Favorite poster from NR's "The Corner"

Maybe she means that people she's asked to have sex with always say "Never."

this is amazing. i really just don't understand the conservative life-world. this swings from reasonable assessment of facts to the most bizarre unreal assertions and fanciful mind-reading:

Polanski Justice [Jonathan Foreman]

It is true that it is fishy that the Swiss authorities have suddenly decided to arrest a man who a) has a home in their country, and b) has been going in and out of Switzerland for years and the authorities could have easily detained him on one of his many visits to the country since the U.S. made an international search request for Polanski in 2005. Their decision may or may not have something to do with Swiss efforts to suck up to the Obama administration or the U.S. government’s pressure on Switzerland to make its banking system more open to the IRS.

It is also fishy that Los Angeles’s politically ambitious DA, Steve Cooley, has suddenly decided to take up this sad case, and pursue a fugitive who apparently would not have jumped bail if a publicity-obsessed, criminally unethical L.A. judge had not broken a plea-bargain agreement. (See the excellent documentary Polanski - Wanted and Desired for a devastating reexamination of the whole affair).

That said, drugging a 13-year-old girl and then sleeping with her “consensually” is a very serious crime. (It is not statutory rape in its most absurd form as when an 18-year-old sleeps with his 17-year-old girlfriend.) It is a serious crime no matter how talented or famous an artist you happen to be or how much you’ve suffered in your life and regardless the general decadence of the age or your social circle.

So is jumping bail after you have been convicted of a crime.

The French don’t understand this because the French Republic is not yet a genuinely democratic society: It accords (pseudo) aristocratic privilege to famous artists.

(Poland objects to Polanski’s arrest for different reasons, out of nationalism and because Poland’s leaders are profoundly and justly angry with the United States for our disloyalty and ingratitude for Polish support in the war on terror.)

In America we generally do not forgive and forget a serious crime just because a criminal is good looking or well-born or well-connected (unless he is a member of the Kennedy clan) or because he has endured a terrible childhood.

We take the law seriously and work hard to apply it equally So it must be for the brilliant Roman Polanski (who has arguably never faced up to the reality of his crime or apologized for it).

That doesn’t mean that the courts shouldn’t show compassion and mercy once Polanski has been brought back to the United States but it does mean that he should be brought to justice.

— Jonathan Foreman reviewed movies for the New York Post from 1998 to 2004.

ok it makes more sense now. a little. xposts

YOU FORGOT POLAND!

John Derbyshire, a British-American conservative author and columnist for the National Review, has written a new book titled We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. The book contains a section called “The Case Against Female Suffrage.” Yesterday on his radio show, Alan Colmes asked Derbyshire to articulate his argument.

DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.

COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?

DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?

COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.

DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].

COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.

DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.

(Via)

I guess he's figuring that this controversy can't help but sell a couple of copies. Hope he's wrong.

Jonathan Foreman reviewed movies for the New York Post from 1998 to 2004

OH JESUS CHRIST THIS MAN TOOK ME CLUBBING IN 1988, ack, sorry. His late father was Carl Foreman, blacklisted screenwriter, BTW.

Ha foreman sorta goes out of his way to inject the crazy into some very reasonable thinking

posts very much in character

Has Derbyshire come out in support of Polanski yet?

Milo, it was a case of college friend's big brother taking me to clubs on last night of first trip to London; I am very much posting in the spirit of o_0 at discovering he's gone wingnut (although he was like a British Alex P. Keaton at the time).

http://auteurs_production.s3.amazonaws.com/stills/20145/zelig-1983.jpg

John Derbyshire's I Hope They Serve Bordeaux In Hell

Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse

Interesting choice of verb.

But he has so much life-giving milk to give!

If it isn't used, it just weeps out slowly, staining no end of button-down shirts.

...which brings us back to K. Lo.

hahahaha ew

Cue WFB, Jr., eyes twinkling merrily.

Where Is the Scorcese-Allen Brigade? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

People.com:

A nude portrait of Brooke Shields taken when she was 10 has been removed from a major London exhibition after police visited the gallery.

10/01 04:39 PMShare

not real surprising but i've seen this photo! lol richard prince!

lolllllllllll i was just coming here to post that. great minds

er, the k-lo post is not real surprising...the funny thing is that i have seen this photo

christ.

it's an extraordinarily unsettling piece too, isn't it? really something to see it in a crowded gallery, collective heebie jeebies, nobody wanted to get close to it.

ha it's art appreciation day over there:

Time for an NEA Grant! [Mark Hemingway]

An Ohio artist — and I use that term loosely — has a new gallery exhibit. It's apparently "a long narrowing tunnel that can be walked through, and he's promising that anybody who enters it during the exhibition, he'll attempt to rape." But the author's story about how he found the the inspiration for the installation really must be savored:

In 2007 at the Seward Projects Space in Columbus, I had my first breakthrough with an installation that was to be the prototype for this current one. It was called THE PUNCH-YOU-IN-THE-FACE TUNNEL. It was the same set-up as THE RAPE TUNNEL except at the end of the tunnel I’d punch the subject in the face instead of raping him or her. The impetus was completely reactionary to the current state of art, and motivated by pure frustration.

