The medium is the message and both are Rod Dreher

I think the final returns are in and are indisputable: Rod Dreher is nothing but the self-promotional product Rod Dreher. There is simply no other there there. If you believe there is and believe you have found something, please, please, prove me wrong.

In a cynical blog commercial badly produced as a heartwarming coming home post, The Comforts of Home, we are first greeted with a picture of what went into Rod's belly last night and will emerge elsewhere today. Not a picture of his family, although, contrary to what he claims, Rod posts pictures of his wife and children all the time when it serves his ends.

No, not his family. Instead, the telos of his very being and existence, what he eats, a thesophagany inseparable, at least for Dreher, from God Himself:

Not tonight; I wanted to drive in silence, and to pray, and to think. I recollected all the good times I’ve had these past 10 days, visiting old friends and making new ones, talking about a book that God used to rescue me, and that I am certain can rescue others who open themselves to it. I thought about all the good meals I’d had, including three Boston dinners in a row featuring raw oysters, and a lunch too, not to mention the delicious Sichuan banquet in Houston.

If Dante can't save you, folks, just try Dreher's ever-ready alternative to God, oysters. But you probably can't afford that many oysters, so just sit on the couch and eat that half gallon of Ben & Jerry's instead.

As he reminisces about the last 10 days, rhetorically rubbing his jaw and gazing up into the unfocused nowhere while the background of the rhetorical camera shot dissolves into the flashback scene and a harp ripples on the sound track, we get, not one, but two book excerpt teases masquerading as contemplative appreciations of himself, one for the Ruthie book and one for the Dante book, together with this clever segue suggesting that, to fully appreciate the Dante book, you probably should really buy and read the Ruthie book first:

She gave me this life. It wasn’t the life I thought I was going to have here. It wasn’t the life I wanted, nor the life I thought I deserved. But it is the life I needed. From How Dante Can Save Your Life:

This is what the contemplation of the comforts of home really means, food past, food present and an integral pitch for the entire Dreher catalog. No word if there is a two-for-one discount.

And it ends, finally, with William F. Buckley himself  tacitly smiling down from Heaven in approval as the credits roll over a D- paragraph from freshman Creative Writing 101

I came into the kitchen, set my bags down, and the kids squealed and ran to embrace Daddy. Roscoe rolled over and showed me his belly. I gave everybody their gifts, then ate my chicken pot pie. Nothing makes me happier than being at home with my family. Tomorrow I’ll be with my other family, in church, at the Divine Liturgy. William F. Buckley was once asked what was his favorite journey. He said one word: “Home.” I know what he meant.

There is simply nothing in this entire post that doesn't ring of a bad brainstorming session from Mad Men, dedicated to nothing beyond Dreher's porcine theology and book selling. The medium is the message and both are Rod Dreher.

Won't you make Rod's life complete and buy everything he writes so he can get even closer to God through his sacraments of thesophagany?

I'd hate to think poor Mollie Hemingway sat there and, from the look on her face, thought of England all night as Rod's date for nothing.

Keith is generous, Keith is kind

Not to be outdone, I just finished making a large and ostentatious gesture most readers of EQE might not immediately ascribe to Keith.

Orphans.

These are orphans, yo.

Kittens and puppies.

These are kittens and puppies, yo.

Both are icons that naturally tug at your heart strings. I have decided there’s one thing I can do. It’s the day after Valentine’s Day, so I’m sending a big paper surprise to the union rep of each of these iconic groups to help with their teething.

Whatever my real and deep differences with small creatures worlds removed from me, I do not want anyone anywhere to milk all the self-promotion these two groups can provide me with before I get my full cut. I do not want them to win.

Besides, I thought, how much would it mean to me to see orphans and kittens and puppies stepping up to aid and assist people like me who've been bitten by both from time to time. Don't ask, it was extremely painful to me on each occasion, personally and emotionally.

I can’t stop bad orphans from shooting kittens and puppies. But what we who try to be decent people — orphan, Keith, kitten, puppy, all of us — can do is repair what damage was done, as far as we are able. True, we should take care of ourselves, and that's what I do 99.9% of the time, but the other 0.1% I like to make a big splash about looking like I'm taking care of others when they are suffering.

That’s why dug into my freezer, deep into the empty gut of a sweet king mackerel I caught a while back, and fished out a couple of these

A $10,000 bill, yo. Guess who just gave 'em away. That's right, me.

which I keep there for occasions just like this. Here’s a picture of one of them, so you know I’m not making this up.

I sent the orphans and kittens and puppies a couple of these, and I hope you will too, if you are able. It occurred to me that this is how we can fight the feeling of shame and impotence so many of us have in the face of atrocities committed by bad orphans, kittens, and puppies everywhere.

I decided to make this public as an example — first, because it’s the kind of thing I would like to see others do for me, and second because I wanted everyone to know what a difference showing off like this can do for how others think about me.

I am no less opposed to orphaned kittens and puppies than I ever was, but "orphans" is not a synonym for “kittens and puppies.” And for all I know, maybe seeing people like me giving really large Federal Reserve notes to both factions will stop some of the internecine biting between the two groups we all deplore so.

And did I mention that it was me, Keith, actually giving them these large, rare bills? Here's another shot so that there can be absolutely no doubt in your mind that I really did just give these away and what a wonderful person I am for doing so.

This is the other one. It looks just like the other one.

I don’t think it’s right to tell people about your charitable giving, but in this case, I think it’s important for we who want others to know just how much better we are than they are to offer proof of that fact for all the world to see. You don’t have to be a one-in-a-million-individual like Keith to stand up and show off like this.

You just have to be humane. And blog about it loudly. With the sort of incontrovertible proof of my glorious and unbounded humanity I'm providing you here.

And with just a little extra effort and just a little less of a sense of modesty or shame, you could be almost as good a person as I am, too. Almost.