I spent much of Thursday behind the Golden EIB Microphone guest-hosting America's Number One radio show. I'll be back next week in the bright new dawn of 2017, but meanwhile you can find a few moments from today's show here. We began with the Obama Administration's last-minute screw-over of Netanyahu:
The phrase that struck me that Kerry used: 'America can't stand idly by' - because of these Israeli settlements. 'Stand idly by' has been the Obama modus operandi in that region since he took office. He has stood idly by as half a million people have died in Syria, and Iraq has been swept by ISIS. Millions and millions of people have been set loose across the region, so-called refugees destabilizing American allies in Europe...
Obama and Kerry have been happy to "stand idly by" for mass murder, decapitations, burnings, sex slavery, ethnocultural cleansing, etc, etc, etc. But put up a Jewish subdivision and all of a sudden they're not going to stand idly by, no sirree.
I also noted the way that humorless bullying unreadable scolds who never knew Carrie Fisher are demanding of those who did that they cease remembering the actual real human being in unapproved ways:
You're only allowed to memorialize Carrie Fisher in the officially approved way. Even if you knew her, it doesn't make any difference, you still have to subscribe to the officially approved way.
I was referring to Steve Martin getting his heartfelt tweet Twittershamed by some humorless talentless millennial dweeb at New York magazine, but look here comes another. Paul Simon:
Yesterday was a horrible day. Carrie was a special, wonderful girl. It's too soon.
To which someone called Pink Thouse responded:
@PaulSimonMusic she was a woman not a girl!! Show respect
Paul Simon was married to Carrie Fisher.
Who the hell is Pink Thouse to tell a guy how to mourn his ex-wife? Why doesn't Pink Thouse "show respect" to someone grieving for a person he actually knows better than almost anyone on the planet, as opposed to someone you've just seen on TV and insist on pushing into dreary identity-group cookie-cutter shapes? Why don't you piss off and find someone of your own to mourn?
The ugly totalitarian thuggery of these types makes civilized social interaction all but impossible.
I spent some considerable time with Paul Simon a few years back, and he spoke warmly to me not only about Carrie Fisher but also her mom Debbie Reynolds, for whom he had considerable admiration.
On the radio this afternoon, we also remembered Miss Reynolds, a great and (until yesterday) indestructible old trouper. It was a sad end to a life lived to the full. As I recommended to listeners, do yourself a favor and treat yourself to Debbie and Carleton Carpenter singing "Aba Daba Honeymoon" in Two Weeks With Love - the first of nearly seven decades of great Debbie Reynolds moments, and a song that never fails to perk up me and my beloved daughter.
~Thank you to Kris from Folsom, Louisiana for calling up to say how much she enjoyed this year's Mark Steyn Christmas Show. To get that kind of top-quality entertainment year-round, please go here.
~After Wednesday's show I received this missive from a listener Down Under:
Mark,
Really enjoyed listening to you on Rush today, and can't wait to hear you again tomorrow.
Regarding what you were talking about today, when you mentioned you're sick of hearing people say "But you can't say that" whenever someone offers a non-PC comment, which is, as you pointed out, making us a dull and weakened society: I'd like to go one further than that, and it is similar to the unfunny late night comedians. I get really frustrated now whenever I'm watching a TV show or a movie from a few decades ago, and having a good laugh at some non-PC bit, and the first thought that comes to my (and many others) mind is "there's no way you could make this show or movie today"!
I was watching a Carry On marathon over Christmas, and I was just starting to think it while watching Sid James do his randy old bugger bit, and I just got frustrated at always having to think it while watching something like that. You could say the same for Benny Hill and many others too. Hell, even watching It's A Wonderful Life would get the femiNazis going because Mary stayed "an old maid" because of an absence of George Bailey. Indeed, applying today's 'sensibilities' to the past 50 years of entertainment would see very little 'entertainment' today!
Funnily enough, when Ross Higgins (the star of Australia's version of 'Till Death Do Us Part', 'Kingswood Country') passed away in October, the show got plenty of coverage in the media, and was fondly remembered by countless Australians, especially for its non-PC humour- including myself, in spite of (or maybe because of) the fact he always insulted Italians, Catholics and Ford Drivers (of which I'm all three!). Funny how I can have a laugh at myself, but Generation Snowflake can't! Any wonder I don't watch many first run TV shows nowadays!
Speaking of which, you forced me into my safe space with your microaggression when your impersonation of Andrea Bocelli triggered me into fits of confected outrage. As another blind (well, very shortsighted!) Italian named Andrea (on my birth certificate!), your Italian impersonation had me in tears - of laughter! Keep up the great work!
Happy New Year (and Monday and Tuesday after New Year too)!
Andrew Vaccaro
Melbourne, Victoria
That's a valid point. This totalitarian groupthink doesn't just consume your future, it destroys your past, too.
~On the endlessly delayed Mann vs Steyn trial of the century, I regularly receive mail from otherwise supportive readers politely suggesting that I should make my contempt for the genius jurists of the District of Columbia a wee bit less obvious. Well, I do my best, really I do. But then you wait three years for an "interlocutory" opinion, and no less than a troika of supposed judges offer up fatuous hackery like this, from page 64:
We note that in the article Mr. Simberg does not employ language normally used to convey an opinion, such as "in my view," or "in my opinion," or "I think."38 The article's assertions about Dr. Mann's deception and misconduct are stated objectively, as having been "shown" and "revealed" by the CRU emails. Thus, Mr. Simberg's article can fairly be read as making defamatory factual assertions outright.
Oh, for cryin' out loud. Opinion-writing is a very minor skill, but over the years I've done it at Britain's biggest-selling broadsheet (The Daily Telegraph), Canada's national newspaper (The National Post), Ireland's national newspaper (The Irish Times), Australia's national newspaper (The Australian), and the oldest continuously published magazine in the English language (The Spectator). So I think I can serve as my own expert witness on this matter. One of the first things you either learn fast or are quickly told by cranky editors is that you never use phrases such as "in my view" or "in my opinion" - because it's perfectly obvious to all sentient creatures that it's your view and your opinion. In my own case, National Review is a journal of opinion, and I was advertised as a columnist for it - which is to say a man paid for his views and opinions - and "The Corner" is National Review Online's group opinion blog, which is to say a flock or bevy of opinionators. To keep writing "in my opinion" or "in my view" every other sentence would be as superfluous as these three judges peppering their brilliant legal reasoning with "Speaking as a judge" or "It seems to me, as a renowned legal thinker" every other paragraph.
It's truly pathetic that that's the best they can come up with after three years. For that kind of drivel, they might at least have coughed up their response 48 hours later.
PS As this fiasco is going to run and run, quite possibly to the Supreme Court, any readers minded to keep me in 'bus fare to the courthouse might enjoy my book on the litigious plaintiff and his cartoon climatology. The perfect gift for Hogmanay or St Stephen's Day.
