In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France is one of those books that, like Coming of Age in Samoa , if elite-school liberal arts majors weren't assigned them as sophomores (I was), they at least knew about them. By the time I graduated, I thought of Burke as something of a dilettante, and my opinion didn't change much after I was assigned A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful in grad school. At minimum, founding one's world view on Burke strikes me as building a house on sand, even if it was the thing to do among certain conservatives of the past century. But this is David Brooks. Two years ago but 50 years late, he discovered the Me Decade for himself in The Second Mountain , and last year in The Atlantic he declared the nuclear family a mistake . Somewhere I have some old books by Alan Watts I can send him. But now, of all things, amid the "devastation" of contemporary society that he apparentl...

Here's the biggest thing that's grabbed me about Jussie Smollett. He's 39 years old. In the accounts he's given of himself in the last two days of trial, he seems to spend his time driving around, getting stoned, and working out. You might expect this of a college sophomore, but shouldn't you have more of a life by the time you're 39? Second issue, derived also from his age. According to Wikipedia , he was a child star whose career ended about 1995, when he was 13. But In 2012, Smollett returned to acting with the leading role in Patrik-Ian Polk's LGBT-themed comedy-drama The Skinny . Also that year, he released an EP titled The Poisoned Hearts Club . He later guest-starred in The Mindy Project (2012) and Revenge (2014). In 2014, Smollett was cast as Jamal Lyon—a gay musician struggling to gain the approval of his father Lucious—opposite Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard in the Fox drama series Empire . His role was hailed as "groun...

The case of Jussie Smollett and his putative attack at the hands of two gay Nigerian brothers in whiteface and MAGA hats has turned into a comical data point that illustrates yet again that we're seeing the 2020 moral panic roll itself back. Although the initial alleged attack took place in January 2019, a full year before the arrival of COVID, it was clearly an early attempt to stoke the same passions that would express themselves in 2020's BLM riots: allegations that Trump and his supporters were racists, and violent white racism was systemic in American attitudes. lurking always just beneath the surface. It's starting to look like Kyle Rittenhouse's successful testimony on his own behalf will be the exception that proves the rule: for the defendant to take the stand is normally a very bad idea. But the Rittenhouse case itself is another indication that the 2020 hysteria is subsiding -- a jury was able to sort out the idea that Rittenhouse, a mixed-race naive 17-y...

Convinced that we're now seeing the end stages of a major moral panic, I revisited common discussions of the phenomenon and compared them to what we've been seeing. Wikipedia defines a moral panic as a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue," usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and the mass media, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Citing Stanley Cohen's 1972 book Folk Devils and Moral Panics , Wikipedia goes on to say, According to Cohen, a moral panic occurs when a "condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests."  To Cohen, those who start the panic after fearing a threat to prevailing social or cultural values are 'moral entrepreneurs', while those who supposedly th...

Not every discussion of moral panics recognizes a final, "morning after" stage, but recent panics like the day care child abuse controversy of the 1980s have clearly had one, in which the media, the legal system, and politicians slowly and reluctantly admit that mistakes were made. The resignation of New York Gov Andrew Cuomo, one of the chief moral entrepreneurs of the COVID panic, followed by the firing yesterday of his enabler brother, is an indication that we've reached that phase. No matter the ostensible reasons for their departure were allegations of groping. These are conveniently vague, and their enforcement is highly selective -- Bill Clinton got away with far worse, as (so far) has President Biden. We may assume that when it becomes convenient to dispose of Dr Fauci -- and we're approachintg that point -- allegatioins will arise as needed. Speaking of whom, the man himself seems now to be playing for sympathy. In a documentary relased this past Octobe...

As I'd surmised, the attempts by the public health establishment to incite panic during last holiday weekend over the Omicron variant have gone the way of the boy who cried wolf. The information that's coming out is that the variant had been spreading well before its "discovery" late last month. A Minnesota man contracted and recovered from Omicron by November 24 , prior to the South African announcement of its discovery. About 60 people who attended a holiday party in Oslo November 24 were infected and recovered with mild symptom s. All of those infected at the party - which hosted employees of South African renewable energy firm Scatec - are currently recovering at home, [public health officer] Ravlo added. The Olso outbreak - currently the world's largest-known Omicron outbreak - happened after several employees who had recently travelled to Scatec's head office in Cape Town attended the party. . . . [All] cases are assumed to be the new var...

The Ghislaine Maxwell trial is bringing out unrelated material on Epstein's modus operandi, as well as his high-level dupes and cronies. As a longtime Ferdinand Lundberg fan, this provides confirmation and insight for me into how the ruling class actually operates. My guess is that there's a great deal that hasn't come out over Epstein and his ability to manipulate the various economic and legal systems at high level, and much of it may never come to light. I don't think, though, that Epstein is a unique figure; Hunter Biden is a near clone as we speak. The UK Daily Mail obtained White House visitor logs from the Clinton Presidential Library under a series of FOIA requests. Its story here covers Epstein's visits in some detail. Epstein, who died in 2019, visited Bill Clinton at the Executive Mansion over the course of three years with the first invitation coming just a month after his inauguration in January 1993. The logs show the late financier showed...