Late Night Loser

Celebrity, Gender, Media, Pop-Culture

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Late Night Loser
By Kerry Crowel

Sadly, late night talker Jimmy Fallon is the perfect specimen of modern Western man: emasculated, silly and willing to break into an embarrassing jig at a moment’s notice.

Since his Tonight-Show takeover, in Feb., this year, Fallon has stuck to the script with his ultra-safe and unfunny monologues; has danced his way through the history of Hip-Hop “music,” and, as if further proof of his buffoonery was needed, waged a lip-sync battle with actor Paul Rudd, covering Tina Turner, Queen and Foreigner.

Apparently this is high humor! Cutting-edge stuff.

But really, what would you expect from the guy who secured his spot as a Saturday Night Live cast member with an impersonation of his idol Adam Sandler? Yes, the same stupid Adam Sandler who at one time commanded $20 million a picture. The same Adam Sandler whose success is not a testimony to his talent, but rather an indictment of society.

Grimacing and making goofy sounds will get you far in show business.

Western culture was dealt a blow in the fifties when kids everywhere were exposed to that lunatic in war paint, Little Richard. How we went from the subtle charm of The Glenn Miller Orchestra to the tribal screams of “Wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom” is one for the ages.

Soon, the supposed enforcer of past oppressions, the most evil entity to walk the planet, the dreaded white man, most often of the W.A.S.P persuasion, had to atone. When livelihoods are at stake and, more importantly to some, the threat of being labeled an old-fashioned outcast—artistic principles tend to crumble. For proof, all one has to do is tune into a red-carpet event, where, for a living, grown men, giddy as schoolgirls, quiz J-Lo or some other Low, as to which designer she’s wearing .

Perhaps I should clarify my opening statement. Jimmy Fallon represents perfectly the prototypical man of the West whom media like to promote. Nonthreatening, neutered, eager to please all people, and obsequious—as if to acknowledge, if not by his words then by actions, his own deficient coolness quotient (which explains the all-black band, the Legendary Roots Crew).

Like his predecessor, and, hopefully, his replacement Jay Leno, the presence of an all-black band gives the show, in Jay’s own words, a “more urban feel,” never mind that a typical Tonight Show audience is whiter than a farmer’s market in Vermont.

As when a new James Bond movie is released, any talk of The Tonight Show will ultimately revert back to reminiscing about past glories. Over the last twenty years, baby boomers, the most self-important generation ever, have elevated Johnny Carson to near-deity status. Exhibiting no sign of real talent, Carson was nothing more than a failed magician, who morphed into a late-night court jester, often donning drag as Aunt Blabby, and on more than one occasion taking a pie in the face. So, when you think about it, Fallon fits the mold perfectly.

I’m sure he’ll make it in spite of himself; he knows all the right people, kisses all the right rings and says all the right things, which is nothing much at all.

That’s entertainment!

*****

Kerry Crowel is as of yet an unsigned screenwriter with an interest in political and social satire. And will probably get a guest spot on the Tonight Show.

Blood Brothers, The Ukraine And ‘The Enduring Schism’

English, Europe, Foreign Policy, History, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Russia

Blood brother is a perfectly good, if colorful, phrase to denote fealty between like-minded men. Yet in the land of the terminally stupid, linguistic flourish can become a liability; the use of a phrase “proof” of a Nazi mindset, whatever that means.

Hush. Don’t tell our deracinated neoconservative and neoliberal leaders, stateside, but “blood brother,” a perfectly proper appellation deployed by Ted Nugent to describe his affinity for “Texas Republican gubernatorial hopeful Greg Abbott,” works as well to explain many a conflict in Europe (and the US).

What I take away from Nebojsa Malic’s fascinating historic insight into the complex dynamics that undergird “present-day trouble in Ukraine” is that it stands in stark contrast to the simplistic paradigm with which Anglo-American neoconservatives rape the same reality.

Malic, who is now at the The Reiss Institute for Serbian Studies, Writes:

… can be traced back not to the Mongol invasion that destroyed the first Russian state, but to the 1595 Union of Brest – when, under tremendous pressure of the Catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, some of the Orthodox clergy decided to submit to Rome. These “Uniates” have been the driving force behind the creation of a separate, anti-Russian, “Ukrainian” identity at almost every point in history since. They allied with Poland during the civil war that brought the Bolsheviks to power and reorganized the tsarist Russia into the Soviet Union; likewise, they allied with Hitler in 1941, and were sheltered by the British after 1945 as “good Catholics and fervent anti-Communists” (see here). Since Ukraine became an independent state in 1991 (following Boris Yeltsin’s dissolution of the USSR), they’ve sought to dominate its politics, which culminated recently with the “Maidan” coup. …

… While other factors – such as Islam, or geopolitics – have certainly played a role, the millennium-long history of Catholic hostility towards the Orthodox is the key to understanding the conflicts in Europe’s East. Not surprisingly, it is also the explanation least mentioned and examined. It doesn’t take a genius to see why.

MORE.

UPDATED: Cite Your Sources, Creep!

Ethics, Etiquette, Ilana Mercer, Morality, Paleoconservatism, Race, Reason

I receive the Taki Magazine newsletter in my In-Box.

I often click on it for a quick once-over.

With some exceptions, speed reading is the mode reserved for the stuff. With exceptions like Sailer, of course (Pat Buchanan is read on WND), the reason for this was touched upon in a Feb. 15, Facebook, thread with a Fred Reed fan.

