John Hinderaker at Power Line took a sensible position on the death of Michael Jackson:
I once did a post called “My Thoughts on Britney Spears,” which for some reason I can’t find in our archives, at a time when she was in the news. It set the record as shortest blog post ever. I don’t have anything to say about Michael Jackson, either; his career mostly coincided with a period in which I wasn’t listening to popular music and I never thought much about him one way or another.
I have been fortunate, I think, to keep company with Hinderaker in this regard and to be blissfully unconcerned about Michael Jackson throughout his career.
But that requires some clarification. It is Michael Jackson the musician and entertainer that bored me. In other respects, he aptly represented some of the most disturbing trends in modern culture, and we would do well amid all the wailing to consider the column by Linda Stasi: “Shed No Tears for this Twisted Sicko.”
OK, I said it — and it’s about time somebody had the nerve to say what millions of people must feel and believe about the once-talented black man who turned himself into a white woman before turning himself into a monster.
But you’d never know any of that if you’d listened for the past week to the endless prattle from the sickening, fawning media and all those Hollywood music phonies who were crying crocodile tears over someone they’d mostly avoided like, well, a pedophile.
Pop music stopped being interesting when it stopped being about music. As a purely social phenomenon, it has nothing positive to offer. Jackson’s life and career epitomize this shift as he moved from talented musician to carnival freak, foraging on an infantile indulgence of every urge.
In his defense, he probably didn’t reach the depths of his personal hell without a lot of help from his friends. The most troubling part, though, is that he had millions upon millions of such friends, fans, willing enablers, or whatever you want to call them.
Stasi concludes:
The King of Pop was a great entertainer — innovative beyond anyone the world had ever seen — but he turned into a disgustingly depraved man who hung an infant off a balcony and forced his kids to walk around with masks, veils, towels and even nets over their faces.
I take issue with the parenthetical. The world has seen innumerable innovators that far surpass Michael Jackson. Jackson will not merit even an honorable mention in the realm of musical innovation, and there is no honor in the other innovations that will define his legacy.
July 2nd, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Music |
no comments
No, not that one. The other one. The Boston Herald has the initial reaction of Senator John Kerry (D-MA) to the disappearance of Gov. Mark Sanford.
“Too bad,” Kerry said, “if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin.”
The Democratic-centric crowd laughed.
June 25th, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics |
no comments
Calvin Klein has pulled its orgy billboard (see prior post) and replaced it with one depicting a lone female wading through the surf in a skimpy bikini. Reaction from local residents was positive.
Adolfa Arena, 48, a dog walker in the area, said the ad was effective without being provocative.
“I think this one is brilliant,” he said. “It’s the beginning of summer, so it works out perfectly.”
Brilliant? Well, maybe not quite, and not very original either. But not offending the public gets more original every day.
Told of the complaints last week, Calvin Klein officials had defended the ad, saying the intent was to create “a very sexy” campaign.
Calvin Klein apparently doesn’t understand the basic fact that “sexy” and “sex” are not necessarily synonymous. Here’s a lesson. The lone female on the beach looks unavailable, but she is potentially available. She looks preoccupied with thoughts that have nothing to do with you. If you approached her and offered your best line, she would probably keep walking without giving you the slightest nod. But if she were to acknowledge you, or give the slightest smile, . . .
The female in the orgy ad looks very available, but she is presently occupied with a group of guys that doesn’t include you. You could get in line behind guy No. 3 who seems to have fallen off the too-crowded couch. Before you could even offer your best line, she would say, “Take a number.” And her acknowledgment of you, or the slightest smile, would mean nothing.
But let’s give Calvin Klein credit for not offering the nonsense that they were just trying to sell blue jeans.
June 24th, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Media |
no comments
“Billboard Features Four Partially Clothed Models In Sexually Suggestive Positions.”
“Suggestive”? That’s what the local news in New York calls this latest Calvin Klein billboard. Does this billboard suggest sex to you? Or does it scream it? Perhaps you see some other, non-sexual message that is being conveyed, like – oh, I don’t know – how those rugged Calvin Klein jeans sure do hold up at orgies.
The news report goes on to say that the billboard “creates controversy.” The controversy though is not about Calvin Klein. The only controversy left to discuss is whether anybody cares.
June 15th, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Commerce, Media |
no comments
Charles Krauthammer analyzes Obama’s overseas speeches and his misguided approach to repairing relations between Islam and the West. The theme running through this effort is that we all fall short. Islam stones women and we deny them equal funding under Title IX. Islam executes homosexuals and some states refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The column deserves to be read in full because it provides ample support for this conclusion:
Obama undoubtedly thinks he is demonstrating historical magnanimity with all these moral equivalencies and self-flagellating apologetics. On the contrary. He’s showing cheap condescension, an unseemly hunger for applause and a willingness to distort history for political effect.
Distorting history is not truth-telling, but the telling of soft lies. Creating false equivalencies is not moral leadership, but moral abdication. And hovering above it all, above country and history, is a sign not of transcendence but of a disturbing ambivalence toward one’s own country.
June 12th, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics |
no comments
Via Melanie Phillips:
In his devastating study Heaven and Earth. Global Warming: The Missing Science (Quartet) Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at the University of Adelaide and previously Professor of Earth Sciences at the Universities of Melbourne and Newcastle systematically shreds the theory [of anthropormorphic global warming] and the hallucinatory propaganda industry it has spawned.
