Good Review

... of an extremely important issue, and conclusions by Critical Drinker cannot get any clearer: 

Pedophilia is not a bug, it is THE feature of Western elite. See the UK or US MSM journo walking towards you--move to the other side of the street to avoid sensing filth. But in the culture where this becomes a norm:

One of America’s most prestigious schools, Brown University, has seen a surge in LGBTQ sexual orientations over the past decade, with nearly four in ten students now identifying as something other than heterosexual. A poll last month by the Ivy League university’s newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald, found that 38% of students now identify as LGBTQ. That compares with 14% in 2010, the first year from which data was available. Most of the surge has come in the past three years. In fact, nearly 80% of students still identified as heterosexual as recently as 2019. A Washington Examiner report on Sunday suggested that Brown’s jump in LGBTQ identification reflected a “social contagion” – rather than a dramatic shift in the student body’s sexual orientations or a sudden rise in confidence to openly express LGBTQ identities.

Keep in mind, this is the future of American "elite" class. Or should we introduce the term unfuture?  

You May Not...

 ... remember this girl from Vancouver, B.C.? But she was huge in Hollywood when Hollywood, actually, was making great films. Yvonne De Carlo is said to be a sex bomb then, but who cares, she was drop dead gorgeous. When Song of Scheherazade came out in 1947 it was big. Disregard "gay" term, then it meant joyful and fun;)))

Remarkably, the movie describes, sort of, at least they portrayed Russians as not subhumans, events after the Russian Fleet came to New York during the American Civil War and how both Russian squadrons of Admirals Lesovsky (NYC) and Popov (San Francisco) influenced the outcome of war. As my dear friend Byron King wrote about it a few years ago:

These powerful fleets remained in the U.S. for over seven months. Theyanchored-out, or in some instances tied up to piers. While in U.S. waters, theyfired no cannon except for occasional practice rounds. Ashore, U.S. militarybands feted and serenaded the guests. Russian sailors paraded down Broadway,while Russian naval officers were hosted at official functions and privateparties. Their role was to be highly visible… showing off Russian support forthe Union cause.

Of course, the greatest cultural testament and monument to these times was the movie which was about the Russian Naval Cadet Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's desire not to fight the war, but to write a beautiful music, which we all know today as...

Russian Navy turned out to be not just a great wars' firefighter, when helping people (how about Messina AND San-Francisco), but also as a stabilizer, but also something of a completely off-the-wall cultural thing for Russians. And when you see legendary Moyiseev's Dance Ensemble doing good ol' Russian Naval Dance Yablochko and looking at the reaction of Russian people from young to old a month ago at the Victory Day, that gives one an insight which they do not teach in "Russian Study Field" in the West.

 

You can also see them in 2015 in the legendary Concert at the Red Square. 

This was also the brigade of the cadets, marines from my naval academy (how do you think you get a Red Banner title--only two of academies) who simply went to stand their ground in Stalingrad, and then fight in Berlin. Russians don't start wars, they finish them... 

Women In Space.

Ah, yes! Women. Of course, the whole world, especially its male part, fell in love with Anna Lee Fisher when her photo was published in 1985. She definitely looks absolutely out of this world in it. 

This is an iconic photo which still remains one of the more remarkable photos of the post WW II world in which femininity meets Hollywood quality space exploration, not unlike one would expect Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, played by incomparable Sigourney Weaver,  to look before her brutalization by events portrayed in Alien franchise. 

Here is Weaver/Ripley who already experienced her life-altering struggle and who looks weary. Fisher, however, still looks...innocent. Enter Yulia Peresild.

A spacecraft carrying Russian actress Yulia Peresild has reached the International Space Station (ISS). Some viewers of the live broadcast were surprised as it revealed her actively participating in the manual docking maneuver. The well known performer and movie-maker Klim Shipenko joined professional cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov on board the Soyuz MS-19, which blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome on Tuesday morning. Later in the day the spaceship failed to dock with the ISS in automatic mode, so the approach was aborted, and Shkaplerov successfully conducted the procedure manually. Much to the surprise of some observers, Peresild was playing an active part in the process. The live broadcast by the Russian space agency Roscosmos included some crew communications, in which the actress could be heard confirming commands of the commander and giving him feedback. Peresild is not a career space explorer and her training before the trip was somewhat limited, compared to what people usually undergo before taking a seat in a spaceship.

And believe me,  Russians know a good thing when they see it, or, in our case, her and are not afraid to admit copying it. Reminds you of anybody? 

Right. But this time Russians flew to ISS to shoot a movie. Yulia Peresild is an actress and she is on ISS with her producer.

