My Brush with the People’s Revolutionary Tribunal

Guillotined In The French Revolution: The Story Through 7 Severed Heads |  HistoryExtra

In 1972 I insisted on defending a friend at a “hearing” (LOL–no official status whatsoever!) before the Michigan State People’s Revolutionary Tribunal (self-appointed, self-defined). A former bottle-throwing radical, he’d Betrayed The Revolution by starting a small business. Everybody knows true radicals never sink so low as to earn a living! No! Until some stupid college hires them, they live off daddy and mommy.

Now I was myself only a year out of college, and it would take me decades to outgrow it. But this Marxist play-acting was just too much.

“Where I come from, out East in New Jersey, people like you just get laughed at,” I told them. (How I wish that were true! But I didn’t know any better.) “We gave up tribunals years ago. We don’t talk like you do anymore, either. You’re just college kids who’ll never stop being college kids.”

They were not used to anybody standing up to them. I said to my friend, “Come on, up you go, we’re getting out of here. This is just a lot of crap. You don’t want to spend any more time with these idiots.” They couldn’t believe their ears.

I wonder if they’ve gotten any better at it. They’ve had, like, 50 years to refine their technique. I’d certainly say the looniversities are way Farther Left than they were in 1972–and they were bad enough, then.

If they only had the power, they’d be carting us off to the guillotine.

Are you still okay with having Democrats in charge?

An Inane Conversation

What Kind of Cinephile Are You? Let Pretentious-O-Meter Gauge Your Taste in  Films

Some of us never outgrow college. I saw a lot of movies in college that I’d walk a mile out of my way to avoid seeing again.

For some of us, being pretentious starts in high school. Here are three high-school boys in the 1960s (I’m one of them) trying to decide what movie to go to. The other two are Flopsy and Mopsy.

Mopsy and I want to see The Viscount, an unmemorable spy thriller starring Kerwin Matthews. It had the advantage of playing in a theater only a few blocks away. Flopsy doesn’t want to see The Viscount. His elder brother, Dropsy, is a sophomore in college and has taught Flopsy to aspire to higher things.

“What’s wrong with The Viscount?” Mopsy asks.

The Viscount is only a movie,” Flopsy pontificates. “Whereas Wild Strawberries, for instance, is a film!”

“Huh?” says I. “When did you see Wild Strawberries?”

Homina-homina. “Well, no, I haven’t seen it!” It turns out his brother told him it was a great Film. He might have seen it. But Flopsy got his share of raspberries over his assertion. I mean, for all we knew, The Viscount might’ve been King Lear on steroids (it wasn’t). I did see Wild Strawberries a few years later, when I was in college. For all its mediocrity, The Viscount was better. At least it didn’t put anyone to sleep.

Oy, the stuff I saw in college! Imagine still wanting to see art films, at my age. All those Ingmar Bergman movies–where do I hide?

And a note just handed me by the computer: Warning! Warning! Your anti-virus is down!

Bergman’s revenge…

‘When We Were Very Young and Foolish’ (2018)

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I cringe when I think of what a fool I was when I was younger–and you can bet your boots I didn’t know I was a fool. Heck, no–I was so smart (I thought!), I could just kiss myself all over. And all my friends were sages, too.

So we laughed at a priest who told us the truth.

When We Were Young and Very Foolish

At the same time it’s making you stupider and stupider, “higher education” convinces you you’re getting smarter. What a scam!

It took me 30 years to outgrow college. Some people never do.