*** This is about the former leader of the Proud Boys and Vice. What a kook: The Secret History of Gavin McInnes
In the ’90s, he played punk rock and helped create Vice magazine. Five years ago, he founded a very different organization: the Proud Boys, the far-right group that came to personify the vilest tendencies of Trump’s America. A former Vice editor interviews one of our era’s most troubling extremists.
*** Jason Whitlock column. Fearless: Scottie Pippen’s racial assault on Phil Jackson shows we need a war on Twitter crack
I blame Twitter and social media. I'm not joking. Social media apps are driving the racial hysteria plaguing the country.Once you admit the problem, then you can see how it perverts your thoughts and causes you to see every human interaction through the lens of racism. Once you admit the problem, then you can take steps to combat the problem.
*** Is Poe the most influential American writer? I would say 'yes.' A new book offers evidence.
Poe largely created the modern short story, while also inventing or perfecting half the genres represented on the bestseller list, including the mystery (“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Gold-Bug”), science fiction (“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”), psychological suspense (“The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado”) and, of course, gothic horror (“The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” the incomparable “Ligeia”).
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
*** The book-burners are still at it. Guess it doesn't matter that it was named Book of the Year by The Economist and one of the best books of 2021 by The Times and The Sunday Times. It's called Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier.
I won't be buying it because it's not a murder mystery, serial killer novel or sexy pulp fiction noir. But if YOU want to, it's on Amazon, which kind of surprised me, but good for them.
*** There's always some dinks out there to complain, but the Juneteenth holiday seems pretty legit and appropriate to me. In doing some reading about it I ran across this speech by Frederick Douglass regarding Independence Day ten years before the Emancipation Proclamation. It's long, but worth the time.
*** "Pretend like you care about something other than profit and power, precisely to gain more of each."
From a NY Post column: Woke, Inc: Why I’m blowing whistle on how corporate America is poisoning society
