Vox Popoli

The Executive Director of mediachannel.org suggests cheese with what he presumes to be my fermented whine:

Born again libertarian Vox Day (pseudonym anyone?) has taken a break from his usual outrage to gloat over the Jordan resignation: “Jordan’s accusation made no sense at all,” he writes. “Because if American troops were going to target journalists, those topping the list would almost surely be the left-liberal elites working in New York City and Washington, D.C. The legacy media has hated the American soldier since Vietnam…”

Vox’s anger at the “New York Times and by the ABCNNBCBS cabal” seems to stem not only from a belief that liberals are leading America on a “long march toward lethal socialist utopia,” but also from his failure last year to sell his column to a single newspaper. Vox says he’s the victim of a vast left-wing media conspiracy. Or could it be that he’s just a crappy writer in need of a heavy dose of anger-management counseling?

Actually, I’ve despised the NYT and the ABCNNBCBS cabal long before I first put fingertips to keyboards with the intent to commit nonfiction. I sent Mr. Karr the following response:

Dear Mr. Karr,

While I may be a crappy writer – I will leave it to others to decide – you appear to be under a number of mistaken impressions. I hope you will not mind if I correct them.

First, I was not trying, and failing, to sell my column, Universal Press Syndicate was. Among other things, they informed me that numerous editors told them that my language and sentence structure was too difficult for their readership and even advised me to consider dumbing it down.

Second, it is interesting to note that in the one place where hard numbers make direct comparisons possible, my readership has, for the last two years, been larger than every other columnist at WND but two, including more widely distributed contributors such as Michelle Malkin,
Hugh Hewitt and Ben Shapiro. In some cases, it sextuples them. This would seem to indicate that reader lack of interest in my writing has not been the determinative factor.

And finally, while it is true that having published three novels with a major New York publishing house is no definitive proof of writing talent, it is arguably suggestive of some degree of literary competence.

As for the “pseudonym”, follow the Latin into Greek and you’ll find that it’s all perfectly clear.

With regards,
Vox Day

I do have to say that I am impressed that he got the small-l libertarian part right, and that he clearly understood the import of the adjective modifying the noun. But truly, my disdain for the Left is in no way increased by the failure of UPS to find legacy media interest in my column. That wouldn’t be possible.

Jonah Goldberg recounts an Important Democratic Moment:

Later, at another gathering, Gloria Nieto, vice chair of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus, broke into sobs, wondering aloud whether the Democrats would remain a welcoming home for lesbians. Dean immediately “leaped off the stage into the audience to hug her,” writes Carnes. “With a sob of his own catching his voice, he brought the audience to standing ovation” when he declared, “That’s why I am a Democrat.”

Yep, that pretty much describes the intellectual appeal of left-liberalism. Someone, somewhere, needs a hug.

Hold me, Ralph….

Nicholas Kristof makes a flawed assumption:

Other developed countries focus much more on contraception. The upshot is that while teenagers in the U.S. have about as much sexual activity as teenagers in Canada or Europe, Americans girls are four times as likely as German girls to become pregnant, almost five times as likely as French girls to have a baby, and more than seven times as likely as Dutch girls to have an abortion. Young Americans are five times as likely to have H.I.V. as young Germans, and teenagers’ gonorrhea rate is 70 times higher in the U.S. than in the Netherlands or France.

I don’t buy for a second that teenagers in Europe are engaged in anywhere nearly as much sexual activity as teenagers in the USA. Having lived in Europe for more than a quarter of my adult life, I can testify that the casual sex scene is much, much less rampant than in America. In earlier times, I also knew two foreign exchange students fairly well, one from Germany and one from Switzerland, and both of them were in delighted awe of how accessible the American girls were.

Even now, Big Chilly can occasionally be heard quoting the immortal words of our German friend, a tall, handsome fellow in the midst of a three-week, Rommel-like blitzkrieg through American maidenhood from sea to shining sea: “Oh, I luff zee American bitches!”

David Brock makes an ass of himself, again:

Monday, he noted examples of how the “professional” or “mainstream media” are influenced by conservative talk radio, the Internet and think tanks. That influence, Brock said, will diminish as the conservative “lies” are exposed. “The conservatives seem to be particularly vulnerable because the quality of their research is particularly low. There is typically self-interested money behind it and of course they are simply willing to lie,” Brock told a group of interns at a luncheon at the Center for American Progress headquarters in Washington D.C….

Brock also said that the “mainstream media” is not really on the side of liberals, as many conservatives contend. “As far as the mainstream media is concerned, know that it is not on your side as much as the conservatives will like to claim that the media is liberal,” he said.

The legacy media is absolutely and almost completely on the liberal side. This is the case by any metric you can choose – political registrations, presidential votes, identifiable deological assumptions – the sole case progressive/liberals make is that the media is owned by corporations. Of course, if this is a genuine basis for ideological determination, Hollywood is equally “conservative”.

Apparently, I’m a little bit older today than I think I am.

Yesterday I got an e-mail notifying me that my 2004 Federal tax return was rejected because the date of birth I provided did not match the information currently available on the very ominous sounding “IRS Masterfile”. This Masterfile is purportedly based on information provided by the Social Security Administration as I was strongly advised to take the matter up with them.

Being very eager to see my somewhat substantial tax refund returned to me as soon as physically possible I immediately phoned the nearest Social Security office. That phone conversation went something like this:

Overpaid Government Worker #1: (in broken English) Social Security Administration.
Me: Yes, your records have my birth date incorrect and I’d like to get that cleared up.
OGW 1: Okay, what you need to do is apply for a new Social Security card.
(Silence)
Me: And…how do I go about doing that?
OGW 1: Well, you need to fill out an SS-5 form and either mail it to us or bring it in with two forms of identification with your new birth date on them.
Me: Ummm…it’s not really a new birth date. It’s the same one that I’ve had for quite some time now. I just need you guys to correct it in your files.

