RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/they-loved-me-buchenwald

A week after Patton’s Third Army liberated Buchenwald, on April 19, 1945, the inmates gave a concert for the soldiers who had freed them. Fourteen Czech, German, Dutch, Belgian, and French musicians made up the band. The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles has the fading typed program on exhibit: There were sax, brass, and rhythm sections, and a sole vocalist—a Frenchman, Robert Widerman, who sang “In the Mood,” “A Tisket, A Tasket,” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” He also performed both roles in a Mickey and Minnie Mouse skit of his own creation, which had been a hit with the Nazis and kapos.

“We performed on the stage, in our striped uniforms, exhilarated by our new freedom, and gave the greatest show of our lives which hundreds of GIs and inmates applauded and shouted,” he noted in his memoirs. They closed the set with a “walloping version of ‘Tiger Rag.’”

A few weeks later, back home in Paris, the boyish but indefatigable Widerman, age 19, opened at the legendary Olympia on the Boulevard des Capucines, then one of the many Parisian venues requisitioned for American soldiers’ entertainment. He was the fourth on the bill, in an unenviable slot right after a performing dog act that always thrilled audiences. His first number was “Flat Foot Floogie,” followed by “Daisy Venez Avec Moi.” The audience wasn’t buying it. He was distraught at the perfunctory applause. “I had two more numbers to do, and I was having flop-sweat. I didn’t understand—they loved me in Buchenwald!”

The singer, who had changed his surname to Clary, took gigs all over Paris, working full time, dancing with socialites and prostitutes (“I remember one in particular. She was tall and looked like Joan Crawford … a very good jitterbugger. We had a ball on the dance floor.”) He performed in blackface. He made friends with Charles Aznavour. He relocated to the south of France and worked around the clock.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/netflix_ron_howard_do_seth_rich_a_major_injustice.html

“It should have been an open and closed case of a tragic robbing,” writes Gretchen Small in Bustle.com of the 2016 Seth Rich murder, “but what ensued was an alt-right conspiracy theory movement designed to take attention off of Donald Trump and put pressure on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

Small accurately summarized the thesis of “A Murder in D.C.,” an episode in the Netflix series, “Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet.” I suppose she could be forgiven her failure to know that Rich wasn’t robbed. The producers failed to share that rather critical detail, one detail out of many that allowed them to keep airheads like Small ignorant of the real scandal — the media scandal. In this case, the cover-up may well have been worse than the crime.

Although I do not know who killed Seth Rich, I do know that the media did everything in its power to discourage anyone from finding out. Ron Howard, a loyal Democrat, served as executive producer of this visually well-crafted series. Not surprisingly, the episode in question does little but showcase the media’s ongoing role as protector of Democratic secrets.

The Alt Right — whatever that is — had almost nothing to with the case save for a little internet gossip. Julian Assange, the darling of the media before he started releasing DNC emails, was the man who moved the curious beyond the “botched robbery” scenario trotted out by the D.C. Police.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-hong-konger-documentary-is-a-lesson-on-freedom/

The documentary, which focuses on imprisoned Hong Kong activist Jimmy Lai, sends an important message about the importance of preserving liberty and fighting tyranny.

The Acton Institute has released a new documentary called The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom. (National Review attended an exclusive screening of the film.) It sends an important message about the importance of preserving liberty and fighting tyranny.

The documentary tells the story of Hong Kong political activist Jimmy Lai. Lai left mainland China during the Maoist Revolution and fled to Hong Kong. There he founded Giordano, a clothing business that became hugely successful. A billionaire, Lai could have retired. However, fearing China’s predatory actions toward Hong Kong, he felt an obligation to engage in political activism on behalf of all Hong Kongers. Lai founded the pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily in 1995, which was shut down in 2021 by the Hong Kong government. In its heyday, Apple Daily was one of the most-read newspapers in Hong Kong. Today, Jimmy Lai is sitting in a Chinese prison.

