I don't even understand the drooling part. What, are they just not eating right? Failing to teethe? Suffering from mononucleosis, pesticide poisoning or snakebite? No matter what you call it – hypersalivation, sialorrhea or ptyalism – drooling is a serious societal concern (and also possibly an indicator of the sort of moroon you are dealing with)...
I subscribe to the NYT’s, although, after their cheerleading for the Iraq war, I no longer rely on them as fountain of truth; just a bunch a hucksters like the rest of the MSM. That said, I don’t bother reading Ross because it’s five minutes of my life, I’ll never get back.
I equate him to the three stooges at the Washington Post: Thiessen, Olsen and Huwitt. They all deserve each other and may they all be relegated to the dustbin of history. Enough said!...:)
Ah yes the NYT has never met a war it didn't like. Go back over a hundred years and check out their ecstatic anticipation of the Spanish American War or WWI.
Just pointing out the NYT and ilk were offended by the early pro-democracy volunteers in Spain...the 'premature anti-fascists' as were labeled by our government and joyfully dumped on by (some of) the lapdog press.
Shit, I forgot Hugh "On The Front Line Of The War On Terror" Hewitt was working over at WaPo. Wonder who the next right-wing asshole the media will hoover up in the sacred name of Bothsides? Hannity? Jesse Waters? The shade of Limbaugh, through an Ouija board?
I can’t answer the question as to which right-wing imbecile will be the next media darling, but I hear Hollywood is doing a remake of Dumb and Dumber: its called Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest; The Capitol Hill edition. It stars Gaetz, MTG and Boebart!...:)
Yet again -- mainly because I still haven’t gotten an answer: Of what importance are Douthat or Chotiner or Brooks in the greater scheme? Which minds of those with actual power and agency have been changed?
A silver lining to the piece maybe is to serve as a reminder that no establishment reporter can be trusted to be honest and of reportedly (sic) value, who produces something good for society as opposed to fanning the flames, so to speak.
Sep 13, 2023·edited Sep 13, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
I don't think anyone's saying that homophobic bigots in state legislatures pursue their hate-filled policies because Ross Douthat sets their agenda, he just gives voice to the agenda.
And, as a reasonable, "slightly ironic" voice in the uber-establishment NY Times, he legitimizes the agenda. Waiting for "Are There Acutal Lizard People Living Below the Earth's Crust? Probably Not. But Questions Remain."
Exactly, just look at his argument against gay marriage, he's not some fire-breathing fundamentalist who's threatening us with Hell and Damnation, he just has CONCERNS, you know, about stuff like the "thinning of family trees" (WTF does that even mean? Does he mean people are choosing to have fewer children? If he means that, why doesn't he say that?) You know, just some practical concerns he has, nothing personal, some of his best friends (used to be) gay!
Also I just want to say that I feel extremely sorry for all those people who got gay-married and didn't receive a personal phone call from Ross Douthat.
What would happen if a secular atheist wrote with similar "concern" over the medieval superstitiousness of Catholics? More in sadness than in anger over the patently barbaric ritual of communion, etc. "Special virtue accrues to believers who bravely--some would say stubbornly--persist in their belief, even in the absence of proof and, especially, in the face of disproof. I worry that such magical thinking can only lead to rival, and incompatible, conceptions of reality itself." I can haz NYT column?
Yeah, the “thinning of family trees” is linguistic nonsense. A family tree is a single thing. It’s not a forest you can thin. Unless he means pollarding, which is still dumb and also ruins his twee wordplay.
He gives batshit insanity legitimacy. "Even the liberal New York Times" blah blah blah. Then the NYT runs a story on the nefarious shit the Republicans are planning if they seize power, burying it back on A23 next to the want ads. Balance!
That's exactly right. The Times and all those other numpties aren't there to change minds but to instill defeatism. I found Douthat's yak (here and elsewhere) about "passing peak woke" instructive -- because for a nanosecond in 2020 the fake libs were starting to admit that black lives mattered, until the word went out and Tom Cotton and JD Vance raced to the barricades to proclaim "sez who?"
Makes me think of the Thousand Year Reich the GOP claimed back in '94 when their idiot freshmen got elected to Congress. Republican Revolution! The triumph of the Right! Conservative shows on PBS! World without end, amen!
As a Lefty northeastern urban type I of course subscribe to the New Yorker, and I was salivating when I saw Chotiner had interviewed Douthat. It seems to be common knowledge when Isaac Chotiner calls you up for an interview, the wisest course of action is to purchase a new identity, move off the grid, and keep your head down until he loses interest. So I assumed Douthat, in his hubris, was walking into a bear trap.
What a disappointment! I wouldn’t exactly call it a tongue bath, but either Douthat was too slippery for Chotiner (hard to believe), or like the New Yorker profile of Rod Dreher from a couple of years ago, the mission was to Both Sides neo-reactionaries so they appeared house-broken and de-fanged. A great disservice to readers.
And yeah, Douthat is no “liberal whisperer.” Anyone who falls for his schtick was never very left of center to begin with.
Quite possible. I know there is a sort of loose brotherhood of Ivy League journos who all eat at the same restaurants and send their kids to the same schools, and they are loathe to draw knives on each other despite political differences -- class solidarity in action. I guess I just expected better from Chotiner.
As (IIRC) Diane Ravitch wrote years ago, the Masters of the Universe send their kids to Waldorf schools. Then they advocate "discipline" and "structure" for inner-city schools.
