PJ Media

The Beholden State: California’s Lost Promise

The Beholden State: California’s Lost Promise and How to Recapture It is now officially published and available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and all the rest. This is a collection of writings on California’s troubles from my friends at the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and includes excellent essays by the great Victor Davis Hanson, Steven Malanga, Joel Kotkin, Heather Mac Donald and others. Among those others is me, (or I), with my essay on the movies, “The Lost Art of War.”

But while I’m delighted to be included in the book, the thing I really love about City Journal is that the writers and thinkers there are not concerned with party politics, but only with what works. They’ll support Democrats or Republicans, as long as they come up with real solutions to problems — and solutions that don’t compromise American principles of freedom. Also, they’re really good writers and thinkers.

Take a look at the book — and take a look at the journal itself too. Both provide unique takes on issues that are too often obscured by emotion and rhetoric.

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Posted at 9:58 am on June 16th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

Good Deals on Kindle YA’s

For those of you who enjoy — or think you might enjoy — or think you know someone who thinks he or she might enjoy — my young adult adventure novels: most of them are on sale at the Kindle store for the next few days for $2.99. All the books in the Homelanders series — The Last Thing I Remember, The Long Way Home, The Truth of the Matter and The Final Hour — plus If We Survive, one of this years International Thriller Writer nominees for best YA thriller — can be scored at that price through June 23rd.

They are very cool action-packed books and will make a man of you, unless you’re a girl, in which case you will remain a girl. The Homelanders books follow patriotic tough guy Charlie West who goes to sleep in his own bed one night only to wake up strapped to a chair being tortured by terrorists. If We Survive is about four young people who go down to Central America on a charitable mission — and then get trapped behind enemy lines during a Communist revolution.

Each for $2.99 apiece! Pretty good. Even I may buy a couple.

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Posted at 7:27 am on June 13th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

Can Conservatives be Atheists?

This PJTV discussion between me and Bill Whittle seems to have inspired a bit of online debate — plus some hate mail for me! What’s interesting is how many people heard me say that no, a conservative couldn’t be an atheist. As opposed to what I did say, which was yes, he could. Easy to get those two confused. And to those who asked whether I’ve ever read Ayn Rand, the answer is also yes, virtually all her major works and many of her minor ones as well. I find her economic ideas — most of which can be found in Frederic Bastiat — very sound. Her moral and aesthetic ideas are absurd. Even the people who believe in them don’t really believe in them.

Anyway, here’s the vid. Decide for yourself. All hate mail should be addressed to Bill. I mean, just look at him!

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Posted at 7:18 am on June 12th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

Beautiful Music!

Watch this!

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Posted at 11:41 am on June 9th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

Eyes Wide Shut: Christians Against Art

An excellent article by John Stonestreet at Breakpoint led me to an excellent article by Philip G. Ryken at The Gospel Coalition. Ryken asked Christian artists how the church discouraged them and they gave him some very precise and, I thought, accurate answers. Here’s Stonestreet’s summary:

First, they said, treat the arts as window dressing for the truth rather than the window into reality it’s intended to be. Second, embrace bad art just because it’s “Christian.” Third, value artists only for their artistic gifts, but not for the other contributions they can make as thinkers and servants with a unique perspective. Fourth, demand that artists only give answers in their work, but never raise questions. Fifth, never pay artists for their work—take advantage of them in ways we would never do with plumbers or accountants. And finally, only validate art that has a direct salvation application.

These complaints seemed to be highlighted and exemplified by a well-intentioned but, to my mind, utterly wrong-headed essay by David Gibson of the Religion News Service entitled, “Can A Christian Watch Game of Thrones?” (which happens to be my favorite show at the moment):

Is there anything morally redeeming about “Game of Thrones”? Does the hit HBO series even have a moral vision…? The appeal of the series seems bound up in the senseless violence and amoral machinations – not to mention the free-wheeling sex – that the writers use to dramatize this brutish world of shifting alliances and dalliances.

I call this wrong-headed not for its description of the show, but for its inherent concept of Christians as delicate flowers who have to be protected from a vision of life as it is. Gibson says GOT may be “depicting how the world would look if Christ had never been born – or what it could look like if Christianity disappeared tomorrow.” But that’s just silly. Does he mean now that Christ has shown up, people live long and prosper in honesty and evil never thrives? Is he demanding to be lied to about the nature of this world?

