Tuesday, March 17, 2015

WHAT IS ROD DREHER WHINING ABOUT NOW?

What is Rod Dreher Whining About Now? Some literary types have taken a vacation from reading white male writers:
The internet has been abuzz recently with debates over reading lists and reading habits. Writer K. Tempest Bradford caused a bit of a stir when she challenged readers to stop reading straight white cisgendered male authors for a year. Sunili Govinnage generated her share of outrage when she reported on her year spent deliberately not reading white authors.
As a normal person, I say: who gives a shit? Read whatever you like, free country, and as long as Dan Brown or his seasonal equivalent draws breath white male writers will still have a Place at The Table. But Rod Dreher -- well, to give you some idea, he reads this part of the Gawker story...
Many of the responses generated by these articles and initiatives have been supportive — even from those white male authors ‘targeted’ for exclusion.
...and responds thusly:
Of course. Dhimmis.
Eventually Dreher explains the moral imperative behind his condemnation of other people's choice of reading material.
You would scarcely believe the money and effort going into promoting my upcoming Dante book. Maybe it will pay off, but chances are it will not. The competition is unbelievably stiff. 
And even if a book does get a lot of media attention, that guarantees nothing. My 2006 book Crunchy Cons got a lot of favorable press and Internet discussion. There were good reviews in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, a front page Washington Post Style section feature, and an All Things Considered essay from me, related to the book. And yet the book never made back its modest advance, and almost certainly never will.
Who says there's no God? Dreher goes on and on about hard it is for Rod Dreher to sell a book, till finally he gets down on one knee to tell us that when you buy a Rod Dreher book, you're striking a blow for freedom:
So, if you are one of the people willing to spend money on books, I say God bless you, no matter whose books you buy. Every writer who is not Stephen King or Danielle Steele or in that category is in the 99 percent. I hope you’ll buy good books, and I hope you will buy my books. But I’m glad you are buying books.
See? He's for inclusiveness, and those monsters who encourage you to buy Roxane Gay instead of him are for dhimmitude! The choice is clear, particularly if you're the type who buys books not to read but to leave about the house as identity signals.

This has been What is Rod Dreher Whining About Now?

235 comments:

  1. JennOfArk10:09 AM

    But Rod, if I'm buying good books, by definition I won't be buying your books.


    Does Dreher really believe anyone who would buy a book based on the non-traditional gender identity of the author would enjoy his books? Probably not. But he would sell more books.


    (Let me add: Crunch Cons didn't make back the advance he was paid? Quelle surprise!)

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  2. randomworker10:18 AM

    I guess it didn't even make the wingnut welfare book of the month club!

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  3. Waydownsouth10:22 AM

    I don't think it's fair to imply that Dreher is always whining about something. Why just this morning he was all squeeness over a "catfight" between gay celebrities.

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  4. Mr. Wonderful10:33 AM

    Oh, Crunchy Cons was a BOOK. Not a breakfast cereal. Ooh, sorry. I'll try to catch up with it.

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  5. Writer K. Tempest Bradford caused a bit of a stir when she challenged readers to stop reading straight white cisgendered male authors for a year.Well, as you describe it, that does sound like a stupidly self-righteous stunt, Rod (and you're the expert). So let's turn it around: Why don't you challenge your readers to start reading non-any-of-those-things authors? Because that's much more reasonable, right? Right? Hello?
    Of course. Dhimmis.I confess, I'm not clear what this is supposed to mean. Is he saying that the "excluded" authors are acting like dhimma by willingly accepting assignment to a protected "non-citizen" status in the world of authors? Is the presumed loss of income analogous to the jizya tax? Or is he saying that the writers making the challenge are acting like repressive Islamists, well-known for their encouragement of LGBTQ and women? Or, and I'm going way out on a limb, here, is dhimmi now just a content-free expletive used by dumbshit reactionary Americans?
    I hope you’ll buy good books, and I hope you will buy my books.I just consulted my old symbolic logic notes, and this checks out.

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  6. I'm sure that Crunchy Rod, who sees everything through his God prism, completely misses the irony of using a picture of Mark Twain as his beau ideal.

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  7. I knew Dreher was dumb, but if he wrote a book and expected to make money, he's even dumber than I thought.

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  8. Brother Yam10:51 AM

    At the rate he's going, I expect Dreher will whine so intensely that he eventually sucks up into his own asshole and disappears into a tiny, crunchy singularity with a gentle "pop," never to be heard from again.

    Or least a boy can dream...

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  9. Brother Yam10:55 AM

    It's like the old joke:


    A programmer's wife sent him to the store with the instructions, "Get a loaf of bread and if they have eggs, get a dozen."


    He came back with 12 loaves of bread.

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  10. Chris Anderson10:57 AM

    "Many of the responses generated by these articles and initiatives have been supportive — even from those white male authors targeted for exclusion."



    Those authors might realize that playing it cool is the better option from every angle. As Dreher has found out the hard way, there are only so many books you can sell to the you're-all-dhimmis crowd. So if you're (say) Jared Diamond, or you wannabe like him, loudly refusing the mantle of dhimmitude is counterproductive? Better to say, "have fun not reading my books for a year, I will be curious to hear how that works out for you."

