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Three things about other blogs

Thing One

The indispensable Dave Neiwert (he of Orcinus) is having a fundraiser.  He says he’s making his Koufax-Award-winning series, “The Rise of Pseudo-Fascism” (hey, I voted for it, you know), available as a PDF as a bonus for any donations, and he says that Michelle Malkin has already put up $5 for it.  He surely wouldn’t kid us about a thing like that, now, would he?  So let’s help out Dave’s fund drive by driving him some funds.  We can’t let Michelle do all the good works around here.

Thing Two

The intrepid Sean Carroll (he of Preposterous Universe) is not having a fundraiser.  But you should stop by and read his blog anyway, because it’s just occurred to me that (a) he’s recently had a blog anniversary and (b) he did not– and this is more mind-boggling than the very idea of a quantum theory of gravity– get a Koufax nomination for Best Expert Blog even though he’s far and away the best cosmology/ physics blogger in this quadrant of the galaxy.  WTF?  This is the very heart of the matter of the universe, people– compared to this stuff, even pharyngula are ephemera.  (Nothing personal, P.Z., just a remark about how God created physics on the first day and didn’t get around to doing biology until the third day.) So wish Sean a happy anniversary, and go learn a thing or two about dark matter and dark energy.

Thing Three

The indefatigable Alex (he of Buck Hill), lately responsible for some of the most inventive and bizarre comments on the Internets, has written two brief one-act plays that are sure to become this year’s smash hits.  Swing on by and check out David Horowitz and Christopher Hitchens in a dazzling reinterpretation of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The NRO Corner Players in a new production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.  In the headnote to the latter, Alex describes himself as “a (rapidly failing) theater student.” So go tell him that whatever his mission is, he must not fail.  When the Apocalypse arrives, we are going to need all the inventive-bizarre blog commenters and Neo-Bolshevist reinterpretations of modern drama we can get.

Posted by on 03/06 at 01:46 PM

  1. I’d just like to announce that anyone who donates to Mr. Neiwert’s site will also receive a PDF of my own essay exploring the links between the recently noted prog-rock revival and affective leftism, “Rush, Neu!-speak, and Neo-Bolshevism.”

    It’s also available on tape.

    Posted by Alex  on  03/06  at  04:09 PM

  2. Hey Michael, what about Jonah’s recent statement from NRO online—which was reprinted by the *Columbus Dispatch*—to the effect that the blog revolution is a right-wing phenomenon, and that lefty blogs are *not* part of this movement because whereas right-wing blogs are confronting the dominant and left-biased media, the lefty blogs are in league with, or at least non-confrontational with, the BIG MEDIA ELITE?

    Posted by  on  03/06  at  06:04 PM

  3. Hey hey hey...not only do you dismiss biology as a lesser subject, but you do it using a biblical analogy? Are you trying to twist both my and Sean’s nipples simultaneously here?

    (Besides, all your analogy says is that it took a while to work up to something interesting...)

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  03/06  at  06:56 PM

  4. Hi, Dr. Larry.  Well, Jonah’s pretty much right on target, as usual.  He and the Korner Krew have no connections to big media, whereas I’m sponsored by TimeWarnerAOL, Sean Carroll is wholly owned by Disney/ABC, Dave Neiwert (despite that fundraiser) is subsidized by the Times Mirror Corp., and Alex here is underwritten by Gannett.  That’s why the left-wing ravings of pajama-clad bloggers like us tend to make it straight to major newspapers and the nightly news while the talented writers and thinkers of the right wallow in undeserved obscurity.

    Posted by Michael  on  03/06  at  06:56 PM

  5. It wasn’t an analogy, P.Z.  The Scripture plainly says that the first day was devoted to physics, the second to chemistry, the third to biology (all right, if you want to consider life forms interesting, go the hell ahead and flatter yourself), the fourth to sociology, the fifth to cultural studies, and the sixth to paleontology, i.e., planting all those fake “fossil” things in order to test our faith.  You really should open the Good Book every now and then, Professor.  It’s full of fun facts.

    And if only you liberals didn’t dominate the universities, our kids would be able to recite this stuff right along with the Ten Commandments.

    Posted by Michael  on  03/06  at  07:02 PM

  6. I believe I still have a copy of a paper I penned in 1984 titled “Ethical Relativism and Public Policy: An exploration of Mario Cuomo’s rhetoric on abortion.”

    If you donate to Orcinus, I’ll make sure you never have to read my thesis.