Reverend Robert Sirico, president emeritus of the Acton Institute, said to the audience attending the screening, “Jimmy’s story is one that cannot and will not die in a prison cell. That is what we intend to demonstrate with this documentary.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/06/07/the-mad-bad-and-sad-world-of-gender-ideology/
“Ideological blindspots aside, What is a Woman? is a must-watch documentary, particularly for those new to the subject of transgenderism. It captures a strange moment in time when politicians, clinicians and the corporate world are gleefully promoting the lie that humans can change sex.”

‘Does a chicken have a gender identity? Does a chicken cry? Does a chicken commit suicide?’, coos Michelle Forcier, a consultant pediatrician at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Rhode Island. These strange questions are not part of some surrealist theatrical performance – they are responses to conservative commentator Matt Walsh, in his new documentary, What is a Woman?.

In the film, Walsh travels the world asking a range of people, from leaders in the field of transgender medicine to members of the Maasai tribe in Kenya, to define the word ‘woman’. Tellingly, it is the Western gender experts who are unable to give a straight answer.

Spanning comedy and tragedy, What is a Woman? provides viewers with an insight into those promoting and supporting trans ideas. It makes for a compelling watch.

Walsh’s subjects can be broadly divided into three categories: the mad, the bad and the sad. First up is ‘gender-affirming’ therapist Gert Comfrey (they / them), a young woman with the glassy stare of a true believer in the gender god (he / him). She informs Walsh, who is at this point playing a Louis Theroux-style ingénue, that ‘some women have penises, some men have vaginas’. She ends the interview with an awkward feminine giggle, explaining that she isn’t herself a woman. This exchange happens while Comfrey is sitting on her vulva, and apparently speaking from her arse. To my mind, Comfrey should be assigned to the ‘mad’ category. Apparently well-intentioned but batty – she has got high on her own gender supply.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/top_gun_maverickthe_right_stuff_reduxa_good_thing.html

“The patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned.  When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”

—Mark Twain

The new Tom Cruise movie that reboots his Top Gun film from thirty-six years ago is glorious.

While it may require a measure of suspension of disbelief, it is a blessedly old-fashioned celebration of America; of our formerly superb military; and, most important of all, of courageous American men — the kind of men that made this nation great, the kind of men (and one gutsy woman in the film) who are now disparaged as toxic.

There has not been a film quite like this since the original film except for The Right Stuff in 1983, one of the greatest of all time.  That film was based on the definitive book about the space program by Tom Wolfe.  It is a fabulous book.

The script for this new Top Gun is clearly based on the essential formula of The Right Stuff.  Top-notch skilled pilots, the best of the best, are brought together to be trained for a crucial but dangerous mission.  The Right Stuff was about the beginning of the supersonic transition to the American space program and the vetting of the men who would be our first astronauts.  Chuck Yeager, the man who first broke the sound barrier, was excluded because he lacked a college degree.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/netflix-gives-progressive-culture-warriors-a-wake-up-call/

The efforts of a woke minority to impose its narrow preferences on the rest of the country by force appear finally to be meeting some resistance.

Netflix has discovered the magical healing power of “No.” In a “culture memo” that was distributed to its staff this week, the company said what every company of its type ought to have said a long, long time ago: “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.”

There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?

It is remarkable that this ever needed saying. If you don’t like soft drinks, it should be perfectly obvious that a job at Coca-Cola is not ideal. If you don’t like cattle, it should be clear that ranch life isn’t for you. And if you don’t like people saying things with which you disagree, then you shouldn’t work at one of the world’s largest streaming services. Those who insist plaintively that they are “offended” have always deserved a heartfelt “so what?” And when the company for which they work is in the entertainment business, that “so what?” ought to be issued daily. “We support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with,” Netflix said in its memo. “We let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.” Translation: For the love of God, stop asking us to tailor our multibillion-dollar corporation to your pathetic, narcissistic, unfathomably irrelevant tastes, you fools.

Small though it may be, Netflix’s move portends a broader shift in corporate America and beyond — a shift that, once completed, is likely to alter our politics for the better.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/will-smith-apologizes-for-slapping-chris-rock-at-oscars/

Will Smith has apologized for slapping Chris Rock at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, after the comedian told a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.

“My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally,” Smith said in a statement posted on his Instagram account on Monday evening.

“I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong,” Smith added. “I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be.”

Smith closed his statement by saying “I am a work in progress.”