March 18, 2026

GEORGE MF WASHINGTON: Hollywood Dodges a Bullet.

The pleasantly surprising news that Paramount, not Netflix, came out on top in the Warner Bros. sweepstakes will turn out to be one of the great cultural bullet-dodges of all time… like Neo on Agent Smith’s roof big. Most everyone here in town understands this on a gut level, though few will say so out loud because as the drama dragged on, much of Hollywood decided that known cinephile Ellison was the bad guy in this particular story.

Perhaps now that the WB derby is over and the good guys won, someone in this accursed town can cash in on that signal and begin to reverse Hollywood’s grand mistake. Because in the recognition and reversal of that mistake lies a profitable way forward for the theatrical movie business, and for those of us who still love the art form and wish to see it endure for another generation of moviegoers, that would be great news indeed.

Netflix’s perilously woke management proved to be their undoing:

 

Posted at 7:44 am by Ed Driscoll

HMM: Flight Costs Are Up, but Travelers Aren’t Deterred, U.S. Airlines Say.

At an investor conference on Tuesday, executives from most major U.S. airlines said that robust travel demand was offsetting the effects of winter storms and a huge rise in the cost of jet fuel since the start of the war in Iran. The price of jet fuel on Monday was about 50 percent higher than it was before the war began on Feb. 28.

Executives at American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines said they had incurred $400 million each in higher fuel costs, but that they were not changing their profit forecasts for the first three months of the year because ticket sales remained strong. The executives said their airlines had broken daily or weekly records for ticket sales this year.

“It’s across all segments, covering corporate, covering international, covering premium leisure, covering main cabin, covering our domestic system,” Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said at the J.P. Morgan 2026 Industrials Conference in Washington. “We’re seeing strength in every market that we look at.”

It’s the same story with beef prices. They’re at or near record highs, but consumer are still buying — there’s little-to-none “protein substitution” going on, even with 80/20 ground beef nearing $7 a pound at Walmart.

Whatever the press tells you about how pinched consumers are, we’re still spending on the things we like.

Posted at 7:34 am by Stephen Green

THE CULTURE WAR HAS NO PLACE IN THE CASTING ROOM:

Most disheartening about these banal debates is how little curiosity they show about what art might otherwise be capable of. No one asks what a black Helen of Troy might reveal about desire, beauty or war. No one asks what a contested casting choice might say about contemporary anxieties. No one asks if there are more profound relationships between actors and their characters than shared genetics. The conversation never manages to rise above the level of offence and entitlement.

This is what the culture war really boils down to: a philistine struggle to deliver a pre-approved message, as opposed to just letting artists crack on with making what they want to. It distrusts audiences to make sense of things for themselves. It squeezes out any room for imagination and interpretation. The upshot is a complete flattening of culture.

If Western cinema is to revive itself from the hollowed out zombie-industry it’s become, we must reject such black-and-white thinking. Art ought to be risky, unpredictable and open to exploring the full range of human experience – even ones that might make us uncomfortable. It’s high time to get the culture warriors out of the casting room.

QED:

 

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

WELFARE STATE DEFENDERS REFUTED: Social Security Administration (SSA) Commissioner Frank Bisignano has the clearest possible answer to welfare state defenders who claim his digital efficiencies are clogging the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program — Look at the F-A-C-T-S!

Posted at 6:59 am by Mark Tapscott

FROM MARY CATELLI: Sylvie’s Escape.

Princess Sylvie’s parents sent her off to a mountain castle for her safety. There, she is greeted with a gift of a kitten. Not just any kitten, but one of the legendary Queen Angelique’s kittens.

When the kitten leads her into the forest, she follows, just avoiding capture as soldiers arrive to take the castle. She must flee and find refuge among the mountains and the mountain folk.

If she can.

Posted at 6:56 am by Sarah Hoyt

RIGHT? THE PROBLEM IS THEY WON’T LET PEOPLE GET ON PLAINS WITHOUT THE THEATER:  Ummmm Okay.

Posted at 4:31 am by Sarah Hoyt

BACK TO THE LAND WAS SILLY FOR THE LEFT AND IT’S SILLY FOR US:  Yeah, I know this is engagement bait bullshit from a European with no clue, but I see this kinda RETURN TO FARM post on X all the time, and it’s always some idylic dreamscape of rural niceness, which makes it really fucking obvious to all of us who come from farming backgrounds that these people have zero fucking clue, and would probably end up wrapped around an auger on their first day.

Xcancel.

Posted at 3:33 am by Sarah Hoyt

THE SPELLING IS AWFUL (I HAD A FEVER) AND I MIGHT NOT BE AS COHERENT AS NORMAL BUT STILL:  People Are Not Widgets.

Posted at 2:32 am by Sarah Hoyt

March 17, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Happy St. Patrick’s Day. I think it’s time for someone to drive the snakes out of Ireland again.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds