Saturday, January 3, 2015

Open Comment Thread (2015-01)

by Pauli

Yayyyy! Happy New Year! Here's the new Open Comments thread.


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Posted by Pauli at 1/03/2015 06:13:00 PM

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23 comments:

  1. pikkumattiJanuary 4, 2015 at 10:28 AM

    Just one observation from this year's Christmas season:

    This year was the first year that I felt I was being subversive by wishing "Merry Christmas" -- primarily in corporate settings. When wishing people "Merry Christmas" to people at my corporate clients (people I know to be neither Jewish nor Muslim, as if that would have mattered), more than once I would get a weak and uncomfortable "...uh...hm...happy...holidays....." in response.

    And no, I'm not a "War on Christmas Warrior" -- if someone wishes me "Happy Holidays", I'll wish "Happy Holidays to you" back at 'em. But it sure seems there are stated or unstated corporate memos going around on the proper inoffensive greetings for the Winter Holidays.

    So subversive I must be. We'll see if next year loosens up any, or gets worse.

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    1. PauliJanuary 5, 2015 at 11:09 AM

      I noticed that the Toys-r-Us/Babies-r-Us people always said Merry Christmas, at least around here in NE Ohio. So that was cool.

      Delete
    2. DianeJanuary 5, 2015 at 11:25 AM

      North Carolina is definitely Merry Christmas territory!

      Delete
    3. KeithJanuary 5, 2015 at 12:34 PM

      I guess I never think about it or worry about it that much. Merry Christmas!, that's it in a nutshell. Of course I'm probably not much of the sensitive sort.

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    4. PauliJanuary 5, 2015 at 1:26 PM

      I usually hear about the "war on Christmas" from the Catholic League, but it seems to be waged in uber-liberal enclaves in sort of a trial balloon-style. My uncle won't shop at Target because they wouldn't let the Salvation Army collect outside their stores, and that is kind of interesting because he isn't very religious or conservative.

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  2. KeithJanuary 13, 2015 at 5:55 PM

    I'm going to throw this in here because it's as much a curiosity as anything else, but maybe somebody knows the answer.

    Recently and consistently Dreher's been reaching into the comments on a post and pulling out, first, one, then, increasingly, several, and then using them as UPDATEs to pad out and enlarge the post.

    No doubt the commenters feel flattered, but what Dreher is effectively doing is converting/digesting their responses to become forthwith his (para)original content - which, as a contributor to TAC, you can then pay for.

    If I did the same thing here with a minimal "seed" post

    "Hey, how about that Rod Dreher?"

    HHATRD+UPDATE-COMMENT+UPDATE-COMMENT+UPDATE-COMMENT

    it would immediately appear desperate and cheesy, like stuffing party hors-d'oeuvres in my coat pockets.

    But my question really is who owns those comments? In other words, if one of us managed to infiltrate a Dreher-lovin' comment into the queue that was subsequently elevated to front page Dreher-content, could they claim copyright infringement.

    I recognize Dreher's not explicitly claiming the content as his own and usually gives attribution, and I realize this is what newspapers do when they run a picture of little Susie holding up her soccer trophy, then make each member of the family pay individually for their own copy of the paper containing the honor, but I guess I'm just curious how that all works in blogland, including the exploitation of fanbois 'n grrls.

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    1. PauliJanuary 14, 2015 at 9:03 AM

      I can only guess, but I would think that the right to use a comment posted on TACs site belonged to TAC, and by making the comment, the commenter gives them the right to reprint it under some type of default fair use policy.

      As for the reason Dreher is doing this, I think it all has to do with hits. Posts with comments get incredibly higher page-loads, and the longer you can keep the post going the better. The "fresher" the content the higher it ranks in search engine results also. So I would think it highly possible that Dreher has been instructed to do this as often as is feasible.

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  3. KeithJanuary 14, 2015 at 12:32 PM

    Ron Dreher to speak in Kansas

    Didn't know Dreher had a brother, especially one so important as to be headlining there.

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  4. pikkumattiJanuary 15, 2015 at 5:36 PM

    Nothing says "alt-conservative" like attacking a politician for fiscal responsibility and holding the line on taxes. Not to mention inventing a reason for it ("national political ambitions").

    The arithmetic quoted in the piece is also pretty, uh, imaginative. The Times-Pic writers must have themselves gone to LSU. (apologies in advance)

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  5. pikkumattiJanuary 16, 2015 at 10:34 AM

    If this is what you're going to do, then just don't go at all.

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  6. Art DecoJanuary 18, 2015 at 7:10 PM

    I know there must be some pro-Jindal Republicans in Louisiana somewhere, but I haven’t yet met one in the three years I’ve been back. When I ask them why they turned on him, every single one says a variation of, “Because he’s sacrificing the state for his national political ambitions.” Most of them add, “He’s destroyed LSU.”

    I guess he's jonesing to be confused with Pauline Kael. Gov. Jindal has an overall approval rating of 48% (and presumably far higher among Republicans). Of the candidates aspiring to succeed him, the sum of polled support for the Republicans amounts to just north of 55%; that for the two democrats amounts to 34%.

    The notion that he's 'destroyed LSU' is histrionic nonsense, of course. Has a single branch campus been closed. The posited budget cuts I believe amount to around 7% of the revenue stream of the states public colleges and universities.


