Ever wonder what those teenagers are listening to while wearing those i-Pod earphones? Maybe you'd rather not know. You will be horrified. The Culture and Media Institute recently reviewed the top-ten pop songs from May through July. To say that hedonism is in the air is an understatement. Of the 22 songs on the charts, a whopping 64 percent made at least one reference to sex, drugs or alcohol, or contained profanity. All 22 songs had music videos, and 68 percent of them featured sexualized dancing, alcohol, violence, or partying scenes. The "anthem" of the summer seems to be the... continue reading
It was deceptive. At a White House dinner with Muslims celebrating Ramadan, Barack Obama finally weighed in on the Ground Zero mosque controversy. Incredibly, he lectured Americans about the religious freedom of Muslims "that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan." Those were prepared remarks, a clear and very deliberate effort to skirt the issue. But this time, it was blatantly sophomoric, too. Of course there is a legal "right." That doesn't make it the right thing to do. After causing an instant national uproar, Obama saw the... continue reading
Hugh Hefner, America's most celebrated and legendary pornographer, has less and less reason to celebrate. His Playboy magazine empire is crumbling - he may even be bought out by competitors - and his prototypical leering pose with girls young enough to be his great-granddaughters is now just plain creepy. His 2009 Christmas card featured 83-year-old Hefner standing between two 20-year-old twins who are his newest live-in girlfriends. Each was wearing a pink tank top with "Hef" painted on it in white. Hefner's women are forever the plastic toys under his tree. Into this sad picture comes documentary filmmaker Brigitte Berman... continue reading
Terence P. Jeffrey has written a new book. It is required reading for any conservative worried about, but perhaps not understanding, exactly what the Obama regime is trying to do to America. That demographic includes every conservative who hasn't yet read Jeffrey's new book. First, there are disclaimers. Jeffrey is a friend and a colleague, and editor-in-chief of CNSNews.com , a division of the Media Research Center, which I head. The second disclaimer is more an admission: When I read the title of Terry's new book, "Control Freaks: 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life," I didn't much care... continue reading
Great Britain has a new coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, and what a mess it is as they face is the largest budget deficit in Europe. Where, oh where, will they cut the budget? Horror of horrors, one obvious target is funding for the arts "in the land of Shakespeare." When the the Empire is so broke National Health Service is refusing people hip replacements, it's probably not a good idea to suggest it's more important to fund the ballet. Especially when the government-bankrolled ballet is "The Spirit of Diaghilev." Anthony Faiola of The Washington Post reports the... continue reading
There's something oddly funny about the cluelessness of liberal media companies when their ratings fall or their subscriptions collapse. They just refuse to admit, even consider that the business problem could be (at least in part) their own incessant liberal agitating. Instead, they seem to double down and make things even worse. ABC's Sunday show "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" could never beat NBC, so what did the ABC braintrust do? They promoted the Bill Clinton spin artist to an everyday anchor job on "Good Morning America." Then they doubled down and replaced him with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who is... continue reading
It never ceases to amaze that Oliver Stone thinks Ronald Reagan was a dunce. When it comes to judging iron-fisted dictators and anti-American despots, Oliver Stone is the intellectually incurious simpleton. He thinks Reagan was stupid because he clung to an all-encompassing ideology. But so does Stone. He thinks every evil in the world came from corporations, especially American corporations, including those he uses to make himself millions. How else would you explain the (new) mess Stone (again) has made as he prepares a 10-part documentary for Showtime on "The Secret History of America," including evaluations of Adolf Hitler and... continue reading
Tucker Carlson's website The Daily Caller has unearthed a treasure trove of liberal journalists talking (nastily) to themselves in a private E-mail list about how they should use their media power to remake the world in their image. The funniest thing about this expose of "JournoList" was witnessing journalists say it was unfair to leak these e-mails when reporters had an "expectation of privacy." More than 90,000 pages of secret documents on Afghanistan have been leaked and journalists are tripping over each other in a mad stampede to cover the story. Everyone should laugh heartily at leak-devouring journalists getting a... continue reading
The surprise box-office boom for the cartoon "Despicable Me" is making it clear again to Hollywood this summer that family films are the most likely to be top-grossing films. "Toy Story 3" is number one for 2010, not only among the critics, but among the people as well. "Despicable Me" already has broken into the top ten box-office hits for the year to date with almost $130 million in ticket sales. It happens over and over again. And still the "executives" are caught off guard. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Nobody needs a graphing calculator. Bring out... continue reading
Almost from the moment Barack Obama declared he would run for president in 2007, our enraptured media elite has been accusing anyone who would stand in Obama's way with racism. The question was never whether Obama was ready to govern the country, but whether the country was ready for the historic awesomeness of Obama. Pity the NAACP. We now have a black president, and they must convince (racist) America that there still exists the need for a national association to advance "colored people" in our society. How to do it? Identify and condemn as "racists" anyone or any group opposed... continue reading