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  11. Oh, heavenly woe upon me! I am beset on all sides by Phillistines who read only that which conforms to the politics of the moment! Why, these narrow minds have constricted themselves so much that they may never read MY BOOK! Yes, MY BOOK is doomed to be lost amid the piles of shallow, trend-chasing pablum, which MY BOOK is certainly not! MY BOOK is a celebration of literature and philosophy, which people who have not read MY BOOK will never understand! What manner of fallen world is this in which MY BOOK will never have the success that MY BOOK so richly merits!

    ...Please buy my book.

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  12. TGuerrant10:59 AM

    my upcoming Dante book

    At last, I have something to live for.

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  13. coozledad10:59 AM

    Don't you just love it when the market kicks its cheerleaders in the nuts? I know I do.

    And why would anybody buy a book about Dante from some halfass dork when there's already an ocean of credible scholarship, hackery-free.

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  14. He should have just gone Full Metal Wingnut. Those books rack up sales, if only to people who leave them lying around the homes in order to "piss off the libs."

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  15. coozledad11:05 AM

    They're crunchy even when the marketplace of ideas drowns them in Marxist uniformity.


    And there's a whistling ass in every box.

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  16. Might I suggest that the crappy title held that one back? A decade on, and I'm still not sure what the fuck a "Crunchy Con" is supposed to be.

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  17. Chris Anderson11:08 AM

    Do not go gentle into that good asshole
    Whine, whine, against the dying of the lite
    (My apologies to the ghost of Dylan Thomas)

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  18. There's kind of a mini-trend in publishing where someone reads a classic book and then writes a book about how it changed his/her life. But then most of the people doing that are celebrities or significant literary figures, not the guy who coined a political neologism that everyone's forgotten about.

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  19. dhimmis dhimmis dhimmis dhimmis dhimmis dhimmelaon
    their literary tastes come and go
    they come and go

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  20. Brother Yam11:20 AM

    I didn't either, so I asked the Great Gazoogle. This is from the big print on the results page:

    "Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners,
    Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing
    Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives
    Plan to Save America (or at Least the Republican Party)"

    That doesn't even make any sense. Are there really any people that have, say, two of the above mentioned characteristics? Is it possible to be a "Contercultural Conservative?" Isn't that an oxymoron? What is the value of "hip" in the phrase "Hip Homeschooling Mamas?" And, finally, isn't "diverse" a dirty word for Conservatives except for portfolios, golf clubs and range of calibres for guns?

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  21. I know! I'm actually curious to see how an evangelical like Rod handles the religious symbolism of Devil May Cry.

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  22. They've got a copy of Crunchy Cons down at my library, and I'm tempted to pick it up - I mean, I read Ross Douthat's Privilege and Glenn Fucking Beck's Agenda 21, how much worse could this be? But as far as I can tell, it's about conservatives who are into liberal shit on the side. For some reason, the brain trust at National Review thought this was going to be the next big movement.

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  23. And why would anybody buy a book about Dante from some halfass dork when
    there's already an ocean of credible scholarship, hackery-free.Well, there would be some minor satisfaction to writing him an e-mail that says, "Dreher, you pathetic bastard; I read your book."

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  24. coozledad11:27 AM

    I thought that's what Samuel Beckett did with Murphy, or was it More Pricks Than Kicks?
    I've forgotten the fuck out of that, I guess.

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  25. Dhimmi is the new political correctness.

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  26. Brother Yam11:30 AM

    The book was released in 2006, so it was written during the high-water mark of Bush/GOP. Perhaps, since at the time "Conservatives" were still running around like they owned the place, they thought that they could get the next generation and turn 'em into hate-filled hippies.

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  27. I notice that it's a really inexpensive book.


    Amazon says they have 71 of them used & new from $0.01.

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  28. coozledad11:33 AM

    Dhimmi really want to hurt me.
    Dhimmi really want to make me cry.

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  29. I'm reminded of Bob Dylan's assessment of Sonny Bono. "Cat's a drag. He gets thrown out of a restaurant and writes a song about it."

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  30. coozledad11:37 AM

    What is the value of "hip" in the phrase "Hip Homeschooling Mamas

    Maybe they're teaching their daughters how to separate their public bones.

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  31. [sarcastically] "...we know that Social Justice Warriors are correct that the most important thing about a work of art is the racial, sexual, or gender identity of the artist...."

    Shorter God Brayer: "Why read about the experience of some dirty ghetto slut or transgender when I can dazzle you with six-hundred year old insights into the ultimate metaphysical story of moral comeuppance and punishment of the wicked?

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  32. dstatton11:41 AM

    Did this really get a good review at the NY Times? The premise seems quite stupid.

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  33. Howlin Wolfe11:41 AM

    Do a Venn diagram. Good books in one circle and Rod's in another. Intersection? The null set.

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  34. coozledad11:42 AM

    You can shave Comstock's muttonchops off, but the sanctimony is the same in any century.

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  35. In retrospect he should have called it "Randroid Hippies" which if nothing else is a good name for a band.

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  36. coozledad11:47 AM

    Helter Skelter done been wrote.