    I've begun to believe the man could not compose a conscientious and temperate sentence if you put a gun to his head and demanded it.

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    1. AnonymousJanuary 19, 2015 at 11:24 AM

      Most of them add, “He’s destroyed LSU.”

      As they say at Bama: "LS-WHO?"

      Delete
    2. PauliJanuary 19, 2015 at 11:46 AM

      I guess he's jonesing to be confused with Pauline Kael.

      Nice call. It's funny how sometimes he's doing something liberals will like, as in talking down a popular Republican he's merely saying what *everybody* else is saying.

      I'm sure that there are all kinds of people in Wisconsin with Kael-syndrome who don't know anyone who voted for Scott Walker. Concentrated in Madison, no doubt.

      I'd like to see Jindal and/or Walker on the ticket, personally.

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    3. Art DecoJanuary 19, 2015 at 3:23 PM

      Nice call. It's funny how sometimes he's doing something liberals will like, as in talking down a popular Republican he's merely saying what *everybody* else is saying.

      His other strategem is to begin a column with 'a friend of mine writes'... and it's usually some anonymous person presented as having expertise in some areas whose anxieties just happen to match up with those RD has been articulating for months. He made liberal use of that locution in his Beliefnet days.

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    4. PauliJanuary 19, 2015 at 3:34 PM

      His other strategem is to begin a column with 'a friend of mine writes'...

      Yes; this tactic has, uhhhh, sullied his writing for quite some time. I wonder where he learned it? Cough, cough.

      Delete
  7. Art DecoJanuary 19, 2015 at 3:19 PM

    The man produces much more copy than The American Conservative's other contributors and I have to figure it's because he has no internal editor. He just types whatever idiot apercu passes through his grey matter. He makes one blatantly incredible statement and one blatantly stupid statement in just one sentence. It's also another indicator of how pathetically other-directed he is.

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  8. pikkumattiJanuary 21, 2015 at 2:51 PM

    Just stumbled across Dreher's further explanation of his spat with Ruthie:

    Years ago, when my wife and I first committed to homeschooling our kids, we caught hell from my sister, a public schoolteacher. Most of her objections were familiar to us, and we had answers for them. One we didn’t see coming, though: her utter lack of sympathy for our interest in a pedagogy that focused on the classics of the Western tradition.

    This surprised me because my sister was a conservative, like most people in my hometown. My conservatism is primarily cultural, social, and intellectual. Hers was also cultural and social, but it was more temperamental than intellectual. In fact, though my sister was a math instructor, and a good one, she had a reflexive disdain for intellectualism. She saw it as an effete indulgence at best, at worst a rationale for exploiting the common man. For her, the culture war was really class warfare—and her brother was on the other side of the trenches.

    It didn’t matter that I had forgotten more political theory than she ever knew. What mattered was that I was a city dweller who shopped at Whole Foods and didn’t care for Sarah Palin’s style of politics. That marked me out as a traitor to the tribe.

    No wonder she didn't like the bouillabaisse. The price was too high.

    P.S. I read (quickly) through the rest of that long-winded name-dropping piece. He sets up a false dilemma, and then has a Eureka moment over the obvious solution (do both!). Meh.

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    1. PauliJanuary 22, 2015 at 11:05 AM

      You just never know what someone like Dreher even means when he uses the word "conservative".

      Delete
    2. Art DecoJanuary 22, 2015 at 3:06 PM

      and didn’t care for Sarah Palin’s style of politics.

      Sarah Palin was a municipal politician whose involvements therein were a consequence of long residence in one place and (one wagers) high energy and competitive spirit. This is the 'style of politics' our posing Front Porch denizen does not like. Gov. Palin is a quick study and even critics admit she's knowledgeable on energy issues. She got involved in state politics due in part to serendipity (an appointment to run a state agency) and in part due to exasperation with the cronyism characteristic of the regime of Gov. Frank Murkowski and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R - Her Daddy). Dreher doesn't care for it.

      There might just be a reason Alaska was one of two states with a balanced budget in fiscal year 2009. Dreher doesn't care for it.

      There might just be a reason that a fishing expedition through tens of thousands of her office e-mails by various and sundry putatively understaffed media outlets found not one sentence fragment with which to embarrass her. Dreher does not care for it.



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  9. pikkumattiJanuary 28, 2015 at 6:22 PM

    To a child with a hammer, everything looks like a nail: Obama commits to help fight obesity in India.

    I weep for our Nation, that it twice elected such a man as President.

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    1. PauliJanuary 29, 2015 at 4:05 PM

      To someone with a hammer named Michelle, every imaginary problem looks like an obese nail.

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    2. pikkumattiJanuary 29, 2015 at 5:44 PM

      That image of Obama as a child wielding a hammer with Michelle's face on it is an editorial cartoon begging to be drawn ....

      Delete
  10. KeithJanuary 30, 2015 at 2:59 PM

    After this

    Rod Dreher is a poltroon with a following of sexual deviates, self flagellating pseudo-conservatives and NPR listeners. He keeps them agitated by suggesting mildly conservative thoughts, to which they respond in righteous indignation. He gets to play conservative and they get to feel good hitting him with their little pink down pillows. It’s a ritual, and his next blog post starts the cycle all over again. It’s all about driving up the reader hits at TAC. He is TAC’s faux conservative click bait artist.

    what's left to say?

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