Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Blue Yeti ·
August 11, 2011 at 12:07am
A rare three-guester this week, but then there's so much to cover. First, National Review's Andrew Stuttaford gives us his British ex-pat's view of events in London, Bill McGurn enlightens us on Obama-malaise, and economist John B. Taylor on -- what else -- the economy. How we got here and where we're going. Don't be too jarred by the open of today's show, it's just....acting!
The links are back and better than ever:
- A Clockwork Orange was first published in 1962. The film, directed by Stanley Kubrick was released 9 years later in 1971. According to Wikipedia, the film "features disturbing, violent images, to facilitate social commentary about psychiatry, youth gangs, and other contemporary social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian, future Britain." That entry will need to be updated now as the future has apparently arrived.
- Don't miss Representative Paul Ryan's new Prosperity Podcast featuring his guest Senator Marco Rubio. Somewhat disappointingly, they do not do any dramatic book readings, although they do discuss the coming NFL season.
- Margaret Thatcher was indeed the last British Prime Minister who had to deal with riots. Ricochet's resident Thatcher scholar Claire Berlinski wrote a great post on Thatcher's handling of the Poll Tax Riots of 1981.
- Andrew Stuttaford crossed the Atlantic to make his fortune. Despite that, he has been contributing to National Review since 1993 and has written on a wide range of subjects from post-Soviet Russia to Xena, Warrior Princess. Based in New York since 1991, Stuttaford’s day job is in the financial sector. He is a contributing editor of NRO. Read his work on The Corner. We do.
- The Royale Family ran on the BBC for three series between 1998 and 2000, and specials from 2006 onwards. It is about the lives of a television-fixated Manchester family, the Royles. It had nothing to do with the American series of the same name starring Red Foxx and Della Reese.
- Rob wrote a post on Ricochet about the BBC video he refers to in the podcast.
- A link to The Sun. The "Identify A Moron" section is here.
- Bill McGurn's piece in yesterday’s WSJ They Once Loved Jimmy, Too.
- There are several references to Jimmy Carter on The Simpson's. Some enterprising blogger has put together the top 5.
- Under normal circumstances, we'd dismiss Bret Stephen's Is Obama Smart? as pure link bait. These days, it's a fair question.
- Obama's bromance with Ronal Reagan was the subject of a long piece in Time earlier this year.
- The Kennedy's was a TV mini-series from 24's Joel Surnow. It was originally made for The History Channel. But the Kennedy family pressed History's owners, A&E Television Networks and The Walt Disney Company. Surnow stated: "It happened at the board level. I don't want to mention anyone by name. It's very simple to say that certain board members are friends with the Kennedys." Other reports pinpointed Kennedy family members Maria Shriver and Caroline Kennedy as the leaders of the campaign to ax the show, targeting Disney executive Anne Sweeney. It was later shown on the Reelz Channel and be purchased from Amazon.
- Like all cool economists, John Taylor has his own website.
- Do brainy economists read The Onion? Probably not, but here's the story James asks Professor Taylor about.
- Speaking of link bait, Eugene Robinson's column is titled "A downgrade’s GOP fingerprints."
- What do you think of A Clockwork Orange? A "great work" or "over wrought and obvious"? Tell us in the comments.
- Who wins the highly coveted, much sought after Ricochet Podcast Member Post of The Week? Why it's Charles Rapp for his post Democrat-Media Complex. Way to go Charles, we'll be in touch about your Broadside.
- Troy Senik wrote a great post on Ricochet about the Newsweek cover shot of Michelle Bachmann.
Music from today's episode:
- Title Music From A Clockwork Orange by Walter Carlos
- A Foggy Day by Oscar Peterson
The direct link to this week's episode (great for mobile devices!). But don't be a yob and subscribe. Don't use iTunes? Visit our Feedburner page for a number of other subscription options.
The Ricochet Podcast is proudly sponsored by Encounter Books and their Broadside series. This week's featured title is How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore. Available for all platforms at EncounterBooks.com and Amazon.com.
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Jun '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Thank you James for that reading. It took me back to when I read A Clockwork Orange. Man, oh man! Anthony Burgess was a great writer. An absolute classic book, and no doubt about it.
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Thanks, Cas. It's not until one attempts to imitate Malcolm McDowell that one realizes the impossibility of the job.
Burgess, if there's any justice, will be remembered as one of the greatest writers of the post-war period, even if he's mostly ignored today (except for "Orange.") He wrote two other dystopian novels - "The Wanting Seed," which still makes me think of swings between right-wing and left-wing governments as "Gusphase" and "Pelphase," and "1985," which posited a future of England controlled by trade unions, descending into mob chaos, and practically purchased outright by the champions of Islam.
He was also a brilliant comic writer, which few seem to recall.
Minor amplification before anyone nails me for it - when I said I wasn't one of those guys who advocates for currency based on gold, it's not because I love empty money, but because I think it will never happen, and any attempt to try it would be a waste of time. Or so I used to think, anyway. Soon, who knows.
("Gusphase" - policies based on Augustinian notions of fallible, imperfect humanity. "Pelphase" -policies based on notions of human perfectibility based on the Pelagian Heresy.)
Apr '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Thank you for mentioning Rob's Martini Shot... Today's show (We've All Been There) is priceless!
Jan '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
I'll quibble with Rob about conservatives whining about the media.
Yes, it's annoying if that's the only answer to why we don't win every election in a landslide.
But Rob immediately undermined his own argument when he offered his alternative, i.e., that we need to persuade the voters. Much as I agree with the need to persuade the people, how are we supposed to do that if the media does, in fact, distort our attempts at persuasion?
May '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Nobody likes a whiner (See: Obama, B.). As for getting the message out the media is still a business and they've never turned down a paid campaign ad.