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  37. Chris Anderson11:48 AM

    Anyway, Dreher should relax and wait. Most of these stunts (conspicuously reading 100% X or Y because it's PC) will peter out before long, and then it's back to the SWMCAs' books.


    Case in point -- I remember in college checking out a book by Jean Genet for no other reason than because I'd heard he was French and gay (I'm neither). Well, I couldn't finish it, and I always finish books! It was boring. I know all about being filthy and impoverished; I don't need a Gallic teenage sodomite to school me on such matters, unless he's Arthur Rimbaud.


    I will admit to having learned a few things. "Brown me" is a thing you can say, or could say. Unless I'm misremembering, at one point a gentleman was literally biting a pillow! But in any case, I put the book down and picked up something Dreher would appreciate, like Naked Lunch. Burroughs was straight, right?

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  38. DN Nation11:49 AM

    Exactly. I want to think I remember Ye Ole Perfesser pimping this concept in one of his usual "see, WE'RE the cool ones, not you libs!" campaigns that's later dropped when no one gives a crap. (See also: "I don't care about gay marriage but it'd be cool if the gays had guns too!")


    I'm surprised Dreher didn't make a mint off the book, given wingnut welfare clearinghouses and scammy mail lists and such, but I suppose giving *any* credence to Hippie Stuff made the book DOA.

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  39. Cato the Censor11:50 AM

    "And yet the book never made back its modest advance, and almost certainly never will."

    Dreher's stinker of a book not only gets published, but receives tons of free hype and good reviews in a major newspaper and NPR, and he complains he can't even earn back his advance? I'd be happy just to get a form rejection letter from a literary agent and he's steamed that his didactic piece of junk didn't do better? What a privileged jerk!

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  40. DN Nation11:50 AM

    "Dhimmitude" was a thing the wingnuts loved to prattle on about when Little Green Footballs was a wingnutty site, if you want to carbon date it.

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  41. Wow. Dreher gets all huffy about efforts to broaden people's reading habits and turns it into a promotion for his next book.


    What a sanctimonious, self-serving asshole.

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  42. The book would have sold better if it had been shelved in the "cryptozoology" section of the store.

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  43. Well, we know he wasn't a straight shooter.

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  44. Ted the slacker11:59 AM

    I've seen it referred to as the invisible hand flipping the bird.
    Which apparently is an acceptable translation of schadenfreud.

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  45. Duncan12:01 PM

    Remember, he's not an evangelical this week. For a while he was a Catholic, but then he apostatized again and went Orthodox. (Sort of like Frank Schaeffer, who's an atheist, kind of, this week.)

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  46. Atrios12:01 PM

    that it didn't earn back its advance probably made it harder for rod to publish another crappy book, but he still got the check

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  47. DocAmazing12:13 PM

    "...while standing in the checkout line, at which point I left it at the cash register."

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  48. DocAmazing12:17 PM

    Never underestimate the power of connections and work-the-refs right-wing whining.

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  49. DocAmazing12:18 PM

    Il Purgativo

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  50. Well that's just silly. Obviously she intended him to come back with 13.

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  51. JennOfArk12:22 PM

    BRAVO, sir.

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  52. gratuitous12:29 PM

    Yeah, I'm not sure what Dreher's whining about. My guess is that if the book didn't earn back its advance, some sub-editor at the publisher took it in the shorts and they extended another contract to Dreher for another edition of his deathless prose. I'd bet none of the shortfall came out of Dreher's pocket.

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  53. Downpup E12:31 PM

    Probably a few confused Bayern Munchen fans.

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  54. redoubtagain12:35 PM

    It's his way of saying "sissies", which is his way of being offensive while trying not to seem offensive. Because his audience doesn't do subtlety anyway.

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  55. redoubtagain12:39 PM

    "It was on sale '2 for $3.98', but I bought a bag of barbecue potato chips instead--they had more substance and better taste."

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  56. JennOfArk12:40 PM

    OT, but I just had to share this from my twitter feed:


    My response was: "If it wasn't for us pro football players, you'd all be watching SOCCER in GERMAN now!"

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  57. M. Krebs12:40 PM

    Dude, you got an advance. Be grateful for the grift.

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  58. DocAmazing12:43 PM

    Frank Schaeffer at least has the Christian decency to feel shame over the damage he caused by being a Reconstructionist Justin Bieber. Divine Rod is congenitally unable to feel shame; he can only attempt to inflict it in others.

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  59. And most of these books would have made fairly good magazine articles--even feature articles! But there just ain't 128 pages in there, even with generous margins and ginormous pull-quotes.

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  60. Mooser12:52 PM

    Dhimmi-dhimmi-do-dimmi, banana-fanna-fo-fhimmi, fi-fie-fo-fimmy-dhimmi!

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  61. NonyNony1:05 PM

    The amount of sway that this kind of "hey let's all read something new and different instead of established stuff" never has an actual impact on the market for established stuff. It's a great shot in the arm for writers whose stuff gets passed over (because a few thousand or even a few hundred new eyeballs is always helpful) but is isn't going to draw enough people away from the standard authors to put a dent into the actual market.

    Dreher is losing out to the hundreds of already existing books about Dante and the Inferno - most of which are written by white male authors. He may think he has a novel take[*], but it doesn't matter when there are so many other takes already out there about the topic.