It's true that kids thrive when their environment is safe and stable, which is the norm for middle- and above income families, and it's even true that kids from unstable homes (poverty, frequent moves) can benefit from the stability of school. I cringe, though, reading articles that seem to drop the blame for instability all on the parents. Poor parents move often so kids may have to change schools. Poor parents may not take the kid to the doctor for vaccinations or to check out a possible ear infection. Poor parents may be using TV or video screens for babysitting. Why not put resources toward keeping families in their housing so they're not always chasing after elusive inexpensive housing when rents go up? Why not put resources into after-school programs for kids so parents in low income jobs don't have to pay so much of their income for child care just to be able to keep the jobs that may or may not provide the health insurance that they need to see health care providers that they may not have paid time off to see . . . I think you get the drift.
A Facebook friend of mine who volunteers at a school posted the saddest thing. There's tremendous turnover in the students who attend the school, not just between but also during the school year, and I asked her why that was? She said it was because so many of them were in Section 8 housing, and as a result had to move all the time.
My dad was 9 years old when the Depression hit. He once told me that his family moved every six weeks, because in those days, landlords would give you the first month free, and when you couldn't make the rent in the 2nd month you had 2 weeks to move out.
If we could have just seen his peener all over Xitter, we'd understand his criminality, and therefore his father's, but NOOOOO, the Deep State woke socialIST media tyrants wouldn't allow it, the traitors
If you're poor or working class, you aren't allowed ONE mistake. Life is a tightrope, one false step and you're fucked, because the owners of this circus were too cheap to pay for a safety net.
The lion's hungry! He needs to be fed! Meat's expensive in Sleepy Joe's economy, so a kid goes missing occasionally, jeez, their parents can just make another
The single working mom trying to prevent her ADHD son from getting expelled would like to hear more about these "beautiful mistakes" of which you speak.
According to the conservatives, kids are too stupid and brainless to know anything about gender until they're at least 23, but need to pay back their student loans, for the rest of eternity if necessary, because they KNEW what they were signing.
Oh, and own a gun, don't forget that, Christ, let's buy our eight year old a fucking kid's AR-15 and "teach responsibility", but don't let them see a rainbow flag or they're corrupted for life
I never understood the concept of taking something that was working just fine, then breaking it under the assumption (someone else) would (somehow) put it back together even better. Sociopathic techbro/venture capitalist nonsense.
The so called liberals are not gullible. I think that one could have argued that decades ago but to watch them now, I am nearly positive that they knowingly want the fascists to take over. Because I simply have no ability what would be motavating their actions otherwise.
And on a separate note are you implying that the lizard people do not control the world? Because that is disturbing because I was kind of hoping that someone did.
It's fear. When I was growing up in the suburbs of Buffalo during the 70s, it was strongly impressed on my mind by my elders that there was this large population of more-or-less blue-collar conservatives out there, the "silent majority", just waiting its turn to take back American society and drive us effete snobs and nattering nabobs of negativism back to the concentration camps or whatever where we belonged, and that for that reason we had to tread carefully and not offend them by openly expressing our liberalism or our sophistication or whatever. (That's how "elitist" became the dirtiest of words.) For many of us who grew up with such sentiments hanging over our heads, fear of the uprising of the "silent majority" calcified into a habitual deference to them. That's why you have all those Cletus safaris.
Oh yes, this. It's an internalized belief that there's only one kind of REAL American, white, rural, racist, conservative. The rest of us are here with their permission, DO NOT MAKE THEM ANGRY.
I should also point out that the people most subjected to violence from these REAL Americans (I speak of Black people, of course) don't seem to be so afraid of them and are willing to fight for their rights even if the REAL Americans are offended. But affluent white liberals who are much less at risk and have greater means to protect themselves? Nope.
I wanna know why a "lizard man" has a skull that could pass for human if you put human skin over it. Scales do not a lizard make. Are those its real teeth, or like a Halloween set?
"Let's switch to our swamp correspondent CR "Crazy Rascal" Anderson. Craze, who's that you're speaking with today?"
" – –scal Anderson down here in the swamp. Steve, I'm here today with the Creature from the Black Lagoon to answer those questions. Critter (OK if I call you Critter?) we're wondering about those scales and all those teeth. First, can you tell us how the scales lie flat like that? And if I were to pet you the wrong way like thi – – "
"Craze? Craze? Well folks, sounds like maybe some technical issues down there in the swamp. We'll cut to these commercial messages and see if we can re-establish that missing link."
Can't even begin to wade thru all this. Will start with this gem:
"“Christian conservative who lives among liberals, writes for them, and… has their respectful attention” "
Writing AT them, maybe. FOR them is irresponsible claptrap (first time I've ever written that word...kinda like it!). Don't Douthat writes FOR liberals in the manner of folx who yell "FIRE" in crowded theaters, whilst adding first "Ready...Aim..."
"But the people who are making the argument already have a platform and an audience, so you need a way to engage it.”
I/We need nothing of the sort, boyo! The only thing we need wherein you and your "ideas" are concerned is the going away thereof.
The UFO thing? That's just godpersons blathering about the wheel in the sky. "End (of Part 2) Times! Tune in for Part 3 when the Dude lands it on the Ellipse!"
"what you might say about a boss who loosens his tie and does karaoke at an office party" – Don't make me replay Larry Ellison's Kumbaya moment!