As it turns out, I ended up breaking the nose of the third person to crawl through the tunnel, an aspiring model. She went to the hospital and eventually sued me. Her modeling career was put on hold. The civil case was long and drawn out and the matter still hasn’t been resolved. To this day she still has unpaid medical bills. The point of this long aside is that all this took place two years ago, and I’m still having an impact on this young lady’s life, something not many other artists could claim about their work

Rape seemed like the next logical step.

. . . and the next logical step after that is a plane ticket to France.

UPDATE: The story is — thankfully — a hoax.

loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

HAH!

i mean come on

how on earth do you read that story and take it seriously

Next project: The Rape-Rape Tunnel

"The point of this long aside is that all this took place two years ago, and I’m still having an impact on this young lady’s life, something not many other artists could claim about their work."

^Telling detail here that this guy thinks this is how artists think

Newcastle police removed an 'obscene' Nan Goldin photo from BALTIC a few years back on the opening day; now a work chosen a year ago and publicized for six months ahead of the exhibition should, if objections are raised, be dealt with by some other body than policemen seeking publicity. I don't think they should just be able to come in and yank work unilaterally.

Richard Prince has been crepey for a while under the guise of high-mindedness; see also horrible 'auto show' piece with woman on a GTO.

AC/DC GOP [Jonah Goldberg]
No, this isn't a Larry Craig punchline in the making. Yesterday, in response to this great anti-Creigh Deeds ad, I suggested we needed a contest for other AC/DC songs that might lend themselves to GOP ads. Here are the most common themes/suggestions.

Fiscally responsible Republicans should run with the promise to get us "Back in Black." Or, they could use "Down Payment Blues" while running through a montage of headlines about spending, ACORN, mortgage stuff, etc.

Just about everyone voted for "Highway to Hell." 'Nuff said.

Lots of jokes about John Edwards "Love at First Feel" and so forth.

An at times inappropriate and often poorly articulated series of suggestions about Sarah Palin using the "Big Balls" song to out-man the rest of the field. Ditto "You Shook Me All Night Long."

And so on.

Jonah Goldberg, it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.

It's not a Larry Craig punch line, he reassures us.

Talking about New Zealand [Veronique de Rugy]

The New York Times reports that Obama just named the "openly gay lawyer" David Huebner to be his new ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

I always find it a little disturbing when people's sexual preferences make newspaper headlines (especially when it's not to explain that children have been molested).

"openly gay lawyer"

It says that on the plaque outside his offices.

lol obama won the nobel ... cant wait for reactions tomorr

Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Laureate [John J. Miller]

This is insane:

Swine-Flu Hype [Ramesh Ponnuru]

Do you have the nagging suspicion that the threat of swine flu is being exaggerated? So do I.

10/08 11:21 AMShare

---

10/09

CDC: 76 children dead of swine flu as cases rise (AP)

Health officials said Friday that 76 U.S. children have died of swine flu, including 19 new reports in the past week — more evidence the new virus is unusually dangerous for the young.

This, Needless to Say, Is Ridiculous [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Prediction [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Bibi Netanyahu will never be given a Nobel prize.

Hey Man, Sing Me a Song [John J. Miller]

The new Five for Fighting album, Slice, is out today. I've had a copy for a few weeks — that's one benefit of having written about John Ondrasik's band for NR and NRO — so I've had an opportunity to give it a few listens and let it sink in. The title track is about the power of pop music to make you feel a part of something bigger than yourself. It's kind of nostalgic, too, because it wonders about the erosion of common culture in a blog-driven world. Ondrasik longs for the creation of songs "that you could carry til the day you died."

Will any of his new songs make the cut? So far, I like "Slice," "Chances," "Transfer," and "The Story of Your Life."

Two other songs merit a special mention. They are both sequels of sorts. The first is "Note to the Unknown Soldier." It follows "Two Lights," which, as I've written, is almost certainly the first pop song at least partly inspired by Victor Davis Hanson. The new tune is about the anonymity of today's soldier — and a heartfelt appreciation for what they do and what they lose, plus a determination not to forget them.

The other is "Tuesday," a reference to September 11. Five for Fighting is a post-9/11 phenomenon; Ondrasik owes much of his success to the way his song "Superman" resonated with the public after the terrorist attacks. Now, eight years later, he worries that Americans are slipping into a 9/10 mindset: "Is Monday coming back?/Well, that's what Mondays do/They turn and turn around/Afraid to see it through."

Maybe if enough people list to the new Five for Fighting record, "Tuesday" will sway hearts and minds — we'll let its melody turn into a memory, rather than wish we'd heeded its warning when we still had time.

10/13 07:45 AMShare

Re: Slice [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

You've made a sale, Miller. I just bought it (and I never buy CDs anymore). Looking forward to it. I've never known Ondrasik & co. to disappoint.

10/13 07:54 AMShare

Now they've gone too far.

looks like payola to me

Oh god stir up bullshit scandal please I beg you

we'll let its melody turn into a memory, rather than wish we'd heeded its warning when we still had time

wtf does this even mean

lolololololololol

when did robert christgau start writing for the corner

"we'll vaguely remember how this song goes rather than vaguely remembering how this song goes after a terrorist attack"