FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2025
...we learned from the late Roger Ebert: Our president seems to have his darling Vladimir Putin. We advise you to pity the child—to find a way to pity the child for the way the adult apparently got here.
Thanks to director John Ford, we all have My Darling Clementine. The leading authority's overview starts exactly like this:
My Darling Clementine
My Darling Clementine is a 1946 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp during the period leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. The ensemble cast also features Victor Mature (as Doc Holliday)...
The title of the movie is borrowed from the theme song "Oh My Darling, Clementine," sung in parts over the opening and closing credits. The screenplay is based on the biography Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart Lake, as were two earlier movies, both named Frontier Marshal (released in 1934 and 1939, respectively).
My Darling Clementine is regarded by many film critics as one of the best Westerns ever made. In 1991, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It was among the third annual group of 25 films named to the registry.
[...]
Fifty years after its release, Roger Ebert reviewed the film and included it in his list of The Great Movies. He wrote it was "one of the sweetest and most good-hearted of all Westerns, unusual in making the romance between Earp and Clementine the heart of the film rather than the gunfight."
We came to appreciate the film thanks to Ebert's decency. His lengthy 1997 review can be read by clicking here. We gained a great deal from this passage:
My Darling Clementine
[...]
The gentlest moments in the movie involve Earp’s feelings for Clementine (Cathy Downs), who arrives on the stage from the East, looking for “Dr. John Holliday.” She is the girl Doc left behind. Earp, sitting outside the hotel, rises quickly to his feet as she gets out of the stage, and his movements show that he’s in awe of this graceful vision. Clementine has been seeking Doc all over the West, we learn, and wants to bring him home. Doc tells her to get out of town...
Clementine is packed to go the next morning when the marshal, awkward and shy, asks her to join him at the church service and dance. They walk in stately procession down the covered boardwalk, while Ford’s favorite hymn plays: “Shall We Gather at the River?” When the fiddler strikes up, Wyatt and Clementine dance—he clumsy but enthusiastic, and with great joy. This dance is the turning point of the movie, and marks the end of the Old West. There are still shots to be fired, but civilization has arrived.
[...]
“My Darling Clementine” must be one of the sweetest and most good-hearted of all Westerns. The giveaway is the title, which is not about Wyatt or Doc or the gunfight, but about Clementine, certainly the most important thing to happen to Marshal Earp during the story. There is a moment, soon after she arrives, when Earp gets a haircut and a quick spray of perfume at the Bon Ton Tonsorial Parlor. Clem stands close to him and says she loves “the scent of the desert flowers.”
“That’s me,” says Earp. “Barber.”
Ford loved American music; he also loved cornball humor. His female characters were very important. In Stagecoach, the duke (John Wayne) stands up for an equally compelling lady, even in 1939. In The Searchers, we're always struck by the portrayal of the Vera Miles character, an extremely spirited young woman who's living, with her immigrant parents, next door to the end of nowhere, way out in the desert west.
(Then too, Ford made the deeply human Grapes of Wrath. He chose this lyric from the American songbook: "Do not hasten to bid me adieu.")
In My Darling Clementine, the painfully shy Fonda character finally has the courage to act on his admiration for the young woman who has arrived from the east but is about to go away on the morning stage. You can see the scene in question here. It culminates in their dance under an open sky.
Their dance is beautifully rendered. With that dance, Ebert says, civilization has come to the west.
In large part, civilization depends on the ability of the people thought of as men to respect, and to admire, the people thought of as women. More broadly, it depends on the ability of us the humans to come to terms with the challenges of sexuality, attraction and romance, which have always been very hard.
The Fonda character has his darling Clementine. Tragically, President Trump almost seems to be pursuing a darling of a different stripe. (We suggest that you pity the child.)
On programs on the Fox News Channel, many top stars are having a very hard time respecting the challenges of modern sexuality. Tomorrow, we'll show you an especially grisly example of what we're talking about.
Despite the stories we tell ourselves, Blue America has never had much of a sexual politics either, not even during the recent period when we were briefly pretending. That said, the current backsliding on the Fox programs we have in mind is astounding and hard to believe, as is the liberal world's silence about this behavior.
Our nation is in a world of hurt. We'll need good luck to survive.
