[National Review] Once upon a time, actors, musicians, and other entertainers were considered riff-raff, something like what a contemporary American snob might sneer at as carnies.
That was, in that respect at least, a more civilized time.
In our time, we have made demigods of entertainers. Human beings are very status-driven creatures (this is almost certainly an evolved trait rather than a learned behavior), and so it is probably inevitable that celebrity has become the weird mutant thing it has become in our time. There are many people in the audience, but only a few on stage.
The problem with making gods of actors and the like is that while Americans may be idolators, we are still, at heart, Puritans. That means that we bring heavy moral expectations into our worship of the famous and the beautiful. "Leda and the Swan" is problematic — we only play at being pagans.
#1
Talented actors who are great at bringing to life an interesting person, story, or song are admired. When the show is over and some of them go back to being themselves is when they look like total fools.
#2
Why the heck should we care at all about the opinions of people whose only claims to fame are that they are very good at pretending to be someone else, saying words that someone else wrote, and (in general) are better looking than the average person?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/13/2021 10:07 Comments ||
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How many of the 'top shelf' names are the same character in every single movie.
If I had the time, I'd go take lines from Forest Gump and superimpose them into Private Ryan.
Very similar to a running gag I have with daughter, where I print off a picture of a disney princess and in a word bubble put a princess quote from a different, or same, movie. They are all so 2d bland I have her confused about the actual origin of the quote - making my point.
#5
^ Yep. Not long before Hollywood scripts will be generated with AI and algorithms designed to optimize for worldwide downloads and streaming revenues.
And then the actors will be replaced by AI-generated holograms. Coming soon, to a digital platform near you
#6
Seeking status is a learned trait IMNSHO. The compulsion to do that can be unlearned as well, but it is not easy. Some used to enter monasteries and convents to "unlearn" stuff like that. YMMV.
#9
It's all about having a megaphone and using it in a heavy handed and often uneducated way. These 'entertainers" spout what they hear at parties and in green rooms. If they knew what they were talking about, nobody would care, and that's partly the point.
When asked how was his weekend in jail on a marijuana beef, actor Robert Mitchun replied, "It was great. Like Palm Springs without the riff raff."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2021 15:57 Comments ||
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#10
Kind of stumbled upon Attack on Titan; that has quite a following.
A bit mainstream, but I thought Godzilla Planet of Monsters had some great questions. Enjoyed Transformers as it was during The Age of Cartoon. Even the Disney X-Men (there is a clip with Iron Man, which must be part of the Avenger/X-Men fusion idea) had some good points. Going to have to go with Voltron for the win, just fantastic writing, style, and animation.
I know that's all kind of Main Street, any suggestions?
#11
Anime? Glad you asked. They are far better than the dreck Hollywood turns out these days. I'd also recommend watching Bollywood movies, start with Shah Rukh Khan movies and branch out form there. (Cheesy but fun popcorn movies).
Go back to the anime sources for Ghost in the shell (The 1995 anime, not the putrid whitewashed 2017 "live action" garbage), Cowboy Bebop, Death Note, Samurai Champloo if you like sword fights, One Punch Man (which is quite humorous), and if you liked Blade Runner then try Psycho-Pass it covers someof the same philosophical ground with the same dark edge.
Also try Monster - its based on a great Manga. brain surgeon Dr. Kenzo Tenma following his decision to save the lives of two young twins instead of the mayor of his town in Germany - Nine years after this fateful decision, Tenma discovers one of the twins, Johan, has grown up to be a monstrous serial killer, while the other lives an oblivious life with her foster parents.The plot chronicles Tenma's attempts to undo the mistake he made when saving Johan's life.
Good Characters, cool story, and solid animation - plus Giant Robots in combat? Mobile Suit Gundam: Thunderbolt.
Want more "Game of Thrones" feel? mercenary commander Griffith aspiring to rule a kingdom - that's 1997's Berserk.
There are so many good ones out there available. The 1990's were especially fertile for manga becoming Anime.
#13
At some point actors will be replaced by computer versions that can do basically anything asked. It'll all be computer animation but look real. There will be come kind of transition but its coming and i suspect the Covid shutdown will only speed things up as who wants to pay those big salaries when there is no big opening weekends anymore.
#14
$50 to go try to see Resident Evil through everyone dinking on their phones, or $50 to be in Resident Evil through your VR Game system? 2 hours of entertainment, sort of, or 100+ guaranteed adrenaline shit your pants fun?
#15
Some of my favorite Anime are: Last Exile, Bubblecrisis 2040, Witch Hunter Robin, Trinity Blood, Hellsing Ultimate, Rune Soldier (Parody of typical fantasy), The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Black Lagoon, Darker than Black, Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu (Hilarious parody about breaking a game by doing the unexpected), Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood to name a few.