Yulia radiates joy and I can only imagine how many jealous girls and boys are now left in Russia looking at this incredible trip to orbit. She does have a star quality about her:

But, boy, did she ever dream of becoming a real global star, not of a Hollywood variety. Try typing name Yulia in any search engine today. And with her global fame and clout today can you imagine her being called upon by Hollywood--a very likely scenario after they (safely) return to the planet--and some director or actor telling her how to play an astronaut, if she gets a role in some sci-fi flick? Boy, I would love to hear such an exchange, LOL.

Yet Another Dud?

Here is the biography of the author, who is praised in The American Conservative for his new book Last Stands: Why Men Fight When All is Lost. Here it is:

Michael A. Walsh is an American music critic, author, screenwriter, media critic, and cultural-political consultant. 

In other words, he is a man who knows about military and warfare primarily from the books and movies. Fine. There is a cultural aspect to the warfare and last stands when everything is lost often are connected to the sense of brotherhood in arms with buddies in the unit and of the esprit de corps, and of simple masculine doggedness, which often manifests itself in extreme circumstances such as war, where defiance in a face of death is well documented. But that is all well-known and books on the warfare and acts of defiance and heroism are plentiful. But Walsh decides to concentrate on such acts, in the words of the reviewer, for: 

A new book takes stock of history's last stands and draws questions about Americans' will to defend their nation today.

Here is where the whole thing goes haywire immediately, while Bradley Anderson who wrote the review continues:

The qualities of which Walsh writes are real, and they are every bit as vital to a civilization as he says. They are, however, virtues that can be cynically exploited by those who have little interest in the defense of the United States against the kinds of existential threats that would inspire American men to take up arms and go willingly to their deaths if need be.   

Wait a minute, what? There is no doubt that US Armed Forces have enough courageous men many of who did perform acts of an incredible heroism, be that men of 2nd and 99th Divisions in Ardennes in December 1944, or the crew of immortal USS Samuel B. Roberts DE 413, just to name a few acts of American heroism in WW II. But we are talking about different times and different circumstances. The truth is, that what Walsh tries to explain in his book, all those last stands, were driven by more than just masculinity-based cohesion of the unit and courage. This is not the whole story and it never was whole behind what Tolstoy--yes, this unremarkable artillery officer, who wrote few unremarkable books, nobody knows about, in which he specifically pointed out to: 

The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen, and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as it were lightheartedly. 

Yep, this thingy, which usually comes from primarily sense of duty and love for the nation, country, when they are in the grave danger. And here is a thingy, of which I speak ad nauseam--the United States lacks this "thingy", since no American soldier ever fought under the circumstances (not since 1814) of the United States proper being under any danger which comes with enemy's victory and him occupying the country. This distinction is crucial in psychological terms and it was and is being demonstrated since Korean War, because unlike most occasions which Walsh chose to describe, the United States remains impervious to any invasion and a nightmare which follows and can afford to lose interest in wars, which in the American case are all, without exception in the XX Century, were wars of aggression and conquest. 

But then again, Walsh is a... music critic by occupation and expecting prudent and precise view on the history of wars and human condition in them from such a "historian" is an exercise in futility, and Walsh aptly proves it. He decides to review a famous Pavlov's House defense during the Battle of Stalingrad, whose description is drowned in ideological noise, and then Walsh blows in a spectacular manner:

He uses grossly inaccurate, politely speaking, Hollywood BS of a movie as a historic reference point. The myth of Red Army soldiers having one rifle for two conscripts is a purely Western propaganda creation which was debunked so decisively that it is inconceivable that the man, a music critic by occupation no less, who decided to write anything on Stalingrad, doesn't know it. But Walsh, certainly, doesn't. Obviously, Western military "historians" never could understand that the only complain General Vasily Chuikov had in his memoirs was about shortage of fully automatic weapons, which were better for the fight in the rabble of Stalingrad, in famous Rodimtsev Division. But the Red Army fighters all had their rifles and enough munition to fight off the onslaught of the Paulus' 6th Army and its allies. This, so called, "black myth" (in Russian) is yet another demonstration of a deliberate distortion used by the Western "historians" to portray Soviet Union's decisive contribution to the victory in the WW II as merely through piles of dead bodies and rivers of blood. Using Hollywood's grossly inaccurate propaganda as a source for conclusions on a matter of a serious military history arouses immediate question--why music critic by education decided that he can pass any sound judgement on matters which require a serious knowledge and experience within military? I don't know, but that is what general American view on war is--a Hollywood picture. 

