Two Yahoo! headlines

More job seekers give up, reducing unemployment

Job growth could be weakening as economy sputters

This news seems, well, unexpected.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about certain movie critics, particularly those on the cultural left, is their manner of lecturing us on what types of movies we should enjoy and not enjoy. I’ll try to track down the review I read in the early 2000s where the critic acknowledged that he had enjoyed watching the film, which held his attention through the entirety of the screening, but gave it a lousy write-up because it didn’t meet his pre-set criteria for what a good “film” should be.

Look, sometimes we enjoy movies which are objectively “bad” where the flaws in the script as so patent that a clever actor can’t even disguise how out-of-character a line is for her part. Or where the story, when you start to think about it, just doesn’t make sense, yet when you were watching the movie you were, well, riveted.  Some movies are just meant to entertain.  If you enjoy a flick, you shouldn’t try to rationalize that pleasure away, just acknowledge that you enjoyed even if it seemed silly.  Heck, it’s a movie.  Not all movies need to be On the Waterfront.  Or Fanny and Alexander.  Or The Godfather.

Heck, two of my favorite romantic comedies are incredibly cheesy and seriously flawed, but that doesn’t stop me from recommending Maid in Manhattan or Two Weeks Notice to friends.  Or, for that matter, going out of my way to see Ruthless People on the big screen.

This rant came to mind this morning when, in my in-box, I read one of the most self-righteous, arrogant headlines to a movie review I’d read in years:  ”Audiences and Critics Are Wrong,” David Thomson writes in the New Republic, “Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’ Isn’t Good. It’s Dismal.”  Look, in terms of taste, audiences can’t be wrong.  If people enjoyed the flick, they enjoyed the flick.  This may not please those who believe we should prefer Jules & Jim to Star Wars, but, well, so what?

It is interesting to ponder why certain film snobs need to dismiss popular preference for a certain movie as “wrong.”

Questions, comments requests can be sent to sarjex (at) gmail dot com

Commenting on his exchange with Ali Velshi on CNN’s American Morning where that latter dismissed as a talking point his observation that “barring a sudden drop in the unemployment rate between now and November 2012, the unemployment rate for every month of Obama’s presidency will be higher than it was for every month of Bush’s two terms”, Jim Geraghty makes a great point which I may find echoed in the Gipper’s new book:

I suppose either you find the comparison of the economic performance under Bush and under Obama relevant, or you don’t. It seems that the pro-Obama argument relies on the notion that the Great Recession just happened, and there just wasn’t much Obama could do about it over a four-year period. (Of course, if there was nothing that could be done to really mitigate it, that more or less undermines the central argument of liberalism that sufficient government spending can create economic growth.)

Emphasis added.  Interesting how he put the meat in the parenthetical.

Thought came to mind when I caught this on Instapundit:  ”JIM TREACHER: Weiner Tip #1: If you want to prevent a topic from becoming a distraction, call the person asking you about it a jackass.”  I mean, just like Sheen, he’s melting down and is all over the media.  Seems the Democrat has a similar saturation strategy.

Oh, and props to Anderson Cooper who does seem to be trying to be fair, tweeting this morning: “For those saying we shouldn’t cover the Weiner story, would u feel same way if this had happened to a conservative republican? Just asking?”  (H/t Washington Examiner.)

UPDATE:  Seems I’m not the first to come up with this notion.  In Politico, Ben Smith writes:

“Watching Anthony Weiner’s twitter and press blitz is like watching a Charlie Sheen meltdown. It’s amusing, uncomfortable, and not necessary,” a Democratic leadership aide (not from Pelosi’s office) told me just now. “If Weiner really wants to get beyond this, he’ll shut up and let Democrats get back to their Medicare message.”

(Via Jim Geraghty in Morning Jolt).

Thomas Jefferson once described what he hoped to express in the Declaration of Independence with this famous expression:

This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.

Those terms came to mind last night when browsing in Barnes and Noble, I chanced upon this passage from the pen of the Gipper in the latest collection of his writings, The Notes: Ronald Reagan’s Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom:

Liberty has never come from govt.  The hist. of liberty is the hist. of limitation of govt. power not the increase of it.

Italics in original.  Another expression of the American mind.  And a reminder of the ideal hat defined our modern conservative movement.

Two new polls out, one which liberals believe slants Republican, another which tilts Democratic suggest that the president’s party may not be going into the 2012 election in as solid a position as a recent Huffington Post love letter to the Obama campaign suggests.  It seems the White House is trying to create the impression that the incumbent is unbeatable in next fall’s election.  And some media outlets eagerly repeat this talking point as if it were actual fact and not political spin.