"Authentic Harvard gibberish!
Obviously 2 marks, but 3 marks overall 'cause Damn!
I'm confused, if I say that the anti-vaxxers are dangerous morons who are getting thousands of people killed, is that not the engagement they were looking for? Because it's the only engagement I've got to offer.
Thank you for this. I read this despite the topic because Chotiner, and I kept waiting for the subtle shiv... and it never came. As you say, the only pointed comment (thank god) came from Goldberg.
Put me on team "something more subtle". Chotiner interviews do a variety of things, depending on the subject. Sometimes he's looking for straightforward information. The message I get from this one is that Douthat is fundamentally unserious, without real commitments, the same troll he probably was as an undergrad, making his roommates' flesh creep with his eccentric opinions. Goldberg's analysis of what he does may be right, but I don't think it's as much "sincere" as staying in a character he adopted when he was coping with his mother.
I just read it, and yeah, "fundamentally unserious", and deeply insecure. That paragraph about him interacting with his kids reiterates the "staying in character" aspect too. And now: TL;DR
His colleague Moyn says "'...Telling harsh truths to his fellow-conservatives is sometimes more difficult for him, in part because of his tendency to attribute right-wing paranoia to liberal missteps....His role is in part the apologist and rationalizer of the actually existing right, even as he idealizes a version of it that he would rather have.'" And, says Chotiner: "But, perhaps because he’s reluctant to argue with people to his right, he tends to focus on why their ideas are unworkable, rather than on whether they are misguided."
And the following is why I dislike him, because everything of his that I read is like this. He's talking about accompanying his mother on her persistent exploration of charismatic/fundamentalist/evangelical spheres searching for relief from discomfort.
"'Whatever the reality of charismatic healing is—speaking in tongues and all these things—that reality was a hundred per cent present in a lot of the places where we went and hung out. There was nothing faked or fraudulent about it,' he told me. "
What does this even mean? "Whatever the reality is...it was 100% present...there was nothing faked or fraudulent", except for what if "the reality" - which Douthat pretends to acknowledge is uncertain - happens to be that it *was* faked and fraudulent, or possibly meant to be symbolic and performative and that participants shouldn't have expected to be literally healed. Douthat says whatever, I'm covered, I have plausible deniability, nobody that matters is gonna be mad. If anyone criticizes me I can just accuse them of disrespecting believers like libs always do.
I can't listen to the NYT Daily show the local public radio plays: the false equivalency and reflexive left bashing had me yelling at the radio, and Borbaro's orotund tones of absolute certainty and the damn pauses. had me, like HST in Las Vegas: "I wanted to put my fingers around his throat to make the words come out faster."
Whenever I read something like "obvious supernatural realities about the world" I remember that some of the saints who had notable visions probably also had migraines, which can cause auras. Fasting a lot and sleep deprivation can lead to hallucinations, too, I hear. Mostly, it's your own imagination - like believing in fairies in the garden when you were six.
Look, I've studied the occult for decades, I believe in the supernatural, but Douthat is just a skosh away from Alex Jones "God's galactic law" territory here. He doesn't fucking BELIEVE in the Bible; he might have to act more like Jesus if he did, and that's unthinkable for him. Religion to him is just another weapon against his enemies, and if it's "supernatural", well, that just means you can't argue against it in any meaningful way.
I tell my students there are only two REAL mathematical operations, addition and multiplication, and when I'm solving an equation I tend to say stuff like "Let's un-add the 7" or "Let's un-multiply the 2"
I wasn't entirely joking. I didn't finish 10th grade. Later I took College Algebra and Intro to Stats.
The other day I tried to figure out all the possible combinations of two sets, exclusive to each other, order being irrelevant. It took me longer than I care to admit.
Some of the most serious, committed saints sat atop pillars for years. I will chip in to buy Patriarch Ross a plane ticket to Syria or the Sinai desert, where he can indulge his inner stylite and only bother those who willfully come to see him.
Afterwards: "Did you notice how he didn't say Tim McVeigh should have parked his truck bomb in front of our building? He's the moderate we're looking for!"
I think that's why there was such caterwauling when the Atlantic decided they didn't want Kevin Williamson on staff after all. When they're reminded the "liberal" publications have a choice about whom they hire, it's as if Mommy and Daddy suddenly stopped protecting them.
My personal bete noire being David Brooks (aka David Fucking Brooks) this got me: “What they got right was an emphasis on trying to be at least in part the party of the working class” --- how? By tossing them rage chum on the daily? Just don’t try to take one to a fancy sandwich joint, that would be unkind.
“What they got right was an emphasis on trying to be at least in part a means for the redistribution of wealth from the bankers to ordinary Depression-era Americans." - David Brooks on Bonnie and Clyde.
To Brooks and his peers, the working class is just the Great Unwashed living under the bridge in My Man Godfrey. It’s a sign of his nobility that he acknowledges their existence at all.
Do you suppose he gives the Democrats any credit for "trying to be at least in part" advocates for working-class Americans? No? I mean, "trying to be at least in part" is a pretty low bar to clear, seems the Democrats might... no?