ReplyDelete"as is the liberal world's silence"
The "liberal world"? Seriously? Are you, the one who perceives every infidel as "insane" and "something's wrong with him", consider yourself a liberal, Bob? Someone to whom addressing the president of a nuclear superpower by his first name is desperation and delusion, is a liberal?
Jeez. But thanks for the laughs, Bob.
Trump should have called him Volodya.
Delete"We'll need good luck to survive." I agree. But, the main threat isn't Trump's nuttiness or FoxNews's dumbness. It the looming bankruptcy of the federal government.
ReplyDeleteThere is still time for Trump to reverse all tariffs and reverse the tax cuts for billionaires.
DeleteI guess the US taking part ownership of Intel will help.
DeleteDavid in Cal,
DeleteStick with cheering on child rapists, and leave the deficit talk to people who understand economics.
Thanks in advance.
BTW, calling Jews "too stupid to understand economics" is the opposite of anti-semitism.
I am not anti-semitic.
DeleteMy condolences.
DeleteI don't think our nation is "in a world of hurt." On the contrary, by historical standards, I think it's the opposite. We're not at war. The economy is fine. We don't have the ugly, divisive issue of slavery, Jim Crow, and integration that permeated the last 2/3 of the 19th century and most of the 20the century. We have the resources to provide food an housing for all, although we're failing to provide housing to too many people. So, where's the world of hurt? A lousy TV station that 99.2% of viewers don't watch?
ReplyDeleteIntegration was ugly?
DeleteI’m sure the GOP will get right on that “taking care of the less fortunate.”’
DeleteIntegration was divisive.
DeleteHoly snakes, David! Integration was divisive?
DeleteSegregation was, by definition, a governmentally enforced division, a division of citizens by race and color. That's way more divisive, wouldn't you say?
Quaker - of course. Segregation and integration were both divisive. My point is that in both periods the country was more divided than it is today.
Delete"Integration is divisive!" fits right in with the core ideological maxims of "1984": War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength!
DeleteDogface - are you not aware that there was a lot of resistance to integration? Have you not read about Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman?
DeleteDavid, are you not aware that the three young men who were murdered were registering voters, not integrating diners or buses?
Delete"We don't have the ugly, divisive issue of slavery..."
DeleteQuick question, David.
Who the fuck do you think you're fooling? Mao?
Slavery was divisive because abolitionists just would not STFU.
Delete"Segregation and integration were both divisive."
DeleteI see. When the law mandates discrimination, that's divisive. When the law prohibits discrimination, that's also divisive.
I'm beginning to see the outlines of what wouldn't be divisive.
"WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what experts are calling one of the most remarkable comebacks for a convicted sex offender in recent memory, on Friday Donald J. Trump announced that he was replacing Attorney General Pam Bondi with Ghislaine Maxwell.
ReplyDeleteExplaining his decision, Trump said, "Pam said there’s a client list, and Ghislaine said there isn't. So I have decided Ghislaine would be better at this job than Pam."
In another stunning reversal of fortune, Trump announced that Bondi would be taking Maxwell’s place in prison, adding, “I wish her well.”
He said he was confident that Maxwell would receive speedy confirmation by Senate Republicans, noting, “If they confirmed Hegseth they’ll confirm anyone.”
Eat your hearts out, Trump-haters.
ReplyDelete"Maxwell says she never saw Trump do anything inappropriate, new DOJ docs reveal"
"Barr’s Testimony: No Trump-Epstein Evidence, Suicide Conclusion Stands"
Quelle surpris! Once a whore, always a whore.
DeleteI suppose it depends on what is meant by the word "inappropriate". I have seen Trump do so many inappropriate things, that it makes me wonder if Maxwell is blind. (Don't worry, we all know why she said this.)
Was that before or after she was moved to a comfy country club DiC? You fail to see the abject corruption at the heart of all this, or you do and you pretend not to. Either way, you are despicable.
DeleteWow, DiC, there is no better way to announce that you are an idiot than to buy into this. As far as "Suicide conclusion stands.", why don't you ask Maxwell about that? Or the two most preeminent forensic pathologists of that time who reviewed the autopsy findings, both stating that self-hanging, in their entire careers, never was associated with three broken neck bones. Bill Barr's justice department reeks of involvement in this.
Delete@6:52. I didn't say I bought into anything. All I did was quote a headline.
