Sunday, September 28, 2014

Oh, this is completely insane!

$25,000 Scores Invite to American Conservative Editorial Meeting, Dinner

According to the latest letter, donors who give over $1,000 to the magazine will receive an invitation to a “semi-annual, invitation-only editorial briefing” phone call with The Little Way of Ruthie Leming author Rod Dreher, the American Conservative’s “theater critic and a solo blogger” Noah Millman, and political science professor Patrick Deneen.




I get to meet Rod Dreher! Like, I suppose you could do better than that. No way! Because it seems to me that he would be a pretty decent guy, I must say. What if we became best friends -- best friends in the so I would just like, phone his house up, and say, "Is Rod there? Just tell him it's me!" sense, now that I think of it. Like, I suppose Rod Dreher doesn't have, like, over a million friends, probably. But then again, maybe he doesn't. It's difficult to say. Oh, this is completely insane!

But, wait! There's more!

Top contributors who give over $25,000 will receive an invitation to the magazine’s annual board dinner.


The annual board dinner! What do you suppose they'll have to eat? With Rod Dreher there it has to be pretty decent, I must say. Maybe he'll even cook for us himself! But $25,000! I could sell my car...yes, and take the bus! And then I could be the one who paid Rod's salary for the year! We'd be sure to become best friends after that! But what to wear? They all sound like they dress just like me, I must say. So I'll fit right in!

But is there more?

“By aggressively utilizing online formats and social media, the American Conservative is reaching younger readers exceedingly well,” wrote Allison.


Social media! Younger readers! That means there'll be girls there! Alt-conservative girls who would be sure to find me a decent fellow, I must say. And I could introduce them to my best friends Rod and Noah and Patrick! And we could all smoke pipes together! With Wick! But does he smoke a pipe? It's difficult to say. He must! They're all intellectuals there...they all smoke pipes - even the girls! But I'll bring an extra one, just to be sure.

Best friends with TAC! Oh, this is completely insane!

12 comments:

  1. This sounds about as fun as watching paint dry! Jonathan Carpenter

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    1. Oh, I don't know Jonathan. Maybe there'll be some exciting, tell-all confessionals about how TAC, "aggressively utilizing online formats and social media", ropes in its young, impressionable rubes with provocative headlines like "Why Poor People Act That Way", insists that they

      Read the whole thing.

      then, having gotten them in the door, reveals

      UPDATE: It turns out that Linda Tirado's tale of poverty is pretty much untrue, or at least not the sob story she presented. And she has a history of lying online. Dr. Mary Russell found this takedown.

      You know, having been to Bourbon Street, I just thought of a synonym for TAC's "alt-conservatism": "transconservatism" (TC) - the fresh, new conservatism not ashamed to clump around in size 13 heels.

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    2. The "Why Poor People Act That Way" post by Dreher is too too funny. Especially the "Read the whole thing. There is lots of truth in this." line, immediately followed by the update that admits it's all false.

      I'd think anyone with a sniff of responsibility would pull the whole post down after that. Not our Cub Reporter. It's the comments and clicks that matter, after all -- so "fake but accurate" is good enough to meet the purpose.

      As I've said before: Dreher's blog is bullshit in the academic sense. It doesn't matter one whit whether what he writes is true or false, it only matters that he says it.



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  2. Replies
    1. How about this Lena Dunham expose. The line that caught my eye was "A crunchy menu for a youthful crowd".

      That piece is click bait. As for Dunham, she should be on a suicide watch list she's so messed up.

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    2. Pauli, I just saw that piece and the first thing I thought was, that's it: Dreher is social conservatism's Lena Dunham.

      I suppose it could be worse. At least we're only exposed to his psychological exhibitionism.

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    3. It is hard for me to imagine listening to the combination of the condescending and smug Terry Gross and the sophomoric shock value of Lena Dunham. And Dreher posting the audio of it completes the trifecta.

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  3. I do not know if I would compare him to Lena Dunham. Given his revisions about his 9/11 story, His Conversion to Orthodoxy and his stories about his late sister; I would call him the internet's Baron Munchasen. Jonathan Carpenter

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  4. I don't know that I'd make RD a particular target. The magazine's a collecting pool of humbug and the fish rots from the head down.

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    1. Art, you do have a point. I mean, I'll admit, if held down, tickle-tortured and forced to name a favorite, or, say, the regular TAC staff writer I hate the least, I'd gasp "OK, OK! Rod Dreher! Stop now!"

      They all make Pat Buchanan seem extremely balanced by comparison. Maybe that was his point in starting it.

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    2. Oh, Millman's not that bad, nor is Dougherty, and Dreher can start and interesting discussion (which I no longer participate in because I've been banned). The American Conservative and the dispositions and remarks of its editor, Daniel McCarthy, are the purest source of all that renders the 'alt-right' project problematic. The ongoing conceit is that they represent something true and authentic and sublime in contrast to the vulgarities of 'movement conservatives'. Really?

      There's nothing that's published in Chronicles by anyone not named Fleming, Rockwell, or Francis that might not find a home in some other publication. (As for the stuff published by these men, do you really want recycled copy from the Radovan Karadzic press agency or the White Citizens' Council?). The v Mises Institute is a collecting pool for purveyors of fringe (read crank) social theory and research ("Austrian" economics and neo-confederate historiography). The Rockford Institute is a remnant, just a corporate shell for Chronicles, the "National Humanities Institute" has two salaried employees (Claes Ryn and one other) and issues an absolutely soporific annual. The Unz Review is issued by amateurs whose big idea is that social research is reducible to psychology and anthropology which is reducible in turn to biology and that Science demonstrates this but ideologically driven social researches are dedicated to Not Noticing things. They collect as their acolytes a mess of disagreeable people who are obsessed with blacks and Jews and despise both. (Who also seem to enjoy Steve Sailer's gig as volunteer press secretary for Vladimir Putin and his minions). Their idea of a popular movement is Ron Paul - a conceited goof who trades in historical fabulism (and goldbuggery).

      And Daniel McCarthy is a fine example of a type that Samuel Francis and Stephen Tonsor took to task, the 'career conservative'. Except, in his case, he presides over a publication that's always been a cesspool of idiosyncracies: Philip Giraldi's hatred of Jews, Andrew Bacevich's resentments of his former employer and military officers more accomplished than he (Petraeus in particular), Steve Sailer's obsession with a tests-and-measurements psychology that he never studied in an academic setting, Conor Friedersdorf's Miss Manners campaign, and Scott McConnell's sundry apercus (and contempt for Jews). The whole thing was a train wreck from the get go, and yet they persist in this illusion that they are the 'legitimate' heirs to Robert Taft (who manifested a dispensation in the Republican Party that was non-existent from 1959 to 1990 and has only Russell Kirk as a thin filament of genealogy between then and now).

      rant off.

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    3. Art, email me and I'll issue you a formal invite to contribute here. Thank you.

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