I don’t have heroes - except Keith Richards, who has proven you really can be yourself - and that includes Chotiner. My take-away was that while politicos and lawyers are available targets for his subtle pantsing, the New York “literary” hierarchy doesn’t permit someone who wants to keep working in that milleu the luxury of dumping on a Made Man. Douchebag is too much of an asset for the NYT (“We know you hate it when Krugman calls Republican ideas zombies, but look, we have Douchebag and that other three name woman Christian”) to permit his being exposed for the pious fraud he is. I will give points to the editor who let “supernatural realities” stand. That says all you need to know about the sophistry of chuds like Ross. “You libs are blind to jumbo shrimp!”
I'm honestly impressed at the precision with which the New Yorker draws these lines - who's safe from ridicule and who isn't. And people in that Upper West Side milieu really do feel it, if they're ever moved from one side of the line to the other. Alan Dershowitz' anger at no longer being invited to speak at the Chilmark public library is understandable, for people who never suffer any real consequences, it's the closest they'll ever come to Siberia.
I'm a Boomer, and Keith Richards is one of my heroes because he's the living proof that all that crap our parents gave us about the eeeeeeevils of drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll was, well, crap!
“They were careless people, Ross and Abigail —they smashed up things and made beautiful mistakes and then retreated back into their money and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
"So Ross beats on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Or as his likely hero WFB Jr. said "standing athwart history yelling 'stop'"
I don't even understand the drooling part. What, are they just not eating right? Failing to teethe? Suffering from mononucleosis, pesticide poisoning or snakebite? No matter what you call it – hypersalivation, sialorrhea or ptyalism – drooling is a serious societal concern (and also possibly an indicator of the sort of moroon you are dealing with)...
I subscribe to the NYT’s, although, after their cheerleading for the Iraq war, I no longer rely on them as fountain of truth; just a bunch a hucksters like the rest of the MSM. That said, I don’t bother reading Ross because it’s five minutes of my life, I’ll never get back.
I equate him to the three stooges at the Washington Post: Thiessen, Olsen and Huwitt. They all deserve each other and may they all be relegated to the dustbin of history. Enough said!...:)
Those three stooges couldn't locate their assholes with the help of a proctologist
Ah yes the NYT has never met a war it didn't like. Go back over a hundred years and check out their ecstatic anticipation of the Spanish American War or WWI.
Agreed, or there love of Hitler and the Nazi’s. They were won of his biggest apologists...:)
Did na wanna be premature, no?
Huh? Do you always converse in cryptic tongues?...:)
Cryptic, crypter, crypto...
Just pointing out the NYT and ilk were offended by the early pro-democracy volunteers in Spain...the 'premature anti-fascists' as were labeled by our government and joyfully dumped on by (some of) the lapdog press.
Bern is our Delphic Oracle.
Better Delphic Oracle than Ellison Oracle.
They managed to be pro-Stalin as well, with coverage by Walter Duranty: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/us/times-should-lose-pulitzer-from-30-s-consultant-says.html
Hey, man, don't harsh the mellow
I dig journalism that's yellow...
I think we're gonna need a bigger dustbin, or maybe a compactor...
Shit, I forgot Hugh "On The Front Line Of The War On Terror" Hewitt was working over at WaPo. Wonder who the next right-wing asshole the media will hoover up in the sacred name of Bothsides? Hannity? Jesse Waters? The shade of Limbaugh, through an Ouija board?
I can’t answer the question as to which right-wing imbecile will be the next media darling, but I hear Hollywood is doing a remake of Dumb and Dumber: its called Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest; The Capitol Hill edition. It stars Gaetz, MTG and Boebart!...:)
Yet again -- mainly because I still haven’t gotten an answer: Of what importance are Douthat or Chotiner or Brooks in the greater scheme? Which minds of those with actual power and agency have been changed?
A silver lining to the piece maybe is to serve as a reminder that no establishment reporter can be trusted to be honest and of reportedly (sic) value, who produces something good for society as opposed to fanning the flames, so to speak.
JFC.
If you subscribe to the idea that America has a Ruling Class, they're part of it.
Still doesn’t answer the question. Per your comment, it’s just pandering, but has no influence on setting an agenda.
I don't think anyone's saying that homophobic bigots in state legislatures pursue their hate-filled policies because Ross Douthat sets their agenda, he just gives voice to the agenda.
And, as a reasonable, "slightly ironic" voice in the uber-establishment NY Times, he legitimizes the agenda. Waiting for "Are There Acutal Lizard People Living Below the Earth's Crust? Probably Not. But Questions Remain."
Exactly, just look at his argument against gay marriage, he's not some fire-breathing fundamentalist who's threatening us with Hell and Damnation, he just has CONCERNS, you know, about stuff like the "thinning of family trees" (WTF does that even mean? Does he mean people are choosing to have fewer children? If he means that, why doesn't he say that?) You know, just some practical concerns he has, nothing personal, some of his best friends (used to be) gay!
Also I just want to say that I feel extremely sorry for all those people who got gay-married and didn't receive a personal phone call from Ross Douthat.
Yeah that thing about the scandalously slender trees is fetishistic...
"thinning of family trees"... trees like, oh, say, the birch... the white birch... white treeeeeees...
What would happen if a secular atheist wrote with similar "concern" over the medieval superstitiousness of Catholics? More in sadness than in anger over the patently barbaric ritual of communion, etc. "Special virtue accrues to believers who bravely--some would say stubbornly--persist in their belief, even in the absence of proof and, especially, in the face of disproof. I worry that such magical thinking can only lead to rival, and incompatible, conceptions of reality itself." I can haz NYT column?