DeleteGhislaine Maxwell is utterly dishonest.
DeleteObviously.
Delete7:00,
DeleteThank you so much for not being a gullible loser, for a change.
How's it feel?
I am a gullible loser.
DeleteWhy did you boldface those headlines if you didn't buy into them?
DeleteAll roads lead to bigotry, when it comes to David and his fascist child-raping pals in the GOP.
DeleteI bolder the headlines to indicate that they were headlines.
Delete"All I did was quote a headline."
DeleteNo.
You also used those headlines to troll "Trump-haters." But, of course, that doesn't mean you actually believe those headlines. No, no.
10:41 Trolling liberals with headlines you don't necessarily believe is laughably disingenuous but par for the course for DiC.
DeleteBlaming Trump's parents for what Trump has become is about as fair as blaming liberals for it. Imagine for a moment that his parents tried to raise him to be a good decent person, but it didn't take. It is especially difficult for rich people to raise kids with any sense of perspective about their place in the world. Assuming that Trump is the one to be pited is grossly unfair to his family. And look how both Ivana and Melania were unable to put a dent in his narcissism. They gave up on him. Somerby tries very hard to adopt a pseudo-psychological veneer to his lobbying for Trump, but Trump is most likely a bad guy who has always made bad choices and who has mistreated everyone who has tried to help him be a normal human being. No one forced Trump to hang out with Epstein, the worst person in his environment. Trump was an adult then, not a pitiable youngster (like the girls he abused).
ReplyDeleteI think we must reject Somerby's lobbying on Trump's behalf and double-down on brining him to justice. He is as nasty a piece of work as has ever walked this planet, second only to Putin (who pushes people out of windows at will).
Mary Trump has an axe to grind against Trump's father, who she thinks killed her own father (Fred Jr.) by forcing him to be an alcoholic. Somerby entirely ignores her bias.
DeleteRegarding ivana and Melania: "They gave up on him." Did you read that in autobiographies or are you just making stuff up?
DeleteIvana divorced Trump and then wrote a book, among other things describing the way he raped her. Melania does not live with Trump at the White House or Mar a Lago. That speaks volumes. Even long time married couples who feel affection for each other do not live apart like they do. First ladies have a ceremonial function in our government. She has not been fulfilling that role at all. It is obvious she has abandoned him and she no longer has Barron as an excuse for absence. She is just gone.
DeleteI was quibbling over nothing important.
DeleteThis is the danger of Trump's regime:
ReplyDeletehttps://hartmannreport.com/p/the-authoritarians-secret-weapon-1c8
Don't say you weren't warned. You can be part of the opposition to fascism or you can be one of Trump's best buddies (he says), as long as you keep buying his swag and don't ask any questions.
It isn't hard to tell who has made which choice.
"In large part, civilization depends on the ability of the people thought of as men to respect, and to admire, the people thought of as women. More broadly, it depends on the ability of us the humans to come to terms with the challenges of sexuality, attraction and romance, which have always been very hard."
ReplyDeleteSomerby then says that there was a brief time when society was pretending to understand sexual politics. I assume he refers to the time when women were accorded some equality and protection under the law. He pretends that time is gone when it is not. He thinks "backsliding" in the form of sexist jokes by Gutfeld constitute a loss of women's rights. And he says the left is silent about women's issues.
First, Gutfeld and the right do not exemplify women's standing in society. There has been no repeal of Title IX or of laws guaranteeing women equality in the workplace and under the law. Trump made a show of dismantling DEI, but there are too many women working across our nation for that to be anything beyond show. And yes, it is ugly, but it is not what the majority of voters want, nor is it what women will tolerate.
Somerby's belief that liberal America, blue America, is not sticking up for women overlooks the alternative funding individuals are sending to Planned Parenthood, to keep that organization alive for women to use. Female politicians are still in office and more are running and finding funding for their campaigns. Liberals are supporting their campaigns, letting their donations speak loud and clear. Women are in the streets addressing Trump's abuses of immigrants and others. That isn't going to stop.
When Somerby says, in his sly and slimey way, that liberals have abandoned women, sexual politics, equality under the law, it is his wishful thinking, because women are loud and fully present in the resistance to Trump, and there has been no rollback whatsoever of whatever Somerby means by "sexual politics". Somerby must have noticed that there has been no lessening of the cry for the Epstein Files to be released, despite Trump's Maxwell tomfoolery. The victims deserve justice. They are women and they deserve to have Trump and Epstein's other accomplices tried in court.