Yet, the polls tell a different story.

Rasmussen finds that more Americans consider themselves than consider themselves Democrats:

Now, 35.6% of American Adults consider themselves to be Republicans, up from 34.8% in April. . . . The number calling themselves Democrats increased slightly from 33.5% in April to 34.0% last month.

A day earlier, the pollster found “that in a hypothetical 2012 presidential matchup, a generic Republican candidate earns support from 45% of Likely U.S. Voters” against 43% for President Obama.  Given the tendency of undecided voters to break agains the incumbent, that’s a really bad number for the president.

In the latest CNN poll a survey which notoriously skews left, the pollster found that while the president enjoys a 54% approval rating, he’s underwater on his handling of all but three issues, including the economy where 58% disapprove, the federal budget deficit where 64% disapprove and Medicare where 53% disapprove.  Given his party’s demagoguing the Ryan reforms, it’s interesting that in a poll which favors the Democrats, only 44% approve of the way he’s handling the popular government program. (more…)

“Some of TV’s top executives from the past four decades may have gotten more than they bargained for,” Paul Bond writes in the Hollywood Reporter, “when they agreed to be interviewed for a politically charged book that was released Tuesday, because video of their controversial remarks will soon be hitting the Internet”:

The book makes the case that TV industry executives, writers and producers use their clout to advance a liberal political agenda. The author bases his thesis on, among other things, 39 taped interviews that he’ll roll out piecemeal during the next three weeks.

The Hollywood Reporter obtained several of the not-yet-released clips, embedded below. Each contains a snippet of an interview, usually some historical footage of the TV shows the interviewee was responsible for and, naturally, a plea to purchase the book, “Primetime Propaganda” by Ben Shapiro and published by Broad Side, an imprint of HarperCollins.

Shapiro, according to Bond, provides “anecdotes of bias against conservatives” including one involving Dwight Schultz, “best known for his roles as Murdock in The A-Team and Barclay in Star Trek: The Next Generation”:

The late Bruce Paltrow knew that Schultz was a fan of President Ronald Reagan. When Schultz showed up to audition for St. Elsewhere, a show Paltrow produced, to read for the part of Fiscus, Paltrow told him: “There’s not going to be a Reagan asshole on this show!” The part went to Howie Mandel.

“Most nepotism in Hollywood isn’t familial, it’s ideological,” Shapiro writes in the book. “Friends hire friends. And those friends just happen to share their politics.”

Interesting.  I have heard anecdotes about people going to Democratic fundraisers, not so much to support the various candidates, but to make connections with some of the town’s movers and shakers.  The clips which Bond has embedded confirm what many conservatives have long suspected, in this town, sometimes your politics are more important than your talent.

Sarah Palin reminds me of one of my teenage nieces who knows just how to smile and just what to say in order to manipulate her father.  For an example of such behavior, see the first scene of the Odyssey on Olympus.  Athene knows how to get Zeus to do her bidding. My niece is not nearly as successful as was the owl-eyed Olympian, but she is aware (at some level) of her charm and her power over men.  And Sarah Palin sure knows, on a much deeper level, just when and where to bat her eyelash to whip the media into a frenzy.

Or to get them to follow her motorcade when she doesn’t share her itinerary with them.  Today, I occasionally looked up from the new cardio machine to catch a glimpse of CNN commentators caught in Mrs. Palin’s web.  They were talking about her recent pizza summit in New York with the man who bills himself as the Donald (the real Donald has his own bill) and bemoaning that Mr. Trump and Mrs. Palin were upstaging the more serious candidates and preventing a serious discussion of the issues.

Methinks they were doing the bidding of the Obama campaign, trying to make Republicans look like we’re obsessed with the Trump/Palin circus.

But, the only reason Palin and Trump might be upstaging the other candidates is because, well, folks like those on CNN are dispatching their production crews to follow her every move as they shine their lights and focus their cameras on their stage.  Message to CNN:  if you don’t want Sarah Palin to upstage those whom you bill as the more serious candidates, then don’t cover her.

“For more than two years,” Michelle Malkin observes, “Palin-bashing journalists (on the establishment left and the right) have mocked the conservative supernova while milking her for headlines, circulation, viewership and Web traffic.”

These guys just can’t leave her alone.  They give her a prominent role on their broadcasts while complaining that she gets too much publicity.  They should learn from wise fathers of teenagers.  It is possible to say, “No,” to a charming and attractive young woman.

UPDATE:  In a great post on the media’s Palin obsession, John Nolte wonders “how many of these so-called journalists who are now making complete fools of themselves choking on bus fumes left unfinished ‘Palin is irrelevant’ pieces on their desk to dash off and make fools of themselves.”  Read the whole thing.