The very power of Game of Thrones derives from the fact that the author of the source novels, George R. R. Martin (an atheist, I believe) treats his characters as harshly and heartlessly as the real world treats the rest of us. If Christians can’t look at that without losing their faith, they better not watch the news either, or look out their windows, or leave their rooms.

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Posted at 10:37 am on June 7th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

A Conference on Fatherhood and Men

How can men speak honestly about relationships and fatherhood? Easy — don’t include women in the conversation. That way, laughable irrelevancies like fairness, equality, communication and sharing housework can be left behind and you can get down to discussing what really matters and what really works.

That’s why I’ll be participating in a panel at “BOND’s Annual Conference on Fatherhood and Men,” which is open to all men 13 and older. BOND — “Rebuilding the family by rebuilding the man.” — is the organization run by the courageous preacher and frequent “Hannity” guest Jesse Lee Peterson. I once wrote of him in a City Journal profile:

Peterson decries the transformation of the civil rights movement from a principled appeal to the American creed to a politicized shakedown of guilt-ridden whites. He condemns the government subsidies of single motherhood that have helped set loose a plague of black illegitimacy and its attendant plagues of generational poverty and crime. And he bemoans the black culture of dependency on government support that even welfare workers privately call “welfare psychosis.”

But Peterson is no metropolitan academic. Despite his quiet demeanor and delivery, his message is charged with that old-time religion. Where [Shelby] Steele views the last 40 years of civil rights activism as a complex and poisonous blend of white guilt, black opportunism, and government incompetence and corruption, Peterson sees an intentional power grab by an anti-American Left, a self-interested attempt to destroy the nation by destroying manhood and marriage, part of the ongoing and eternal struggle between the forces of Good and Evil. “You cannot control a moral people,” he tells me. “You have to keep them immoral in order to control them.”

Hit the poster for more information on the conference. And look here for the rest of my profile of this brave and important man.

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Posted at 4:22 pm on June 5th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

For Stephen King on God, Read “Desperation”

Stephen King is the Stephen King of horror writers. When he’s on his game, he really is so good at what he does there’s no one to compare him to but himself! Recently, what Christopher Hitchens used to disdainfully call “God-botherers” (ie. believers like myself), were interested to hear King give an interview to NPR in which he said he leaned toward faith in the creator, though he vacillated and was inconsistent.

“I choose to believe it. … I mean, there’s no downside to that. If you say, ‘Well, OK, I don’t believe in God. There’s no evidence of God,’ then you’re missing the stars in the sky and you’re missing the sunrises and sunsets and you’re missing the fact that bees pollinate all these crops and keep us alive and the way that everything seems to work together. Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design. But, at the same time, there’s a lot of things in life where you say to yourself, ‘Well, if this is God’s plan, it’s very peculiar,’ and you have to wonder about that guy’s personality — the big guy’s personality. And the thing is — I may have told you last time that I believe in God — what I’m saying now is I choose to believe in God, but I have serious doubts and I refuse to be pinned down to something that I said 10 or 12 years ago. I’m totally inconsistent.”

But if you really want to see King exploring the idea of faith and the nature of God, the novel to read is Desperation — maybe because it was written in the mid 1990s during one of King’s periods of deeper faith. Anyway, if you’re a horror fan at all, it’s an insanely gripping read. The first 300 pages or so are almost unbelievably compelling. Then the narrative drive lags a bit, but mostly because King starts to use his story to explore God’s presence in the midst of horrifying events and to talk about what it might mean. It never gets boring and there’s one five or ten page chapter in the book’s second half that’s as scary as anything King — or anyone — has ever written. (It’s about a woman locked in a pitch black room. Terse, controlled, brilliant horror. The man is truly a master of the art.)

By the end, you really do get a sort of theology, which is delivered in a way that’s both humble and touching. I understand there’s a companion novel as well — The Regulators — by King’s alter ego, Richard Bachman. I haven’t read that one, but this one is dynamite. And don’t settle for the movie — it’s only so-so.

And yes, yes, I know King’s a liberal and against the second amendment. He’s still a great horror writer. What can I tell you? Talent is blind!

*****

Cross-posted at PJ Lifestyle

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Posted at 11:36 am on June 3rd, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

A Joke for my Anniversary

Here’s one of my favorite political jokes in honor of my wedding anniversary:

Barack Obama, John Boehner and Harry Reid are traveling on Air Force One when the jet crashes and they are all killed. Barack Obama is immediately whisked off to a plain of eternal fire. Demons tear at him with pitchforks; hellhounds rip his flesh; flames engulf him. And a mighty voice from on high thunders: “BARACK OBAMA! THIS IS YOUR DOOM!”