Moreover, last stands while having not just your buddies, but your home, your families, you loved ones, your culture is what drives men to perform acts of self-sacrifice in those proverbial last stands when everything seems to be lost. This is not the experience the United States military can relate to, despite having its own share of heroism and sacrifice, but in the end, as, I believe, Chesterton stated--the soldier must not so much hate what is in a front of him, as love what is behind his back. This is precisely why the United States couldn't win in Korea, lost in Vietnam, lost Iraq and lost in Afghanistan, because as this insignificant combat officer noted:       

"But all the general and soldiers of [Napoleon’s] army…experienced a similar feeling of terror before an enemy who, after losing half his men, stood as threateningly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the Russians at Borodino…The direct consequence of the battle of Borodino was Napoleon’s senseless flight from Moscow… and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger spirit had been laid" 

But what does he really know, this loser Tolstoy, he didn't have Hollywood to refer to, because we all know, Hollywood can always "vividly illustrate" just about any bullshit it wants to. That's the entertainment.

Running Out Of Heroes, Really Fast.

I am still waiting from Hollywood a fair treatment, considering new CGI technologies, of American very real heroes and people of highest human qualities, who should serve as role models for new generations. I am waiting for years now for a movie about heroism of USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) in the Battle off Samar. Hell, the whole Taffy-3 group is worthy of an incredible movie-epic. I never saw the movie about Truman Kimbro. There never was any screenplay written for this man's actions. Let me think, do we have any movies about specifically 2nd and 99th Divisions and their actions at Ardennes? Nope. Hell, how about what could be an epic movie--Red and US Army meeting on Elbe in 1945? No? Ok, how about a movie about incredible Joseph Beyrle who served in both US and Red Army during WW II, met Georgi Zhukov. Beyrle was awarded medal For Liberation of Warsaw and Order of Combat Red Banner. This is the material the greatest heroic adventures books are written about. No, again? Hey, at least we got movie with Tom Hanks on Sully and his crew and Miracle on Hudson. 

But, but, those little petty people are of no interest to Hollywood and American media machine. They have a bigger fish to fry--they are making movies about one clueless bimbo (Megyn Kelly) who was "sexually assaulted" (make no mistake--I am categorically against sexual harassment), played by another clueless bitch, Charlize Theron, who should be charged with the child abuse, when stating that her 3 years old son decided to become a girl. That's what I am talking about! These are America's modern day "heroes". 

The first teaser trailer for “Bombshell” shows Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron playing Megyn Kelly. The new movie, originally titled “Fair and Balanced,” chronicles the Roger Ailes sexual misconduct scandal with Theron as Kelly opposite John Lithgow as Ailes, Nicole Kidman as Gretchen Carlson, and Margot Robbie as a fictional Fox News producer. Jay Roach (“Austin Powers,” “Game Change”) directs the film with a cast that includes Alice Eve, Stephen Root, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Allison Janney and Ashley Greene.

You see, that is what really matters in today's America--a steaming pile of shit dressed up as a civic virtue by people who exercise an illusion that they matter. The depth of Hollywood's depravity is unprecedented, so is its evaporating talent across the board. Few true pieces of art here and there, and far and between the parade columns of second-third rate politically correct so called "lefty" virtue signalling crap merely underscore this depth. I, personally, long ago tuned out of this nauseating fodder which passes for an art. Hell, most of it is not even good entertainment. Last movies I watched on DVD were exquisite Bad Times at the El Royal and Blade Runner 2049 masterpiece. The rest? I do not watch anything on TV unless it is a soccer game I have a time for, or it is Smithsonian, or Science, or Travel channels. I confess, I do watch ID Discovery once in a while and the Family Guy with Turner Classic Movies channel being staples of my entertainment diet. One, in order to stay sane, simply must tune out, otherwise the psychological damage is profound. 

Do I want to see a show about normal humans living and doing normal things? I sure do. I got tired of movies and shows about gangs, drug dealers and degenerate 1 percenters. I want to see movies about real heroes, who most of the time are simply normal everyday people who rise to the occasion to do incredible things.  I am sick and tired of plastic vomit-inducing fake superheroes' industry. Vladimir Lenin was spot on when stated that ‘Film for us is the most important of the arts’. He was prescient. But as it is always the case in money-making business, Hollywood turned this art into shitty entertainment, a chewing gum for the brains of sensory overload hungry crowd. There is no place for good humans and real heroes in this business anymore. Do not expect anything topping Forest Gump or WALL-E in their perfection, profundity, kindness and humanity--this height is beyond the reach of modern Hollywood. They are too busy pushing perverted agendas and that is why they are running out of real heroes really fast.  

P.S. A disclaimer--I am eagerly awaiting for new Dune to come out, I hope I will not be disappointed as it happened with much anticipated Prometheus. But then again, Sci-Fi is a bit more complex genre and successes in it do happen still.  

On A Lighter Note.

I couldn't miss that. 

 Judge appears likely to toss Stormy Daniels' defamation suit.

I am not going to lie, I honestly told my wife of almost 35 years that I need to "research" Stormy Daniels' "art".  So, after "researching" it, the question is--defame what? I understand that democrats are desperate to completely destroy what's left of American Republic and impeach Trump while cowardly GOP, as always, is looking for a better deal for themselves and 1 percenters. But it takes an enormous imagination to view the claims of a porn "actress" (yes, they "act", alright) about defamation as valid. Poor Stormy, I guess her reputation suffered and now she is being viewed as... a porn star? Didn't she learn what comes with the territory when one becomes a porn "star"? 

