tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post2222250139307063397..comments2023-10-17T14:31:52.102-04:00Comments on Est Quod Est: A narcissism so pure, so breathtakingPaulihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17506171638613025839noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-19550031850974007262014-02-25T21:17:23.939-05:002014-02-25T21:17:23.939-05:00Well, seems the Working Boy has done it again.
&q...Well, seems the Working Boy <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/after-birth-abortion-the-echo-chamber/" rel="nofollow">has done it again</a>.<br /><br />"William Saletan has a piece on Slate today talking about how the Internet echo chamber made a two-year-old piece he wrote about “after-birth abortion” seem like breaking news. Turns out I was one of the prime movers in this event. <b>I didn’t do it on purpose</b>. Somebody on my Facebook feed sent a link out, and I read the story without looking at the date. I reasoned — faultily — that this must be a New Thing because I had never heard of it. I blogged it without looking at the date at the top of the story. I honestly thought it was new. I apologize for sending out old news, but it was a mistake, not an intent to deceive."<br /><br />He didn't do it on purpose. Someone stuck the story on his Twitter feed and, well, he caught a bad case of <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diarrhea%20of%20the%20mouth" rel="nofollow">oral diarrhea</a> and just had to write about it. And of course his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOOs8MaR1YM" rel="nofollow">adoring fans didn't bother to check up on the story at all</a>.<br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-44908359263809155652014-02-25T21:15:06.656-05:002014-02-25T21:15:06.656-05:00Keith, I just touched up the mustache by adding th...Keith, I just touched up the mustache by adding the tag "you can't make this up". And that's mostly what I have to add.<br /><br />The consolation to be taken is that there are new readers of the internets every day, and if this is the first post someone ever read of Dreher's, there's a good chance that that person will never read Dreher or take him seriously ever again.Paulihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17506171638613025839noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-71364292501655945412014-02-25T17:20:09.099-05:002014-02-25T17:20:09.099-05:00Not a blog per se. but Ora TV. Where he can hang o...Not a blog per se. but Ora TV. Where he can hang out with such luminaries as Jesse Ventura.http://www.ora.tv/newsbreaker<br />Jonathan CarpenterAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-44498672071193075782014-02-25T15:16:57.664-05:002014-02-25T15:16:57.664-05:00There are a couple things I feel like I ought to a...There are a couple things I feel like I ought to add here.<br /><br />First is that now I kind of feel bad about writing this post, as if I was Bart Simpson and I'd just scribbled a goatee on the Mona Lisa with a magic marker. The original all by itself was so pure, so perfect in its naive pomposity and self-parody of the complete and unselfconscious narcissist that I feel now I probably detracted from the reader's experience by writing anything at all.<br /><br />The second is that a narcissist like Dreher probably doesn't recognize that his blogging about his ailments and his coffee maker aren't in fact slaking burning market demand for his unique and precious insights, but rather are only earning him money at all because he's happened to have stumbled into the orbit of an eccentric Prince in the form of TAI/TAC CEO Wick Allison, whose temporary patronage is indulging these ramblings. But Allison has a history at his home base city magazine of cutting those who he no longer needs or who are no longer fitting his game plan loose fairly callously and coldly and then letting his minions kick them opportunistically if they happen to threaten him with any sort of competition. He's most famous for having done so with one of his pioneer real estate bloggers but other examples wouldn't be hard to find at all.<br /><br />So there's poor Dreher babbling on again today giving advice about being a writer to his young adoring hangers on who want to be just like him when they grow up and almost certainly mistaking the allowance his sponsor Prince is doling out to him as a gratuity to indulge his own vanity needs as current market demand for his writing. But there's a limit to how far even a deep pocket like Allison can go to assuage a conscience made rich by peddling upscale materialistic Dallas living by charitably indulging in the sort of muddled missionary tracts TAC offers, and sooner or later he's going to have to pull the plug and hand TAC off to the next sucker.<br /><br />At that point, realistically, who will buy the magic mirror that is Rod Dreher? NRO? The Atlantic? The Dish? In fact, now I'm actually curious for real: name the outlet who would sign Dreher on as a blogger tomorrow. Patheos? Seriously, who?