Martin Luther king Jr

Martin Luther King, Pussy Grabber

On the recording, surreptitiously made in Los Angeles, the subject can be heard: * giving his friends lewd nicknames * delivering a lengthy monologue larded with bawdy and even blasphemous puns * joking about the bedroom behavior of a beloved Democratic president and his wife A firsthand ...

Casablanca

Jonah Goldberg Goes to the Movies

I was too cowardly to join my anarchist comrades in their Reagan/Mulroney-era civil disobedience exploits, which sometimes involved throwing blood (real or"€”mostly"€”otherwise) onto some enemy's edifice. Instead, I fantasized about hurling paint all over Ted Turner's Atlanta offices as a ...

BBC Media City, Manchester

Beeb Fever

If Taki's readers know about Maclean's magazine at all, it's because Pat Buchanan alerted them to a trial under way in Canada in 2008 to determine whether or not Canada's oldest weekly, and its star columnist Mark Steyn, were guilty of anti-Muslim "€œhate speech."€ I won"€™t rehash the ...

Tragically Hysterical

I can"€™t believe I have to write about "€œcultural appropriation"€ again/now/anymore. But as another Clinton veers toward the White House, and a new Blair Witch movie debuts, why shouldn"€™t the Permanent Floating Nineties Revival embrace the other accoutrements of that decade, especially ...

Vincent van Gogh

Diagnosing the Dead

Beginning with Roger Fry's elevation of Vincent van Gogh to secular sainthood, the Dutch painter first became a middlebrow, then a mass-market, martyr. For those who find the Real Thing (or their idea of Him) inconveniently demanding, van Gogh makes for a passable Jesus, right down to the suffering ...

Late-Onset Lesbianism

Remember when "€œStella got her groove back"€"€”and the dude of her dreams turned out to be on the down-low? Well, there's something in the Million-Selling Lady Memoirists water, and that something"€”teh gay!"€”has struck again. Elizabeth Gilbert is its latest casualty. In 2006, Gilbert ...

A Liberal Dose of Hypocrisy

With Stephen Harper now resigned and retired, Conservative MP Dr. Kellie Leitch is running for his old job as party leader. To that end, she recently surveyed her constituents, asking: Should the Canadian government screen potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values as part of its normal ...

A Faulty Cloaking Device

It's hijab vu all over again. Each "€œnew"€ Muslim regalia hoo-ha"€”this week, it's the French burkini battle"€”makes me feel like I"€™m trapped in Turkish Groundhog Day. You lucky Americans haven"€™t been screaming at each other about Islam's wearable trash bags for anywhere near as ...

The Lovers, the Dreamers, Not Me

"€œOh, Jerry, don"€™t let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."€ I"€™m pre-crying. TCM's running a 24/7 Bette Davis marathon today, and although Now, Voyager (1942) isn"€™t starting for six more hours (and ending for eight), just typing those two sentences"€”the final words in the ...

From Scopes to Snopes

Being a conservative who knows and loves film, music, books, TV, and other facets of culture (pop and otherwise) can be brutal. I"€™m not just talking about the "€œI don"€™t own a TV"€ bumpkins on our side who"€™ve convinced themselves"€”like B-side barroom bores"€”that bragging ...