John Boehner finds himself in an endless waste of ice. Ice devils scratch at him; hailstones pound him; freezing cold lashes his body. And a mighty voice from on high thunders: “JOHN BOEHNER! THIS IS YOUR DOOM!”

Harry Reid opens his eyes and finds himself in a spacious penthouse apartment in the clouds. The furnishings are lavish. Beautiful music plays on an amazing sound system. A crystal of single malt scotch is waiting for him on the stand near his plush armchair. The door opens and in walks Kate Upton in the sheerest possible negligee. And as the gorgeous super model moves slowly toward him, a mighty voice from on high thunders: “KATE UPTON…!”

I have been married 33 years. During that time, my wife and I have had one argument and a million laughs. Without sentimentality or exaggeration, I can honestly say it has been a romance out of a fairy tale. For me, it has been a gift from God and a taste of paradise.

For my wife? Well, I can only hope she doesn’t feel like Kate Upton in the joke!

****

Cross-posted at PJ Lifestyle.

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Posted at 7:45 am on May 31st, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

Sorry to See Michele Bachmann Go

Once, when I was attending a David Horowitz Freedom Center event — in Florida, I think it was — I wandered into a private meeting between Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and a handful of the center’s big donors. I can’t remember why they let me stay. I think I agreed to clean out the ashtrays or something. Anyway, it was fairly early in Obama’s first term and Michele was outlining her views on the economy and what she considered the proper Republican response to the onslaught of tried-and-false government solutions coming out of the administration.

The woman I heard speaking in that room was as sharp as any politician I’ve ever heard, and a lot sharper than most. Concise, realistic, clear-eyed, strategic — and with a grasp of economic realities that made the president look just plain stupid, which I don’t believe he is.

She was brave too. In the speech she had given at the event, she said, in effect, “Why should we be afraid of expressing our opinions? We’re the ones in the right!” I shouted out, “Sing it, sister!” Which is not like me. But how true is that? Let me help you: it’s very true. And she was as good as her word in the House.

Look, I won’t pretend I agree with her on every issue. I’m to the left of her socially — and certainly, where she sees a homosexual menace threatening the nation, I see gay colleagues, relatives and friends and wish them well.

But our dishonest media used her social opinions and a few meaningless gaffes to depict her as some sort of crazed extremist. She’s not. She’s a smart, tough lady with more sense in her head than any six Nancy Pelosis and more integrity, I suspect, than a dozen Harry Reids. I’m not sure why she’s decided not to run for another term, but I admire her and like her and I’m sorry to see her go.

[Cheers to Justin Folk of Madison McQueen, who did the great graphics on the video above.]

(Thumbnail on PJM homepage based on a modified image originally by Cheryl Casey / Shutterstock.com.)

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Posted at 11:04 am on May 29th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan

The Left Can’t Handle the Truth

When you go through a political sea change as I did — switching my political position over the course of the years from left to right — there are many little revelations that occur along the way. There are many moments you look back on, thinking, “That was an important clue. That was a step in the transition.”

One of those moments for me was the moment when I realized that the villains in my novels spoke the simple truth more often than my heroes did — that is, I had begun to use my nasty characters to say nasty things that I knew to be true but that sounded too harsh and mean to be spoken by nice people. I have since noticed that left-wing artists do this a lot — and that often the audience recognizes the truth when they hear it and so elevates the villain while completely forgetting the hero and his pious-sounding left-wing claptrap.

The best example I can think of comes from the talented leftist writer Aaron Sorkin’s play and movie A Few Good Men. We all remember what the tough guy Colonel Nathan Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson in the film, screams at the self-righteous liberal lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise. We remember it because, while Sorkin makes Jessup act criminally, what Jessup says is exactly right. Harsh, but right.

“You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns…. I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom…. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives….You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.

We use words like honor, code, loyalty…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent defending something. You use ‘em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it! I’d rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to!

It’s about time our artists allowed their heroes to speak such truths and left the puling self-righteous leftist nonsense to their villains. After all, that’s the way it is in real life.

Happy Memorial Day.

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Posted at 6:05 am on May 27th, 2013 by Andrew Klavan