Somerby grabs an old Western that nostalgically attributes the arrival of civilization to replace six-gun law to women establishing homes in Western towns previously dominated by men without wives or families. Deadwood does a better job of portraying this transition. Somerby doesn't seem to understand that the civilization brought to the American West already existed in the East, women did not create it and had few rights in that time period, no vote, no right to own property, no guardianship of their own children, no money held in their name, and so on. Bawdy women (who were already there before the real women supposedly arrived) were sex trafficked. They whored for money that was given to their owners, not to them. Their situations were desperate, like those of the girls trafficked by Maxwell and Epstein. The men who used them were not manly because of it. If there was shyness around Clementine, it was because such men didn't know how to get what they wanted from a woman who was free to make her own choices. There is nothing sweet or shy or romantic about any of that, except to a goon like Somerby.
DeleteEbert discussed the merits of the film, but he was not as clueless about sexual politics as Somerby seems to be. Somerby has no idea how to talk about this subject and would be better off avoiding it, like he usually does. His idea that the left doesn't care about women's rights any more because Trump destroyed DEI programs in the government (by force) and fired a bunch of women who had worked their way up to positions of authority, doesn't mean women are going back to subservience. That is what the Epstein Files are about -- women who were mistreated should not have crimes against them swept under the rug because Trump has a shitpile of money.
Meanwhile, Somerby obviously longs for a place among the bros where he and his bffs can diss women and other inconvenient demographic groups, the way the old standups used to do -- "Take my wife, please..."
"Despite the stories we tell ourselves, Blue America has never had much of a sexual politics either, not even during the recent period when we were briefly pretending. That said, the current backsliding on the Fox programs we have in mind is astounding and hard to believe, as is the liberal world's silence about this behavior."
ReplyDeleteWho is pretending? Perhaps Somerby feels like he is pretending whenever he is nice to some woman. If so, that is his problem. Perhaps he feels he is pretending whenever he acknowledges the accomplishments of a woman, especially one who is in a position of authority over him, such as the CEO of a corporation that has hired him for a gig. Does he feel like he is pretending whenever he is civil or respectful (and what does he mean by that term)? When he turns to a female colleague and says "what do you think?) is he just pretending to care whether she has an opinion or not? If so, he is the one with the problem, not liberal America and not women.
Sexual politics are not that difficult. You just treat women as if they were men, deserving of the same rights and respect. You keep sexual responses and attraction and romance out of business and other non-personal situations and you ask permission to make advances. This is not so different than the past, when a man visited a woman's father to ask for permission to make advances and show romantic interest in her. Rape was confined to the lower economic classes and consisted of force or drunken seduction. Women had to accompanied by men outside their homes because other men felt no restraint about raping any unaccompanied woman. That has changed because it was limiting and did not allow women to pursue careers, travel, or have any autonomy beyond what men were prepared to allow them.
If Somerby does not understand that current "sexual politics" are way less restrictive and give women more rights than in the past, he has not read enough about social customs in different American time periods. And he obviously knows nothing whatsoever about women's rights and feminism.
Women's rights are built-into the Democratic Party platform, every year. A candidate who does not support women's rights has no chance of being supported by Democrats and will not be elected given that women are more than half of the voters in our party. Republicans own the fight to roll back women's rights. Complaining about Gutfeld's stupid jokes, which exist to broadcast that right wing opposition to women's rights, is not supporting women. Asking for the release of the Epstein Files and the trial of Donald Trump IS supporting women.
Somerby lost all credibility on this issue when he called Stormy Daniels a con artist and grifter. She isn't a victim either, but taking Trump's side against her showed everything we need to know about Somerby. He can blame confused sexual politics for his own troubles with women, but it is more likely a lack of empathy. Men who feel like victims because women have rights aren't going to get a lot of sympathy from women.
Roger Ebert was the greatest film critic.
ReplyDeleteAgree
DeleteWhatever the liberal world is, it isn't silent.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5ILl-7bBg
More liberal pushback from Randy Rainbow (who is a very non-silent liberal):
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQVgsB3q67M
You can fast forward over the Ground News ad.