That doesn't stop here, in another first in an increasingly filthy American political circus, Vogue Magazine gave a photo-shoot to this fine representative of "acting profession" (not that Hollywood royalty is much better, they are simply more elite prostitutes). And while on its own terms this whole thing is hilarious, in a black comedy sort of way, one is forced, after all laughter subsides, to ask question--do they even understand what they are doing to the country. I said not for once, nowadays terms democracy and the United States are simply not compatible anymore and shouldn't be used in the same sentence, but for goodness sake, can one at least produce adequate, forget competent, forget patriotic or at least believably decent, oligarchy? Can we get, goddammit, at least competent shysters, who at the very least get what is good for them?  Both Democrats and Republicans are directly responsible for the mayhem they produced. Democrats, because these are their "operatives" who completely corrupted and paralyzed every single power institution in the US. Republicans? Well, as I stated, because they are cowards with no principles. Both parties (in reality it is a single party now) are power hungry and care only about themselves and their donors. 

While primarily, "progressive" media are ready to promote any filth as a valid "argument" in them trying to destroy last vestiges of law and order in the US, I, being ethnically and culturally Russian, can totally understand pure-bred Americans whose fists are already clenched and glances increasingly become cold. Here is another dumb bimbo who earns money by pretending to be somebody else and who is into "remaking things" while her limousine waits for her to deliver her to gated community to maybe continue with her "self-education", which she, obviously, lacks greatly. As, in general, it is applicable to most of Hollywood. So, in this case I see very little difference between Stormy Daniels as an "actress" and  American progressive artsy strata as valid political activists--both fuck people for the money. 

P.S. Didn't come out "light", didn't it? 

USS Samuel B. Roberts DE 413

Wikipedia gives this ship just a short note and this:

In popular culture

The television show Star Trek Deep Space 9 featured a starship named "Samuel B. Roberts" in the 1999 episode "What You Leave Behind". The Miranda-class cruiser appears briefly as a background ship during the final battle of the Dominion War.^{[citation needed]}
The ship has been subject of scale model kits:

• 1/700 scale plastic model kit, by PitRoad / Skywave.^[4]
• 1/16" scale wood model kit by BlueJacket Shipcrafters, Inc.^[5]

USS Samuel B. Roberts 

I have an issue with that. A huge one. Very few combat units can boast a sacrifice of this scale--basically, a kamikaze. The only one which comes to mind is Russian light cruiser Varyag, which came to fight Japanese squadron  outside Chemulpo in 1904, being, together with cannon boat Koreetz (Korean), outnumbered 2 to 14. Russians made a movie, a German, stunned by Russian heroism, wrote a song, which became a cult song in Russia/USSR for more than a century. Yet, the US Navy's small (1,350 ton) destroyer escort, who fought as a battleship against overwhelming odds in the Battle Off Samar, as part of Taffy III, never got a movie by freaking Hollywood. Some big mouth US General, who never saw any serious action against first rate Wehrmacht at the peak of its might, and who is really irrelevant to the outcome of WW II, gets an Oscar movie (granted acting genius of George C. Scott) Patton, and the ship which performed a feat of heroism, rarely equaled in history, remains merely a model. No song, no movie and, yet, she helped to win the battle and sunk fighting against overwhelming odds. Anyone finds something wrong with this picture? I do. 

Hollywood version of WW II is appalling in its lack of understanding of what real war is. But we should know better and call them as we see it. Little destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts remains forever in the pantheon of true military heroes.

   

Couldn't Miss This.

A superb piece, as it is usually the case, from Philip Giraldi in UNZ Review. Worth reading. The article resonates a lot with many points I make about the WW II and the way it is portrayed in US. 

Nazis on the Backlot 

Quote from the article:

"And it was certainly easy to forget war back in the United States, prosperous and untouched by the enemy. In Asia and Europe it is different and that is why there is a clear reluctance to follow Washington’s lead as global policeman. The war for many families is still alive. Even though the World War II generation is itself vanishing there remain numerous memorials and cemeteries as well as other powerful physical reminders of the suffering and destruction that war brought in every theater of that conflict.

All of which means that war, unlike for the rest of the world, is itself pretty much an abstraction for the vast majority of Americans who have not themselves been in the military since the draft ended in 1973....Americans see war as an endless series of patriotic bumper stickers with the United States invariably wearing the white hat and emerging victorious. Few consider that a kinetic experience can blow your brains out while the boots on the ground are attached to legs that lead up to torsos, heads and arms, all of which are vulnerable to small arms fire and Improvised Explosive Devices."