Just after midnight last night, I pre-ordered the next volume in George R.R. Martin‘s .A Song of Ice and Fire, A Dance with Dragons. And while my criticism of the works has increased since I first blogged about this fantasy cycle, my enjoyment has not lessened. That said, these books differ from the other great fantasy cycles I’ve read in their absence of defining relationships. To be sure, there are relationships, but each seems limited to a particular volume, sometimes limited even to a series of chapters.

One character falls in love with another, either to see his feelings consummated or remain unrequited, yet certain to see the beloved perish shortly after the love was declared or otherwise acknowledged.  We see a growing sympathy develop between two seemingly opposed characters, only to have them part company, likely never to see each other again, even as each has helped transform the other.

It seems that in good fiction (and yes, this is good fiction, far more readable and offering more insight into human nature that much literary fiction) as in great movies, there is always a defining relationship, oftentimes several. In Star Wars, we see the mentor-mentee relationship between Obi-Wan and Luke Skywalker as as well as his fraternal relationships with Princess Leia and Han Solo, the latter bond which causes the space smuggler to come back and help our hero destroy the Death Star. (Indeed, one friend believes it the absence of just such a character (Solo) which accounts for the weakness of the prequels; I believe that it’s also the absence of the hero’s relationship to a character like Han that makes Anakin Skywalker far less compelling than his son.)

Indeed, once director Francis Ford Coppola has established the character of Don Corleone character in The Godfather, the movie only really gets going when he notices the absence of his son Michael as the family poses for the requisite wedding picture. “Where’s Michael?” he asks, “we’re not taking the picture without Michael.” Later, when, through the blinds, he sees his son arrive at the reception, we know there is something significant about this relationship.  And it is that relationship which will define Michael’s journey in the film. (more…)

To those who study history, it becomes annoying when contemporary writers, considering the sexual proclivities of great men from other eras, rush to label as “gay” any figure from the past who once enjoyed sexual relations with members of his own sex.   In the process, they both blind themselves to evidence that that individual also enjoyed sexual relations with the opposite sex and to the mores of his time.

The notion that our sexuality is fixed in one direction is relatively recent one.  Many in other cultures, particularly in the ancient Mediterranean world, even where different-sex married couples were a defining institution, accepted — and often celebrated — men’s attraction to their same-sex fellows.  They saw sexuality as more fluid than we do today. We are guilty of presentism, interpreting historical events in light of modern notions, when we ignore that fluidity.

Perhaps, the greatest example of this presentist worldview is how all too many treat Alexander the Great.  He had to be “gay,” they claim because he and Hephaestion were lovers.  And, to be sure, some historians, eager to show that no great man could have sexual proclivities toward his own sex, write off allegations of his same-sex relations as historians’ embellishments or perhaps just metaphorical descriptions of intense emotional bonds forged in the heat of battle.

In his biography, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness (a book which explains what its subtitle describes), Guy Maclean Rogers addresses the ambiguous nature of Alexander’s sexuality:

But modern sexual categories such as “homosexual” and “heterosexual” cannot be usefully applied to describe the sexuality of Alexander.  He belonged to a culture in which the erotic impulse (eros) was not necessarily assumed to be confined to feelings or acts directed to either men or women that, if they were consummated, thereby placed individuals in one category or the other.  Rather than striving to fix Alexander within one modern sexual camp or another, it is far more illuminating to examine the evidence for the trajectory of the erotic impulses he acted upon. (more…)

Twenty years ago, when liberal interest groups were trying to derail the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, they trotted out a former employee of the distinguished jurist who alleged that that good man once complained about some pubic hairs on a can of Coke and even claimed to be an aficionado of pornographic films featuring a performer whose stage name was similar to that of a famous priate. Such comments supposedly made him guilty of sexual harassment. In the highest of dudgeon, a handful of angry feminist Congresswomen (none of whom would later criticize Bill Clinton for allegedly raping a woman) marched across Capitol Hill, demanding the Senate look into these foul deeds.

If Mr. Weiner did indeed send the tweet (as his recent obfuscations suggest he did) and had acknowledged as much, conservatives would have been wise to leave him alone and ask that liberals show similar respect when they learn of the minor transgressions of conservative Congressmen.

At least since the Thomas hearings, Democrats — and their interest group allies — determined to defeat conservatives at all costs, have engaged in the politics of personal destruction.  When they uncover stories about the minor transgressions of a conservative lawmaker or public official, a compliant media helps them broadcast their findings to a broader audience.  Until the rise of the new media, conservatives muckrakers uncovering similar information about Democratic officials have not found as ready a megaphone.