    [*] I'm sure he doesn't actually have a novel take. I've read Dreher's stuff and his output is not novel. He finds slightly novel ways to say the same thing that thousands of people before him have already said.

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  62. I asked my programmer husb. to bring home some sausage for breakfast. So he bought hot dogs. I guess they are sausages, technically.

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  63. Chris Anderson1:19 PM

    Though my tongue was obviously in cheek, I was too harsh ("stunts," "PC") on the folks making these pledges. I want people to read, to read more, and to read more diverse stuff. But the people talking about special temporary reading diets are not the problem. They are like vegetarians pledging to go vegan for a year. Fine, but the problem is how to get kids to eat their vegetables, so to speak.


    The thing I like about the pledges is that they're bound to produce a head-change. "Profound derangement of the senses [and sensibilities]" (Rimbaud) should never go out of fashion, I say. So "Feed Your Head" (Slick?) a radical diet for awhile, if that's your bag. You might learn something that couldn't be learnt from just having catholic tastes like mine.

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  64. mgmonklewis1:30 PM

    Wait. Dan Brown is a writer?

    "That's not writing; it's typing." —Truman Capote

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  65. Shalimar1:33 PM

    finally he gets down on one knee to tell us that when you buy a Rod Dreher book, you're striking a blow for freedom:

    At least he didn't put on blackface and pretend to be a minority to increase sales. Tiny steps are still progress.

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  66. Yeah, I'll never understand why Coppola cut that part.

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  67. "Cat's a drag. He gets thrown out of a restaurant and writes a song about it."In Bono's tepid defense, at least he got thrown out of somewhere.</Don McLean>

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  68. And I had an uncle who was decapitated in a coal mine.And that uncle who hung around in coal mines for some reason grew up to become ... Ronald Reagan.

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  69. DocAmazing1:50 PM

    Pick it up, by all means, Just be sure to have gloves on.

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  70. DocAmazing1:55 PM

    "Gets down on one knee?" Is that a Tebow or tae bo?

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  71. And even if a book does get a lot of media attention, that guarantees nothing. My 2006 book Crunchy Cons got a lot of favorable press and Internet discussion. There were good reviews in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, a front page Washington Post
    Style section feature, and an All Things Considered essay from me,
    related to the book. And yet the book never made back its modest
    advance, and almost certainly never will.



    Until the values for "lot" and "good" are sorted out, there is only one sentence here that I can believe.


    And as a rather long time recipient of wingnut welfare I am surprised with his lack of familiarity of the Regnery remainder bin.
    ...

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  72. Affirmative Action For Dummies. Literally.

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  73. Ted the slacker2:05 PM

    I believe it has a technical definition, but most often I see it used as a slur on people who won't blame every Muslim on the planet for 9/11.

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  74. Dhimmis is a shorthand for "cheese eating surrender monkey" when you don't mean someone french, you just mean someone submissive to force majeure applied by an authority you don't recognize.


    I'm not going to google it because: I have a life, but I'm pretty sure that Rod has occasionally joined Douthat et al in asking his readers to read exclusively from literature produced by white christian males specifically because they are christian males (the white part is elided or suppressed). And they have both certainly made fun of or attacked writers who are non white, non christian, or non male because their works are not on the appropriate subjects, or don't take the right stance on things. If it wasn't a problem then why is it a problem now, other than if you are writing for pennies every penny counts.

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  75. Why don't white male authors just write under pseudonyms? Jews and women often have, for basically the same reason.

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  76. Joan Baez says that my favorite Dylan song of all time (The Hour That My Ship Comes In) was written because the two of them couldn't get a hotel room and he was fantasizing his revenge.

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  77. I've got to say that this is generally true of people who write books about Proust--you know the type: how proust saved my life; my year of living proust, what proust teaches us about life/love/time/the brain...etc, etc, etc,... Most of it is middlebrow crap produced by an intelligentsia that has to find ways to produce a book, because writing a book is still an honorable thing to say you are doing, without writing something actually novel.

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  78. Freedom: Thank a White Christian Male
    --Virginia Monologue Goldstein, 2015 NAACP Fellow

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  79. Dhimmitude is really the word Dhimmi (tax paying non muslim in a muslim polity) plus "'tude" which has a double meaning here. Here it means both "the state of being a Dhimmi" and its like a portmanteau of Dhimmi plus servitude. When you accuse others of Dhimmitude you are really accusing them of willingly and servilely accepting a lesser political status, of willingly paying a tax (rather than overthrowing the entire political/military system) and accepting second class citizenship.

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  80. Also I've lost track of the discussion but if an alicublog meeting is being mooted somewhere in my neck of the woods please email me at aimaiami at comcast dot etc...

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  81. witlesschum2:32 PM

    Hell, if I'm going to read something on Dante from some whacky American conservative it's going to be Larry Niven's takeoff on the Divine Comedy.

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  82. Howlin Wolfe2:33 PM

    And he is unable to take the hint that it's a crappy book. The market is speaking, but he has his fingers in his ears, going "lalala i can't hear u!!"

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  83. Bitter Scribe2:34 PM

    I check books out of the library. Am I going to hell?

