ED CURTIN—Thank God for technology and CNN that has alerted me to a new technological possibility with a report about a Japanese man, Akihito Kondo, a school administrator, who fell in love years ago with Miku, a cyber-celebrity hologram. He has finally taken the plunge and married Miku in a lovely ceremony in front of 39 people. Kondo seems radiantly happy and not at all confused.
Yearly Archives
2019
ERIC SCHECHTER—think I’ll no longer try to tell beginners the whole truth. But it’s not because I want to keep it a secret. I’d prefer to tell the whole truth, and I’ve certainly tried to. But most beginners don’t want to hear it, and don’t understand it. The deeper part of the truth is too different from what they’ve been told all their lives. It’s not just the answers that are unfamiliar: Even the questions are unfamiliar; even the vocabulary is unfamiliar. So I’m becoming a two-level dispenser of secret wisdom.
PHILIPPE BASTIEN—Ranging from savage to frankly humorous, critics are giving Gotti, a mess that aspires to be a memorable addition to the mob genre, not only a failing grade, but a distinction that could make it some day a midnite cult: one of the worst movies ever made. Watch out Ed Wood, here come Kevin Connolly and Randall Emmett.
CHRIS HEDGES—The elites’ moral and intellectual vacuum produced Trump. They too are con artists. They are slicker than he at selling the lies and more adept at disguising their greed through absurd ideologies such as neoliberalism and globalization, but they belong to the same criminal class and share many of the pathologies that characterize Trump. The grotesque visage of Trump is the true face of politicians such as George W. Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The Clintons and Obama, unlike Bush and Trump, are self-aware and therefore cynical, but all lack a moral compass.
JOHN STEPPLING—The USSR traded civil liberties for a society in which all citizens were lifted out of poverty. A society that can enjoy free health care and education, hugely subsidized housing, and free public transport and an absolute protection against exploitation. That is a real choice. If you are teetering on homelessness, (in Los Angeles today the homeless population is, at least, 75, 000 …and that has to be a low-ball figure) the choice is obvious. If, that is, those people knew there was a choice. Again, this new anti communism comes from people who almost never had to face such problems. It is a new bourgeois conceit to embrace leftism cosmetically, but reject it on a deeper level.