[The Federalist] To a hall filled with young men on a cold Illinois night in January 1838, Abraham Lincoln delivered his earliest recorded public remarks.
For the 50 years prior, the living rooms, parlors, and public offices of our country had been teeming with the brave Americans who’d fought, struggled, and suffered to create these United States. "Nearly every American," Lincoln recalled, "had been a participator in some of its scenes."
But now that generation was dying off. What no invading army could, time, he lamented, had itself accomplished: "They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all resistless hurricane had swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk... to combat, with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more."
Without their life experience, he realized, his was the first generation of Americans tasked with upholding their fathers’ noble experiment simply by the strength of their own virtues. This, he warned, would be very difficult.
As he looked around him, at both slave states and their northern neighbors, he saw and feared the evil of swelling mobs not merely for their unfortunate victims, but for our national tolerance of their violence and misrule — and the effect this shrugging of shoulders and murmuring of approval or disapproval would have on patriotic and unpatriotic men alike.
The incidents weren’t always seemingly connected by cause. A group of gamblers hanged; a mixed-race murderer burned alive; black men suspected of planning insurrection, and then white men suspected of sympathizing, and then simply out-of-state strangers caught in the middle of swelling hate. But beyond their brutality, the young lawyer feared these mobs were connected for the lawlessness they embodied — and the idle familiarity with which his fellow Americans seemed to accept these incidents.
While the 1830s mobs "hang gamblers, or burn murders," he cautioned, tomorrow’s mobs would hang and burn the innocent — "and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded."
While after January 2021’s Capitol riot we’ve all seen the ruthless efficiency with which our government is capable of cracking down on lawlessness, we too saw the summer before, when months of attacks on federal officers, politicians, police, private homes, courthouses, and innocent bystanders met calculated indifference and shrugged excuses for "historic racial injustices."
This too, was well familiar to Lincoln, who knew the mob will go further and spread deeper, warning, "by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained."
"On the other hand," he predicted, "good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a Government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose."
Combined, he warned, these seemingly opposing feelings come to one terrible conclusion: "the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed — I mean the attachment of the People."
#1
"and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded."
#2
The party of Lincoln and Sherman?
Obscure, and a chore to determine...
But those Democrat vermin
There, preaching that sermon,
While lying in bed with Al Thurman?
#1
Two-mask dispensation, please? Hate to think I wasted several minutes yesterday practicing casually donning two at once (one facing forward, one aft). Hmm. Maybe add frown and smile?
#3
Just think how much better we'd be doing if Trump had said, about last March, "NEVER USE A PLASTIC BAG AND TWO FEET OF DUCT TAPE. IT'S NOT EFFECTIVE!"
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
02/13/2021 8:17 Comments ||
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#4
^^ But it's effective when used by democrats, they don't get covid (if they didn't already have it.)
#5
We have two masks, do I hear three? Three? Yes, three masks for the gentleman in the corner.
Now I have three, do I hear four? Four? Yes, four masks for the lady in the front row.
Now I have four masks, do I hear five? Five?
Posted by: Tom ||
02/13/2021 11:33 Comments ||
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#6
While standing in a check out line with a mask around my chin, a man in front of me told me to pull my mask up. I responded you're 6 feet away and are wearing a mask, you've got nothing to worry about. Cowed, he turned away. In retrospect, what I should have said very loudly was. OMG, ARE YOU CONTAGIOUS? YOU SHOULDN'T BE OUT OF YOUR HOUSE.
#9
Was in a shop recently...they treat people like adults...about 75% of customers wearing masks...no idiot Karens yelling, and no shop employees giving a hoot, either. It's sad that this is the way it should be, but we take things like this as massive victories anymore.
#10
Local initiative to masquerade, initiators' politics would not surprise you, even have yard signs, a lotto game with prizes, got the social peer pressure thing going.
Pitch person comes into my place of business, starts giving me the spiel...after removing the mask. We're we anti-social distanced? Barely, but when my resting bullshit face comes out, its no sale. "If the whole community would just mask up, we can beat this!" spew rite in the entrance.
Of course everyone yells now to project through the mask, so at that distance, mask off, might as well cough on me.
