 |  |  |
| 0:00 | -1:12:29 |
As we close in on the end of the year, Jonah’s rumination proves to be a pretty sizable roundup of all the news that has been fit to print throughout the week. In addition to discussing attempts to relitigate the series of unfortunate events surrounding Jeffrey Toobin, the inaccuracy of our current Cold War metaphors in regards to China, and the ongoing conflict over wealth inequality, Jonah also finds the time to dip into several classically nerdy topics. Such subjects include the accidental genius of bad Kung Fu movies, how They Live isn’t nearly as Marxist as the academy would have you believe (and the fact that they try to prove that it is “just helps to prove how dumb Marxism is”), and how David French’s taste in films has made Jonah a nihilist.
Show Notes:
-The origin of the “alien visitor” thought experiment
-A chin-stroking (so to speak) piece on Jeffrey Toobin
-This week’s Remnant with Matt Continetti
-Jonah’s “New Cold War” column
-This week’s Remnant with Scott Winship
-Remnant Episode 100 with Thomas Sowell
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
| 27 | 27 |
David French is wrong to call They Live a bad movie. He is correct that the endless fight scene is the worst thing in it.
Thanks Jonah, good discussion of your Dispatch content for the week. Curse you though, now I have to take time to see a B movie, when I already don't have time enough for the A movie list!
It's annoying when people bring up the Onan story as an (incorrect!) example of God's judgement on masturbators. God judged Onan for not standing in for his brother by making babies with the deceased brother's widow. The intent was to provide heirs for his deceased brother and children to support his brother's widow. Onan was just being selfish because "he knew that the child would not be his" by the rules/laws/norms in place at the time. This is actually recounted at the page you linked. The account in the Bible is more consistent I would say with coitus interruptus than masturbation. And whatever the method with which Onan "spilled his seed on the ground", God's wrath was not directed at that specifically but at his disregard for his brother's widow and his brother. Not a criticism of you particularly, it seems EVERYBODY, starting with the origin of the euphemism in the late 17th or early 18th century, up to and including Gladwell, misconstrue this Biblical story.
Agreed that social capital is a huge asset that's been lost by so many, from bottom to top of the socioeconomic spectrum. Busy so no time to expand, but I really enjoyed your interview with Scott Winship, wonky as it was.
And yes, glad that the Trump presidency is steadily progressing from in-our-face to just a bad memory.