The item about
Stephen Schwartz’s crackpot burial of Hunter S. Thompson continues to resonate: “I read his
article on Thompson,” a Straight Up visitor writes. “It brought to mind the sound of an empty
garbage can bouncing its way down a very long flight of concrete steps. It just bounced from
declaration to declamation. It makes sense that, as the tagline says, ‘Stephen Schwartz is a
frequent contributor to The Weekly Standard.’ It fits your description of him in the City Lights
Bookstore.”
Another Straight Up visitor, citing Schwartz’s unfortunate initials
“SS,” writes of his article: “I love the part where SS trashes Burroughs & Ginsberg as irrelevant
to any time but their own. Obviously he hasn’t read them recently. They have never been more
relevant than right now. We are seeing their visions come to life in front of our
eyes.”
The item also drew a response from a reader about another
Standard article by columnist Wesley J. Smith, which dealt with Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning
flick “Million Dollar Baby”:
I am intrigued by how fiercely the conservative
media are orchestrating attacks on [it], apparently because it presents a case for euthanasia at the
end. In this article — “A Million Dollar
Miss” — they actually give away the
story’s ending, probably to dissuade people from bothering to see it. The intent seems to be to
sabotage it as much as possible. That, apparently, is how they deal with things that are not in
accord with their beliefs. It reminds me of the zealous religious police in countries like Saudi
Arabia.”
Point taken. But in fact, many reviewers have given away the ending
of Eastwood’s flick, sometimes warning of spoilers and sometimes not. More to the point is this:
The Standard columnist paints the picture as Nazi-style propaganda by drawing a specious parallel
between “Million Dollar Baby” and the 1939 German movie “I Accuse” (“Ich Klage
An”).
“It is striking and disturbing how similar the plotline of “Million
Dollar Baby” is to the voluntary euthanasia story in “I Accuse,” Smith wrote, while noting that “I
Accuse” had “Goebbles’s blessing” and “promoted voluntary euthanasia as well as the propriety of
killing disabled infants.”
Nazi references that seem to be multiplying right and left, including my own. But these days, for
good reason, it’s difficult, maybe impossible, even (especially?) in the U.S.
Senate.