Quoting Plimer:
When science was born, the consensus at that time was driven by religion, politics, prejudice, mysticism and self-interested power. From Galileo to Newton and through the centuries, science debunked the consensus by experiment, calculation, observation, measurement, repeated validation, falsification and reason… Scientific fact now no longer seems to be necessary. Human-induced global warming is one such example, where one camp attempts to demolish the basic principles of science and install a new order based on political and sociological collectivism…There has been an uncritical, unthinking acceptance by the community of the media barrage about catastrophic climate change. For many, critical thinking is an anathema.
June 3rd, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics, Religion |
no comments
The belief that someone would make a better Supreme Court Justice because of his race or gender is seriously flawed. If it were true, adherents of that belief would have to be fans of Clarence Thomas. But they’re not, and they defeat their own argument by failing to credit Thomas with the very qualities they claim to be seeking. Thomas, who grew up dirt poor and black in the segregated South, brings everything to the bench the liberals say they want in the next nominee.
But the whole identity thing breaks down when Thomas fails to decide cases according to liberal dogma. Coming from a disadvantaged background is not really supposed to make you a better judge, just a more liberal one. Thomas disproves the theory.
Rather than admit the theory is flawed, liberals insist instead that Thomas is flawed. In their minds, he must forfeit the attributes of being black and disadvantaged so that they won’t have to admit their theory is wrong.
Today we find a little human interest story that will probably get little attention, because it too suggests that Thomas might not be playing his assigned role. It seems that Thomas is . . . well, empathetic? Impossible.
June 2nd, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Law, Politics |
no comments
Empathy: The projection of one’s own feelings or emotional state onto an object.
“Empathy v. Impartiality” pretty much says it all, and you don’t really have to read Jonah Goldberg’s column with this 
title to understand the problem.
The reasoning here is a riot of dubious assumptions. Obama and Sotomayor both assume that a firsthand understanding of the plight of the poor or the African-American or the gay or the old will automatically result in justices voting a certain (liberal) way. “I would hope,” Sotomayor said in 2001, “that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” This is not only deeply offensive, it is also nonsense on stilts. Clarence Thomas understands what it is like to be poor and black better than any justice who has ever sat on the bench. How’s that working out for liberals?
It used to be that justice was blind, but the absence of vision seems to have migrated to the other branches of government.
Image by mafleen - Creative Commons
May 27th, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Law, Politics |
no comments
It will stimulate the economy for people to go on vacation. That’s the logic of congressional Democrats who plan to introduce legislation guaranteeing workers a paid vacation.
The Paid Vacation Act is the brainchild of Alan Grayson (D-FL), whose district includes parts of the mega-vacation venue of Orlando.
How will doing nothing create wealth? That’s a question that doesn’t seem to occur to the Democrats. The answer is that it doesn’t – with one exception: It would create more wealth if the Democrats in Congress were to do nothing.
“There’s a reason why Disney World is the happiest place on Earth: The people who go there are on vacation,” said Grayson, a freshman who counts Orlando as part of his home district. “Honestly, as much as I appreciate this job and as much as I enjoy it, the best days of my life are and always have been the days I’m on vacation.”
Yes, and the best days of our lives may also be while Grayson is on vacation.
May 21st, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Commerce, Politics |
no comments
The champions for each side of the waterboarding debate have finally been chosen rather later in the game. On the side of squishy niceness is Nancy Pelosi. It now seems certain that Pelosi has never had a serious thought about national security one way or the other.
On the other side is Dick Cheney. That side has not had any vocal supporters up to now. The Bush administration ceded the field to its detractors.
Pundits are saying that Cheney is doing serious damage to the recovery prospects of Republicans, that is, the prospects of them becoming squishy and nice and unserious about national security. Those pundits are less sure what to make of Pelosi’s revisionist and opportunistic stances on the subject.
Mark Steyn demonstrates how one man’s interrogation technique is another woman’s torture, depending on when it occurs and who does it. Sen. Diane Feinstein pointed out that we were under a threat of terrorism in 2002 (or perceived that to be the case), and fear of terrorism is, like, so yesterday. That rousing defense of Pelosi illustrates the depth of principle that would animate the proposed “truth commissions.”
Indeed. In effect, the senator is saying waterboarding was acceptable in 2002, but not by 2009. The waterboarding didn’t change, but the country did. It was no longer America’s war but Bush’s war. And it was no longer a bipartisan interrogation technique that enjoyed the explicit approval of both parties’ leaderships, but a grubby Bush-Cheney-Rummy war crime.
* * *
Well, sure. It’s the Miss USA standard of political integrity: Carrie Prejean and Barack Obama have the same publicly stated views on gay marriage. But the politically correct enforcers know that Barack doesn’t mean it, so that’s okay, whereas Carrie does, so that’s a hate crime. In the torture debate, Pelosi is Obama and Dick Cheney is Carrie Prejean. Dick means it, because to him this is an issue of national security. Nancy doesn’t, because to her it’s about the shifting breezes of political viability.
May 16th, 2009
Posted by
Fitzroy |
Politics |
2 comments
