Category: Uncategorized

Gypsy writes: Didn’t like your column prior 9/11 (wasn’t into comps then) but found you extraordinary since. Your true vocation is commentary, not computers! Anyway, just wondering when you’ll get your own radio show. You’re more intelligent than Savage, Scot (Mark Scot, you may have never heard of him) or Rush. I truly believe you are an untapped talent, regardless of you being sanguine or not.

I very much appreciate the compliments which many of you have paid me in this regard, and I certainly am glad that the collective you also consider my writings to be worthy of reading, but I think it’s important to remember that talent in one medium does not necessarily translate into talent in another. While I have no doubt that I could easily dissect Bill O’Reilly, or, with more difficulty, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, in a debate on most subjects, I don’t believe that I have the necessary ambition required to become a broadcast media star. One thing that radio and television personalities on both sides of the spectrum demonstrate rather vividly is a combination of towering ego and an almost desperate need for the approval of others. While I am rather prone to arrogance, I simply don’t believe that anyone’s views, much less mine, are required for the world to continue turning and I have very little need for external approval. Also, what little taste I have had of the limelight has been arguably more distasteful than enjoyable to me.

If writing did not come easily to me, and if I was not aware that there are few people adequately expounding some of the views that I regularly put forth, I don’t know if I would still be writing this column much less maintaining the blog. Fortunately, both require very little effort on my part. Except for in the case of a few damaged psyches, ego boost is also subject to diminishing returns. Most importantly, success in a field as lucrative and psychotically competitive as broadcast radio and television requires a level of interest several orders of magnitude higher than I presently possess.

Gypsy alludes to my technological interests – it is actually rather stronger than you might imagine. I have been at ground zero for three technological shifts, each of which created significant markets in the past ten years, and only my youth, inexperience and lack of follow-through prevented me from exploiting the opportunities presented more thoroughly than I did. Six years ago I identified a fourth shift which I am now developing, and to be honest, the process is far more challenging and of far more interest to me than doing the Tastes Great – Less Filling thing on the airwaves. In the long run, I suspect it will pay better too.

Things are still in the feasibility stage at this point, otherwise I’d be quite happy to talk your ears off about it. Once everything has proved itself to my satisfaction – perhaps more importantly, to Big Chilly’s – and there’s something worth talking about, I’ll be happy to satisfy the curiosity of anyone who happens to be interested. As I said, I conceived the notion a while ago, but computers weren’t fast enough and I hadn’t figured out one vital link in the natural evolution of the market. What I can say is that if this works as I envision it, you’ll know about it because you will almost surely be using it within ten years.

Getting back to the media, the one new medium that intrigues me a little right now is Internet broadcasting. The notion of broadcast without a corporate filter or a need to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to survive is an interesting one. An executive of a large company interested in video blogging has talked to me about my willingness to participate in some new ground being broken there; if anything happens to come of it I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Gavin Newsom, the lavenderphilic San Francisco mayor, is putting his conservative and Christian counterparts across the country to shame. If he’s willing to stand up for what he believes is right, how can men like George Bush not do the same in being willing to exert the powers of their office to the utmost in order to end evils like abortion and the income tax charade?

No wonder our country is in such decline, when it is only those who believe in evil who show the courage of their convictions. Sure, there’s probably a cynical element – after only a few months in office, Gavin Gay now has national stature and the assurance of love from the national media, a brilliant political move – but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the man is making a concrete gesture that is having a genuine impact on the national debate.

From the New York Post: Industry insiders said they were stunned by the rapidly increasing advance sales for the film, which opens next week on Ash Wednesday. “It is the number two selling film in our company’s history [in terms of advance sales], right behind ‘Lord of the Rings’ [The Return of the King] and momentum is actually growing,” said Art Levitt, CEO of Fandango Inc., which sells tickets over the phone and on the Internet. “It’s a phenomenon. None of us expected it.”

I used to wonder why the success of things like Left Behind and Passion were so startling to industry insiders. Then, after I became a Christian and was writing a novel for a major New York publisher, I found out. They had to go outside the company just to find a religious Jew to edit the book – to their credit, they wanted someone who believed in something to oversee the project – and, of course, they didn’t actually know any Christians inside or outside the company. Apparently, anecdotal experience trumps demographics. I have no doubt the same thing is true for Hollywood.

