Month: February 2019

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 11 – The Night of the Meek

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If you were a kid back in the day this was your favorite Twilight Zone episode.  Santa Claus.

Henry Corwin is a skid row bum who every year dresses up as Santa Claus at the local department store.  But Henry is overcome with sadness for the fate of the poor inhabitants of his slum neighborhood.  He goes to the local bar and drinks until he’s drunk and cries until he’s thrown out of the bar.  On the way to the store he meets poor children begging him for things that might make their Christmas less sad.  And he cries.

At his job as Santa his inebriated state draws the ire of a little boy and his mother who report him to the store manager Mr. Dundee.  Dundee berates Henry and fires him for his drinking.  Henry apologizes for his condition but explains that he drinks because his sadness for the suffering of the poor hurts him too much.  And he says if he could have one wish it would be that just one Christmas, he’d “like to see the meek inherit the earth.”

Later on, he is walking down an alley when he hears sleigh bells and finds a big sack full of gifts.  Amazed and ecstatic with joy he heads to the local Salvation Army mission and starts handing out gifts to his fellow down and outs.  And every package turns out to be the exact gift wanted by the recipient.  This goes happily along until the lady running the place complains to the police that Henry is handing out stolen property.

Officer Flaherty arrests Henry and calls Mr. Dundee to tell him that Henry must have stolen merchandise from his store and is handing it out to his poor neighbors.  But when they inspect his sack all they find is trash.  Flaherty tells Henry he is free to go.  Now Dundee berates Flaherty for his stupidity.  Flaherty declares that something supernatural had occurred but Dundee says if that is true, he’d like to see the bag produce a rare bottle of cherry brandy.  And of course, Henry produces the brandy as he leaves and wishes them a Merry Christmas.

Back at the Salvation Army spot he finishes handing over gifts to all of his neighbors.  One of his friends asks Henry what gift he wants.  And he says he can’t think of one but if he had his wish it would be to give gifts like this every year.  Wandering back to the alley where he found the sack, he sees a sleigh drawn by reindeers and an elf that calls him Santa and invites him onto the sleigh.

Later on, Flaherty and Dundee are walking down the street and see Henry and the elf flying through the sky in the reindeer drawn sleigh.  Overcome by the wonder Dundee offers Flaherty the hospitality of his home, a drink of the brandy, and says, “we’ll thank God for miracles, Flaherty.”

What can I say?  This episode is outrageously melodramatic and sentimental.  But if I can’t give Art Carney as Santa Claus an A then I might as well join the SJWs and join the war on Christmas.  The only suggestion I’d make is that this episode should be watched on December 24th with the small children of the family in attendance.  And to all a good night.

What Are the Priorities?  (Part 1)

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In the world that we find ourselves in, what are the most important things?  To my mind, the most important thing is to save the next generation from the poison flooding the world.  That’s education and protection.  After that I’d say the priority is to harm our enemies. Those seem to me to be the most important things.

Let me start with the second item first.  How do we harm our enemies?  We attack the things that benefit them most.  One of those things is the federal government.

The swamp in Washington is a double dip.  First off it is paid for from our taxes.  So, these vampires by definition are making us weaker just by existing.  Secondly, these useless people use their positions to undermine our way of life at every turn possible.  They attack us from the Education Department, the IRS, all of the regulatory agencies that force businesses to discriminate against us and micro-manage our every move.  In addition, in their private lives these blood-suckers donate this money we pay them to Democrats and non-profits that work against our interests wherever they can.  Thinning their numbers even by a little is a big net positive.  President Trump is working at this steadily.  This is a good thing.

Next on the list of things to harm is Silicon Valley.  This is a triple dip.  First off Google and Amazon and the others are paid by the NSA, CIA and the FBI with our own money to spy on us and gaslight us.  Secondly, these same companies, de-platform and marginalize us at every turn and thirdly these tech companies are havens for myriads of the most progressive and poisonous of SJWs and also import enormous numbers of foreigners.  Here there have been hints by the President and his administration that steps can be taken to tackle these problems.  But so much more can be done.  Deplatforming and active sabotage of non-leftist businesses and individuals are probably the easiest target for the Justice Department and the Commerce Department to attack.  I would hope to see more of that sort of activity now that the AG has been installed.

Next in line is the schools and colleges.  This also a simple matter of the Justice Department exposing and prosecuting the anti-male, anti-white bigotry that passes for business as usual on campus.  Every time a campus riot is allowed to deny a speaker the right to appear at a speech or rally this should be followed up with a lawsuit against Berkley or Harvard or Columbia.  Every time a professor harasses a student for not agreeing to a leftist statement unrelated to the curriculum of the course a complaint should be lodged and legal action taken.  And the other action to be taken is the purse strings.  The federal government must cut off funding any of these curricula that promote useless and damaging pursuits.  Anything with the word “Studies” after it is probably a good bet.  Women’s Studies, Queer Studies, etc.  This would also be very fertile ground since without a doubt no matter how little remains of these departments more could still be trimmed without fear of losing something useful.

So President Trump, here is your template for helping your supporter.  Read it and do it.

In the second part of this essay I’ll consider what should be done to protect our own.

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 10 – A Most Unusual Camera

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This one falls under the broad category of fantasy and combines aspects of a fable about karma with what can go wrong when you can see the future.

Chester and Paula Diedrich are crooks.  The night before they robbed an antique shop and Paula reads a newspaper article about the crime describing the stolen merchandise in terms that Chester sees as the real crime.  He complains that all the rare items listed are actually nothing but worthless junk and he’ll be lucky to get five dollars for the whole lot.  This includes a strange old camera with an inscription in a foreign language on the front that he found in the shop.  Just for laughs he gets Paula to pose near the window for a picture.  A few seconds later a developed picture pops out of the camera.  But when he looks at the picture Paula is wearing a mink coat.  This all very confusing until a few minutes later while opening a box that they stole from the shop they find a mink coat just like the one in the picture.

