In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Ever since Bp Robert Barron heartily endorsed this past spring's TV series Mrs Davis , calling it "my favorite show", I've been anxious to watch it. Nevertheless, although he's discussed it in at least two podcasts, and on one, his interlocutor warns viewers that there are content issues and "don't show it to your prayer group", I can agree that it isn't a Catholic film. He says at the link, Now if you’re looking to Mrs. Davis for theological precision, you will be severely disappointed (and please don’t write me letters reminding me of how weird its theology is; I know), but there is indeed a spiritual motif of supreme importance that stands at the very heart of the show, and it is well worth plowing through all of the intense oddness to grasp it. It has to do with idolatry and, more precisely, with our tendency to create idols. Wikipeida calls it "an American science fiction comedy drama", which puts it in the same genre as...

Via The Washington Examiner , Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer turned transgender activist Lia Thomas is back at the center of attention after the national champion was seen on social media appearing to embrace the "Trantifa" movement. Thomas, a biological male who identifies as female, was seen on Instagram sporting an all-black outfit that included a BDSM leather harness and shirt reading "Antifa Super Soldier." The image of Thomas was reportedly shared by the activist's partner Gwen Weiskopf, who purportedly identifies as transgender. So who is Gwen Weiskopf? A quick web search brought up this photo and a writeup : At the link: [D]etails on Lia Thomas and Gwen Weiskopf’s relationship timeline & their dating history still need to be published in the public domain. However, sources believe the couple is still together despite Lia’s name beginning to trend over the internet after participating in female swinging despite being t...

There's been a minor flurry over Vice President Harris's latest blurt : The shocking gaffe happened as the 58-year-old vice president delivered remarks at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Md., on the need to build a “clean energy economy.” “When we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduce population, more of our children can breathe clean air and drink clean water,” Harris said, eliciting applause from the audience. While according to the link, the White House said she meant to say "pollution" instead of "population", it's hard not to think this was more than a Freudian slip, and she could arguably have meant what she said. A web search on "climate change population reduction" produces 185,000,000 hits, including many sites at the most respectable NGOs expressing quite radical proposals in ways that make them seem like bromides. Just this past May, an article in Scientific American by Stephanie Feldstein, the popu...

I found this piece via Instapundit, Why Match School And Student Rank? which echoes my own views on Ivy admissions, which were formed by my own experience as an undergraduate and the views of Ferdinand Lundberg in books like The Rich and the Super-Rich, which in my view is up there with Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and Milton's prose in both style and intent. His thesis is this: Elite colleges are machines for laundering privilege. That is: Harvard accepts (let’s say) 75% smart/talented people, and 25% rich/powerful people. This is a good deal for both sides. The smart people get to network with elites, which is the first step to becoming elite themselves. And the rich people get mixed in so thoroughly with a pool of smart/talented people that everyone assumes they must be smart/talented themselves. After all, they have a degree from Harvard! . . . People ask why Harvard admissions can still be bribed or influenced by the rich or well-connected. This is the...

Here's a news flash I picked up from my portal on the dark web that connects with the alternate universe: WASHINGTON (AP) The FBI announced this morning that C Throckmorton "Buddy" Hollingsworth III, a Washington Post editor, has been identified as the person whose fingerprints were found on the plastic baggie of cocaine that was discovered by the Secret Service near the White House Situation Room on the evening of July 2. Mr Hollingsworth was arrested at his Dupont Circle home before dawn on felony charges of cocaine possession on federal property, as well as. . . But here's a thought experiment. What if this had hit the news just the other day in our own universe. Do you think there would be one iota less speculation about the identity of the real culprit, and poor Buddy Hollingsworth would just be taking the fall for someone else? I can't speak to whether the FBI or the Secret Service has better credibility over there than over here -- remember that in...

What a surprise! Con-law professor Jonathan Turley angrily — well, angrily for Turley — ripped FBI director Christopher Wray for his prevarications to Congress as his agency and the Department of Justice stumble through a series of scandals. Wray offered only a “false appearance of contrition and substance” in a “maddening” performance, dodging questions about Hunter Biden, the censorship regime in which the FBI played a central role, and more. “He could have answered some of these questions,” Turley told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. “He just chose not to”. I could have saved Prof Turley the trouble, I knew that was going to be Wray's take from the start -- and I also knew the Secret Service was going to be at a total loss over whose cocaine was left near the Sit Room. This is a pretty clear signal of how the deep state sees 2024: they're behind Biden, and they're doubling down. So far, Conservative Inc isn't getting the point. Ryan Saavedra writes at the Da...

In Tuesday's post, I argued that the Democrat problem is the need to maintain an illusion that the New Deal coalition of labor, Catholics, immigrants, Jews and other ethnics, Southern segregationists, and Ivy League gentry is intact, when it has been disintegrating over the past two generations. Both parties basically need white guys to head the ticket, with the Democrats typically nominating a northern liberal for president and for vice president a southern conservative a la Roosevelt-Garner, Truman-Barkley, or Kennedy-Johnson. This could be switched out, for example Carter-Mondale with a southern president and a northern vice president, and it was the case even with Obama-Biden, with Biden at least thought to be the southern conservative, which he had been in the Senate. It was even arguably the case with Clinton-Gore, although both of them were southerners and centrists while in office. On the other hand, they were both white guys. This at bottom maintained the comfortab...