Jonah Goldberg defends himself: But I point out Katz’s comments for another reason. He glibly asserts that my motives on this [gay marriage] and, presumably, other issues is to appear “cool” in the eyes of others, particularly Andrew Sullivan. I hear this every now and then, particularly from self-proclaimed conservative purists and I think this is nonsense and I generally take offense to it…. I’m not above attacking peoples’ motives — if there is evidence about what their motives are, otherwise, it smacks of Stalinist politics. But this criticism of me is generally asserted without fact or foundation. It assumes I argue in bad faith and with a really silly motive to boot. I mean if I were trying to seem “cool” by altering my views I’d certainly come out against the drug war, which is certainly the “cool” position on campuses and elsewhere. And if I really wanted to ingratiate myself with Andrew I would not only be in favor of gay marriage but — even better — I’d stop being chatty with the Derb and start denouncing him as a walking, talking crime against humanity.

I tend to buy Jonah’s argument. Seriously, he makes no attempt to ingratiate himself with me, and I am far, far cooler than Andrew Sullivan could ever hope to be. Seriously, you could keep a side of beef in me for at least a month, I am cool like that. Sure, Andrew Sullivan has that whole, I’m not gay, I’m English thing – on second thought, strike that – but I don’t think there’s too much doubt that I am the BMF of the op/ed community. I could TAKE Eric Alterman and I am looking forward to the day that I will MAKE Al Franken my B I T oh say can you see H.

It’s rather like being the toughest kid in the chess club, sure, but there you go.

UPDATE: Space Bunny would like to point out that I am only cool by association with her. I’d like to argue that, but she makes a pretty compelling case.

AOC writes: I used to work the night shift in a large (80 bed)Neonatal ICU in California. Many of the women I worked with struggled hard to become pregnant (most were on fertility drugs). When they did become pregnant and have their babies, they would return to work 6 or 8 weeks later, crying because they had to leave their infants.The saddest thing was that most of these women didn’t really have to work at all. They were simply working to keep up a standard of living (BMWs and Mercedes,sub-Zero refrigerators, boats etc).

Yeah, I’ve never understood the notion of going overboard and abandoning your family in order to have two BMWs in the garage instead of two Subarus or whatever. As with everything, there is a law of diminishing returns to material things as well. I’d enjoy being wealthier, to be sure, and there’s a pretty good chance that one day I will be, especially if I can properly execute on my technological vision this time. Money is a necessity, unfortunately, but there is very little that is more precious than time.

MR writes: Just occurred to me that while so many neo-cons and war-supporters( cough-cough, Bill O’Reilly, cough-cough) are eating crow pie and suddenly sound like most libertarians have sounded for so long, you’ve managed to keep humming the same tune without missing a beat. Bravo/mad props/whatever for doing what many twice your age and experience in the public domain have failed to do: spin your line on the war without coming out looking like either a quixotic hawk or dove. Keep up the good work, and get a damn radio or television show, already.

Actually, I wasn’t crazy about my line on the war from the very beginning, but I couldn’t see any real alternatives to it either. We had to respond to the attacks that have been happening since Lebanon, but George Delano’s refusal to operate by the Constitution precluded my ability to fully support the war, even before it was clear that he was engaging in a Texas version of the Israeli two-step on a grand scale. At the same time, I am pro-military and I did not wish that message to be lost amidst my opposition to extraconstitutional military actions.

It’s true that Germany wasn’t tamed in a day, but of course, postwar Germany wasn’t surrounded by Nazi states either. I don’t think the occupation is looking very positive at this point. What is the end game, anyhow? Outlast a culture that hasn’t changed all that much since the 7th century? Monday’s column addresses some of my feelings on the issue. Radio? Maybe someday. TV, probably not, at least not until the Internet allows for producing one outside the media centers. As I’ve said before, I’m not sanguine about the medium.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin writes: From audiences around America, I am encountering bitterness at Jewish organizations insisting that belief in the New Testament is de facto evidence of anti-Semitism. Christians heard Jewish leaders denouncing Gibson for making a movie that follows Gospel accounts of the Crucifixion long before any of them had even seen the movie. Furthermore, Christians are hurt that Jewish groups are presuming to teach them what Christian Scripture “really means.” Listen to a rabbi whom I debated on the Fox television show hosted by Bill O’Reilly last September. This is what he said, “We have a responsibility as Jews, as thinking Jews, as people of theology, to respond to our Christian brothers and to engage them, be it Protestants, be it Catholics, and say, look, this is not your history, this is not your theology, this does not represent what you believe in.”