Imagine how the Atomizer will feel if he ever bothers to get his IMF translated and discovers that according to the IRS, not only is his date of birth incorrect, but he’s not a human being at all, being classified instead as a Guatamalan corporation manufacturing sewing machine parts.

I don’t see why people are making such a big deal about Chris Rock’s comments. First, if you’re the typical self-centered single guy, with all the morality of a Great White Shark, why in the name of the Black Goat’s one thousand young would you not be grateful for a free pass from undesired fatherhood? In days of yore, getting a woman pregnant brought the fun to an close; now, at the low, low price of $300 and one deceased Legally Subhuman Entity, it’s back to the circuses. And if you’re an adult lover of hot teen sluts unfortunate enough to knock up the attractive thirteen year-old from your social studies class, the vacuum will hide the evidence and the clinic will be happy to take a check from a concerned “uncle” without asking any questions at all.

It’s not just male predators who are enthusiastic about the beauty of abortion. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists must love it too. Think of all the damn Negroes who would otherwise be knuckling about the country and fantasizing about slaking their grunting gorilla lust on the pure sweet flesh of white women. Instead of one billion slant-eyed Chinks, we’d be stuck with two billion. The subhuman Slavic peasantry wouldn’t be shrinking if Russian women didn’t use it as birth control. And if JAPs from every East Coast university weren’t filling Planned Parenthood clinics, the Endlosung Mach II would be set back by decades. Ah, if only we could sell towel heads and sand monkeys on the concept, what a wonderful world it would be!

Clearly, abortion is beautiful.

Waterboy waxes wroth:

“So a gay man with AIDS is a “loaded gun”, now? With the “potential” for harming others?”

Based on what the New York Times was saying about behavioral tendencies and transmission rates, I don’t know if we’re talking about “potential” so much as “probability”. Perhaps someone who pays more attention to this subject than I do can actually work out the percentages. But keep in mind that it was not me, but Larry Kramer, the well-known AIDS activist who now has the disease himself, who asserted that gay men are “murdering” each other.

Is a heterosexual man with anthrax a “loaded gun”? A heterosexual woman with Legionnaire’s Disease?

Actually, if you stop and think about it, loaded guns are not only perfectly legal but Constitutionally protected as well. I don’t recall any Amendment specifically protecting diseased penises, but I can have another look and see if I can find one hiding in an emanation somewhere… although I suspect it’s more likely lurking about in a penumbra.

The burden of proof should not be on those who wish to use proven public health measures to eliminate AIDS, but on those who wish to defend the right of one individual to transmit a lethal disease to another individual. The significance of the New York Times article is that even some of those who have long defended special treatment for AIDS carriers are beginning to throw in the towel.

As I mentioned in the comments, I don’t actually take any issue with allowing people to experience the predictable consequences of their actions. For the last twenty years, the gay community has argued vociferously for special treatment of its signature disease. It appeared to be working for a while, now there are some signs that it will not continue to do so. I find it very interesting that it is precisely those who are most vulnerable that are the very ones who insist on continuing to allow the disease an environment in which it will flourish.

Yes, this is why we have to make sure there is government oversight of homeschooling. Because obviously it’s much better to have them taught by people trained not to abuse them:

Seven members of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, including two teachers, were arrested in Southern California and charged with allegedly planning to travel to Mexico to have sex with boys, authorities said….

The seven arrested included: Steven K. Irvin, 46, of Pittsburgh, a special education teacher at Carrick High School (search); Richard Stutsman, 59, of Seneca, S.C., a substitute teacher for a school district in Oconee County;

I wonder how many boys those two men have abused over the 50-plus years they’ve been teaching?

It’s interesting to see U2 win the Grammy for Best Rock Song, especially considering how it’s a barely concealed Christian confession of submission to God. Oh, I’m sure there’s plenty of CBA Christian Rock partisans who believe that nothing is Christian that does not explicitly quote John 3:16 in every song, but there’s something wrong with finding the Devil in every subtext and simultaneously denying Christ.

To me, the message of Vertigo is almost overt. After The Edge does his temptation in the desert bit, Bono explains that the something he can feel is the love that is teaching him how to kneel. Although I was an early fan of U2 – Boy and October were two of the first four albums I ever bought, (AC|DC’s Back in Black and Duran Duran’s Rio were the others), I haven’t been a consistent follower of their music over time and I’ve found Bono’s public persona to be a little grating at times.

But when one actually listens to the words of Vertigo, one finds oneself marveling that a man who has been offered the best that the world has to give still has it in his heart to humble himself and kneel before his Lord and Savior.

Debka reports on the Lebanese assassination fallout:

If hostilities erupt and the government looks liking falling, these troops, some 13,000, will be called out. The Hizballah and Palestinians will back them alongside pro-government Lebanese troops to shield the Syrian presence in Lebanon against the fury of opposition Christian and Druse militias backed by pro-Hariri Sunni loyalists from the south.

It’s hard to know if this is a reaction to the US attempt to destabilize the Syrian government – which would appear to be an indication that the “Bush as lying Crusader” theory is not only in effect, but working – or whether it has more to do with the Israel-Palestine-Syria-Lebanon situation.

Most likely, it’s some intricate and unpredictable combination therein, and we can expect the Law of Unintended Consequences to begin showing itself soon.