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  84. randomworker2:37 PM

    A "blow" for freedom? OK, sure!

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  85. Oops! I was aiming at the glass, honest!

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  86. ohsopolite2:42 PM

    Obligatory:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwAOc4g3K-g

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  87. witlesschum2:43 PM

    The fact that Dreher's book got respectful notices from the mainstreamiest of mainstream media and was read by no one is the least surprising thing ever. The main people I can imagine reading it are professional political pundits in dire need of cocktail chatter and there are even fewer of them than are crunchy cons.

    It sounds like the kind of book that's likely to be considered too conservative for liberals, too dorky for libertarians (does Rod even own a leather jacket?) too liberal for the real red-meat conservative types, etc. Given that David Brooks got a free copy, I'm surprised it sold anything.

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  88. I was thinking you were still in Greater Greater Boston, but Derelict suggests you're currently a Berkshirian, which distantly rings a bell. If so, that could simplify matters. Now BBBB just needs to get a job where he doesn't have to work weekends, and Jeremy's your uncle.

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  89. witlesschum2:47 PM

    O'Reilly could probably sell Killing Dante. It's not like they how he died anymore than I do and O'Reilly has officially waived bye bye to the idea that he's supposed to tell something that, if not the truth, at least would appear to tenuously at least not outright contradict the facts.

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  90. Do you take the books back?

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  91. There's kind of a mini-trend in publishing where someone reads a classic book and then writes a book about how it changed his/her life.

    My favorite in this genre is when the celeb has it ghost-written for them. Lazy, self-indulgent crap (both the work and the putative "author").

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  92. No. Boston. Still. Stuck. Here.

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  93. Puts the cathartic back in catholic.

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  94. I want to work this comment into a fine lather before stropping my blade and shaving it clean.

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  95. (My apologies to the ghost of Dylan Thomas.)

    Who will be appearing in your dreams tonight to kick your ass all the way back home.

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  96. J Neo Marvin3:20 PM

    The parts that he didn't crib from Pirate Jenny, anyhow. (Which doesn't mean I don't love that song as well)

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  97. smut clyde3:27 PM

    shelved in the "cryptozoology" section of the store

    Change the title to "Yeti Love II".

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  98. smut clyde3:35 PM

    The title, sub-title construction and general theme all scream "Cheap knock-off of 'Bobos in Paradise'", written at a late stage in the cycle when cute attempts to identify and label life-style niches had already become the subject of mockery. Of course it doesn't help if the book you're emulating is already third-rate. So it did not sell well? I am disappoint.

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  99. Still. Stuck. Here.[Breaks from editing CV for Boston job (really!)] ...What's this, now? Should I not be trying to get stuck there? For perspective, my parents want me to move back to Iowa.



    Anyhoo, Iater I'll e-mail you my speculations as to approximately equal travel distances and the like. It's back to the difficult quadrilateral, if Boston and Yonkers are included (though nothing from BBBB yet). So Plan B is, everyone else should come to New Haven. :-)

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  100. New Haven? Fuck that. I spent shook the mud of New Haven off my feet about 20 years ago and I haven't looked back.

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  101. Chris Anderson3:39 PM

    I think I was the first to knock comments out of context, when I commented on my own comment. Sorry about that.

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  102. You know WHO ELSE was a big whiner and wrote a long book about it?
    ~

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  103. Even better, the failure of Crunchy Cons didn't hurt Dreher's career at all - he got a follow-up shot (the one about his dead sister) that probably did a lot better. Point is, he bombed and the publishing community pulled him back to his feet.

    The whole post is a thinly veiled ad for Dreher's next book, of course, but I do love the feel of it - Dreher holding something that most of us will never get and complaining because he didn't get the Ultra Deluxe version.

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  104. Chris Anderson3:51 PM

    That'll be an honor and a welcome change. Last night I dreamt I was the new guy working at a McDonalds. Not so much working as standing around, tho, so I said "who's in charge here. It's been days and nobody's training me or asking me to do anything." Then a young guy takes me in back to this enormous room. The smell is incredible: there's a trough full of human waste the size of an Olympic swimming pool. Feces, toilet paper, God knows what. The kid hands me a rake (why a rake?) and puts me to work moving all that shit out the back door into the alley. Explains he can't do it himself, because it makes him puke.

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  105. and accepting second class citizenship.Frequently as opposed to being robbed, brutalized, and killed by Real True Christians for being a Christ-killer, or being tortured and executed by Real True Christians for being a heretic. If I were a Jew or non-traditional Christian in medieval times, I know which way I'd jump.


    Of course, it would be even better to not have a polity with full citizenship based on a dominant religious system, but it sure as shit isn't the ones getting called Dhimmis who are trying to turn the US into one.

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  106. In fairness, twenty years ago New Haven was still emerging from total shitholery. Now it's a gentrified shithole. With tapas.

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  107. smut clyde3:59 PM

    Dante?

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  108. Chris Anderson4:01 PM

    If my bunched, monkeyed coming is cruel, rage me back to the making-house, I'll tell him.

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  109. smut clyde4:03 PM

    http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2015/03/faith.jpg

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  110. coozledad4:11 PM

    If that's all it takes to plug Dreher up it's no wonder he's full of shit.


