Is it any coincidence that the song O Christmas Tree has the same tune as the socialist anthem "we'll keep the red flag flying here"?

I fear the rot has already gone too far, since the conservatives here accept most of the shibboleths of the left uncritically. A proper conservative member was recently slapped down by the leadership for questioning the nhs. And on matters of climate change, europe etc there is barely a cigarette paper between the parties.
The highly PC BBC is responsible for making many truthful things unsayable here and I doubt there will be any progress until that institution is dealt with. Then perhaps we might have a decent debate.

I usually enjoy your columns, Mr Nolte, but think this one is as wrongheaded as Mr Shapiro's regarding overrated directors. Rupert Murdoch has a right to make his money as he sees fit, but I have always thought it to be a conservative virtue that one should seek to be responsible. Films like avatar create huge cultural damage and make it difficult to have a sensible debate about many issues without being shouted down in the local alehouse by someone whose values have been formed by such things. This is one step up from pagan porn and it would be hard to someone here justify a financier funding that due to free market actions.
The fact that Avatar has made oodles of cash only guarantees more similar propaganda will be made; indeed if you think Avatar is extreme, it will be as of nothing to what will follow it.
The free market is not an excuse to make money on anything that will sell. Good old fashioned values and taste should be part of the equation.

I remember the 80s when the stuff in that report was considered extreme over here. It is now the unchallengeable mainstream with even the "conservative" party buying into it. Any deviation from its mantra is now subjected to the most vile abuse.
American conservatives must not allow this to happen over there.

I cannot share Mr Ditko's view that the introduction of the comics code in 1955 led to the stagnation of the superhero. The traditional superhero had become virtually obsolete by the end of wwii with only Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman surviving. The revival of the superhero in fact only began after the comics code was introduced with a new version of the Flash in 1958.
During the the late 40s, early 50s the comic book had fallen into a cheap sensationalist medium where writers/artists claimed (as mr Ditko would put it) the Divine Right of the Irrational in order to create their sickest fantasies in the comicbook format. Many titles of the time -aimed at a young audience- appear shocking even today with our jaded palettes. The introduction of the code actually eradicated many of the worse elements of comics (at least for a time).
Marvel Comics and their outpouring of true heroic types were only possible due to the environment of excellence created by the comics code. This was the high point of the medium comparable to Hollywood under the Hayes code. When the code started to weaken, at the start of the 70s, once again we see the self-indulgent Divine Right of the Irrational return to the medium, with the 70s anti-hero (a contradiction in terms) and increasing levels of sadism and misogyny.
Does mr Ditko really believe that a comicbook market creating huge and easy profits by giving children gory entertainment would have gone back to heroic characters -which had so recently failed- without the comics code? Or that the almost ubiquitous appearance of savage anti-heroes after the decline of the code are coincidental?

"Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?"
"Take a hard left and keep turning."

Interesting admission from the BBC:

The show crossed the Atlantic 18 months after its US launch, but the BBC rejected it because of its "authoritarian aims" in trying to change children's behaviour.

"This sounds like indoctrination, and a dangerous extension of the use of television," said the head of children's programmes at the time, Monica Sims.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8340141.stm
This was laudable from the BBC of the time but now seems ludicrous in the light of their own PC indoctrination programmes for kids.

I'm not sure if his turn as James Whale counts as acting. In playing a gay attracted to young men, he was basically playing himself.
I would certainly agree about his Shakespearean roles, though. His film performance in Richard III is superb.

The best use of this song is its appropriate use at the end of The Killing Fields. It is Pol Pot's manifesto set to music.

The formula for theatre can be boiled down to:
1. Pick a contentious subject.
2. Simplify it.
3. Show all the characters with the correct opinion as sympathetic, compassionate and intelligent.
4. Show all the characters with the wrong opinion as ignorant, bigoted and wicked.
Increasingly, the demonisation of the wrong characters takes the form of racism, as in this play apparently. I've seen plays in which a character comes on stage and literally the first thing they say is racist. No other character signifier is necessary: one racist comment and we know this is the villain. This is the modern equivalent of the old moustache twirling black hat. So much for the subtlety of theatre.

This shows how much the elite (both Hollywood and European) is out of touch with normal people. I've read many comments on many forums, and from people I know have very left of centre views, and I have yet to see one endorsing Polanski.
I wonder if we will see the rise of "Roman republicans" ie decent liberals who are so disgusted by the worldview of their own kind that they start to see the light?