That this story became news has more to do with the door that Democrats, most notably the chairman in 1991 of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened when they invited Miss Hill to testify before said committee, than it does with conservative delight in mocking the sanctimonious New York Democrat.

If there Mr. Weiner’s twitter were indeed hacked, the story should die until an investigation into the hacking were complete.  That Mr. Weiner felt the need to obfuscate suggests he is well aware that today even minor transgressions can significantly impact a Congressman’s career.  And for that, he shouldn’t be blaming conservative bloggers or Republican politicians, but wonder why his fellow Democrats were so quick to raise such a ruckus about a law professor’s allegation that her one-time boss once engaged in poddy talk. (more…)

From the AP:

A sharp dive in private job growth and a continued slowdown in the manufacturing sector combined to send the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 200 points Wednesday, its biggest drop since early March. Treasury bond prices rose to their highest level of the year as traders placed a larger value on safer investments.

Doubts about the economy’s strength that built throughout May were compounded by a pair of reports that were weaker than investors expected. . . .

And private employers added just 38,000 jobs in May, down from 177,000 in April, according to payroll processor ADP. Analysts had expected 180,000 new jobs.

Wait, wasn’t the “so-called stimulus” supposed to juice job growth? Looking forward to the 2012 campaign, Jennifer Rubin writes:

The president can’t merely attack his opponent or George W. Bush as he did last time; he’s going to need a record of accomplishment on the issues voters care most about. And unless the economy turns around very quickly, that’s going to be a very large problem.

Via Ann Althouse, I just learned of Gallup’s 2011 Values and Beliefs poll:

That blogress asks her readers, “What surprises you the most here?” Well, I’m no longer surprised that nearly 3 in 5 Americans find gay relationships morally acceptable. It corresponds with the numbers we’ve seen in Pew and Gallup surveys on state recognition of same-sex civil unions. The changes is social attitudes I blogged about here are very real.

What surprised me was the moral issue on which there is there greatest concord in America, marital fidelity. It seems my “gut feeling” about monogamy is more than just a visceral reaction, but something with which more than 90% of my fellow Americans can relate. And it’s something to bear in mind when we’re talking about state recognition of same-sex marriage.

I always wondered why Anderson Cooper got more attention than Don Lemon.  The former always looks like he’s trying really, really, REALLY hard to be a serious news anchor, adopting his best Walter Cronkite/Edward R. Murrow pose while the latter just seems like a nice guy delivering the news.  He actually has the audacity to smile every now and again.

I had meant to blog earlier about the latter coming out, but spaced it.  It seems he also has an interesting story to tell:

In the two-plus weeks since Don Lemon announced he is gay in tandem with the release of his new memoir, ‘Transparent,’ the CNN anchor has received both kudos and criticism.

The praise is geared toward the courage it took to openly embrace his homosexuality as a public figure. The criticism lies mainly with the language Lemon used in his announcement. Lemon told the ‘New York Times’, where the news of his announcement first broke: “It’s quite different for an African-American male…It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.” Lemon also mentioned black women specifically, expressing his concern “that black women will say the same things [about me being gay] as they do about how black men should be dating black women.

This is actually a book I might read.  Lemon seems the most telegenic of the CNN anchors and reporters; most seem out of place delivering and commenting on the news.

I hope for Lemon’s continued success — and not just because he comes across as such a nice guy, but also because it would signal that Americans recognize that one’s sexuality doesn’t compromise one’s objectivity in the newsroom.

Perhaps he’ll become for TV journalism what Ellen has become for day-time talk shows.  And we’ll see that one’s sexuality is increasingly incidental to one’s success.

Posting the video below, an editor at Breitbart.Tv quipped, “The simplest questions still go unanswered.” Just watch this for yourself; it’s an unbelievable exercise in obfuscation.

All the Democrat needs to do is to say, “Look, yeah, I tweeted out that picture. It was a dumb thing to do. I should have known better.” Some on my side of the political aisle might not let it go.  The late night comics would crack a few jokes, bur other than that the story would blow over.  He would continue to retain his seat in Congress and his influence within his party’s caucus.

But, while he tells the various reporters that they’re there to ask the questions, he’s there to answer them, he, well, he doesn’t answer any of them, offering instead some prepared hypothetical about a heckler at a speech with 45,000 in the audience (probably about 45 times the size of the largest audience that Democrat ever drew.)

“Weiner’s response,” Ed Morrissey writes, “seems odd under the circumstances“: (more…)