Boys’ behavior

A New York moment:

The media here are buzzing over incidents surrounding an event the Metropolitan Republican Club hosted with Proud Boys leader Gavin McInnes on Friday. First and foremost is the surprising decision of the club—with its staid, establishment Republican reputation—to host the leader of a nationalist group that appears to be a sort of counter to the antifa movement. It’s no wonder then that violence broke out.

The Republican club was vandalized before the event (the Met Club attributed the vandalism to antifa), and then some Proud Boys apparently fought with protesters and sent at least one of them to the hospital after the event. Police are still trying to sort out all the details, but plan to charge nine Proud Boys and three others. Prior to this event, I was unfamiliar with the Proud Boys, and it’s hard to tell how much weight to give them. McInnes has about 100,000 followers on Facebook.

A shallow dive into researching the group has me scratching my head at the times we live in. The male-only group is made up of self-described “Western chauvinists.” Part of the group initiation involves swearing off porn and masturbation, getting a Proud Boys tattoo, and receiving a beating while you recite the names of five different breakfast cereals. The Proud Boy website posts videos of physical fights where Proud Boys win, titled “Proud Boy of the Week.” (McInnes argues it’s always in self-defense.)

The event itself seemed equally nonintellectual, though the Met Club billed McInnes’ appearance as part of a goal “to foster civil discussion.” A report from an attendee said McInnes and one of his Proud Boys did a skit reenacting the 1960 samurai sword assassination of Japanese socialist Inejiro Asanuma. According to this report, McInnes, playing the assassin, was “wearing glasses with caricatured Asian eyes drawn on the front.” Maybe it’s time for the Proud Boys to grow up.

Worth your time:

In light of the viral profile of Newt Gingrich and his outsize influence on the Trump administration, here’s a throwback to the caustically funny Matt Labash writing about Gingrich’s South Carolina presidential primary win in 2012.

“Is adultery now an asset for Republican candidates?” a voter asked Labash after Gingrich’s victory. Labash: “What could I do but look at the little lamb with pity?”

This week I learned:

The power of the Hillsong worship song. Since the end of last year, Spotify users have streamed songs by Hillsong 760 million times, only 10 million fewer than pop star Justin Bieber over that span.

A court case you might not know about:

The Supreme Court at the beginning of October denied the petition of Melissa Cook, a surrogate mother who was seeking parental rights of the triplets she birthed. Cook has become outspoken against surrogacy: The biological father who hired her to carry the children unsuccessfully tried to convince her to abort one of the triplets.

The court also denied another surrogacy case where the surrogate mother sought parental rights, which indicates that the justices want this contentious issue to simmer in lower courts and state legislatures for a while longer.

Culture I am consuming:

Tea with the Dames, a simple but delightful documentary where Dames Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, and Eileen Atkins sit around and talk. They all seem to see their film and television careers as secondary to their work in theater. Maggie Smith says she has never watched Downton Abbey, where she is a star. “I shall have to hasten or I’ll never see the wretched thing,” the 83-year-old says dryly.

Email me with tips, story ideas, and feedback at ebelz@wng.org