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Why the NRA is Right about Hollywood

By Selwyn Duke

Upstate New York’s Catskill Mountain Range is a bucolic place near and dear to my heart. It’s where storybook character Rip Van Winkle enjoyed his legendary slumber, and its scenery hasn’t changed much since he was born of Washington Irving’s fertile imagination. Yet, like Van Winkle, if I’d fallen asleep for 20 years when first arriving in that verdant heaven, I, too, would have noticed some profound changes upon awakening.

About two decades ago, many rural Catskill teens — sons of farmers and hunters and fishermen — suddenly started donning baggy pants and reflecting “gangsta’” counter-culture despite living nowhere near any large urban center. The following generation of teens experienced today’s recent cultural evolution and often sport multiple tattoos and body piercings despite living nowhere near NYC’s grungy East Village. Yet I’m wrong in a sense: those places were actually very close — a television set away.

Aurora and Romanticizing Evil

By Selwyn Duke

We may never know what was going though Aurora shooter James Holmes’s mind when he committed his heinous mass murder. We don’t know what kind of psychosis, or precisely what evil influences, he might have been subject to. What we do know is that, in wanting to be the Joker and not Batman, the villainous and not the virtuous, he reflects something prevalent today: The romanticizing of evil. And to whatever extent he was imitating art, this trend certainly is not art imitating life.

I remember when Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was taken into custody by U.S. forces. Here was this fellow, who we’d seen giving fiery speeches from podiums and talking about killing political adversaries, now doing a perp walk in shackles. No longer the strongman, he looked neither strong nor like much of a man; it was as if he’d shrunk. He looked pathetic — like any dime-store thug in a mug shot. It was then that one understood what writer Hannah Arendt meant when, after observing Nazi war criminals, she coined the phrase “the banality of evil.”

Evil people aren’t very interesting, but you wouldn’t know it from our popular culture. It serves up fantastical fiction such as the all-seeing serial killer Hannibal Lector, the superhuman Cape Fear criminal Max Cady, and the philosophizing hit men in Pulp Fiction. It certainly titillates and triumphs at the box office, but what, ultimately, is triumphing in the hearts and minds of generations weaned on such fare? What is their conception of good and evil? Which is more attractive to them?

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Imagine if the 2008 Obama Had Listened to the 2004 Obama...

 

When love was a warm toy gun

By Selwyn Duke

In a way, commercials can tell you more about how we've changed than history books. The other day I came across the following 1960s TV commercial on YouTube; it's for a toy set called the "Gung Ho Commando Outfit" by Marx. And it's a perfect snapshot of the America that, sadly, no longer exists.

A Time to Remember “Leave it to Beaver” and the America We Left Behind

By Selwyn Duke

This past Saturday, Barbara Billingsley passed away at the age of 94. For those of you scratching your heads but acquainted with 1950s television, Billingsley played the ever-gracious and loving, hearth-and-home mother June Cleaver in the classic sitcom "Leave It to Beaver."

The show, a hit that ran from 1957 to 1963, is a true slice of Americana. It entertained audiences with the innocent mischief-making and misadventures of its main character, Theodore Cleaver (played by Jerry Mathers), an endearing boy who went by the nickname “Beaver.” With his mother, June; his brother, Wally (Tony Dow); and his father, Ward (Hugh Beaumont), they were the ideal American family.

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Online Society, Offline Civilization: How the Internet is Ushering in the End of the Age

By Selwyn Duke

When people discuss the overall effects of the Internet, they will weigh the good and the bad.  On one side, they may mention how the Web, along with talk radio, has broken the stranglehold over public opinion the mainstream media once enjoyed; on the other, they may cite the pernicious effects of pornography, cyber-bullying or the loss of privacy.  Whatever the analysis and verdict, though, it never truly captures how tangled a Web we have woven.  This is because seldom recognized is a simple and profound fact: The Internet is one of the most powerful forces ever unleashed by mankind.

And That’s All He Has to Say about That: Tom Hanks and Twisted History

By Selwyn Duke

Stupid is as Hollywood does . . . and does and does and does.  And the latest example is Forrest Hanks, who has just managed to graduate — in the Tinseltown U. way of thinking — from moron to imbecile.

The GAP's Relativistic "Holiday Commercial"

While many wouldn't classify this GAP commercial as an "attack" upon Christmas, it certainly is an example of the demotion of it. It begins and ends with relativistic sentiments (using relativism is a more clever way of diminishing faith than overt attacks are) and lends credence to "Kwanzaa," that Festivus-like "holiday" originated by the brutal criminal-cum-college professor Ron Kerenga. Here are the lyrics:

Two, four, six, eight,
'Tis the time to liberate!
Go Christmas!
Go Hanukkah!
Go Kwanzaa!
Go Solstice!
Go classic tree, go plastic tree, go plant a tree, go without a tree!
You 86 the rules!
You do what just feels right!
Happy do whatever you wannakkah and to all . . . a cheery night!

Go Solstice? Give me a break. Hey, Sensitivity Police, I think you forgot a few people there. The are eight million religious/cultural/do-whatever-you wannakkah traditions in this naked world, and you wouldn't want to offend anybody, you know (except for the people whose culture you're destroying, but who is worried about them? They're not voting for the socialist, new-world-odor types).

This commercial is a good example of how moral relativism permeates every aspect of our society, something I've written much about. You "86 the rules" and "do what just feels right"? Yes, that's exactly what this society needs to hear. This should end well.

It's a funny thing, though, when I did what felt right to me and ignored the dictates of the politically correct puppeteers, the SPLC put me on their Hatewatch page. Well, I guess we can't expect relativistic leftists to adhere to their own principles — especially since they don't actually have any.

Anyway, I'm starting to think that "GAP" refers to something situated between two ears. And I guess they won't mind if what "feels right" to me is to avoid shopping at their stores.

                       © 2009 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved

Wild, Wild Kanye West

By Selwyn Duke

Everyone has seen the video of Kanye West running up onto the stage and snatching the microphone away from 19-year-old country music star Taylor Swift at Sunday's MTV video music awards.  West wasn't happy with the choice of Swift as winner and went into a rant about how Beyoncé should have won.  Now, just for the record, I've heard neither Swift nor Beyoncé sing and thus can't render any definitive judgments on this subject.  What I do know, however, is that I wouldn't consider it positive if an over-rated oaf like West was lobbying for me.

Soap Opera Actress Fired in Name of Homosexual Agenda

What happens when there's a clash between holy motivations and homosexual machinations in Hollywood?

By Selwyn Duke

If a recent allegation made against the ABC producers of "One Life to Live" is any indication, they could use some soap to clean up their agenda. Show regular Patricia Mauceri claims she was fired from the program because she refused to engage in pro-homosexual dialogue contrary to the religious convictions integral to her character — a character she helped create based on her own faith. FoxNews.com reports on the story, writing:

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