Mar '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
I've never read the book, but the movie certainly didn't come off as an indictment of the nanny state to me. Did the book?
Nov '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
I'll second Cas's comments above.
And may I highly recommend people have a look at Theodore Dalyrmple's article on Anthony Burgess.
Jun '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
James, If you can get a copy you will probably like The Kingdom of the Wicked by Burgess also. Burgess recreates Rome of the early Christian period, in a very vivid and memorable way.
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Cas: there are two Burgess books I haven't read - "This Man and Music," and "A Dead Man in Deptford," and I'm reading both now. ;)
Lux: thanks for the heads-up on that. Can't wait to read it.
Nov '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
I only knew A Clockwork Orange as a movie, which I loathed with a flaming purple passion. Until this thread I didn't realize that the man who wrote that book also wrote my second favorite translation of Cyrano de Bergerac (top honors go to Brian Hooker). Huh. Those are two very...different works. Wow.
Jan '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
You're right. We should take it in silence. God forbid we should criticize the media. Sorry, EJ, with great respect, that's just a different form of media worship.
Are you suggesting that we pay the media to run an ad ... and watch their news division distort or contradict the message we paid for? We should pay them for the privilege? That's not a business; that's a racket.
____
As I said, if complaining about the media is all you've got, that's whining. But one of the reasons why conservatives have any voice at all (as Peter pointed out in the podcast) is that we don't supinely accept that the media is liberal and we might as well get used to it. The days of accepting whatever slop the media doles out are over.
Apr '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Not sure if Burgess had not gotten past the non-existent brain tumor by the time he wrote Clockwork. Another interesting thing comes up if you Wikipedia Walter Carlos. He is apparently now Wendy Carlos after undergoing gender reassignment.
Dec '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Bad link for Bret Stephen's Is Obama Smart?. It goes to the next link for Time.
May '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
In describing the riots, you used two euphemisms I detest: "underprivileged"; and "impoverished".
Both are inaccurate; the latter is pernicious.
If anything, modern rioters are overpriviliged and often riot to maintain ill-gotten privilege.
The term “impoverish” is an active verb and implies that an external actor has imposed poverty on someone previously not in poverty. A true case of impoverishment would justify a violent response against the impoverishing actor. False use of the term feeds all sorts of fictions and justifies riotous violence against persons (e.g., local shopkeepers and Conservatives) who were not responsible for any poverty of the rioters.
Aug '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
James Lileks: Cas: there are two Burgess books I haven't read - "This Man and Music," and "A Dead Man in Deptford," and I'm reading both now. ;)
Lux: thanks for the heads-up on that. Can't wait to read it. · Aug 10 at 8:16pm
After reading Clockwork Orange, I kept the book around as a reference tool because of the great glossary in the back for the russo-anglo lingo Burgess had coined for the ouevre ( with cheese and ham). Old friends will occasionally break into nadsat. I have a series of nudes (and a wonderful wife who lets me keep them on the wall) done by the Allen Jones , who designed the Korova Milkbar. Nothing like living with reminders of that madcap time.
Seeing the word Deptford, brings to mind another great 70's cycle of literature. Did you ever read The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies ? Great stuff for a scrambled brain. Sort of like reading Hesse while listening to Holst.
Jun '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Blue Yeti:
Bill McGurn nails it exactly. "Smart" to a liberal means nothing more than "I agree." No empirical evidence is necessary. If you disagree, then you are obviously "dumb." But there's another aspect to Obama that needs to be mentioned. He's poorly educated. The president lacks for the ordinary knowledge that should be a prerequisite for his position as a national leader. It's pronounced "core-man," Mr. President. And no, the people of Afghanistan don't speak Arabic. The man is so unqualified on so many levels that it's mind-boggling.
Edited on August 11, 2011 at 5:05pmJan '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
James Lileks referred to Jimmy Carter as a nuclear scientist. I believe that it was Edward Teller (on a Firing Line episode with Bill Buckley) who made the point that Carter was a nuclear engineer, and that there were two types of engineers-- one type designs the machines and the other type runs the machines.
Apr '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
I would like to second what Peter said about Rob's quip regarding the constitution: "Not so fast smarty pants" more brilliant than you might first suspect
Edited on August 13, 2011 at 9:12amNov '10
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
Because James opened the podcast reading from A Clockwork Orange, I'm assuming that this episode is fair game for a pop culture reference (sadly, the only kind of reference I can normally manage).
I loved Rob's comment that the best efforts of the British legacy press to frame the riots keep being undermined by the rioters themselves. Joss Whedon's brilliant Serenity came immediately to mind: "You can't stop the signal."
Of course Serenity is brilliant for another reason: It might as well be a big, shiny promo for Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson and the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences--exactly what Big Government types on both sides of the pond have been doing for decades. In the words of Serenity's lead character, "Sure as I know anything, I know this: They will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people...better. And I do not hold to that." Will we never learn this simple lesson?
So I leave Whedon fans with this thought: British rioters = Reavers?
Aug '11
Re: Ricochet Podcast #81: Like Clockwork
There is far too much time spent on finding the causes of the London riots, & not enough time spent on some basic, crude & time-tested ways of bringing it to a rapid halt. Case in point: there is a law on the books in Colorado that says that catching a person in the act of committing arson is justification for homicide. There is also a long history world-wide that looters can be shot on site. I'm not even talking about private citizens getting involved like this, though it has happened historically & courts have sided with the law abiding citizen protecting life & property.
Certainly the police can & should be permanently dispatching with arsonists & looters. We already had at least once case of an inocent man in London being murdered while attempting to protect himself or his property. My gut feel is that if the police had killed a few arsonists or looters on the first night, the odds are good that the second and future nights of rioting would simply not have occurred.