Later on, they take a picture of the apartment door and the picture shows Paula’s brother Woodward opening the door.  But since Woodward is in jail, they feel the camera must be malfunctioning.  A few minutes later Woodward walks in.  He has broken out of jail and wants to stay with them.  Now Chester figures out that the camera takes pictures that show things that are about to happen.

With this in mind and noticing that Woodward is watching a horse race on tv, Chester decides to use the camera to bet on horse races.  He’ll take pictures of the race track results board before the race and the winners will show up on the picture.  It works like a charm and they make a ton of money.  They go back to the apartment to celebrate and spend their profits on expensive toys like convertible cars.

While the waiter Pierre is cleaning up the dishes, he notices the camera and asks what the camera’s inscription means.  It says, “Only ten pictures to an owner.”  Counting up the pictures they’ve taken the crooks realize they only have two pictures left.  While fighting over the camera another picture gets taken.  It shows Paula in a pose suggesting something horrible is happening in front of her.  Chester says it must be someone doing something bad to her husband, him.  He assumes it must be Woodward and immediately produces a knife and attacks Woodward.  While struggling for the knife they both fall out the apartment window to their deaths.

Although at first distraught, Paula comforts herself at the prospect of all their money being hers.  She smiles and takes the last picture out the window where Chester and Woodward are lying dead.  She begins gathering it up when Pierre returns and informs her, he is taking all her money because he knows she is wanted and won’t be able to call the police.  Just then the camera delivers the last picture and Pierre informs her that there are more than two bodies out the window.  Paula runs over to see, trips on a cord and goes out the window to her death.  Pierre looks at the picture and sees four bodies and somehow falls out the window too.

This is a pretty dopey plot.  But it’s done with considerable humor and a modicum of acting ability on all parts.  Fred Clark who plays Chester is a pretty familiar character actor of the time and acquits himself admirably.  Crime doesn’t pay?  Sure, why not.  B.

Howie Carr Wants to Know if the MAGA Hat Victim Will Get the Star Treatment Like Jussie

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Up here in New England we had a non-fake hate crime involving a MAGA hat wearing individual.  But up here he was the victim.  You’ve probably heard of the illegal immigrant from Brazil that attacked someone wearing the hat.   Howie Carr is a local reporter who loves this stuff.  He goes into loving detail and asks when will the victim be on Good Morning America like Jussie.  Now ICE is going to deport her.  Does it get better than that?

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/26/howie-carr-lid-flipping-flap/

Vox Day Links to an Interesting Article About the Methodists Rejecting Gay Marriage and Clergy

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It seems that the only thing that prevented the changes was that the African delegates were unafraid to say that these changes did not reflect the Christian message.  Unexpected consequences of the left’s favorite buzz words diversity and globalism.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/02/africa-saves-methodists.html

 

The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 9 – The Trouble with Templeton

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Booth Templeton is an old Broadway actor whose twenty something second wife is cheating on him.  He is about to start on a new play and he is thinking back to his youth when life was more appealing.  When he arrives at the theater the play’s producer, Sid Sperry informs him that he’s fired the director and installed in his place young firebrand Arthur Willis in his place.  When Willis sees Templeton arriving late for rehearsal Willis hectors him about the importance of being on time for the first day of rehearsal.  When he repeatedly asks Templeton whether he is ready to step up to the challenge, Templeton runs for the back stage exit onto the street.

But when Templeton walks out of the alley, he sees a theater sign that says it’s 1927 (thirty-three years earlier than the present time for him).  When he meets up with an old theater employee from that era, he’s told that his wife Laura (his first wife who died years earlier) is waiting for him in a speak-easy around the corner.

Arriving at the club he’s shown in and sees Laura with his dear but departed friend Barney Flueger sitting at a table eating dinner and enjoying the music.  Templeton tries to tell Laura and Barney how shocked and happy he is to see them after all these years but they’re not interested in his amazement and just want to enjoy themselves eating, drinking and dancing.  When he tries to make Laura understand how important it is for him to spend some time alone with her, she just shrugs him off and continues to eat her steak and fan herself with some papers.  Templeton grabs the paper from her and puts them in his coat pocket and then begs her to listen to him.  She escapes to the dance floor and starts doing the Charleston.  When Templeton grabs her and tries to stop her, she slaps him in the face and tells him to go back where he came from.

Templeton rushes out of the speak easy and as he leaves the room; the music stops and all the people fall silent and look sad and the scene fades to black.

Templeton runs out onto the street and heads back into the theater.  When he gets inside it’s 1960 again.  He is shocked by the change and wonders if he imagined the whole thing.  But he reaches into his coat pocket and finds the papers he took from Laura.  When he reads it, he realizes it is a script that has the words that Laura and Barney were speaking to him.  Now he realizes that they did all this to force him to stop his nostalgic sadness and reconnect with his present life.

Now Sperry and Willis who have been waiting for him start complaining about his flight from the theater.  Willis asks Templeton if he is in the play or out.  Composing himself he replies that he is in but then tells Willis that he prefers to be called Mr. Templeton.  Then he tells Sperry that he doesn’t allow non-cast members to attend rehearsals.  When Sperry objects, Willis, who now sees Templeton as an assertive authority figure, tells Sperry that Templeton is right and he should leave.  Now Templeton has re-entered his life and is enjoying it again.

This is a pretty standard Twilight Zone and the ending is a little pat but I actually kind of liked it.  It’s probably the upbeat ending that makes it more palatable for me.  I’ll say B.