Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
This week, Sonny Bunch, the venerable co-host of The Weekly Sub-Standard podcast sits in for the TV making Rob Long (he’ll be back for the next show, promise!). The boy cover the AHCA debacle, why the Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters of The Third Kind is a terrible person, ruminate on the many different cuts of Blade Runner that vastly the movie’s legacy, debate the greatness or lack thereof of Stephen King, and Jonah pushes Sonny to defend an ongoing theory in The Weekly Substandard’s podcast that the Empire in the Star Wars movies are actually the GOOD guys. Huh?
Subscribe to GLoP Culture in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
The Substandard podcast is garbage! j/k ;)
John considers 2.1% GDP growth to be good? Time to crack open the econ books, chief – there’s plenty to complain about. GDP is not median household income, for example.
I love GLoP, I loved hearing Mr. Podhoretz tell about his father singing “Sonny Boy” (my mom used to sing it to me, changing the lyrics to fit my sex). But you don’t get Trump or Trump voters.
Aside from being so corrupt that she could give Idi Amin a run for his money, Hillary Clinton is a person who thinks that churches and ministers ought to be forced to support abortion and gay marriage (any guesses about what happens when a person like that achieves true power?), supported by progressives (all of whom have replaced religion and God with their own religion that changes every fifteen minutes and is defined by who ought to be hated and punished). Hillary Clinton and all her friends and relations hate us, and they will kill us if they get a chance. If they can’t kill us, they will drive us out of business, as they have driven us out of show business, large corporations, government service (except for the military, they are strangely reluctant to lay their own lives on the line), and academia.
Donald Trump vs Holodomor? Donald Trump, every time. Donald Trump vs Mao Tse-Tung in a pantsuit? Trump, absolutely.
You make fun of Michael Anton, but the Flight 93 election essay resonated here in flyover country, maybe because things are closer to the bone, and maybe because our communities are smaller and poorer and less resilient than the coasts.
Can confirm, Sonny Bunch on Twitter is truly world-class trolling.
Ok, I’ll bite: Why exactly should we root for the empire in Star Wars or support (morally or otherwise) the annihilation of the planet Alderan (sp?)?
Here’s the original Jonathan Last piece. The Weekly Standard crew have written lots of tongue-and-cheek additions since 2002.
Thanks!
Breaking news: the Sorbonne hasn’t been a top-tier institution in many, many many years.
Rob went there many, many years ago (mid 90’s, I believe).
So how shall we interpret the relative dearth of comments here? A protest against Rob Long being MIA? Horror at the presence of Sunny Bunch?
I’d say lack of comments for popular content like the GLOP podcast indicates members in general agreement with little to add. If folks were in vehement disagreement they’d comment, and if they heard something they agreed with and had an anecdote or extra point they wanted to make they’d comment.
Dunno if you check the comments & discussion here often, but many of the more pro-Trump members tend to avoid the podcasts due to the criticisms of Trump.
From the host’s perspective, a dearth or surplus of comments should both be interpreted positively.
Either they agree with you (dearth) or semi-secretly love you (surplus).
This must make for very pleasant Sundays.
PS: Sunny/Sonny was great.
I listend to this bunch today on a road trip and was reminded by my wife why I can’t play them when she’s in the car. I think I’m beginning to figure these guys out. They are so immersed in the NY Washington media environment they can’t help but to be totally shaped by Democrat spin and false narratives. They offer no analysis other than taking as fact Democrats narratives as seen through their distaste for Trumps crass non intellectual approach to all things they care about. They are shallow because they have no sources nor analysis other than media and the media is almost all anti Trump and soft on Progressive totalitarianism.
You’ve cracked the code. These guys are totally soft on Progressive Totalitarianism.
LOL.
I’m just now listening to this, and I have to object to some of what was said about Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Interstellar.
Regarding the CE special edition: you’re misremembering it. It included numerous extended and additional sequences (perhaps most notably, the Cotopaxi sequence in the Gobi Desert), all of which Spielberg had originally intended but hadn’t had the budget for. He included the mothership sequence against his will, because the studio wouldn’t fund the SE otherwise. The more recent director’s cut, which is readily available on disc, omits it.
Regarding Interstellar: it seems clear to me that Cooper (McConaughey’s character) is heartbroken at leaving his daughter, especially since they part so unhappily; and he’s doing it only so she can have a future. He is brought to tears by the video messages he receives from home, and all he wants at the end of the film is to get back to her (or never to have gone in the first place). That was the emotional heart of the film, and I’m surprised that anyone could so completely miss it.
I think this was the podcast where we finally got to see what happened when John got to talk as much as he wanted.