Happy Friday, friends! I have a handful of pretty cool links for your weekend perusal. I’d love to know if you enjoyed any of these in particular, so feel free to drop me a comment and let me know what you think! Here we go!
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- Brett and Kate McKay over at AoM discuss how to read self-help books so that they actually, ya know, *help*.
- Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica shares the details of a spooky story about how easily hackers can get into your text messages.
- Rod Dreher at The American Conservative argues that Ibram X. Kendi’s “anti-racism” leads to an anti-Gospel message, as Kendi himself seems to reject the “savior theology” that’s at the heart of orthodox Christianity.
- I’ve suggested previously that Turner Classic Movies’ “Reframed” film series is one way to avoid the whole-cloth “cancelling” of past-era media that is out of step with current mores. Armond White at National Review disagrees, arguing it’s still a step in that direction.
- As stated in earlier posts, I’m very much pro-life and against abortion. Ben Shapiro at The Daily Wire examines some “abortion myths” worth questioning. No matter what you think of Shapiro himself, his arguments are worth engaging and considering.
- Eric Cunningham at Ordinary Times thinks you should give Man of Steel another look, and so do I. I don’t understand the online animus against the film that, while imperfect, was still really stinking good.
- One more from Rod Dreyer, recounting a conversation with two young men about social credit systems and promoting a cutesy but chilling little graphic novel called “Lovely People.” Definitely read the post, and double-definitely download and read the graphic novel. Social credit systems are a serious threat to freedom, and I think it’s incumbent upon free people to resist even the whiff of such corporate fascism.
- Someone online recommended this YT creator called “Nando v Movies” in which Nando re-writes or reconsiders plotlines to films and TV and offers suggested endings. In his “Rewriting Wandavision’s Finale” episode (which raises a lot of good points, actually), one comment he made jumped out at me. As Wanda is walking out of Westview, Monica says “They’ll never know what you sacrificed for them.” Wanda replies, “It won’t change how they see me.” Nando quotes a Reddit meme suggesting that it should be changed to “It won’t change what I did,” and then goes on to talk about how Wanda never really takes responsibility for the Hex. I hadn’t thought about that before, but he’s right: she does release the people and tries to “fix” the damage, but she never seems to take actual responsibility for it. The whole show focuses on how much Wanda was hurting, but it never really acknowledges how much she hurt other people in the process. Kinda reframes the whole thing, to be honest. Anyway, check out the video and let me know what you think. (Oh! He’s got another good one about how “The Falcon and Winter Soldier” showrunners likely had to scrap and rewrite a whole plotline that was about a bioweapon and pandemic. Crazy!)
- Any discussion of the MCU shows would be remiss without a hat-tip to the recently-released #ZemoCut. Get down with your baron-self, Zemo!
- Mark Rober is a national treasure. It’s good to know he’s still out there, fighting against scammers with glitter and fart spray.
- And finally: Anthony Vincent is low-key one of my favorite vocalists on Youtube. Here, he joins the band “First to Eleven” to reimagine a classic:
And here he joins the Melodicka Bros to cover SOAD:
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There you have it. Talk to you next week, friends!
The4thDave Blog 