The echo of the low dishonest decade

Why Was Hollywood at War with Poland?

The Left was very powerful among screenwriters in that period and many of the most unkind representations of Poles or Poland were the product of radical leftists, often members of the Communist Party. We must also remember that the Left had a particular grievance against Poland for several reasons. First, Poland was widely perceived on the Left as a reactionary country still preserving many of the characteristics of a bygone era. Secondly, the Poles had defeated Soviet Russia in the war of 1919-1921-a virtual sin to the pro-Soviet Left. Finally, Poland was the victim of a double assault in September 1939 by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Hence any mention of Poland immediately raised the issue of Communist collaboration with the Nazis and the brief era when Hitler and Stalin were allies. Hence for the Left, Poland was at least an obstacle and at most an object of hatred. There was no pro-Polish element in Hollywood to counter the Left’s powerful animus against Poland.

Reviews here and here

The Hefner protection racket

Previously:

"Hugh Hefner is one in a long line of preachy perverts"

Whitewashing porn

This is an old article but there is a jaw-dropping passage that destroys the Mr. Playboy's carefully crafted image:

Hugh Hefner’s Hollow Victory

Hiding in plain sight in the June 2001 issue of Philadelphia magazine is Ben Wallace’s essay “The Prodigy and the Playmate.” In it Sandy Bentley, the Playboy cover girl and former Hefner girlfriend (along with her twin sister Mandy), describes Hefner’s current sexual practices in just enough detail to give you a good long pause:

“The heterosexual icon [Hugh Hefner] … had trouble finding satisfaction through intercourse; instead, he liked the girls to pleasure each other while he masturbated and watched gay porn.”

This statement may seem either shocking or trivial. But it points to that which Hefner’s detractors have been saying for years: Pornography stifles the development of genuine human relationships. Pornography is a manifestation of arrested development. Pornography reduces spiritual desire to Newtonian mechanics. Pornography, indulged long enough, hollows out sex to the point where even the horniest old goat is unable to physically enjoy the bodies of nubile young females.

We are left, then, to ponder the original question: Why does the MSM protect and promote Hefner and Playboy? If journalists truly were the iconoclastic skeptics they claim to be, then, debunking the Playboy myth would be a thriving enterprise for the MSM.

Instead we get puff pieces that even Parson Weems would find overly sycophantic.

Flashman

A wonderful appreciation of George Macdonald Fraser's entertaining anti-hero.

Flashman and the Greatest Chronicler of the Victorian Age

Unlike Flashman, there was nothing affected about his heroism. I’d recommend his memoir Quartered Safe Out Here (1992) of his time fighting the Japanese in Burma. But he was more than a good soldier and sage commentator on the futility of modern warfare: he built his writing career, despite having no educational qualifications, to become through the Flashman novels one of the foremost experts on the Victorian era. History is never dull in the Flashman Papers.

A must read for lovers of true spy stories

No justice, no peace

The federal trial of the [LAPD] officers was as political as any trial of radicals during the Cold War.

Lou Cannon, Official Negligence: How Rodney King and the Riots Changed Los Angeles and the LAPD,

Yet the same MSM that never tires of telling the story of the poor "victims of McCarthyism" is happy to encourage even greater injustices if the target is a cop or other enemy of the left. (See Duke lacrosse hoax)

Watergate: Beyond the Standard Version

A couple of interesting items on Watergate.

Unified Theory on Watergate

The 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's resignation just passed. The myths around the Watergate scandal are many and deep. Like all bits of American history, there is the official version and the truth. We will never know the truth, but the official version looks shakier with each year. The reason for pushing him out looks quaint as our elected and unelected elite commit far more heinous acts and far greater abuses of power. Members of his team bugged an office? Heh, how simple. Bug the world like Bush-Obama.

John Dean: Behind the Mask of Sanity

It is really rather astonishing. We are 40 years past Nixon's resignation and yet the MSM is still promoting the crude "first draft of history" crafted by Woodward, Bernstein, and Redford.

The MSM does not just ignore the many interesting questions surrounding Watergate, they actively work to shutdown discussion of them.

Related:

An inconvenient book (Part One)