<br /><br />Keith<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-84349972154449944752014-02-25T15:01:17.445-05:002014-02-25T15:01:17.445-05:00Of course, I doubt Luntz read Dreher's hit pie...Of course, I doubt Luntz read Dreher's hit piece on him, much less today's tripe.pikkumattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04929135762224920473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-37781145531362087232014-02-25T14:59:29.661-05:002014-02-25T14:59:29.661-05:00Gee, maybe Frank Luntz will read this and feel bet...Gee, maybe Frank Luntz will read this and feel better now.pikkumattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04929135762224920473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-82746579126344315322014-02-25T12:19:02.973-05:002014-02-25T12:19:02.973-05:00$100 coffee makers? Someone please tell me he'...<a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/coffeemaker-bleg/" rel="nofollow">$100 coffee makers?</a> Someone please tell me he's making this up?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-7251601342820134652014-02-25T11:57:53.890-05:002014-02-25T11:57:53.890-05:00How can anyone write that bilge with a straight fa...How can anyone write that bilge with a straight face?Dianehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15528066705030924413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-18841765349493317382014-02-25T11:54:17.529-05:002014-02-25T11:54:17.529-05:00And then he follows this up with today's gem, ...And then he follows this up with <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/everybodys-a-secret-policeman/" rel="nofollow">today's gem</a>, which contains this piece of bovine offal:<br /><br />"There have been times, and still are times, when I engaged in nasty gossip out of malice, because I didn’t think the person I was gossiping about had a right to his or her reputation. I have never passed on anything I knew was untrue, but that’s hardly a defense. I have often passed on things I wasn’t sure were true, but that I thought might be true, because they defamed an unlikable person. I have often passed on things I knew to be true, because of the same thing. Just typing this makes me aware of times I’ve recently done this; I will need to take this to confession this weekend."<br /><br />Really?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-15468686105780596252014-02-25T07:35:57.267-05:002014-02-25T07:35:57.267-05:00Even choosing among Beetle Bailey characters, most...Even choosing among Beetle Bailey characters, most people would be think it bragging if you went with Plato.Tomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09534284662785499386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-41942603175133455622014-02-24T22:30:04.059-05:002014-02-24T22:30:04.059-05:00Gadzooks is right. The passage that struck me fro...Gadzooks is right. The passage that struck me from the Dreher post is this: <br /><br /><i>. . . my success as a writer came not as a reporter, which I never really learned how to be, but as an interpreter. I’ve been a critic and a columnist most of my career. I happen to live in one of the most interesting parts of our very interesting country, but it is hard for me to get out of my armchair and go see what there is to see around here, and write about it. Part of it is my chronic illness, but if I’m honest with myself, that’s only a small part of it. Mostly it’s because I’m a contemplative by nature, and because I’m lazy. Put another way, <b>I’m far more inclined to be Plato, a contemplator of ideas</b>, than Aristotle, an observer of phenomena.</i> (emphasis added by me)<br /><br />A contemplator of ideas indeed. Yeah, right. Ideas are to Dreher as sex is to Miley Cyrus -- each discovered something (superficially to be sure), and now they act as tho they invented it and won't shut up about it. <br /><br />Ideas are hard. And I'd think writing about ideas is hard work -- requiring more time and effort than posting excerpts from other people's output ("Read the whole thing!") and then apologizing for it by saying it's your "notebook" that you hope inspires commentary. <br /><br />I would agree with one thing in Dreher's post. He says he's lazy. No argument from me on that. pikkumattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04929135762224920473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2065164884737080821.post-47450130163085191992014-02-24T19:00:34.143-05:002014-02-24T19:00:34.143-05:00Keith: "A narcissism so pure, so breathtaking...Keith: <i>"A narcissism so pure, so breathtaking"</i><br /><br />Gadzooks! You are not kidding, Keith.<br /><br />I thought I was pretty jaded by now. But I could scarcely believe that even RD could write anything that is <i>this full of himself</i>. <br /><br />It's like looking through a big, never ending photo album full of nothing but selfies.Oengushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537779684816982064noreply@blogger.com