[National Review] On the menu today: You would have to look far and wide to find a person more celebrated by progressives and most of the national media in 2020 than Andrew Cuomo. You would have to look far and wide to find a political group more celebrated by progressives and like-minded media in 2020 than the Lincoln Project. And you would have to look far and wide to find a place more celebrated by progressives and like-minded media in 2020 than California. And in the last 24 hours, all three fell from their high pedestals and landed with a hard "thud." and NR was right there with them. "The case against Trump" F*ckers NEW YORK STATE ADMITS COVER-UP OF VIRUS DEATHS AMONG NURSING-HOME RESIDENTS
If you have been reading National Review for the past year, you have known that Andrew Cuomo was an egomaniacal, blustering, bullying charlatan who made catastrophic errors in judgment but whose reputation was protected by CNN’s prime-time programming and national media who desperately needed a heroic Democratic figure to contrast against President Trump. Over the past eleven months, you read about various details of the contrast between the grand illusion of Cuomo and reality from David Harsanyi, Pradheep Shanker, Kyle Smith, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Mairead McArdle, Zach Evans, Tobias Hoonhout, Brittany Bernstein, The Editors, a bunch of others I’m forgetting, and, ahem, me, multiple times. I would argue no other national publication did more to showcase how New York State’s government kept failing its citizens, with deadly consequences, during this pandemic.
And now we get the cherry on top, as the New York Post reports that the state government deliberately hid the figures on the number of nursing-home residents killed by the coronavirus, because they didn’t want the U.S. Department of Justice investigating them:
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/13/2021 12:21 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe Jim Gerahaty is starting to see the light:
What’s the theme that ties together Andrew Cuomo, the Lincoln Project, and California’s governing class? Since 2015 or so, a whole bunch of people who hated Donald Trump chose to believe that anyone who stood in opposition to Trump had to be one of the good guys. A huge swath of the media world, elites across American society, and donors large and small, conflated political agreement in opposition to Trump with all other positive virtues. Outspoken opposition to Trump turned into an all-purpose badge of righteousness that many believed would outweigh or outshine any other issues or character flaws.
When a society adopts this kind of mentality, bad people recognize this. They pick up on the fact that certain views or opinions or labels can be used as moral get-out-of-jail-free cards.
SO there is a down side to being a bunch of Never Trumpers.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/13/2021 12:53 Comments ||
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#5
Grifters. Just like all the McCain syphilitic spread of his poisonous "maverick" to make a buck philosophy in The Lincoln Project, which is now imploding in the massive stench of grifting, possibly illegal siphoning of money for their own enrichment (RICO anybody?), TDS-NeverTrumpism, and homosexual grooming of underage boys and subsequent coverup.
John McCain's cancer outlived him. I wish he had died in Vietnam as a hero instead of becoming a thing of treason and evil.
[Babylon Bee] NOGALES, AZ—In a touching gesture, Jill Biden visited a border holding facility and carefully decorated all the cages holding migrants with festive Valentine's Day hearts-- each one bearing a message of hope and unity.
"What a beautiful gesture," said CNN Anchor Brian Stelter as he wiped tears from his eyes. "It's so wonderful to have compassion and kindness in the White House again!"
"Just look at the looks on those kids' faces!" said Andrea Mitchell of NBC News as the first lady hung up a giant heart featuring the word "UNITY" on the chain-link fence keeping all the immigrant kids from escaping. "How lucky they are to receive a visit from our beautiful First Lady!"
According to several sources, immigrants being held at the border are thrilled to be held in compassionate migrant maximum security holding facilities rather than in "horrible cages" as the facilities used to be named.
"This is truly a touching gesture. It almost makes me forget I’ve been locked in a cage," said one of the migrant kids behind bars. "Just to think that the First Lady would think of me is so special"
Another one said "¡Sácame de aquí por favor!" which experts have translated to mean: "Thank you, Mrs. First Lady!"
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This article about the First Lady was written without the use of her proper title of "Doctor." While it's not our policy to change articles after they have been published, we sincerely apologize for this extremely hurtful oversight. The writer of this article has been terminated.)
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2021 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[6 views]
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#1
blech
Posted by: Chris ||
02/13/2021 1:42 Comments ||
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#2
The writer of this article has been terminated.
And by "terminated", we mean "executed", the only proper punishment for someone who doesn't use the First Lady's proper title.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/13/2021 10:09 Comments ||
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#3
After jilly handed out a dozen cookies to the 10,000 troops, I lost a dollar.
Another one said "¡Sácame de aquí por favor!" which experts have translated to mean: "Thank you, Mrs. First Lady!"
[EurekaAlert] When we tear a muscle " stem cells within it repair the problem. We can see this occurring not only in severe muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy and in war veterans who survive catastrophic limb injuries, but also in our day to day lives when we pull a muscle.
Also when we age and become frail we lose much of our muscle and our stem cells don't seem to be able to work as well as we age.
These muscle stem cells are invisible engines that drive the tissue's growth and repair after such injuries. But growing these cells in the lab and then using them to therapeutically replace damaged muscle has been frustratingly difficult.