    I wish I had a way to put this up on the local GOP/fundy facebook page.

    ReplyDelete
  111. "I was there when Satan chewed on Judas forever."


    -Bill O'Reilly


    Update:


    "I mean I saw pictures of Judas being chewed."


    -Bill O'Reilly

    ReplyDelete
  112. So, if you are one of the people willing to spend money on books, I say God bless you, no matter whose books you buy.

    Offer not valid for purchasers of Lena Dunham's autobiography.

    ReplyDelete
  113. Really? I did not know that. I used to live across the street from Marjolaines, if that is still there.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Only if you check out Dreher's Dante book.

    ReplyDelete
  115. JennOfArk4:48 PM

    Heh. I was making the joke a few weeks ago that O'Reilly claimed he was the narrator for Sympathy for the Devil.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Chris Anderson5:05 PM

    Why don't they? Easy -- we're more honest than women and jews. (I kid!)

    ReplyDelete
  117. gocart mozart5:10 PM

    Psalm 34

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  118. "Rand, Santorum, and the Cash"

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  119. Halloween_Jack5:18 PM

    I'll dhimmi for ya
    I'll dhimmi for ya
    I'll dhimmi for ya
    I'll dhimmi for youuuuuuuuuuuuu

    ReplyDelete
  120. The Shrieking Harpy uses it for anything that doesn't advance American/ Israel interests or recognizes Muslims as fellow human beings.

    ReplyDelete
  121. I had a dream like that. When I awoke I wondered what it meant, and decided it meant I should clean out the cat box. So I made my daughter do so.

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  122. "And yet the book never made back its modest advance, and almost certainly never will."


    Personally, I'd keep quiet if that happened to me.

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  123. A lot of those types of books end up at the Dollar store. Or so I'm told.

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  124. this literally hurt my eyes and now i want to punch.

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  125. I hate that I'm typing this, but . . .

    In fairness to Rod (UGH!), most books don't make back their advance. That does not mean the book wasn't a commercial success. Often the royalty level is set so low that a book has to sell 2,000 or more copies to clear the advance. The math likes like so:

    Author gets $2,000 advance on book that retails for, say, $10. At a 10% royalty, the publisher has to sell 2,000 books for the author to clear the advance. So the author gets statements showing he's still "in the red" advance-wise, even though the publisher made back the author's advance on the first 200 books sold, made back the printing on the next 100 books, and is reaping almost pure profit for every book sold thereafter, right up until the 2,000 book point.

    Now it may well be that Rod's crappy compendium did not make back the advance for the publisher, which is truly a rare thing in publishing. Your book has to suck major donkey dong and have no marketing at all. But I'd bet his publisher made a tidy sum while Rod is looking at his statements and thinking the book cratered because he's not cashing gigantic royalty checks.

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  126. I want this comment to step up to the bima.

    ReplyDelete
  127. Jay B.6:10 PM

    My Austin days featured the great "Hickoids", which might be close enough.

    ReplyDelete
  128. Jay B.6:13 PM

    Aren't half of Dylan's songs about him fantasizing revenge on Joan Baez? Idiot Wind, Positively Fourth Street...Probably more, so three at least.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Logistics and scheduling aside, shall we look to summer for a get-together? I'm flexible on travel, but my schedule tends to get blocked in 2- and 4-week chunks.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Jay B.6:18 PM

    You would scarcely believe the money and effort going into promoting my upcoming Dante book.


    Just how many of the seven terraces in Purgatory is our Dante "scholar" descending in his tin-eared, pin-dicked essay today? All of them.

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  131. Oh, c'mon--Rod has put some serious scholarship into this. He's read Dante in the original English. He may even have invested in the Classic Comics edition for quick and easy reference.

    (However, I'm sure that in the afterlife, Virgil will be among those waiting for Rod across the Styx to treat dear Dreher to a tapas of torment.)

    ReplyDelete
  132. I want to share a twelve-pack of Natural Light with this comment, just for the buzz, of course. We'll pick up some Lagunitas tomorrow to cleanse the palate.

    ReplyDelete
  133. M. Krebs6:31 PM

    What I want to know is what Reese Witherspoon has to do with all this.

    ReplyDelete
  134. Jaime Oria6:35 PM

    Cathartic Catholics coughing catarrh.

    ReplyDelete
  135. M. Krebs6:38 PM

    Can't say I blame him. (I know next to nothing about their relationship, but I've never been able to bear Baez's singing.)

    ReplyDelete
  136. montag26:38 PM

    I think you've given Graeme Base an idea.

    ReplyDelete
  137. DocAmazing6:43 PM

    Were the Butthole Surfers not contemporaries of theirs?

    ReplyDelete
  138. M. Krebs6:44 PM

    I'm going to start up metal band just so I can call it Tapas of Torment. (ToT for short.)

    ReplyDelete
  139. JennOfArk6:48 PM

    I dreamed I was in Paris and was too exhausted from jet lag to do anything but sleep.