Yeah, the “thinning of family trees” is linguistic nonsense. A family tree is a single thing. It’s not a forest you can thin. Unless he means pollarding, which is still dumb and also ruins his twee wordplay.
He gives batshit insanity legitimacy. "Even the liberal New York Times" blah blah blah. Then the NYT runs a story on the nefarious shit the Republicans are planning if they seize power, burying it back on A23 next to the want ads. Balance!
I only read the NYT for the want ads anyway...
That's exactly right. The Times and all those other numpties aren't there to change minds but to instill defeatism. I found Douthat's yak (here and elsewhere) about "passing peak woke" instructive -- because for a nanosecond in 2020 the fake libs were starting to admit that black lives mattered, until the word went out and Tom Cotton and JD Vance raced to the barricades to proclaim "sez who?"
Makes me think of the Thousand Year Reich the GOP claimed back in '94 when their idiot freshmen got elected to Congress. Republican Revolution! The triumph of the Right! Conservative shows on PBS! World without end, amen!
Wonder how all that turned out for them? Hm. 🤔
"Tom Cotton and JD Vance raced to the barricades to proclaim "sez who?""
The barricades in this case being op-ed real estate in the NY Times. As always.
"Look, I'm a liberal, but on this thing I think we've gone far enough."
There ya go, the bulk of the Times readership described in a single sentence. Substitute whatever you want for "this thing" and it still works.
They do not entertain the way Roy does. Therefore unimportant.
As a Lefty northeastern urban type I of course subscribe to the New Yorker, and I was salivating when I saw Chotiner had interviewed Douthat. It seems to be common knowledge when Isaac Chotiner calls you up for an interview, the wisest course of action is to purchase a new identity, move off the grid, and keep your head down until he loses interest. So I assumed Douthat, in his hubris, was walking into a bear trap.
What a disappointment! I wouldn’t exactly call it a tongue bath, but either Douthat was too slippery for Chotiner (hard to believe), or like the New Yorker profile of Rod Dreher from a couple of years ago, the mission was to Both Sides neo-reactionaries so they appeared house-broken and de-fanged. A great disservice to readers.
And yeah, Douthat is no “liberal whisperer.” Anyone who falls for his schtick was never very left of center to begin with.
Maybe both sets of their kids go to the same posh private school where future large adult sons can learn to make "beautiful mistakes."
Quite possible. I know there is a sort of loose brotherhood of Ivy League journos who all eat at the same restaurants and send their kids to the same schools, and they are loathe to draw knives on each other despite political differences -- class solidarity in action. I guess I just expected better from Chotiner.
I agree this is the correct answer: bros will be bros in a profession.
This is one reason old school Dem pols have had such a hard time adapting to a GOP no longer respecting the "politesse" of the political class...
Adapt or die is (or ought to be) operative. 'Cause it's too late for the kinda truce talks the historical dustbin admonishers* are flogging...
Actually, I don't have any idea what I mean by that either...
It's A Big Club, And You Ain't In It, Journalistic Division
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by cronyism.
As (IIRC) Diane Ravitch wrote years ago, the Masters of the Universe send their kids to Waldorf schools. Then they advocate "discipline" and "structure" for inner-city schools.
Well, you know, SOME people can't handle freedom. Good thing we don't give them any.
It's true that kids thrive when their environment is safe and stable, which is the norm for middle- and above income families, and it's even true that kids from unstable homes (poverty, frequent moves) can benefit from the stability of school. I cringe, though, reading articles that seem to drop the blame for instability all on the parents. Poor parents move often so kids may have to change schools. Poor parents may not take the kid to the doctor for vaccinations or to check out a possible ear infection. Poor parents may be using TV or video screens for babysitting. Why not put resources toward keeping families in their housing so they're not always chasing after elusive inexpensive housing when rents go up? Why not put resources into after-school programs for kids so parents in low income jobs don't have to pay so much of their income for child care just to be able to keep the jobs that may or may not provide the health insurance that they need to see health care providers that they may not have paid time off to see . . . I think you get the drift.
You're a dreamer. That's OK – somebody's gotta do it.
A Facebook friend of mine who volunteers at a school posted the saddest thing. There's tremendous turnover in the students who attend the school, not just between but also during the school year, and I asked her why that was? She said it was because so many of them were in Section 8 housing, and as a result had to move all the time.
My dad was 9 years old when the Depression hit. He once told me that his family moved every six weeks, because in those days, landlords would give you the first month free, and when you couldn't make the rent in the 2nd month you had 2 weeks to move out.
Funny how Hunter Biden's mistakes don't count as beautiful.
He owned a gun when he shouldn't have! Every Republican is OUTRAGED by his gun ownership!
Clearly the Founders never meant for the 2A to apply to liberals and blahs.
Liberals and Democrats only make ugly mistakes, as befits Lizard People.
Skinks are beautiful!
Hey, I resemble that remark!...:)
Huh, I did not peg you as skink-adjacent...
Hey, no skink-shaming here!
If we could have just seen his peener all over Xitter, we'd understand his criminality, and therefore his father's, but NOOOOO, the Deep State woke socialIST media tyrants wouldn't allow it, the traitors
Let's be fair, I know it's a mistake, but if I can't see it, how can I know if it's beautiful?
You had to be there, in the moment, to know the bittersweet beauty of those mistakes!
Those were mistakes, my friend, we thought they'd never end...
