The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Learning French,’ IYKWIMAITYD

Valérie Allain as Mireille Belleau in French in Action (1987) “Many have criticized the depiction of Mireille as gratuitously sexist. The camera often lingers on the actress’s chest and bare legs. ‘You’re seeing the videotape through a male gaze,’ said one female teaching assistant who asked not to be identified.” — New York Times, March […]

Kathy Griffin, Andrew Sullivan and Other Desperately Unfunny ‘Faggot’ Jokes

Really, @andersoncooper: I think she kissed your dignity good-bye. newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-she… — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) January 1, 2013 BREAKING NEWS: Andrew Sullivan is a risible caricature of overblown pomposity. DEVELOPING … — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) January 2, 2013 Next year, CNN should get Andrew Sullivan to co-host New Year’s Eve with Anderson Cooper and […]

The Winners Write the History Books

“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” — Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) “In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived […]

The Obama Age: ‘That ’70s Show’

In last night’s traditional Christmas round-up — genius! — I began by quoting Rob Long’s doom-and-gloom comments from a New York magazine feature about the post-election National Review Caribbean cruise, an article you should read in its entirety, if you want to be thoroughly depressed about the uselessness of our conservative elite: Wonks, pundits, pollsters […]

President First Person Singular and His Radical Cult of Antisocial Admirers

“[I]f we were going to define the left, at least in this country, I guess I’d say that it would revolve around something like people who were committed to the eradication of social, political, economic, gender, sexual, and environmental inequality both in the United States and around the world through the use of a variety […]

A Constitutional Right to Donkey Sex?

Lisa Graas remembers how Rick Santorum was ridiculed for saying that the same logic that justifies gay marriage as a “right” could also justify legalized bestiality. Many at the time mocked Santorum as a bigoted yahoo. Yet the Republican presidential hopeful was merely expressing what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had warned of when, in dissenting from the court’s […]

Furnishing Your Tidy Little Mind

Just wrote a long e-mail to a friend who, in reaction to last night’s 3,000-word rant about the nature of mental illness, described some of the emotional issues experienced by relatives of those usually non-emotive people with Asperger’s syndrome. Depending on the severity of the affliction, what happens in such cases is that people who […]

Criticism From a Friend: Can We Help Victims of Random Sarcasm Syndrome?

Dear Deranged Gunmen: If you’re contemplating murder-suicide, how about trying the “suicide” part first? #caring — Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) December 16, 2012 “We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and […]

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