Pun Salad

How did this happen? pic.twitter.com/vSzXIix2Tb

— Jacob Shell (@JacobAShell) June 11, 2025

Apparently, it's a Rorschach test for leftism, as indicated by Natalie Sandoval at the Daily Caller: ‘It’s Bullsh*t’: Liberals Seethe At Diversity Debunking Study.

I'm not exactly seething, but I left my own comment on the study over at Facebook:

This has been a constant sore point for those of us on the right who hold the correct positions about everything, all the time.

Also of note:

• A sweet story. I don't mean to keep posting about this musical genius, but I can't resist clipping out this anecdote from Bob Greene in yesterday's WSJ: Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, My Endless Inspiration. (WSJ gifted link)

  I had called my friend Gary Griffin to shoot the breeze, as I’d been doing a couple of times every week. This was in the early 1990s; Gary was the keyboard player for surf rockers Jan and Dean, and I had just started to tour with them singing backup.

  He was at home in Panorama City, Calif., and I was in Chicago. He was out in his recording studio. “My friend Brian’s here,” Gary said.

  “Who’s Brian?” I said.

  “Wilson,” Gary said.

  Oh. That’s all.

  “What a coincidence,” I said. “John Lennon’s over at my house.”

  Gary laughed and handed the phone to Brian, the man whose music had thrilled me from the time I was a boy, the man I had never dared to imagine ever meeting. He said hello and, not knowing what to say to him, I asked: “What are you going to sing in Gary’s studio?”

  “I don’t know,” Brian said. “What do you think I should sing?”

  I could scarcely process this. For some reason I said:

  “ ‘Stupid Cupid.’ ”

  The 1958 Connie Francis Top 40 hit. What a ridiculous thing to say to Brian Wilson. Of all the songs in the world to blurt out.

  “ ‘Stupid Cupid’?” Brian said. “That’s a great song.”

  And then, in one of the wonderful moments life will sometimes hand you, I heard him start to play the piano, and to sing:

  “Stupid Cupid, you’re a real mean guy . . .”

  Across the time zones I listened, entranced.

  “I’d like to clip your wings so you can’t fly . . .”

  He wasn’t doing it sarcastically; he was a man without guile. He had driven to Gary’s house to sing, and “Stupid Cupid” was fine with him. I sat there, an audience of one—well, with Gary, two—and counted my blessings.

  More at the link, of course.

• Theory: Those too crazy to be family therapists wind up teaching wannabe family therapists. Also in the WSJ a few days back: Naomi Epps Best Santa Clara University’s Crazy Idea of Human Sexuality. (WSJ gifted link)

  I’m a graduate student in marriage and family therapy at Santa Clara University, a Jesuit institution. Recently, I walked out of class. Prof. Chongzheng Wei had just played a video of a female “influencer” engaging in sexual bondage activity. When the lights came up, the professor smiled and asked if we wanted to try it ourselves. Maybe it was a crass joke to break the tension, but I didn’t want to find out if a live demonstration was next.

  What began as a simple accommodation request in a required course called Human Sexuality turned into a case study in the reshaping of therapy training—not by science but by critical theory, a worldview that filters human experience through left-wing assumptions about power, oppression and identity, particularly regarding race, “gender” and sexuality.

  More information about Naomi's efforts to avoid the offensive looniness at the link.

  But that's just part one of her story. Part two showed up Thursday:

  Blew the whistle in @WSJopinion on ideological rigidity in therapy training. A week later, I am fired from my internship with the regret of my boss. This field is in crisis. The public needs to know. pic.twitter.com/EldOjq0hOG

  — Naomi Best (@naomieppsbest) June 12, 2025

• Won't get fooled more than five or six times again, tops. J.D. Tuccille points out: Europeans pay exorbitant taxes for their 'free' government services.

  People who want a larger, more active state frequently point to their favorite European country (usually a small Scandinavian nation) and ask why America doesn't provide lots of "free" services like that alleged utopia. The answer is that it could but that wouldn't necessarily make people happier. The U.S. is a large and diverse country where people don't nearly agree with each other on what they want, and it's difficult for government to provide more services without fueling arguments over what and how much should be provided. Importantly, too, those services aren't free—they carry a very high price tag.

  "Governments with higher taxes generally tout that they provide more services, and while this is often true, the cost of these services can be more than half of an average worker's salary, and for most, at least a third of their salary," Cristina Enache wrote last week for the Tax Foundation. "Belgium has the highest tax burden on labor at 52.6 percent (also the highest of all OECD countries), followed by Germany and France at 47.9 percent and 47.2 percent, respectively. Switzerland had the lowest tax burden at 22.9 percent."

  I assume one way they get away with this is envy-based egalitarianism. You can be reassured when sitting in a DMV-style waiting room that millionaires are sitting there with you, not paying more money for better access as they might do in, say, America.

Recently on the movie blog:

I remember watching this movie as a young fan of Raymond Chandler back in 1973.

I hated it.

So, 52 years later, I decided to give it another chance. Perhaps noting the movie's Wikipedia page says the movie's "critical assessment has grown over time."

Nope. It still sucks.

My first two attempts to rewatch this ended in failure, as I fell asleep at some point. On my third try, I still fell asleep, but powered through via the rewind button on my Roku remote. Just to say that I watched it.

It starts with sleuth Philip Marlowe (Elliot Gould) being awoken (still fully dressed) in his bed by his cat at 3am demanding food. He's out of cat food! He tries to concoct something the cat will eat, but fails. He travels to the all-night grocery, but they are out of the cat's favorite brand. (He's also buying brownie mix, requested by the near-naked girls in a neighboring apartment.) But when Marlowe tries to fake out the cat with a different kind of food, the cat detects the subtrefuge and runs away.

All this takes an hour to tell. OK, maybe not an hour, but it seemed that long.

Eventually, the main plot creaks into motion. Marlowe's pal, Terry Lennox, shows up and asks Marlowe to drive him to Tijuana, because "a lot of people might be looking for him." This (it turns out) is due to the fact that his wife has been brutally murdered. Marlowe agrees, but that puts him into trouble with the cops, gets him acquainted with drunk writer Roger Wade (Sterling Hayden) and his wife (Nina van Pallandt), and sadistic mobster Marty Augustine.

Trivia: Uncredited performances by David Carradine and Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Only Arnold's second movie role, after his 1970 appearance in Hercules in New York.) Jack Riley, who was wonderful as Mr. Carlin on "The Bob Newhart Show", plays a bar musician here. Music by John Williams, including a dreadful song that keeps showing up, including a brief, awful, performance by Mr. Carlin. Screenplay by Leigh Brackett, who also had screenwriting credits for The Big Sleep (the one with Bogie, back in 1946) and The Empire Strikes Back (the best Star Wars movie).

Two movies you should watch instead.

But as far as the screenplay goes, IMDB trivia sez:

I got that impression about Elliot Gould's performance too, but have no evidence other than my own eyes and ears.

But in any case, the movie has little to do with Raymond Chandler's classic book. It's a travesty.