Rose mcgowan

Thursday

John Phipps

Louis Theroux’s podcast reveals a master at work

I always want to know more about Louis Theroux, which is odd, since I’ve seen so much of him already. I’ve seen him hanging out with Nazis, auditioning for Broadway and undergoing liposuction. I’ve seen him chased by scientologists and given the runaround by Jimmy Savile. I’ve even seen him evading the insistent romantic advances of an American sex worker. Why am I still interested? Perhaps it’s that his personality veers close to seeming like an act. The otterish earnestness, the jerky, mannequin physicality. The spectacles that feel like a prop. There is something in me that wants to lift the lid on the real Louis Theroux, to sweep the curtain aside with a flourish and say: ‘This is how he gets them to say what he wants!

Monday

Stephen L. Miller

Witch fight! The naked hypocrisy of Alyssa Milano

From our US edition

Alyssa Milano has rebranded herself as a Twitter activist and Democratic party booster since her acting career peaked with the late 90s TV hit Charmed. Thanks in part no doubt to her husband’s powerful connections in the entertainment industry (he’s a managing partner at CAA, a top-tier rep agency in Los Angeles) she’s leveraged her voice onto cable news, podcasts and into political campaigns. She is the celebrity perhaps most responsible for the mainstreaming the #MeToo movement. Her zenith as an activist came in 2018, during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Milano was the most recognizable face behind the justice during the controversial confirmation hearings in which he faced thinly-sourced and circumstantial sexual assault allegations.

charmed alyssa milano rose mcgowan

Friday

Taki

The Bible’s #MeToo problem

I write this on my last day in the Bagel, and it sure is a scorcher, heat and humidity so high that the professional beggars on Fifth Avenue have moved closer to the lakes in Central Park. Heat usually calms the passions, but nowadays groupthink pundits are so busy presenting fake news as journalism you’d think this was election week in November. Here’s one jerk in the New York Times: ‘The court’s decision was narrow…’ The decision in question is the Supreme Court ruling that a baker could refuse a gay couple’s request for a cake on religious grounds. The writer who described the result as narrow, one Adam Liptak (Lipgloss would be more appropriate), did not mention that the vote was seven to two. Talk about fake news.