We at Klavan on the Culture are well aware that those of you who want to be hep or with it turn to us to learn the latest trends. If you don’t want your girlfriend or boyfriend or homosexual leather torture master to think you’re L7, you know you can always get your cool on by asking: “What’s the K-Man got swinging on the cutting edge, Daddy-O?” Or words to that effect.

But in this crazy, fast-paced, 24/7 world, even a bangin’ gangster like my little alter-self can sometimes fall behind the times. We are only now catching up with the going trend of Reality TV, in which ordinary people try to degrade themselves to the very lowest level of the lowest common denominator. And ask yourselves: what could be lower than the mainstream media?

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The mainstream media–a group of people far to the left of the American public–are deeply concerned that the extremist tea party–a group of people whose ideals represent the American mainstream–are threatening the careers of centrist Democrats… who are extremists.  If that sounds complex–or just plain idiotic–never fear.  That two-inch tall homuncular version of myself known to his likewise two-inch tall friends as Klavan on the Culture is here to sort of sort things out.  Insane visuals by the likewise insane Justin Folk.

We all know by now how the left reacts to the presence of the truth:  the screaming, the name-calling, the hysterical slander; the way they designate the craziest Koran-burning, abortionist-shooting nutcase they can find to represent the right; the way they demonize commentators like Rush and Coulter and Glenn Beck, without ever engaging with their ideas, and then use their names as insults to fling at people who have nothing to do with them.

In short, the left reacts to the truth the way a vampire reacts to a cross…  or the way the left reacts to a cross, come to think of it.  So when I see their brains start to smoke, I know one of the good guys is talking sense.

Last week, I and just about everyone else took note of a cover piece in Forbes magazine by Dinesh D’Souza called “How Obama Thinks.“  Basically, D’Souza put forward the psychological theory that certain of the president’s destructive and contradictory policies might be explained by examining his relationship with his father and his father’s anti-colonial philosophy.  The highlight of this well-reasoned and intelligent article was D’Souza’s examination of a heretofore almost wholly ignored piece of writing by the elder Obama.  It reveals that the president’s economist father had some very distasteful anti-western ideas.

Now as someone who doesn’t usually believe in analysis at a distance, I nonetheless found the piece remarkably convincing.  I was therefore not at all surprised when the White House, in the person of Press Sec Robert Gibbs, ripped into Forbes for daring to publish it.  “Did they not fact check this at all?” Gibbs cried.  Forbes editor-in-chief Steve Forbes, quite rightly, stood by the story.  Everyone acknowledges that D’Souza is putting forward a theory but as Forbes pointed out, “No facts are in contention.” (more…)

Whenever I am told I must be tolerant of other people’s religion, I always wonder, well, which tenet of their religion do you mean?  A religion, after all, is a system of beliefs and to say that all beliefs are equally worthy of tolerance is to say, essentially, that ideas don’t matter at all.  It’s nonsense of the purest ray serene.

For instance, I always try not to burn or behead those who hold different views on transubstantiation than I do – though there are days when it’s difficult, believe you me.  But if, like those Westboro Baptist clowns, you turn up at a US soldiers’ funeral claiming he deserved to die because America tolerates homosexuality and “God hates fags,” then you have been un-friended by me, brother.  Because your beliefs suck.

So with a group of Muslims cruelly and despicably determined to raise a triumphalist mosque near the site of the Islamist atrocities of 9/11 in New York, the question naturally occurs:  Does Islam suck?

Fortunately PJTV <http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&amp;mpid=80> ’s lovable Klavan on the Culture is here to examine the question.  Well, I think he’s lovable!

Infidel Justin Folk did the backgrounds.

Here in just around four minutes is a complete refresher course on the history, meaning and importance of the United States Constitution for all you young dudes and dudettes:

All right, it’s complete nonsense.  Still, when you man and woman the barricades, at least now you’ll know what you’re fighting for!  Sort of.

The brilliant and patriotic backgrounds are by Justin Folk, who actually wore a white wig to get in the mood. As opposed to his pink one… which I think is for a different mood.

Hey, Little People! You know how at the end of movies, they sometimes show what are called “outtakes”–mistakes and accidents that occurred during filming? These delightful laugh-fests remind you that even your superiors in Hollywood occasionally make an error or two, almost as if their species bore some genetic relationship to that of you troglodytes clinging to your religion and guns in the savage wastes outside LA!

Well, this week, PJTV’ presents some of the goofs, foul-ups, blunders and flubs that occur even at Klavan on the Culture… where we actually are better than the rest of you.

Justin Folk created the backgrounds, including the stunning illusion that I’m sitting in front of a green screen.

Oh joy of joys – my new Klavan on the Culture from PJTV has arrived. This week the New York Times Answer Man explains it all for you. As you know, the Times is the official arbiter of reality so get ready for an adventure in knitting the complex phenomenological fabric of being. Yeah, I’m joking. Justin Folk knits the complex phenomenological fabric of the backgrounds – and mittens, if you’re, you know, into mittens.