Mambo Non-Italiano Episode II
By Tom Cosentino
I hope you enjoyed the first episode of Mambo Non-Italiano. I left you with the cliffhanger, the question of whether Cher gets an Italian pass for her role in Moonstruck. Moonstruck is a great Italian movie but did she do all that is necessary for the Don to give her a pass?
A West Side Story
By Scott Seward Smith
Willy, our retired super and part-time Bachata musician, told us that the street used to be a major avenue for drug dealing until Giuliani cleaned it up. He said that one of the local drug dealers once told him, after Willie refused to take money to not report the dealing, “the only reason I haven’t killed you is because you’re a nice guy.”
Dave Chappelle’s All-American Anti-PC Heresies Vs. Ramy Youssef’s Woke-Intersectional-Islamist Cousin-Loving
Check out my new article on Islamist entertainment at The Daily Wire
By David M. Swindle
I had a new article published yesterday at The Daily Wire. I compare and contrast the comedy specials of two American Muslims, and Ramy Youssef, coming down very hard against the latter:
Among the fascinating phenomena of America’s most prominent Muslim activist organizations is how they decide which Muslims to lift up and which to ignore. Compare two recent comedy specials. One, Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special “Sticks & Stones,” which is generating intense reactions given its choice of material — including abortion, #MeToo, Transgenderism, “the alphabet people” (referring to the expanding acronym LGBTQIA+), and the implications of the “cancel culture,” which seeks to silence all who do not adhere to the “woke” doctrines of political correctness.
Thinking about this hilariously offensive special brought to mind another recent comedy special that challenged different cultural taboos: Millennial Ramy Youssef’s “Feelings,” released on HBO on June 29.
The Pro-Life Message of ‘Avengers: Endgame’
By Alec Ott
To be pro-life means to uphold the dignity of human life and promote life, not death, in our answers to the problem of human suffering. When we promote life, we in turn battle the “culture of death” in this world, a world-view that promotes death as a solution to problems. This ongoing battle for life and death is played out countless times in our traditional stories and legends. In such stories, the archetype hero fights for life and saves the people from the villain who wants death, destruction and power.
[Warning: Spoilers follow.]
Abortion Advocates Dare Not Face Their Own Beliefs
By Alec Ott
G.K. Chesterton’s masterpiece, Orthodoxy, remains completely relevant in today’s world in spite of being published over 100 years ago. This is so partly because he tackles and eviscerates the contemporary philosophies of his day that are still revered to this day. One philosopher he took on was , whom many in his own day praised as bold and courageous in his ideas and writing.
Chesterton would have none of this. In Orthodoxy, he criticized Nietzsche for having “always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, ‘beyond good and evil,’ because he had not the courage to say, ‘more good than good and evil,’ or, ‘more evil than good and evil.’ Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense.” Chesterton explained that the use of such metaphors was the mark of “vague modern people” who would not dare to define what was the good of their own doctrine.
The Cult of Bonnie and Clyde: Lessons On How To Avoid the Worship of Today’s Killers
By David Churchill Barrow
In Robert Arrington’s review of The Highwaymen on this site, he laments the cult that idolized this murderous couple in their day, and wonders if much has changed. There is more to the fascination, then and now, with these two than just the “Robin Hood” and “stickin’ it to the man” memes (which was also falsely attributed to the James & Younger gang of the previous century) and, as Eastwood’s character in The Unforgiven observed; “Deservin’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
First, there is the “star-crossed lovers” angle (though Bonnie was married to someone else serving time, and wore his wedding ring up to the day of her famous death). This was amplified by Bonnie’s poetry, which was discovered in one of their hideouts, and made public. They make sport of it in this movie – and she was no Whitman or Longfellow – but it ain’t half bad if we’re honest, especially for common folk.
There’s No “Silver Bullet” for the Flu
By Robert Arrington
If anyone offers you the current version of the flu that’s going around, just say, “no”. Opt instead for a soft drink, a burger, two chicken wings. Whatever.
The recent outbreak, into which both my wife and I were swept, along with several others we know, is nasty stuff. It comes with fever, chills, headaches, muscle aches, a persistent and irritating cough, and loss of appetite. It messes with your sleep cycle and with your digestive track.
We’re recovering, but it’s a slow process. The doctor warned us it would be, even while the nurse practionier was telling us we’d waited past the point where TamiFlu would really do us any good. I also caught a lovely secondary infection that required a regimen of anti-biotics.
Fighting the Abortion Status Quo With “Heartbeat” Bills
Part 3 in an Ongoing Series
By Alec Ott
This past week, Amanda Prestigiacomo of The Daily Wire reported on the signing of the “fetal heartbeat” bill into law by the Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine. As a wonderful next move for the pro-life movement, the new law is intended to protect unborn babies with beating hearts from being aborted. Unborn babies’ heart beats are detectable after approximately six weeks of gestation.
As Prestigiacomo reported, a handful of states have passed such bills, including Mississippi and Georgia. And just to the south of Ohio, the Kentucky state legislature passed SB 9, and Governor Bevin signed into law the Commonwealth’s own “fetal heartbeat” bill. As summed up by a report from the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, the legislature passed several pro-life-related bills before wrapping up their session. One bill anticipates the overturning of Roe v. Wade to provide significant legal protection to the unborn. Another prohibits abortion on the basis of sex, race, or physical disability.
An Unplanned Conversion of the Heart
By Alec Ott
Roughly 50% of this country identify as being pro-choice, meaning that members of this group believe that abortion should be legal at least in the early stages of a pregnancy. I have often wondered how many of this group would remain pro-choice if they really knew what was involved with abortion. Rather than agreeing with a lofty concept of letting a woman have a “right to choose,” would they maintain the courage of their convictions if they actually spent time in an abortion clinic to witness what happens there?
For I hope obvious reasons, I myself have not gone to an abortion clinic for this purpose, but I have read the testimonies of women who have gotten abortions and people who have worked at such facilities. And just recently I had a great opportunity to witness the story of a former abortion industry worker.
The Author’s Dilemma: Introducing Morality Into the Writing
By Andrea Widburg
One of my cheap thrills is watching the CW show Supernatural. The interaction between brothers Sam and Dean Winchester and their friends, whether angel, demon, witch, or even human, along with imaginative and sometimes incredibly funny plots, has made it an engaging viewing experience.
In addition to the standard horror show and comedy shticks, the long-running show occasionally grapples with moral issues, in no small part because most episodes have the brothers and their friends killing “ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night.” Usually the monsters are presented as appropriately evil, but there have been times when these evil monsters have been trying to reform — and the brothers sometimes offed them anyway. Fun stuff, as I said…
