim I know this will happen.”
These are baby steps, but it’s one man’s way of opening up a closed and cloistered society to outside influence: through positive, voluntary exchanges and interactions.

Fortunately, I don’t have to choose.

UPDATED: The Megyn Kelly Production: So Far, So Good (Of Course Saint Nicholas Was White)

Celebrity, Christianity, Journalism, Media, Objectivism, Racism, The West

This Washington-Post expose of Megyn Kelly, host of “The Kelly File,” is followed by awful comments from readers, mostly on the left. A lot of libertarians are like that–unwilling or incapable of applying objective analysis to material that isn’t aligned with their imbibed ideology. In a manner, this is a closing of the mind.

Kelly, whose TV program airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on the Fox News Channel, is providing a good news show. The Hannity and O’Reilly segments are intolerable, largely because of the pig-ignorant panelists and guests entertained. Hannity, especially, fills hours on end with shrill ciphers in short skirts, screaming their worthless opinions. A zero-information exercise.

So far, Kelly has not resorted to Fox News’ regular conga-line of cretins—“analysts,” party “strategists,” and other loudmouths, although the appearance of late of Jedediah Bila bodes badly for the File’s future.

Kelly, on the facts, is very quick, super smart and tough. Men will tune in for her elfin, cute looks. I like her voice. It’s hard not to admire a woman who commands a salary of $6 million a year!

Deeply corrupting, however, is the cult of personality in news and the cultivation of news celebrities. But that’s for another day.

UPDATE (12/14): Of course Santa, aka Saint Nicholas, is a western tradition, hence white. What a sub-intelligent argument to even have. Imagine if westerners carved out a white MLK or some other white version of a black icon! They’d be lynched. Fact: by default, whites are not allowed to cling to any cultural artifact.

Love That Guy’s Gumption; Mandela Sign-Language Guy Rocks

Celebrity, Pop-Culture, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, South-Africa

I love that guy. I mean the random gesticulator at the Mandela memorial. A very cool, creative guy, if you ask me, and the most original act at the funeral. What gumption! Give the sign-language interpreter an 0-1 Visa. He’s got rhythm. Deaf people can learn a new language. Learn a little tolerance too. The best part is how everyone is beating up on South Africa’s ruling ANCniks for hiring the improv-signer. He’s a great hire. Now give him a name. Stop dehumanizing My Man.