The amazing ability of the Jewish people to survive the hatred of a fallen world can only be approached by their self-selected spokesmen’s continuing affinity for self-destructive idiocy. Just as the Polish Jewish leadership’s notion of cooperating peacefully with the National Socialists didn’t work out particularly well, the idea that lecturing Christians on their theology is going to reduce anti-semitism (or as it is more properly called, Jew-hating), is doomed to failure. If believing in the truth of the Gospel makes me an anti-semite, despite my vocal support for Israel and the Jewish people, then I’ll wear the label proudly. As I’ve written before, do the Jews have so few enemies in the world that they need to go out of their way to create new ones?

Rabbi Lapin continues: Many individual Jews have shared with me their embarrassment that groups, ostensibly representing them, attack Passion but are silent about depraved entertainment that encourages killing cops and brutalizing women. Citing artistic freedom, Jewish groups helped protect sacrilegious exhibits such as the anti-Christian feces extravaganza presented by the Brooklyn Museum four years ago. One can hardly blame Christians for assuming that Jews feel artistic freedom is important only when exercised by those hostile toward Christianity.

Yeah, this hardly escaped me either. I don’t recall Martin Scorsese being quizzed on his father’s beliefs, or Spike Lee, or any of the producers of teen slasher flicks. And Hollywood’s refusal to distribute what promises to be an extraordinarily successful movie does raise some nasty questions about the Jewish domination of the industry as well. Still, I don’t believe that Foxman and the ADL truly speak for American Jewry anymore than Al Sharpton speaks for American blacks, nor do I think this unseemly and self-defeating campaign against Mel Gibson and his movie will have any serious effect on how evangelical Christians feel about Jews and Israel. If God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse it, then that’s all that matters and who cares what a few short-sighted individuals are blathering on about anyway.

In any event, here’s hoping that America’s Jews will be wise enough to heed Rabbi Lapin, not Foxman and his ilk.

NOTE – I am quite aware of the historical sufferings of Jews at the hands of medieval Christians. But to hold Christians today responsible for the evil actions of their misguided ancestors is to subscribe to a notion of collective responsibility which justifies not only those past persecutions of Jews, but new ones today.

My stage is shared by many millions

Who lift their hands up high because they feel this.

We are one, we are strong,

The more they hold us down, the more we press on.

– What If, Creed

If the pagan might of Imperial Rome at its most psychotic couldn’t kill the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I wonder what makes modern secularists think they’ll be any more successful? Even the developing ban in the name of tolerance will only strengthen the message.

For all my disdain for what passes for liberal thought – even the name is a misnomer – I will freely grant liberals that conservatives, too, have their logical inconsistencies. Which, in part, is why I parted intellectual company with them and the Republican Party some time ago, despite all my instinctive sympathies for both.

Fred Reed puts my base objection to both American ideologies very well: Peer behind the shabby curtain of pretended principle, and you see that the government is not an impartial entity serving the public, but a means of imposing on the majority the will of any who can get their hands on the miraculous levers of the courts.

Indeed, he anticipates the arguments that Bush defenders have made here on this blog, those who justify their support for a President who has betrayed their principles because of the possibility of his future Supreme Court nominations. But I have little sympathy for any ideology that attempts to use government in furtherance of its causes, no matter how noble such causes might be. Jesus disdained such methods, and we would do well to imitate him in this, as in all things.

Even in the rare instances that a true philosopher-king takes the throne, a Marcus Aurelius is always followed by Commodus. The power to build is the power to destroy, and the only long-term solution is to prevent such power from being amassed in the first place.

The Washington Times reports: Religious conservatives helped Ronald Reagan win the presidency in the 1980s and helped Republicans retake the House and Senate in 1994, but complain that they have little to show for their loyalty to the GOP. “I’m not blaming the president, but religious conservatives have been doing politics for 25 years and, on every front, are worse off on things they care about,” said Gary Bauer, president of American Values. “The gay rights movement is more powerful, the culture is more decadent, the life of not one baby has been saved, porn is in the living room, and you can’t watch the Super Bowl without your hand on the off switch.”

With more than eight months remaining until Election Day, American Family Association founder Don Wildmon said the president “has already upset the economic conservatives, and I know the problem he is having with evangelicals. … There is a major problem there.”

So, let’s see. Economic conservatives are thinking about staying home. Religious conservatives are thinking about staying home. Freedom lovers and those who respect the Constitution are thinking about voting third-party for the first time. Houston, you may want to rethink this pragmatic Big Tent strategy.