A letter to Mary Miller

Yet another one. You might enjoy reading it.

[Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

“High time” to “help”

“Things were increasingly expected of me that I found impossible to understand,” Arthur Grumm writes.

Steven Millhauser, Portrait of a Romantic (1977).

Related reading
All OCA Steven Millhauser posts (Pinboard)

Mary Miller, going places

“My” representative in Congress, Mary Miller (R, IL-15) — and how I tire of having to type the quotation marks — is headed to Chicago — a city she has often reviled — for a fundraiser. It’s hardly coincidental that she just announced the creation of Congressional Family Caucus.

And here I have to take issue with a nearby NPR affiliate, the same one that last February described Vladimir Putin as beginning “peacekeeping operations in Ukraine.”

From the station’s news item:

Miller says she believes Congress has a moral obligation to protect the natural family from what she calls the radical left, which wants to destroy it.

A possible revision:

Miller says she believes Congress has a moral obligation to protect what she calls “the natural family” from what she calls ”the radical left,“ which she says wants to destroy it.

As I’ve already suggested to the station, it’s not appropriate to repeat Miller’s language as if it has an obvious, uncontested basis in reality. I e-mailed; they said they’ll change their report.

Miller’s recent tweets refer to “the natural family” and “the traditional family, ordained by God,” and she invokes Deuteronomy 6 as a model for parent-child relations. Nice work of cherry-picking, Mary. Deuteronomy 21:18–21 has some interesting guidance for parents. In the King James Version:

18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: 19 Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; 20 And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. 21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And there’s lots more.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)

Expectations

The BBC program Desert Island Discs has some of the best interviews I’ve heard. Here, Michael Parkinson interviews Maya Angelou (August 2, 1987). I can’t imagine that this exchange was rehearsed:

I want to ask you a question that might sound silly, but it’s serious actually. Have you ever wished you were six foot, white, and male?

No, God no. [Laughs.] I wouldn’t want all that, oh my God, all those unfortunate, unachievable expectations. My expectations are just beyond my reach, and they have to do with me, not with the world. I hope to become a better human being, a kinder, wiser, funnier, more courageous human being, for me. I think a number of white males have the expectation of making other people conform for them. My fantasy is to be six foot tall, Black, female, American, a writer, successful, who laughs a lot and drinks just enough Dewar’s White Label Scotch and a little white wine [laughs] and goes to church on Sunday and really means it.

And loves her mother.

Yes, and who loves her mother.

Two other Angelou-related posts
Our state rep refers to “Mayor Angelo” : A tribute in dubious taste

[Context: Maya Angelou was six feet tall.]

Cather cameo

[From The Tarnished Angels (dir. Douglas Sirk, 1957). LaVerne Shumann (Dorothy Malone), Burke Devlin (Rock Hudson), and My Ántonia (Willa Cather). Click for a larger view.]

Related reading
All OCA Willa Cather posts (Pinboard)

How to improve writing (no. 108)

As I’ve written in a previous post, “Every time I look at Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, I end up rewriting one or more sentences.” From an item posted today:

I understand that people are outraged by the Tucker Carlson/Kevin McCarthy video stunt. It’s natural and understandable to react negatively and angrily to liars and traitors. But this is not at all the best or most effective response. The first response is simply mockery. That’s the most logical response and also the most effective.

“Natural and understandable,“ “negatively and angrily,” “the best or most effective,” “most logical and . . . most effective”: it’s like reading the work of a student writer aiming to hit word count.

Improved:

It’s reasonable to be angry about the dishonest, traitorous Tucker Carlson/Kevin McCarthy video stunt. But anger is not an effective response. A better response: mockery.

From fifty-five words to twenty-six. Is anything missing?

Related reading
All OCA How to improve writing posts (Pinboard)

[This post is no. 108 in a series dedicated to improving stray bits of public prose.]

All Fall Down notebook

Clinton Willart (Brandon De Wilde) has a notebook. He’s writing about Echo O’Brien (Eva Marie Saint), the daughter of a family friend, whose presence in the Willart house turns everything upside down. From All Fall Down (dir. John Frankenheimer, 1962). Click any image for a larger view.

[“You don’t actually see her quiver . . . You just feel it. You know that inside she’s all alive, and quivering. The way Echo O’brien makes me feel is this —”]

[A secret message.]

[Voiceover: “Au revoir, notebook, old pal, old thing. You have had it. This is my last entry.” Notice the little bottles on the desk: chemistry-set stuff.]

More notebook sightings
All the King’s Men : Angels with Dirty Faces : The Bad and the Beautiful : Ball of Fire : The Big Clock : Bombshell : The Brasher Doubloon : The Case of the Howling Dog : Cat People : Caught : City Girl : Crossing Delancey : Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne : Dead End : Deep Valley : The Devil and Miss Jones : Dragnet : Extras : Eyes in the Night : The Face Behind the Mask : The Fearmakers : A Foreign Affair : Foreign Correspondent : Fury : The Girl in Black Stockings : Homicide : The Honeymooners : The House on 92nd Street : I See a Dark Stranger : Journal d’un curé de campagne : Kid Glove Killer : The Last Laugh : Le Million : The Lodger : Lost Horizon : M : Ministry of Fear : Mr. Holmes : Murder at the Vanities : Murder by Contract : Murder, Inc. : The Mystery of the Wax Museum : Naked City : The Naked Edge : Now, Voyager : The Palm Beach Story : Perry Mason : Pickpocket : Pickup on South Street : Pushover : Quai des Orfèvres : The Racket : Railroaded! : Red-Headed Woman : Rififi : La roue : Route 66 : The Scarlet Claw : Sleeping Car to Trieste : The Small Back Room : The Sopranos : Spellbound : Stage Fright : State Fair : A Stranger in Town : Stranger Things : Sweet Smell of Success : Time Table : T-Men : To the Ends of the Earth : 20th Century Women : Union Station : Vice Squad : Walk East on Beacon! : What Happened Was . . . : Where the Sidewalk Ends : The Woman in the Window : You Only Live Once : Young and Innocent

George?

[“Head Cheese & Crackers?” Zippy, March 7, 2023. Click for a larger view.]

That is George Santos in today’s Zippy, isn’t it? Even if he’s missing a sweater.

It’s definitely Santos in today’s Gothamist, talking about evidently non-existent pet fish.

Recently updated

Loring Grill Now with a little more diner history.

“Ignorance pays off”

Assistant District Attorney Howard Malloy (Franchot Tone) wonders where the payoff is. How can a hate group make money? His future brother-in-law, newspaper reporter Charlie Riggs (Myron McCormick), explains. From Jigsaw (dir. Fletcher Markle, 1949):

“Forming an organization. Membership dues, badges, buttons, magazine subscriptions, donations. Even uniforms. Any effort to exploit the anti-this or ‑that. Any race or religion they can use as a scapegoat. Ignorance pays off, Howard, and the profits can climb into millions.”

As a twice-impeached defeated former president well knows.