And for once we were right!
Which, of course, someone else will be required to clean up.
"Respectful attention" and "Ross Douthat" are two phrases that should never appear in the same sentence, regardless of context.
How great would it be if Roy got to sit down and interview
( please God don't) Douthat. I'd like to think it would end with Roy tossing his glass of O'Douls into (please God don't) Douthat's chinless face.
" Beautiful Mistakes"
Now there's a phrase guaranteed to piss you off. How do these people make so much Goddamn money?
( I ask myself that a lot, lately)
I don't worry much about anti-vaxxers anymore. I figure self-selection is natural selection. Not my fault they're so Goddamn stupid.
Good column! You must have enormous patience.
If you're poor or working class, you aren't allowed ONE mistake. Life is a tightrope, one false step and you're fucked, because the owners of this circus were too cheap to pay for a safety net.
CAGE the lion?! Where's the entertainment in THAT?!
The lion's hungry! He needs to be fed! Meat's expensive in Sleepy Joe's economy, so a kid goes missing occasionally, jeez, their parents can just make another
Not just can, but should! must!
That's pretty dark Pere ....
UPVOTE!!!
LIBERALS JOKE ABOUT EATING CHILDREN (says the chyron at Fox News below a screenshot of this discussion)
The single working mom trying to prevent her ADHD son from getting expelled would like to hear more about these "beautiful mistakes" of which you speak.
According to the conservatives, kids are too stupid and brainless to know anything about gender until they're at least 23, but need to pay back their student loans, for the rest of eternity if necessary, because they KNEW what they were signing.
Not fully brain-developed enough to vote, fully brain-developed enough to chain themselves to a life-long debt.
Oh, and own a gun, don't forget that, Christ, let's buy our eight year old a fucking kid's AR-15 and "teach responsibility", but don't let them see a rainbow flag or they're corrupted for life
"Beautiful Mistakes" That's some Silicon (Sillycon?) Valley-infused shit right there.
Yeah, it's just another form of "Move fast and break things", confident that others will pay the price.
I never understood the concept of taking something that was working just fine, then breaking it under the assumption (someone else) would (somehow) put it back together even better. Sociopathic techbro/venture capitalist nonsense.
Yeah this. My definition of "disruption" is "White boys fucking shit up for lolz"
It's pretty easy to fuck shit up.
The only beautiful mistakes I believe in are the artistic ones.
Then let him loose on David Brooks.
The so called liberals are not gullible. I think that one could have argued that decades ago but to watch them now, I am nearly positive that they knowingly want the fascists to take over. Because I simply have no ability what would be motavating their actions otherwise.
And on a separate note are you implying that the lizard people do not control the world? Because that is disturbing because I was kind of hoping that someone did.
Controlling might be too strong a word...maybe "influencing" (it IS all the RAGE) is more like it (see lizard-tongue ear-tickle).
It's fear. When I was growing up in the suburbs of Buffalo during the 70s, it was strongly impressed on my mind by my elders that there was this large population of more-or-less blue-collar conservatives out there, the "silent majority", just waiting its turn to take back American society and drive us effete snobs and nattering nabobs of negativism back to the concentration camps or whatever where we belonged, and that for that reason we had to tread carefully and not offend them by openly expressing our liberalism or our sophistication or whatever. (That's how "elitist" became the dirtiest of words.) For many of us who grew up with such sentiments hanging over our heads, fear of the uprising of the "silent majority" calcified into a habitual deference to them. That's why you have all those Cletus safaris.
Oh yes, this. It's an internalized belief that there's only one kind of REAL American, white, rural, racist, conservative. The rest of us are here with their permission, DO NOT MAKE THEM ANGRY.
I should also point out that the people most subjected to violence from these REAL Americans (I speak of Black people, of course) don't seem to be so afraid of them and are willing to fight for their rights even if the REAL Americans are offended. But affluent white liberals who are much less at risk and have greater means to protect themselves? Nope.
Don't forget us lady-folk. They want to hunt us down, I'm sure you've heard.
Do you not know your place? Here, we'll find it for you.
Oh, if only that silent majority would just shut the fuck up again...
Truly, the "silent" part is the best feature.
Yes, I grow tired of this not-silent not-majority.
I wanna know why a "lizard man" has a skull that could pass for human if you put human skin over it. Scales do not a lizard make. Are those its real teeth, or like a Halloween set?
We don't hesitate to ask the tough questions here at Roy's Place.
"Let's switch to our swamp correspondent CR "Crazy Rascal" Anderson. Craze, who's that you're speaking with today?"
" – –scal Anderson down here in the swamp. Steve, I'm here today with the Creature from the Black Lagoon to answer those questions. Critter (OK if I call you Critter?) we're wondering about those scales and all those teeth. First, can you tell us how the scales lie flat like that? And if I were to pet you the wrong way like thi – – "
"Craze? Craze? Well folks, sounds like maybe some technical issues down there in the swamp. We'll cut to these commercial messages and see if we can re-establish that missing link."
Damn.
Can't even begin to wade thru all this. Will start with this gem:
"“Christian conservative who lives among liberals, writes for them, and… has their respectful attention” "
Writing AT them, maybe. FOR them is irresponsible claptrap (first time I've ever written that word...kinda like it!). Don't Douthat writes FOR liberals in the manner of folx who yell "FIRE" in crowded theaters, whilst adding first "Ready...Aim..."