While I too think “Fred Reed rocks,” information-rich work is my preference. I love Reed for his audacity, but riffing does not do it for me. I need information.

Unless I learn something substantive in the process, I’m not interested in other people’s opinions. I have too many of my own. 🙂

As I was skimming a riff by a character called Jim Goad (one of whose light-reading posts I was decent enough to reference in a January post of my own; naturally I cite my sources)—I came across a remarkably familiar line on a rather obscure matter of logic, also the only analytical part in this riff of a column.

This character was motivating (dah) against an “egalitarian … fallacy, which roughly runs thusly.” And Goad writes:

Differences within any group are greater than those between groups.

The familiar part of the Goad column was this:

“Against every known rule of logic,” he notes,” “this statement is always used as some blanket proof of equality.” Goad promises to “carefully dismantle this super-dumb time bomb.” He continues:

Here’s why the statement is deceptive: Differences between highs and lows WITHIN a group do not discount or magically wash away differences between group AVERAGES.

High and low did I search Barely A Blog, but was unable to locate the familiar point of logic made on BAB so long ago. Finally, it came to me: I would have alluded to inter-group differences. Yes! I found what I was after using the “inter” prefix in the BAB search window.

The post is “The Kindness Of (Caucasian) Strangers (On Brotherly Love).” It’s dated 01.31.10. My identical line of reasoning about this obscure matter is as follows, verbatim:

… no; we’re not all the same. A common liberal refrain (I would like to see what Steve Sailer has said in this regard) is that differences between individuals are statistically more significant than those between cultural, ethnic, and racial groups. I don’t see why the fact of inter-individual differences would nullify inter-group variance. That’s liberal logic for you. [ILANA MERCER]

Moreover, I have never heard of the formal fallacy Goad cites to label his inquiry. However, on perusing the Wikipedia entry, I found empirical refutations but no analytical ones–no allusion was made to the deduction that appears in the Mercer post titled “The Kindness Of (Caucasian) Strangers (On Brotherly Love).”

Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery, but unacknowledged, lifting someone’s ideas without attribution is disgusting—it tells me all I need to know about a person.

Alas, borrowing of this nature is mostly impossible to prove. This is why passing off the often-idiosyncratic ideas or references of others as their own is “par for the course” in these circles. Nevertheless, shame we shall when we come across this lowly practice.

About the natural law, Sir William Blackstone noted that it should include such precepts as that human beings should live honestly, hurt nobody, and render everyone their due (in Conway, 2004). Clearly, this is an instinct alien to some.

UPDATE (3/2): As my dear (most original) friend professor Walter Block once said to me, when we first met (2000?), “You are a natural praxeologist.” I’m sure I make a lot of mistakes, but this method comes naturally. Mercer columns tend to consist in logical deductions. Other than in similar circles, this is not a common style/habit. (We stand on the shoulders of the brilliant David Gordon.) When you see your reasoning, it’s like seeing an image of your offspring. Others might say, “All babies look the same,” but you know that bundle is yours.

The Talented Mr. Turley

Constitution, Federalism, History, Law, libertarianism

I find myself having to often defend against libertarian critique of my interest in the U.S. Constitution and the history of the republic. (Yes, imagine making excuses for intellectual curiosity.) I’m fascinated by it all. The disdain for American constitutional history among some libertarians seems to stem from laziness, which has invariably fed an attitude that treats the non-aggression axiom as if it materialized magically, and was handed down to the faithful at a Mount-Sinai like event, rather than from “the nit and the grit of the history and culture from which it emerged,” in the words of Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.

It’s pitiful that one should have to defend against an incurious, ahistorical mindset. Nevertheless, I plead guilty of an interest in Jonathan Turley’s February 26, 2014 remarks to the Committee on the Judiciary, of the United States House of Representatives, even though, as a libertarian, I most certainly do not identify with their impetus: “Enforcing the President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.”

Most of what the government does is either naturally illicit, immoral or both. If a president arose who refused to enforce MOST of our laws; I’d cheer him on. And one can hardly accuse the Judiciary of not doing much, as Turley does. The opposite is the case: there are no means to punish the Bench for its infractions (such as Zero Care).

Still and all, Turley is interesting (I apologized for my interest, did I not?), and he writes beautifully, using some marvelous analogies:

… We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis with sweeping implications for our system of government. There has been a massive gravitational shift of authority to the Executive Branch that threatens
the stability and functionality of our tripartite system. To be sure, this shift did not begin with President Obama. However, it has accelerated at an alarming rate under this Administration. These changes are occurring in a political environment with seemingly little oxygen for dialogue, let alone compromise. Indeed, the current
anaerobic conditions are breaking down the muscle of the constitutional
system that protects us all. Of even greater concern is the fact that the other two branches appear passive, if not inert, as the Executive Branch has assumed such power. As someone who voted for President Obama and agrees with many of his policies, it is often hard to separate the ends from the means of presidential action. Indeed, despite decades of thinking and writing about the separation of powers, I have had momentary lapses where I privately rejoiced in seeing actions on goals that I share, even though they
were done in the circumvention of Congress.

There is no license in our system to act, as President Obama has promised, “with or without Congress” in these areas. During periods of political division, compromise is clearly often hard to come by. That reflects a divided country as a whole. Such opposition cannot be the justification for circumvention of the legislative branch. Otherwise, the separation of powers would only be respected to the extent that it
serves to ratify the wishes of a president …

MORE.