2,448 words
I appreciated Jesse Poe Holliday’s recent article about the struggles of young men to achieve manhood. He indeed captures the sense of aimlessness and cluelessness exhibited by so many young men today (and to be fair, young women are not showing up much better. Recent polls suggest that as many as half are rejecting motherhood, and I have seen reports that absurdly high numbers of young women are on some sort of anti-depressant of mood elevator drug.) (more…)
3,847 words
Matthew Bowman
The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill: Alien Encounters, Civil Rights, and the New Age in America
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023
The decade of the 1960s began with American society on a high. That high was reflected in the election of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a presidency which came to be called Camelot. The American social narrative at that time held that all problems, especially “racism,” could be solved through laws, direct action, and technology. (more…)
Joos van Craesbeeck, The Temptation of St. Anthony (1650)
Joos van Craesbeeck, The Temptation of St. Anthony (1650)
3,082 words
The New York Times quoted French social critic Jacques Barzun when they defined decadence as the “economic stagnation, institutional decay and cultural and intellectual exhaustion at a high level of material prosperity and technological development,” in a 2020 article entitled “The Age of Decadence.” (more…)
2,726 words
Jesus Revolution (2023)
Directed by Jon Erwin & Brent McCorkle
Starring Kelsey Grammer, Joel Courtney, Jonathan Roumie, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, & Anna Grace Barlow
Written by Ellen Vaughn, Greg Laurie, & Jon Gunn
The story in the Book of Acts is unique in that the events described therein have been recreated across many ages, in states that were unborn and accents unknown at the time it was written. (more…)
3,263 words
See also: John Wayne
Oh, Almighty God, centuries ago thou raised a magnificent Mission, a harbor for all of peace and freedom. This was the Alamo. Today we ask thy blessing, thy help, and thy protection as once again history is re-lived in this production. We ask that this film, The Alamo, be the World’s most outstanding production. We ask this in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns world without end. Amen. — Invocation recited on the first day of The Alamo’s production (more…)
5,403 words
Patrick J. Buchanan
Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles that Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever
New York: Crown Forum, 2017
It’s déjà vu all over again, folks. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is one of the takeaways from this fascinating political memoir by Pat Buchanan, who worked in the Nixon White House as a strategist and speechwriter after serving Candidate Nixon on the campaign trail. (more…)
3,863 words
If you’re old enough to remember your teacher threading film from a small reel into a projector about the size of a sewing machine, chances are that you’ve seen a few social guidance films. You might remember the deep and authoritative voice-overs which often narrated these flicks. (more…)
Robert Cuccioli as Ben Rumson in Jon Marans’ Paint Your Wagon
Robert Cuccioli as Ben Rumson in Jon Marans’ Paint Your Wagon
2,260 words
The Western dominated American pop culture until the early 1970s, when it suddenly winked out like an aging athlete. TV was infested with Westerns. Jonathan Winters once complained that though he loved Westerns, he didn’t like “fifteen of them in a row.” It sure seemed that way. (more…)
1,116 words
On a Sunday last May, while Minneapolis burned, my Yankee sweetheart and I indulged in a double helping of nostalgia. The engine that propelled us along this journey down memory lane was Blast from the Past, an American romantic comedy, now a little more than twenty years old, that celebrated the morals, manners, and milieux of an even earlier time and place, the America sacrificed on the altar of equality of opportunity in the annus mirabilis of 1965. (more…)
1,242 words
Although few readers of this site would disagree that believing you were born in the wrong body is a sign of mental illness, what does it say about those of us who feel we were born in the wrong era? (more…)
1,457 words
1970’s Halls of Anger is low-budget, tense, sensational, but real. Calvin Lockhart plays Quincy Davis, an ex-basketball star who’s happy teaching in a suburban high school until integration comes and he’s reassigned to a ghetto school, as are several white students. The principal, Boyd Wilkerson (John McLiam), couldn’t care less about his students; he wants more federal money (from integration) and a chance to get elected to the school board. (more…)
8,434 words
Editor’s note: This is a transcript of Robert Stark’s July 4, 2016 interview with Charles Krafft. We would like to thank Hyacinth Bouquet for this transcript.
Robert Stark: This is Robert Stark. I am joined here with Charles Krafft. Charles, it is great having you on the show.
Charles Krafft: Well, thank you; and nice to talk to you again, Robert. (more…)
2,365 words
Shiva Naipaul
Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy
New York: Penguin, 1982
In 1997, thirty-nine members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed mass suicide. A joke at the time went like this: “Why did Heaven’s Gate kill themselves? They had to keep up with the Joneses.” (more…)