"But the people who are making the argument already have a platform and an audience, so you need a way to engage it.”
I/We need nothing of the sort, boyo! The only thing we need wherein you and your "ideas" are concerned is the going away thereof.
The UFO thing? That's just godpersons blathering about the wheel in the sky. "End (of Part 2) Times! Tune in for Part 3 when the Dude lands it on the Ellipse!"
"what you might say about a boss who loosens his tie and does karaoke at an office party" – Don't make me replay Larry Ellison's Kumbaya moment!
"Authentic Harvard gibberish!
Obviously 2 marks, but 3 marks overall 'cause Damn!
I'm confused, if I say that the anti-vaxxers are dangerous morons who are getting thousands of people killed, is that not the engagement they were looking for? Because it's the only engagement I've got to offer.
I ain't the judgemental type, but break off the engagement before it's too late, is all I'm sayin'...
Thank you for this. I read this despite the topic because Chotiner, and I kept waiting for the subtle shiv... and it never came. As you say, the only pointed comment (thank god) came from Goldberg.
As usual. She's cherce.
Put me on team "something more subtle". Chotiner interviews do a variety of things, depending on the subject. Sometimes he's looking for straightforward information. The message I get from this one is that Douthat is fundamentally unserious, without real commitments, the same troll he probably was as an undergrad, making his roommates' flesh creep with his eccentric opinions. Goldberg's analysis of what he does may be right, but I don't think it's as much "sincere" as staying in a character he adopted when he was coping with his mother.
I'll track the damn thing down and read based on this review, thanks!
I just read it, and yeah, "fundamentally unserious", and deeply insecure. That paragraph about him interacting with his kids reiterates the "staying in character" aspect too. And now: TL;DR
His colleague Moyn says "'...Telling harsh truths to his fellow-conservatives is sometimes more difficult for him, in part because of his tendency to attribute right-wing paranoia to liberal missteps....His role is in part the apologist and rationalizer of the actually existing right, even as he idealizes a version of it that he would rather have.'" And, says Chotiner: "But, perhaps because he’s reluctant to argue with people to his right, he tends to focus on why their ideas are unworkable, rather than on whether they are misguided."
And the following is why I dislike him, because everything of his that I read is like this. He's talking about accompanying his mother on her persistent exploration of charismatic/fundamentalist/evangelical spheres searching for relief from discomfort.
"'Whatever the reality of charismatic healing is—speaking in tongues and all these things—that reality was a hundred per cent present in a lot of the places where we went and hung out. There was nothing faked or fraudulent about it,' he told me. "
What does this even mean? "Whatever the reality is...it was 100% present...there was nothing faked or fraudulent", except for what if "the reality" - which Douthat pretends to acknowledge is uncertain - happens to be that it *was* faked and fraudulent, or possibly meant to be symbolic and performative and that participants shouldn't have expected to be literally healed. Douthat says whatever, I'm covered, I have plausible deniability, nobody that matters is gonna be mad. If anyone criticizes me I can just accuse them of disrespecting believers like libs always do.
"Whether it's true or not, it's definitely true."
Those lizard people? They can speak in two tongues at once!
Good for Michelle Goldberg. As for the rest (long Michael Barbaro pause) of these jackhats (pause) they're hopeless.
I can't listen to the NYT Daily show the local public radio plays: the false equivalency and reflexive left bashing had me yelling at the radio, and Borbaro's orotund tones of absolute certainty and the damn pauses. had me, like HST in Las Vegas: "I wanted to put my fingers around his throat to make the words come out faster."
Bob and the STOA gotcha covered...
Whenever I read something like "obvious supernatural realities about the world" I remember that some of the saints who had notable visions probably also had migraines, which can cause auras. Fasting a lot and sleep deprivation can lead to hallucinations, too, I hear. Mostly, it's your own imagination - like believing in fairies in the garden when you were six.
People also drank a lot of brewed and distilled stuff before clean water was easily accessible.
Wait- you're saying there are no faeries in the garden!?
Sonofabitch!
Dude. You of all people oughta know...
Go back to your woody ornamentals*
*Old joke – it's landscaper-speak for phallic symbol...
I don't know about faeries, but about fairies I'm pretty certain.
I think that's the hoity-toity
Olde English version. Spellchecker gave me a choice.
Spell Or Die!
Look, I've studied the occult for decades, I believe in the supernatural, but Douthat is just a skosh away from Alex Jones "God's galactic law" territory here. He doesn't fucking BELIEVE in the Bible; he might have to act more like Jesus if he did, and that's unthinkable for him. Religion to him is just another weapon against his enemies, and if it's "supernatural", well, that just means you can't argue against it in any meaningful way.
Supernatural or otherwise, we're well past the 'arguing with these cretins' phase...Doesn't pay (unless you're Roy with his mighty stack!)
I believe in imaginary numbers, if that helps. You can't say I'm not trying to reach across the divide.
Multiply, pal - not divide! It's all about the multiplyin'! Otherwise where ya gonna get the resta those trees?
"Be fruitful" sounds dangerously gay to me.
I didn't graduate high school, but I think you can divide by multiplying. It's dishonest, but you can do it.
I tell my students there are only two REAL mathematical operations, addition and multiplication, and when I'm solving an equation I tend to say stuff like "Let's un-add the 7" or "Let's un-multiply the 2"
But isn't multiplication just a kind of addition?
