Tag: California
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3,977 words
Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)
Although most Americans probably equate the term “lynch mob” with an image of a band of Southern whites hell-bent on punishing their black victims, readers of Swift Justice [1992] quickly learn that dark skin and southern geography are not prerequisites for the hangman’s noose. Power, prestige, and the press played critical roles. — Book review in 5 Western Legal History 256 (Summer/Fall 1992). (more…)
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January 25, 2022 Counter-Currents Radio
Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 409 Robert Stark on His New Novel Vaporfornia
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Host Greg Johnson invited Robert Stark (his Substack is here) to join him on the last broadcast of Counter-Currents Radio to discuss his new novel Vaporfornia, plus of course current events and your questions, and it is now available for download and online listening.
Topics discussed include:
00:04:00 Vaporfornia
00:05:00 Vaporwave
00:10:00 Literary influences
00:12:00 Nostalgia for lost futures
00:16:00 Political themes in the book (more…) -
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I found some intriguing perspectives in the recent batch of obituaries for Colin Flaherty, who died on January 11. They almost all recall him as best known for his internet videos and bestselling books on under-reported black crime (White Girl Bleed a Lot, Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry, et al.).
Maybe that’s a valid point today. However, having known him for 30 years, I thought of this post-2012 phase as just a minor coda to his career, sort of like Laurence Olivier doing Polaroid commercials in the 1970s. If you had to explain to clueless people who Sir Laurence Olivier was, you’d mention the commercials, and the folks would think, “Oh, he’s this guy who sells cameras.” (more…)
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California is well-known for wildfires — both in the forest, and in politics. The most recent political firestorm was the attempted recall of Governor Gavin Newsom, which rattled the derp state so hard that they dispatched the internationally-acclaimed ice cream connoisseur Joe Biden to stump on Newsom’s behalf in Long Beach in a last-minute effort to shore up his support. (more…)
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“If you call yourself the Wonderful Company, you’d better damn well be wonderful, right?” — Lynda Resnick
Lynda and Stewart Resnick are “ashamed” and “very sorry.”
What could record-breaking philanthropists feel ashamed about?
In 2010 the billionaire magnate couple purchased Justin Vineyards, a renowned winery based in Paso Robles, California.
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Shiva Naipaul
Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy
New York: Penguin, 1982In 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…)
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As an American, I find European theories about this country and its character intriguing (or amusing) — particularly those formed from intimate experience. Of course, such theories presuppose that there is and has been such a thing as “the American people,” or “ethny” from which to draw an assessment. I submit two, not quite antithetical, but competing European judgments about the United States. (more…)
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On a recent trip to California, I got to spend some time in Ojai, a small, rustic town, high in the mountains, north of LA. Ojai is known as an enclave of a certain type of California “cool.” Its inhabitants are the kind of people who dislike the stress of LA but don’t want to be too far away from it, (more…)
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Few recording groups in human history have left behind a wholly worthless legacy. But then there’s the Grateful Dead, who are remarkable for their ability to poison an entire music scene with their catalog of half-baked, consumerizing, milquetoast wannabe-radical jam band masturbation — and then get praised by music journalists from 1960 to 2020.
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While having lunch with one of my friends, our conversation turned towards his comically absurd experiences of working a blue-collar job in the Glorious Democratic People’s Republic of California. (more…)
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1,522 words / 10:43
Audio version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save target or link as.”
“The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.” —Ninotchka
If a red state like Montana or Idaho proposed secession after Barack Obama’s election, Leftists would have been screaming for nuclear war, (more…)
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California is the jewel in the crown of the American Union. Of all the states it contains the largest economy. Indeed, California’s economy is one of the largest in the world.[1] (more…)