Category Archives: Popular Culture

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Popular Culture

An Open Letter To Barack Obama And Hillary Clinton

September 16, 2012 Rand Simberg 9 Comments

My film is likely to be inspired by a fascinating lecture I heard by the very Rushdie during which the novelist, who read Islamic history at Cambridge, explained the origins of that faith. He said it began with Mohammed’s ruthless and violent battle with the mother cults that then controlled Medina over local trade routes. It was about money then, but, as I will show in my movie, that war evolved into a kind of perpetual “War on Women” that has been waged by Islam since.

Interesting, huh? Good cinema. Action, adventure, sex (matriarchy vs. ultra-patriarchy), even a little meaty conversation like Lawrence of Arabia.

Don’t let me do it. There’s only one “War on Women” and you know it — the one your fellow Democrats ascribe to Mitt Romney and company. I wouldn’t want to undermine that.

So stop me, Hillary, before I write. The Bill of Rights is a fusty old document anyway, obviously subject to revision by an UN-approved committee of trans-global multi-culturalists.

Censor me all you want. I’m ready. I don’t want to cause any international incidents. I have enough sleepless nights as is.

But you will excuse me if, in the process, I think of you as the deepest of reactionaries. I knew you were a big time liar when you blamed the “right-wing conspiracy” for your husband’s obvious serial adultery. That was nothing compared to this, however. By blaming filmmakers, even the most amateurish ones, for the murderous actions of fanatical Islamists, you have placed yourself in complete opposition to everything our country ever stood for and to the essence of the U.S. Constitution.

They have no idea how they’re simply encouraging the enemy.

End Of An Icon

August 25, 2012 Rand Simberg 17 Comments

Neil Armstrong has died.

That’s a shame — he was only 82, which isn’t that old these days. No word of the cause of death. I’d heard that he’d been doing well since his recent heart surgery, so either there were later complications, or he just happened to succumb to something else.

The irony, of course, as it notes in the bio, is that he never wanted to be an icon, and generally shunned the publicity. In any event, ad astra, and resquiescat in pace.

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, my Facebook wall is all Neil, all the time.

Popular Culture

Phyllis Diller

August 20, 2012 Rand Simberg 10 Comments

Will hopefully be cracking up the angels now, if such exist. Younger people probably don’t know of her, but she was very funny in her heyday. She was ~~one of~~ the original queens of the one liners. Here’s a sampling.

She was also a great example of recreating yourself at mid life. She started out as a budding starlet, then became a housewife, and then a very successful comedienne (and a talented pianist).

Now let’s see, first Tony Scott, then her. Following the rule of three, who’s next?

[Update a few minutes later]

Here’s her first television appearance, with Groucho, before she honed her act.

[Update a while later]

And her final performance, not that long ago, at age 94.

The delivery is, unsurprisingly given her age, a little subdued, but she seemed sharp to the end. She was at her peak in the sixties and seventies, along with Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Don Rickles, etc.