Personally, I think it is all part of a liberal plot to destroy our country. Infantilize the grown-ups and indoctrinate the young. As long as we all look nice and are having fun. Remember the Twilight Zone episode "Number 12 Looks Just Like You (1964)"

"Personally, I think it is all part of a liberal plot to destroy our country. Infantilize the grown-ups and indoctrinate the young. As long as we all look nice and are having fun."

Hmmm.... well, I realize that Will's "analysis" of Dave & Buster's is only part of his rant, I have to say that, based on my single visit to a D&B's, the "liberal plot" isn't working very well - some looked bored, plenty were obese.

Even though this is the second approving link to Will's article here at NLT (wasn't it just a week or so back that another NLTer declared Newsweek utterly worthless? Apologies for remembering.), it's about as insightful as his old whine about how despicable it is that everyone wears jeans these days (and no ladies in petticoats or men in top hats!).

While I wasn't terribly impressed with Dave & Buster's, it's pretty ridiculous to pinpoint that place as symptomatic of a lifestyle of immaturity. Some people, like Will, enjoy watching men wave sticks at balls and run around in the grass and dirt (or hit little white balls with clubs to knock them into holes in the ground) - and they might drink beer while they do it, while other people enjoy video games. See also billiards, bowling, and darts, leisure activities that pre-date D&B's and flourished in conservatives' cherished 1950s. I'm sure Will would insist that his baseball is intellectual, noble and dignified, while video games aren't (highly debatable in itself), but it's still all obviously entertainment for leisure time. Perhaps Will would have backed off of that track if he knew there were video games simulating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where men (or boys wanting to be men) can pretend they're engaging in manly battle, their good American team obliterating the bad Others??

It's also odd, particularly in the context of Will's subject, to cite Cary Grant as some exemplar of manliness - even by what I thought was the loose conservative definition (it must be looser than I thought). After all, Grant was a guy who was married FIVE times, eloping to Vegas at the age of 61, and then marrying again at 77, to a woman 47 years younger. No doubt Grant was an amazing actor, but certainly one might wonder if Grant deserves the "perpetually befuddled boy" tag at least as much as Hugh Grant does. I don't know if the conservative definition of manliness allows for bisexuality - I highly doubt it - but I have left out the part about his 12 year relationship (and sometimes cohabitation) with Randolph Scott.

Really, even the fictional character of Mike Stivic looks pretty stable in comparison (and if Will had paid attention, that character married Archie's daughter, had a son with her, and moved with his family far from Archie's basement).

But I've heard many a conservative hold up John Wayne as some rugged, manly archetype - an entirely ludicrous assertion if one scratches even the slightest bit beneath the surface of Wayne's films and gritty public persona. So, as in much else, the conservative mythology is just that, and not at all reality-based.

Ahh, that liberal sense of humor. But then, when do "liberal plots" ever work very well, except on the big (or small) screen? And speaking of "reality based" liberal mythology, the so called "pretty stable" Mike Stivic" was fired from his job as a college professor in CA (I believe for participating in a nude nuclear protest), and eventually leaves his wife and son. Then I think he becomes a pretty awesome film director.

The Liberal-Based school systems in California do a great job of just that. That is why our son is home schooled. It's funny, he is sixteen and always has a parade of girls following him around with their mothers asking me when we can arrange the marriage between their daughters and my son. Why - because is a smart, respectful young man. He walks, talk and acts like a young man - doesn't wear his pants down around his knees, earrings or tats. Something that girls in the public school systems in California rarely find due to the crazy crap being taught. I know - I have been there, done that and got the T-Shirt in dealing with the ever-failing public schools in California where the reality is that 1 out of 2 drop out of High School. Thanks Liberals - you are doing just a fine job of raising more Mike Stivics.