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This week, the books Jonah didn’t write, an ode to our friends to the north, The New Republic, Rolling Stone, the spending bill aka the Cromnibus, the Sony hack, and the GLoP picks for the best movies and TV of 2014. Happy Hanukkah to all, and to all a good night.
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Stop the presses, EJHill.
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Just so we’re clear about which Canadians deserve mockery and which do not…
I pretty sure that picture of Rob is Photoshopped. The light sources are all wrong.
I’m really into Conan right now.
Correction on Robert E. Howard: he killed himself in 1936, not in the 1920s.
Jonah is exactly correct. Thulsa Doom was a Kull villain. That character didn’t actually appear in a published story (called Delcardes’ Cat) until the 1960s. Thulsa Doom was a skull headed, apparently undead, sorcerer.
James Earl Jones character had more in common with Thoth-Amon, a priest of Set (the snake god) that was Conan’s enemy in the pulp stories. My understanding is they cast a black actor with blue eye contacts and a straight hair because Thulsa Doom was supposed to be one of the last survivors of an extinct race. Howard was really big into ancient races with glorious histories that are now a shadow of their former selves.
I think the film makers made a good decision mixing up the elements from the stories to get the villain they wanted. That’s what Howard would have done it, I think.
There’s no way to write or talk about rape without it being awkward. The half hour that the guys spent on the Rolling Stone situation was as difficult to listen to as it was for them to plow through it.
What has always amazed me though is the cultural phenomenon known as General Hospital.
But it wasn’t just a rape. They turned it into a romance. The song that played during the rape scene, Rise by trumpeter Herb Alpert, was pushed to #1 on the Billboard chart due to the exposure on the show.
The rape of Laura Webber by Luke Spencer created a three-year story arc that culminated in their wedding – an event that was watched by 30 million viewers and saw the participation of one Elizabeth Taylor.
It’s been been over 30 years and I still can not fathom it. How could that many people find rape so romantic? And no one can tell me that it was America’s misogynistic men that were watching. This was America’s women that swallowed that thing hook, line and sinker.
After leaving to play another character on The Young and the Restless, Genie Francis keeps returning to the role. Anthony Geary is still playing America’s favorite rapist and is closing in on 900 episodes.
It boggles the mind.
Answer: it wasn’t rape-rape. It was seduction.
I haven’t listened yet, but Mr. Hill’s graphic reminds me of how much I resent the Clinton’s for ruining Fleetwood Mac for me. Every time I hear, “don’t stop etc,” I have the awful flashback of Bill and Hill, Al and Tipper jumping up and down on stage at the convention. And that look on the former first lady’s face. Shudder.
So they went to the shaggy school of apology?
Wow, talk about burying the lead! The willfully ignorant Rob Long and Jonah Goldberg might have missed it but I certainly didn’t. I suppose its merely a coincidence that the camp John Podhoretz attended was located in HALIBURTON, Ontario. I think not ! I can just picture the sneering Camp Counselor Dick Cheney looking over the 8 year old John’s shoulder as they develop the evil master plan for the conservative takeover of the world while torturing puppies.
J’accuse !!!
I’d like to thank the editors for having the common sense not to call it “The Rape Show” or “30 minutes of Rape”, despite them being them being natural soundbites and obvious clickbait.
As a matter of fact, was going to respond to EjHill and Matede, but couldn’t write anything that wasn’t super heavy, so jumping off wildly on a tangent.
I think I’ve finally found a reason to be glad Obama won in 2012; if he hadn’t, they’d be calling it the Mitt Romneybus.
I was going to add to the Luke/Laura memory by mentioning this song, which I always thought was written for the General Hospital character. But Wikipedia says that, while it became associated with the show and Chris Cross allowed them to use it, he actually wrote it about a personal friend who was killed.
Another one of those things I’ve always known that just ain’t so. (Only 1,000,006 to go…)
And that album cover, seen out of the corner of your eye…..that’s just wrong.
Why so much angry distrust over the idea that women might not report being raped? It happens. I can’t exactly say I understand why it happens, but it does happen.
Is there a statistics about false rape accusations in USA? Here in Finland according to police of Helsinki 20-25% of them are false.
I remember watching Josh Steiner telling the committee that he had lied to his diary. All I could think was, “doesn’t this kid have a father? No one to tell him how bad an idea that was?” And to tell him that if that is what the job takes, it’s not much of a job?
Hank, now I’m intrigued. What was your response?
Great podcast, guys! This time there was so many things for you guys to riff on it was like machine-gunning fish in a barrel.
Well done and thank you for a great podcast.
I do prefer “sexual assault” to the word rape. It is such a complex issue. Here in Canada, we have our biggest CBC celebrity taken down by his assaults on now a growing list of women reporting how he violently assaulted them whike in a sexual situation. There are lawyers, an actress and others who are reporting their experiences of being punched in the side of their heads, being chocked and more. This is Gian Gomeshi. He would be the Canadian version of Ira Glass, if I have that right. None of them reported these assaults as they did also have sex and were in his home. Assault is assault though and a beating is clearly wrong. Gian gomeshi said it was like fifty shades of Gray.
Funny how what is in a best seller is then not allowed in real life.
I wondered about the conservative views on this. I think men would be surprised at how some men can behave and men in high positions do have the power. The Internet is changing the secrecy and the power.
Lena Dunham is a disgrace to bring up sexual assault In her autobiography and not think she would be required to name the man who she claims assaulted her. This is far too serious a claim. Her TV show is pornography but one person’s porn us another person’s art.
Thanks for discussing. Appreciated.
E. J. is scary good at photo shopping. He will come to a bad end faking extortion photos for organized crime or false evidence for government prosecutors (which is sort of the same thing).
Rob’s face in the EJ clip is the new pictorial definition of “swanning”. As in, “to swan about”, typically with some significant air of derision and condescension.
Y’know, like how a Senator poses.
One last comment on rape. Technology is giving women a voice that has not been the case even up to ten years ago. We have heard the make view most of the time, from movies and TV shows. It also means the pendulum swings too far both ways.
Even in Vikings society a crime had to be publicly declared to be prosecuteable. Of course, in Viking society, you and your male family members were the prosecutors and policemen. Public identification of the perpetrators of crimes a near-universal requirement in human societies.
Ah, sigh. The absurd assertion that the shut-down “damaged the Republican brand” is voiced again by someone who damn well ought to know better but apparently doesn’t. Seriously? Since 2014 is the result of “damage to the Republican brand” inflicted by Cruz et al in 2013, more please, and faster.
Jonah mentioned that he might support the death penalty for certain violent rapes. That makes sense as a moral position, but it’s a bad idea from a consequentialist point of view. That’s because the culprit, having already incurred the worst possible penalty for the rape, no longer has any reason to refrain from killing the victim, doing which reduces his chances of being punished (removing the best witness) without increasing the severity of the punishment. Thus, the expected punishment can be reduced by killing the victim, an unhappy outcome.
I’m gonna put John Podhoretz’s name over here in the column of “People who wish the Heli-carriers accomplished their mission”.
JP is so right about most of his film picks. Loved “Whiplash” (though Simmons had me laughing at all the wrong things), loved “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “The Lego Movie” and “Boyhood”. But “Locke” was a slog.
Canadians don’t say “aboot”.
They do pronounce “about” differently than we do in the U.S., but I’m not sure how to transcribe it.
And I don’t see how we can make fun of Canada when they have more economic freedom than we do, and a healthier budget!