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  140. Jay B.6:49 PM

    Yes, but the Hickoids never broke through. The Buttholes were an Austin/Dallas hybrid more or less and used to play local shows, but by the time I got there in 1990, Gibby was a radio DJ and they were heading toward their major label period. There was tons of shitty punk/funk, a handful of good punk bands (I think some of the guys in the Pocket Fishermen were also in Hickoids and the great Sons of Hercules were around, but they were San Antone based) and some decent cow punk. Plus a lot of "alternative" like Poi Dog Pondering and the like. There was a theatrical Waits-like band called "Sneakers" who I thought were excellent to drink to. I went to a couple Butthole shows at Emo's and never went in fucked up enough.

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  141. JennOfArk6:49 PM

    That's CHUNKY, not CRUNCHY.

    ReplyDelete
  142. smut clyde7:21 PM

    a few confused Bayern Munchen fans


    But you repeat yourself.

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  143. Those instructions make no sense. First, loaves of bread don't lay eggs, nor do they own them or "have" them in any way. Second, if bread could lay eggs, you would only want female loaves, so there's no reason to use the gender-neutral singular "they" to refer to the loaf of bread. Third, what if fewer than 12 eggs were available? WHAT WOULD YOU DO THEN?

    ReplyDelete
  144. smut clyde7:24 PM

    Why, this is hell, nor are you out of it.
    You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

    ReplyDelete
  145. smut clyde7:31 PM

    There were good reviews in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, a front page Washington Post Style section feature, and an All Things Considered essay from me, related to the book.

    Me, I would feel embarrassed to go out in public, with my bare face hanging out,
    and describe how I used all my insider connections with fellow ideologues to promote my book -- even pimping it through my own column -- used all my advantages over non-ideologue writers -- and still the wider public thought it was crap.
    Perhaps I am easily embarrassed.

    ReplyDelete
  146. smut clyde7:33 PM

    Which one? He & Pournelle wrote a sequel, though you can be forgiven for missing it.

    ReplyDelete
  147. Dhimmi to that one more time
    Once is never enough with a man like you

    ReplyDelete
  148. DocAmazing8:17 PM

    I didn't live there, but friends of mine put me onto the Big Boys.

    ReplyDelete
  149. Jay B.8:22 PM

    They were good. They were contemporaries of The Dicks, who wrote the original Hate the Police, that Mudhoney eventually covered, but that was a tick before my time.

    ReplyDelete
  150. M. Krebs8:24 PM

    Oh. Nevertheless...

    ReplyDelete
  151. Jon Hendry8:27 PM

    I considered doing this, but figured the point is not to have a diverse pile of unread books (or the kindle equivalent).

    ReplyDelete
  152. M. Krebs8:28 PM

    I think that's what the kids call "pwnd" nowadays.

    ReplyDelete
  153. Jon Hendry8:29 PM

    "You would scarcely believe the money and effort going into promoting my upcoming Dante book."


    This is true, I would scarcely believe it, but not in the way he thinks.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Jon Hendry8:31 PM

    "They've got a copy of Crunchy Cons down at my library, and I'm tempted to pick it up "


    That'd be worth doing just to see how rarely it's been checked out.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Jon Hendry8:32 PM

    See, no wonder it bombed. That completely missed the real growing movement. He should have written "Duncey Cons"

    ReplyDelete
  156. M. Krebs8:32 PM

    Yeah, apparently Rod is a little bit slow.

    ReplyDelete
  157. Jon Hendry8:33 PM

    The reviewer was probably specially chosen for the book.

    ReplyDelete
  158. M. Krebs8:35 PM

    And "Crunchy Cons" is a very apt title, just not in the way he thinks.

    ReplyDelete
  159. M. Krebs8:36 PM

    Maybe they got Alessandra Stanley to do it.

    ReplyDelete
  160. Jon Hendry8:38 PM

    Political books in general don't have much shelf life, they might as well be printed on salmon.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Jon Hendry8:39 PM

    Maybe "Krispy Cons" would have sold better until people figured out it didn't involve donuts.

    ReplyDelete
  162. Jon Hendry8:41 PM

    Rod's books would be in the fifth circle.

    ReplyDelete
  163. smut clyde8:43 PM

    Allegators all around.

    ReplyDelete
  164. M. Krebs8:43 PM

    And you were naked too, right? Just asking.

    ReplyDelete
  165. M. Krebs8:45 PM

    That look like some kind of tumor growing at the tip of someone's coccyx.

    ReplyDelete
  166. Jon Hendry9:10 PM

    John Scalzi's attitude was basically "My books will still be there in a year, so buy what you want" and generally approving of the whole thing.

    ReplyDelete
  167. coozledad9:10 PM

    So South Boston, VA is a no-go?

    ReplyDelete
  168. Jon Hendry9:20 PM

    The problem with all the attention and reviews is that potential buyers probably figured they'd gotten the gist of it, and didn't have to read it. Which is probably true - it's not like they'd be missing a Shyamalan twist at the end.

    ReplyDelete
  169. coozledad9:23 PM

    Christ that's good,

    ReplyDelete
  170. coozledad9:25 PM

    Or a "raisin allergy" campaign.

    ReplyDelete
  171. Jon Hendry9:26 PM

    If the thought of this campaign gnaws at him, he'll probably argue that he's a minority by virtue of being Eastern Orthodox.

    ReplyDelete
  172. bekabot9:28 PM

    If he wants me to start reading his books, he's going to have to stop obliterating my comments, that's all. Quid pro quo (as it's called in invisible handspeak).

