therambler

Political Theory PhD Candidate. Notorious Anglophile. Certified Clubrat.

[therambler @dr_rambler]

@TitusPullo1125 @Schaumby Don’t sleep on the 100-series or 200-series landcruisers—they’re beasts!

[Cosmos + Taxis @cosmosandtaxis]

Coming soon: The Aesthetics of Liberalism with @mlbitton, BLAKE SMITH, @gurueluke, JAMES ALEXANDER, ISHAAN JAJODIA, THOMAS CHEESEMAN, @HorcherF

Reviews by ALASDAIR MARSHALL, SALVATORE TAIBI, @ojelrodriguez, @EdwinvdHaar

https://t.co/djAzvHhU6I

[Philip Bunn @PhilipDBunn]

I have never suggested my research is incredibly important. I write on niche topics and writers that interest me and few others. What’s “important” about my work, if anything, is this: it’s a product of a human being wrestling with what it means to be a human being.

[therambler @dr_rambler]

@DFANewHaven This is interesting but I wonder where she’s getting sources from—much of the data is laid out like an AI/LLM report—which isn’t to say she’s wrong

[therambler @dr_rambler]

@amandaorson Thank you for the full letter, and it gets even better towards the end!

[Peter Hitchens @ClarkeMicah]

1/2 .@milanbrahmbha11 'Bombay' is what many people who live there prefer to call it. The name 'Mumbai' was adopted at the insistence of Bal Thackeray, a man who in Europe would have been described as a fascist. Western liberals absurdly think it 'progressive' to follow his demands.

[Russell Kirk Center @KirkCenter]

Next week Saturday, our first panel of the day at the Kirk Scruton conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan will include international and American scholars discussing the prospects for Conservatism and Cultural Renewal. @Fisher_D @cjscalia @HorcherF
https://t.co/omNPdzDbno

[Russell Kirk Center @KirkCenter]

Our conference opens w/a panel on Conservatism and Cultural Renewal featuring Christopher Scalia, Ishaan Jojodia, Fisher Derderian, and Ferenc Hörcher. The wide ranging conversation has already treated on “romantasy,” urban planning, high / low culture, and country clubs.


[Ferenc Hörcher @HorcherF]

Session 3: Conservatism and Cultural Renewal
· Ferenc Hörcher, “High Culture as a Common Ground”
· Christopher Scalia, “Renewing Literary Culture”
· Ishaan Jajodia, “Conservatism, Cosmopolitanism, and (decidedly not) High Culture”
· Fisher Derderian, “The Kitschmensch Cometh”

[No Context Brits @NoContextBrits]

Who remembers prefects?

[therambler @dr_rambler]

When it comes to club sports, there’s only one rule that applies: the smaller the ball, the better the sport, as coined by author Lisa Birnbach.

https://t.co/XaRlpfr7OV

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

Seems important that in Fahrenheit 451, books were still “available” in single-paragraph summaries—“read Hamlet in five minutes!”—but the books themselves had been banned for being too difficult. Tech boosters see a warning and think it’s an instruction manual.

[Dr Daniel Pitt @DanJTPitt]

Fancy reading a book on the future of conservatism with chapters from
@Phillip_Blond @epkaufm @aroberts_andrew @DrDavidJeffery @HorcherF @CJSchilt @CBPhull @CRJFear @intothefuture45 @imogenasinclair @Kevin_Hickson @dr_rambler and me? Well, this free ebook could be for you 👇

[Jack Chambers @JackChambersGB]

I'm a sucker for Western/Asian hybrid design

[Dr Daniel Pitt @DanJTPitt]

The ebook of the Post Liberal Turn and The Future of Conservatism is available for FREE! @Phillip_Blond @HorcherF @epkaufm, @aroberts_andrew @DrDavidJeffery, @CJSchilt @dr_rambler Beech, @CRJFear @intothefuture45, @imogenasinclair @Kevin_Hickson and me.
https://t.co/qIDEFMXW1q

[Dr Daniel Pitt @DanJTPitt]

@HorcherF @dr_rambler chapter is on the Demise of Fusion and the Rise of American Post-liberalism.

