David Harsanyi is an award-winning columnist at The Denver Post. His column is nationally syndicated through Creators Syndicate.
Harsanyi is author of the book Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children (Doubleday/Broadway, 2007.) He has written on politics and culture for the Wall Street Journal, Reason, RealClearPolitics, Weekly Standard, National Review, Christian Science Monitor, Toronto Globe & Mail, and numerous other publications.
Harsanyi is also a regular guest on radio shows across the country and has appeared on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, NBC Nightly News and ABC, World News Tonight.
David Harsanyi
Penn Jillette Responds: ‘Is Dissent Still Patriotic?’
by David HarsanyiOne of my favorite performers, Penn Jillette (and if you haven’t watched the duo of Penn and Teller debunk a broad spectrum of nonsense on their show “Bulls***!“, you should) says a few words about my column — or, more specifically, the headline of my column– “Is Dissent Still Patriotic?”
Warning for the faint of heart, Penn uses some salty language — which, incidentally, I also completely support.
—
Bush? Obama? Jillette finds that dissent can provoke very distinct reactions from his friends, depending on the target.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
“Hope” – The Legal Battle!
by David HarsanyiAn interesting kerfuffle recently erupted when the Associated Press accused Shepard Fairey, the artist who designed the famous Barack Obama Hope graphic, of copyright infringement and threatened to sue him.
Glen E. Friedman — the super-talented chronicler of my cultural youth – comes up with, sorry to say, an argument in defense of friend Fairey that makes little sense. According to Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing, Friedman’s point can be boiled down like this: The Obama picture sucked originally and was improved. And because Fairey donated every penny he made from the graphic to the Obama campaign, he saw no profit on the graphic and should not be liable. (more…)
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Oscar the Ouch
by David HarsanyiThere are few things more unappealing than the orgy of self-adulation one witnesses during a celebrity awards show.
Yes, the Oscar nominations are here, and America simply can’t afford to stand idly by anymore. Not after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had the audacity to misleadingly claim that Brad Pitt had not only engaged in acting this past year, but that he was among the finest to practice the craft.
Absurdity of such scope is one of the reasons the Oscars continue to lose viewers and hemorrhage influence. Sometimes it seems the academy has a desire to disconnect from the average moviegoer. Last year’s Oscar telecast, accordingly, logged the show’s tiniest audience on record. (more…)
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
They Don’t Make ‘Em Like Fonda Anymore
by David HarsanyiWhile I was growing up in the liberal New York, my father, a rock-ribbed Republican and immigrant from communist Eastern Europe, was prone to hold grudges against entertainers. Thus, The Boycott was instituted to include a wide array of comedians, singers and movie stars. Their crime: political sedition.
There was, of course, the obvious. Jane Fonda, whose anti-Americanism is legendary, was a complete non-starter. Nor was there to be any mention of the frosty anti-Zionist Lynn Redgrave* at the dinner table. (Though, it’s difficult to imagine any normal kid actually wanting to mention, or even knowing who the hell, Lynn Redgrave was to begin with.) Even lesser-known lights such as Costas-Gravas and Martin Sheen were also banned outright.
So, come to think of it, I should probably thank dad for insulating my young mind from a needlessly torturous encounter with “The China Syndrome” or “Missing.”
The problem is, this boycott began to expand at such a precipitous pace that by its height I was exclusively watching movies featuring Jim Nabors and Burt Reynolds. I’m relatively certain, there was no pre-teen Jewish kid in the entire country — perhaps the world — who knew more about Hal Needham flicks.
Today, I can’t find a single star worth boycotting. I’ve come to accept there will be some perfunctory plotline that will cast capitalism as the sapling of all evil; I accept that every month another pretty face will grace us with an angry political homily.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
|
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Tips & Feedback