As AP reports, a wealthy leftist sugar daddy has come to the rescue of beleaguered, bankrupt radio network Air America: Air America Radio, a liberal talk radio network, said Monday that it had reached a tentative agreement to be sold to the founder of a New York area real estate company. The network also said that Al Franken, its longtime headline personality, would depart next month. The agreement with Stephen Green, the founder and chairman of SL Green Realty Corp., appears to rescue the struggling network, which has been seeking a buyer since last fall when it filed for bankruptcy reorganization after reaching an impasse with one of its creditors. Any sale would have to be approved by the bankruptcy court. The company has signed what is called a letter of intent to sell itself to Green and expects to agree on financial terms soon, Air America spokeswoman Jaime Horn said. I love that description of Air America as "a liberal talk radio network," as if it were one of many such. Stephen Green is a brother of Mark Green, a particularly obnoxious leftist political commentator and landslide failure in a run for mayor of New York City several years
Monthly Archives: January 2007
The Pursuit of Happyness—Review
It’s not often that Hollywood depicts stockbrokers positively. That’s only one of several nice surprises in The Pursuit of Happyness, a light drama based on a true story and starring Will Smith in a modern-day Horatio Alger tale. Alger’s popular stories were all about the value of hard work. The Pursuit of Happyness includes plenty of hard work on the part of the protagonist, but we live in an investment society today, so in this film the emphasis is on the value of the investments—of time, talent, and money—the various characters make. The way he does so is through applying the film’s central theme: investment. Smith plays Chris Gardner, a floundering medical-device salesman in early 1980s San Francisco. Gardner, heading fast toward middle age, with grey in his hair, wants to make it in life—he is pursuing happiness rigorously—but has flopped at his work and failed in his marriage. He’s a decidedly poor provider, and the friction caused by the family’s economically dire situation results in his wife leaving him and moving across the country. Left alone with his five-year-old son, Gardner takes an internship at a big brokerage firm in hopes of getting that one big break. The problem
Is Rudy a Conservative?
In a very interesting City Journal article, Steven Malanga argues that "Yes, Rudy Guiliani Is a Conservative/And an electable one at that." Malanga makes a strong case for Rudy as a Reagan-style conservative. He recounts well Giuliani’s record as mayor of New York City, in which, as Malanga establishes firmly, Rudy supported free markets and individual responsibility, as exemplified vividly in his tax cuts , welfare reform success, "zero tolerance" crimefighting, and firm rejection of racial politics. As Malanga notes, Giuliani did this in what was one of the most leftist cities in the United States until he became mayor. There’s no question in my mind that Giuliani was a superb mayor and is a solid man of the right in most of his public stances. What many conservatives question, of course, is his record on social issues (such as support for legality of abortions, homosexual marriage, and gun control) and his occasionally unsteady personal life (such as his divorce from his somewhat eccentric wife). None of this, Malanga argues, should preclude conservatives from supporting Giuliani for President: n a GOP presidential field in which cultural and religious conservatives may find something to object to in every candidate who could
Sundance Controversy
A comment on our Academy Awards post below asked our opinion about the controversies regarding this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Robert Redford’s annual forum for what Hollywood types see as quirky and interesting films and what usually turns out to be a collection of rubbishy postmodern cliches. It’s a good question. First, some background, from a Chicago Tribune article on the festival: Child endangerment is nothing new to the movies; it’s just that audiences are more accustomed to shameless emotional peril and physical but non-sexual scenarios. But the kids are definitely not all right at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Prior to its world premiere screening Monday, "Hounddog," starring 12-year-old Dakota Fanning as an incest and rape survivor in 1950s Bayou country, drew intense if uninformed criticism, mostly from pundits who hadn’t yet seen the film. . . . Objections to "Hounddog" have focused on the drama’s theme of dangerously sexualized pre-teens; a rape scene, in which Fanning’s Elvis-loving Lewellen (shown only from the shoulders up) is assaulted by the local milkman, and the question of whether Fanning should have been allowed to participate at all. "Hounddog" is one film among many in this year’s festival roster dealing with child
Leftists Push for TV Censorship
The notion that the left is more liberal-minded than the right is one of those thoroughly wrong ideas that nearly everybody believes despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Consider, for example, the specter of censorship of the press. While in possession of the presidency or Congress for most of the past three decades, the right has done a grand total of . . . nothing . . . to censor the press on the national level. Which is as it should be. True liberalisam and a respect for America’s federalist system recognize that Congress shall make no law restricting freedom of the press, and that’s that. According to the U.S. Constitution, that is entirely up to the states, and they may indeed regulate public dissemination of information pretty much to their heart’s content, contra a half-century of asinine rulings against state authority in the matter by the U.S. Supreme Court. And the right has done nothing substantive to censor the media on a national level. On the contrary, the Federal Communications Commission under President Reagan added immeasurably to the freedom of the American media by jettisoning rules that restricted freedom of the press. The left takes a far different
Academy Award Nominations Reflect Cultural Shibboleths
The nominations for this year’s Motion Picture Academy Awards were announced today, and they basically repeated those made earlier this year by the Golden Globes. Dreamgirls was left out of the Best Picture nominations, rather surprisingly according to Hollywood insiders, and Sacha Baron Cohen was not nominated for his performance in Borat, which was not a surprise. (The Academy seldom honors broad comic performances, except those that are intended as serious. . . .) The AP story noted that ethnicity appeared to be a plus this year: With five blacks, two Hispanics and an Asian, it was the most ethnically diverse lineup ever among the 20 acting nominees. After decades in which the Oscars were a virtual whites-only club, with minority actors only occasionally breaking into the field, the awards have featured a much broader mix of nominees in the last few years. The nominations are indeed much more "diverse" ethnically than in prior years, and in fact much more so than the population of the country. A non-caucasian is now decidedly more likely to receive an Academy Award nomination than a caucasian is. Can affirmative action for caucasian actors be on the way? Peter O’Toole was nominated for Best