[Mary Harrington @moveincircles]

I hate to break it to the misanthropes on here but a lot of women really do manage both, one after another, and then get and stay happily married

Life is long and has seasons, can everyone just unclench a bit

[Marc Thiessen @marcthiessen]

Not every Ivy League campus is descending into chaos and intolerance.

“Dartmouth students flocked to the college’s quintessential campus Green this week. They left their camping gear behind, though.

“They didn’t join the masses of students at other elite colleges across the country who set up tent cities on their campus lawns to protest the war in Gaza and loss of free speech at home. They weren’t enlisting in the pro-Palestinian movement that led to the arrests in recent days and nights of hundreds of U.S. student activists who defied their college administrators’ orders to keep off the grass.

“Dartmouth students who occupied the Green this week were sticking to Spikeball.”

https://t.co/AhmQxLD0hj

[Jack Chambers @JackChambersGB]

High Americana

[Judianna @Judianna]

For all the fans of “It’s A Wonderful Life” and Jimmy Stewart . . .

Just months after winning his 1941 Academy Award for best actor in “The Philadelphia Story,” Jimmy Stewart, one of the best-known actors of the day, left Hollywood and joined the US Army. He was the first big-name movie star to enlist in World War II.

An accomplished private pilot, the 33-year-old Hollywood icon became a US Army Air Force aviator, earning his 2nd Lieutenant commission in early 1942. With his celebrity status and huge popularity with the American public, he was assigned to starring in recruiting films, attending rallies, and training younger pilots.

Stewart, however, wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to fly combat missions in Europe, not spend time in a stateside training command. By 1944, frustrated and feeling the war was passing him by, he asked his commanding officer to transfer him to a unit deploying to Europe. His request was reluctantly granted.

Stewart, now a Captain, was sent to England, where he spent the next 18 months flying B-24 Liberator bombers over Germany. Throughout his time overseas, the US Army Air Corps' top brass had tried to keep the popular movie star from flying over enemy territory. But Stewart would hear nothing of it.
Determined to lead by example, he bucked the system, assigning himself to every combat mission he could. By the end of the war he was one of the most respected and decorated pilots in his unit.
But his wartime service came at a high personal price.

In the final months of WWII he was grounded for being “flak happy,” today called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

When he returned to the US in August 1945, Stewart was a changed man. He had lost so much weight that he looked sickly. He rarely slept, and when he did he had nightmares of planes exploding and men falling through the air screaming (in one mission alone his unit had lost 13 planes and 130 men, most of whom he knew personally).

He was depressed, couldn’t focus, and refused to talk to anyone about his war experiences. His acting career was all but over.

As one of Stewart's biographers put it, "Every decision he made [during the war] was going to preserve life or cost lives. He took back to Hollywood all the stress that he had built up.”

In 1946 he got his break. He took the role of George Bailey, the suicidal father in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The rest is history.

Actors and crew of the set realized that in many of the disturbing scenes of George Bailey unraveling in front of his family, Stewart wasn’t acting. His PTSD was being captured on film for potentially millions to see.

But despite Stewart's inner turmoil, making the movie was therapeutic for the combat veteran. He would go on to become one of the most accomplished and loved actors in American history.

When asked in 1941 why he wanted to leave his acting career to fly combat missions over Nazi Germany, he said, "This country's conscience is bigger than all the studios in Hollywood put together, and the time will come when we'll have to fight.”
This weekend, as many of us watch the classic Christmas film, “It’s A Wonderful Life,” it’s also a fitting time to remember the sacrifices of Jimmy Stewart and all the men who gave up so much to serve their country during wartime. We will always remember you!

Postscript:

While fighting in Europe, Stewart's Oscar statue was proudly displayed in his father’s Pennsylvania hardware store. Throughout his life, the beloved actor always said his father, a World War I veteran, was the person who had made the biggest impact on him.

Jimmy Stewart was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985 and died in 1997 at the age of 89.
H/T @mustangmarine