    Yes, I know I'm a trifle out of place over there at TAC, and it's for Dreher to determine when or not he's at home in the Inferno — but if Dreher's entitled to insert himself into the one environment I'm certainly entitled to insert myself into the other. Don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
  173. Jon Hendry9:29 PM

    He may have really gone hardcore and given a close reading to the X-Men where they go through Dante's hell.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Jon Hendry9:31 PM

    I wonder if it could be held at Boston's Club of Odd Volumes.


    http://www.yelp.com/biz/club-of-odd-volumes-boston

    ReplyDelete
  175. bekabot9:34 PM

    "I hope you’ll buy good books, and I hope you will buy my books."

    "I hope you forget about books and reading and invest in guns and MRE's and target practice, because you're going to need those things if I have my way with the world. Just remember when der Tag arrives that you did hear it here once, although it was shrouded in code."

    ReplyDelete
  176. bekabot9:43 PM

    I know a guy who comments over at Salon whose pet peeve is the 1965 immigration bill, which he holds solely responsible for the browning of America. (Ever since 1965, he says, it's all been downhill, and we know what we have to thank.) I held him up to ridicule a few times back when he was still going by (what I guess is) a pseudonym which is pretty close to his own name, but now he calls himself "Victoria" and my back-talk doesn't go over as well. Drat. {philosophical shrug}


    He's still haunted by the 1965 immigration bill, though, even under another name — not its, but his. Proof positive that a true political fixation can survive a change of life. Oh, yeah, and. Even as "Victoria" he's still an expert on what working-class young white lads expect and need and want. Nobody ever seems to think of asking him how he'd know.

    ReplyDelete
  177. P Gustaf10:02 PM

    Dude is a psychological mess. I can't help stopping by his blog periodically to check in on his obsessions. It never fails to amaze me that people give a shit about things like the latest silliness about some kids being PC on the campus of an expensive liberal arts college.

    ReplyDelete
  178. coozledad10:12 PM

    I can only forgive Toni for that because she sang for Pink Floyd. They're laughing at us.

    ReplyDelete
  179. AGoodQuestion10:12 PM

    So why did tens of thousands of readers not shell out for Rod's Dante book? It must be that at the last minute they figured out - somehow - that he's white. There's no other explanation.

    ReplyDelete
  180. AGoodQuestion10:17 PM

    "Leave the screed, take the cannoli."

    ReplyDelete
  181. AGoodQuestion10:20 PM

    At first I thought you said "Larry Linville's..." which puzzled me because he only played a wacky conservative on TV.

    ReplyDelete
  182. AGoodQuestion10:24 PM

    Or, and I'm going way out on a limb, here, is dhimmi now just a content-free expletive used by dumbshit reactionary Americans?
    Much in the same way that "political correctness" is pretty much meaningless beyond "anything that non-conservatives do or say ever."

    ReplyDelete
  183. Chris Anderson10:25 PM

    I'm a "lucid dreamer," so I quit the nightmare job. Given your dream (or the corresponding reality) I would sleep without misgivings, assuming a nice soft bed. I think we've all been there, not necessarily in Paris.

    ReplyDelete
  184. AGoodQuestion10:32 PM

    I might buy a novelty copy, just for the halibut.

    ReplyDelete
  185. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:33 PM

    Dhimmass...

    ReplyDelete
  186. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:35 PM

    Crunchier, too...

    ReplyDelete
  187. coozledad10:53 PM

    I forget the punishment for the sin of overweening pride. Probably reduced book sales.

    ReplyDelete
  188. AGoodQuestion10:56 PM

    in order to "piss off the libs."
    Who, in most cases, are never inside the homes of the people who prominently display these books. It's not a perfect system.

    ReplyDelete
  189. AGoodQuestion11:15 PM

    Man, I remember that one. An annual from the early eighties, when Kitty Pryde had just joined as, basically, a one girl farm team.

    ReplyDelete
  190. Uh, sorry... Drinking, I mean celebrating my heritage... Or something...

    Do we have a good idea of how many alicurati are in the northeast?

    ReplyDelete
  191. AGoodQuestion11:22 PM

    "I tell you things, you tell me things. Not about this case, though. About yourself. Quid pro quo. Yes or no?"
    ... is not something any non-masochist would say to Rod Dreher.

    ReplyDelete
  192. coozledad11:47 PM

    We've been good friends now even though the carrots failed
    We've been together even though Charlie's jailed.

    ReplyDelete
  193. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:49 PM

    Dingleberry melanoma. The skin cancer where the sun don't shine...

    ReplyDelete
  194. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:56 PM

    Point is, he bombed and the publishing community pulled him back to his feet.


    Who, besides Dreher, would have been expecting anything remotely resembling success from a book so obviously niche-y. "Crunchy Conservatives"? Micro niche. Hell, the advance was his paycheck, and everybody knew it but him, from the start.

    ReplyDelete
  195. Read this about James O'Keefe's latest shit. When you have lost the NY Post ...
    http://nypost.com/2015/03/17/activist-allegedly-tried-to-bait-protesters-with-kill-cops-script/

    ReplyDelete