“The Curse of the Golden Flower” and Two Ideas of Tragedy
The Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang Yimou’s latest film to be released in America, is a brilliant motion picture that interestingly exemplifies important differences between East and West. Following on the heels of two superb, epic dramas released in the United States in 2004—Hero (Ying xiong) and House of Flying Daggers—the Chinese director manages to top those films. The Curse of the Golden Flower is even more visually gorgeous than its recent predecessors, which is saying a lot. Zhang has been making brilliant, critically acclaimed films since his 1987 debut with Red Sorghum. In Curse, the visual themes are even more cohesive than in the beautifully photographed Hero and Flying Daggers. Red and gold dominate, and the symbolism is carried through thematically, with red characteristically representing blood and life, and gold suggesting both riches and the power and beauty of nature, in its evocation of the sun. Black intrudes as the specter of death. Though these visual cues are truisms nearly to the point of being cliched, Zhang’s intelligent use of them, and the astounding beauty of the compositions, enable the visuals to add meaning to the narrative without being annoyingly assertive about it. As in Zhang’s other recent
American Muslims’ Protests of Fox TV Show “24″ Are Misdirected
American Muslim groups have protested to Fox Television for the use of Muslims as terrorists on the Fox TV program 24, CNN reports: Two years ago, Muslim groups protested when the plot of the hit Fox drama ’24′ cast Islamic terrorists as the villains who launched a stolen nuclear missile in an attack on America. Now, after a one-year respite during which Russian separatists played the bad guys on the critically acclaimed series, Muslims are back in the evil spotlight. Unlike last time, when agent Jack Bauer saved the day, the terrorists this time have already succeeded in detonating a nuclear bomb in a Los Angeles suburb. As we noted earlier this week on this site, the attribution of the fictional terrorists as Muslims actually makes a good deal of sense. After all, if you are going to have the premise that terrorists are operating on American soil, then Muslims would indeed seem to be the most likely ones to do so at this point in time. That much should be obvious. If anything, the program has gone too far in the opposite direction over the years, pretending that threats other than Islam are predominant. As Fox pointed out in
A Fascinating New Sport . . .
Another item in our Everything Happens in the Omniculture series: professional pillow fights. Reuters reports: Welcome to the Pillow Fight League, which has been drawing growing crowds in Toronto since it formed early last year, and is now set to export its campy fun to New York City. The league is the brainchild of 38-year-old Stacey Case, a T-shirt printer and musician who came up with the idea that people would pay to see young women in costumes beat the tar out of each other with pillows — and that women would volunteer to whap each other in front of a crowd. . . . However, they’re quick to point out it’s not really just about young women in revealing costumes tussling in front of a largely male audience. Well, maybe it is a bit. Rather like professional wrestling but with scantily clad women as the fighters, the bouts are presented as if they were real contests, and the performers adopt amusing stage personae: But it’s the fighters that make the show, and they come in all shapes and sizes, with names like Sarah Bellum, the smart one, and Boozy Suzie, who enters the ring with a beer that referee
Fathers and TV Fiction
In recent days National Review Online has published a couple of very good articles on the value of fathers, using cultural products as their examples and evidence. First, Kathryn Lopez wrote about Rocky Balboa, noting that the title character presents a strong image of fatherhood in his dealings with his son and with the fatherless son of a woman he meets in a tavern and eventually hires to help out in his restaurant. I would add that Rocky also acts as a surrogate father to several other characters in the film, such as his buddy played by Burt Young, and the ex-boxer he defeated in an earlier film Lopez quotes an excellent and memorable speech from the film, in a scene where Rocky talks to his self-pitying son: Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much
Black Coaches and Equal Opportunity
As if the pressure on National Football League coaches weren’t enough, especially during the playoffs, Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith and Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy are forced to labor under the additional condition that everything they do will be characterized as having been accomplished—or failed, as the case may be—by a black American. This Sunday, the two coaches will be leading teams in the NFL conference championship games, with the possibility that both will coach in the Super Bowl this year. And of course reporters have characterized this as a significant event, which of course it is, insofar as football is significant. But there is a thorn in the acknowledgment of the men’s accomplishment. Smith noted in a TV interview that he is forced to bear an additional responsibility because he is black. It’s unfortunate that a black American cannot just be a coach, or an entrepreneur, or a housewife but must be seen as a black coach, entrepreneur, or housewife. Americans tend to see each black or woman as a representative of a group rather than an individual. As Smith put it yesterday, I hope for a day when it is unnoticed, but that day isn’t here. This
The Only Kind of Conservatism These TV Writers Could Imagine As Not Entirely Repulsive
On the Acton Institute’s Power Blog, Jordan Ballor analyzes a scene in the most recent episode of the ABC-TV series Brothers and Sisters which he shows to be indicative of the mentality of big-government conservatism. Ballor writes: Here’s a speech gives to a group of ladies and donors (My comments are in brackets. The full episode is available for viewing at ABC.com here by clicking on the Brothers & Sisters graphic and selecting the episode marked 1/14/07. McCallister’s speech begins at approximately the 01:22 mark of the show): I barely left the house most Sundays . My mom would cook elaborate dinners for neighbors, friends, and sometimes people we barely knew. By ten I could whip up a perfect meringue, to glaze a pan, dress chicken . But by the time puberty rolled around I’d had enough. Football, friends seemed more important. So I told her I was done. I was a guy, I didn’t want to spend Sundays in the kitchen with my mom. And you know what she said?
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