Researchers at the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia have discovered a factor that triggers these muscle stem cells to proliferate and heal. In a mouse model of severe muscle damage, injections of this naturally occurring protein led to the complete regeneration of muscle and the return of normal movement after severe muscle trauma.
The research led by Professor Peter Currie, Director of Monash University's Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, is published today in Nature.
The scientists studied the regeneration of skeletal muscle in zebrafish, fast becoming the go-to animal model for the study of stem cell regeneration because but fish are quick to reproduce, easier to experimentally manipulate, and share at least 70 percent of its genes with humans. It is also transparent which allows the scientists to witness the actual regeneration in living muscle.
A good chunk of educated (or misinformed?) info
[JPost] On Wednesday reports emerged that Iran is making small amounts of uranium metal, which could be used in a core of a nuclear weapon.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in late January that Iran could be "weeks away" from having enough material for a nuclear bomb. An IDF intelligence estimate reported on February 9 that it would take Iran about two years to build a bomb if it decides to do so.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/13/2021 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[12 views]
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#1
I would go with the Israelis, our "intelligence" agencies have proved they are not as smart as they think they are.
Posted by: Chris ||
02/13/2021 1:42 Comments ||
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#2
Depends on how big the device is and how much excess fissile material (more than a truly well-designed device would need) that they are willing to 'waste'. So, a shipping container sized weapon should be 'doable' far earlier than one of those we pack into a MIRV warhead ICBM...
Posted by: Jomotch Lover of the Geats8047 ||
02/13/2021 2:49 Comments ||
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#6
Posted by: Jomotch Lover of the Geats8047 ||
02/13/2021 2:51 Comments ||
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#7
This article is ment to warn you....don't be surprised if this event happens soon... in the middle east or a neighborhood near you...
Since 1979, who do they want ...
DEATH TO AMERICA !
Well says a poster here today..Get Off the Cold War Stuff....
Son, You have been so Deep in a Cold War on so many fronts, you are either NUMB or NUMB to IT...
The more experienced of us are trying to teach you.
Posted by: Jomotch Lover of the Geats8047 ||
02/13/2021 2:59 Comments ||
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#8
That would be me, and am sick of hearing it for my 42 years. Never gonna change, Russia does nothing that we don't do.Starting to sound like the idiots in Wasington DC, RUSSIA this Russia that. Fuck, let them have Europe. Loom what Europeans have done to it.
Posted by: Chris ||
02/13/2021 12:10 Comments ||
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#9
Крис , с чего ты взял, что все это время не разговаривал с русским? Попытка просветить вас и улучшить вашу жизнь
#10
Chris , what makes you think you have not been speaking to a Russian all along; we have been watching you for months. Attempting to enlighten you, and improve your life.
[NotTheBee] So you know by now that Gina "Beautiful Former MMA Fighting B.A. Mandalorian Actress Who Happens To Be Conservative" Carano was fired from the show by Disney for a social media post invoking Nazis to decry cancel culture (irony alert).
With help from our friends at The Daily Wire and Breitbart, here is a list of a whole bunch of libs who did the same dang thing and not only did they not get canceled, no one gave a rip.
1.) President Joe Biden
2.) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
3.) Don Lemon
4.) Robert De Niro
5.) Beto O'Rourke
6.) Donny Deutsch
7.) Congressman Hank Johnson
8.) Congressman Jim Clyburn
Extra credit 1: Rosanna Arquette
Extra credit 2: Director James Gunn Details at the link.
[EpochTimes] Former "Mandalorian" star Gina Carano, who was dropped by Disney-owned Lucasfilm earlier this week, said she will partake in a new movie project with the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro.
Carano told news outlets: "The Daily Wire is helping make one of my dreams—to develop and produce my own film—come true. I cried out and my prayer was answered. I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob. I have only just begun using my voice which is now freer than ever before, and I hope it inspires others to do the same. They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them."
The former MMA fighter-turned-actress will develop, produce, and appear in an upcoming film that the Daily Wire will release to its subscribers, according to a statement provided by the outlet to Deadline Hollywood. Details about the project are not clear.
Other than Lucasfilm, Carano’s agency UTA also dropped her after she shared a TikTok post saying the current divided political climate is similar to Nazi Germany, comparing conservatives to Jewish people.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Federalist] To a hall filled with young men on a cold Illinois night in January 1838, Abraham Lincoln delivered his earliest recorded public remarks.
"and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded."
[Babylon Bee] NOGALES, AZ—In a touching gesture, Jill Biden visited a border holding facility and carefully decorated all the cages holding migrants with festive Valentine's Day hearts-- each one bearing a message of hope and unity.