I wasn't entirely joking. I didn't finish 10th grade. Later I took College Algebra and Intro to Stats.
The other day I tried to figure out all the possible combinations of two sets, exclusive to each other, order being irrelevant. It took me longer than I care to admit.
I would have left such a scathing Raye My Professor screed.
Some of the most serious, committed saints sat atop pillars for years. I will chip in to buy Patriarch Ross a plane ticket to Syria or the Sinai desert, where he can indulge his inner stylite and only bother those who willfully come to see him.
You might be confusing him with Rod Dreher, who would probably take you up on your offer. Honestly, I can never keep those two straight.
They’re not worth taking the time or brainpower to differentiate.
If they want me to make the effort to distinguish between them, one of them is gonna have to change gender.
Just how small and rounded is the end of the pillar? Asking for Rod Dreher.
I sometimes imagine Douthat's interview with the NYT editorial board before they granted him his sinecure on the op-ed page:
NYT: We've read some of your stuff, and we think you're terrific!
Douthat: "I hate you all."
NYT: We'd like you to consider writing a regular column for us.
Douthat: "I'd like you all to die in a fire."
NYT: We'll pay you absurd amounts of money for each column.
Douthat: "I think the NYT should be burned to the ground."
NYT: That's the spirit! When can you start?
That's the sly distance thing that Goldberg is talking about.
Afterwards: "Did you notice how he didn't say Tim McVeigh should have parked his truck bomb in front of our building? He's the moderate we're looking for!"
I think that's why there was such caterwauling when the Atlantic decided they didn't want Kevin Williamson on staff after all. When they're reminded the "liberal" publications have a choice about whom they hire, it's as if Mommy and Daddy suddenly stopped protecting them.
Nannies. Government-issued nannies. That is all.
From Ralph Waldo Emerson to Kevin Williamson: A Brief History of The Atlantic.
I've seen enough briefs to know it ain't worth it.
My personal bete noire being David Brooks (aka David Fucking Brooks) this got me: “What they got right was an emphasis on trying to be at least in part the party of the working class” --- how? By tossing them rage chum on the daily? Just don’t try to take one to a fancy sandwich joint, that would be unkind.
Hey, you know who else tried at least in part to be an Arbeiterpartei? Oh, I think you know.
well, yeah, and in both cases "You! Worker! Brilliant" but..."You! Collective workers! Die!"
Also, has the phrase "at least in part" every carried a heavier burden than in this sentence?
Only in some other thing that Brooks wrote, actually probably several other things.
“What they got right was an emphasis on trying to be at least in part a means for the redistribution of wealth from the bankers to ordinary Depression-era Americans." - David Brooks on Bonnie and Clyde.
To Brooks and his peers, the working class is just the Great Unwashed living under the bridge in My Man Godfrey. It’s a sign of his nobility that he acknowledges their existence at all.
Do you suppose he gives the Democrats any credit for "trying to be at least in part" advocates for working-class Americans? No? I mean, "trying to be at least in part" is a pretty low bar to clear, seems the Democrats might... no?
Maybe if their gosh-darned wokeness wasn't turning good, conservative Christian folk into Nazis, he might give them some credit.
They should try it sometime...
C'mon, can't we all come together under the anesthetizing power of a blanket of money? Oh, you don't have any? Fuck off.
I don’t have heroes - except Keith Richards, who has proven you really can be yourself - and that includes Chotiner. My take-away was that while politicos and lawyers are available targets for his subtle pantsing, the New York “literary” hierarchy doesn’t permit someone who wants to keep working in that milleu the luxury of dumping on a Made Man. Douchebag is too much of an asset for the NYT (“We know you hate it when Krugman calls Republican ideas zombies, but look, we have Douchebag and that other three name woman Christian”) to permit his being exposed for the pious fraud he is. I will give points to the editor who let “supernatural realities” stand. That says all you need to know about the sophistry of chuds like Ross. “You libs are blind to jumbo shrimp!”
I'm honestly impressed at the precision with which the New Yorker draws these lines - who's safe from ridicule and who isn't. And people in that Upper West Side milieu really do feel it, if they're ever moved from one side of the line to the other. Alan Dershowitz' anger at no longer being invited to speak at the Chilmark public library is understandable, for people who never suffer any real consequences, it's the closest they'll ever come to Siberia.
Did I ever tell you guys about the time I saw somebody get really, really mad in mixed company about Keith Richards snorting his father's ashes?
(I guess he snorted the one line you should never cross, or vice versa.)
Oof, and 2 marks.
I'm a Boomer, and Keith Richards is one of my heroes because he's the living proof that all that crap our parents gave us about the eeeeeeevils of drugs, sex, and rock 'n' roll was, well, crap!
OK, but to their credit, they were at least correct about the dangers of coconuts, right?
“They were careless people, Ross and Abigail —they smashed up things and made beautiful mistakes and then retreated back into their money and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
"So Ross beats on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Or as his likely hero WFB Jr. said "standing athwart history yelling 'stop'"
Ross would never do something so uncivil as yell. I see him standing athwart history, saying "Um... stop?"
Standing athwart history saying "I have some concerns."
Standing athwart history trying to hide the stab wounds.
Sorry, I can't picture that guy athwart anything.
It works just as well as "So Ross beats off,..."
Hah! Maybe that’s what Fitzgerald meant in Gatsby and the typo was never corrected.
That’s where I went.