    Posted by Roxanne  on  03/06  at  08:27 PM

  7. Michael,
    You rule. Thanks for the blog posts; they are fun to read. Please get some rest. smile

    Take care,
    -asx-

    Posted by  on  03/06  at  08:29 PM

  8. Tuesday god created chocolate right after electric blankets and Eric Clapton.  And it was good.

    Posted by  on  03/06  at  08:46 PM

  9. Not to start a controversy or anything, but the only member of the Rock Pantheon more overrated than Eric Clapton is Jim Morrison.  Clapton’s Robert Johnson cover album is pathetic; in particular, his version of “They’re Red Hot” is what I expect to hear as they process my application to the sixth circle of hell for blasphemy.  But at least he wasn’t some ego-addled, Foghorn Leghorn of a Blake wannabe like Morrison.  What God said was good was the glorious crunch of Page, Jones, and Bonham playing together before that preening idiot Plant started yelping.

    Posted by corndog  on  03/06  at  09:21 PM

  10. I can’t think of a more deserving group of blogs to flog. Well done.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/06  at  10:13 PM

  11. Oh and Alex, does your piece include an elucidation of the maxim “Gunter Glieben Glauchen Globen”? (I understand it has to do with a general rock-n-roll gemutlichkeit, but I’m not sure whether it’s in a gemeinschaft or a gesellschaft gestalt.)

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/06  at  11:05 PM

  12. Thanks for the shout-out, Michael.  You da man.

    I never thought of having a fundraiser.  My bloggy business model was something like:

    1. Start blog.
    2.
    3. Profit.

    Posted by Sean  on  03/07  at  12:46 AM

  13. Thanks for clearing that up, Michael.  I was wondering why Jonah was sporting a beard in his *Dispatch* by-line photo—he’s no doubt taken to the mountains to organize the Counter-Force against Big Liberal Media.  And to learn “Let The Eagle Soar” on a five-string banjo, using the Earl Scruggs picking technique.

    I’m still whistling the theme from *Deliverance* after reading Jonah’s editorial.  What a smug asshat.

    Posted by  on  03/07  at  01:15 AM

  14. Dear Alex,

    When discussing everybody’s favorite musical revival since Cher’s “Believe,” namely prog-rock, you cannot leave out the 13/4 time signature-slinging The Mars Volta-- straight out of Journeyville. In fact, one could reasonably argue that if you DO leave out said band, you are sliding into the realm of Neo-Brezhnevism. What that means, I have no idea. But BEWARE!!!!!!!!

    much love

    Nick and Arthur

    Posted by  on  03/07  at  01:22 AM

  15. You neglect to mention that Alex’ caption of your new pic was so good it left an almost audible mass intake of breath in its wake.  Hot tears of shame at my own offering scalded my cheeks when I read it, and from now on I am limiting myself to discussing entertainment news and rating imported spirits.

    Posted by Doghouse Riley  on  03/07  at  02:06 AM

  16. does your piece include an elucidation of the maxim “Gunter Glieben Glauchen Globen”

    I’m afraid you’ll have to wait for the transcript of my recent talk, “Def Leppard Skin Pillbox Hat: Representations of Gender, Sexuality, and Pyromania in British Metal.”

    It was generally well received, though a few took issue with my assertion that “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” borrows its central thesis from Monique Wittig’s The Category of Sex.

    Posted by Alex  on  03/07  at  02:12 AM

  17. Oh, come on, Doghouse. Sure, Alex’s caption there was so far beyond ours it might as well have been transmitted from the Greater Magellanic Cloud. But yours wasn’t bad.

    Especially compared to the predictable and jejune entry from yours truly. Hell, for all the regional stereotyping I indulged in I may as well have suggested “HEY! I’m deconSTRUCTing heah!”

    In other words, that’s MY bathtub brimming over with shame and there’s only room for me in it. Get your own.

    It was generally well received, though a few took issue with my assertion that “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” borrows its central thesis from Monique Wittig’s The Category of Sex.

    Philistines. I got a like reaction when I suggested the same of Gilligans’ Island and The Tempest. None so blind as etc.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  03/07  at  02:30 AM

  18. Alex’s caption of my new pic actually made me break down in a hotel room, gasping for air.  Medics had to be called.  Oxygen tanks were rolled in.  It was a mess.  And I’m not looking forward to the bill.

    But I thought it would just be too weirdly self-referential of me to link to that comment as well as the Martha Stewart comment, having already linked to Roxanne’s declaration of open-season mockery of the picture.  This shameless blog does have its limits, elastic as they are. . . .

    Posted by Michael  on  03/07  at  02:56 AM

  19. IMNSHO, there’s nothing “pseudo” about the fascism that is rising here in God’s Holy Nation. It’s the real thing. (But what am I saying!? It can’t happen here...because, umm, this is *America!*, so, umm...it can’t happen here.) Anyway, I’m reminded of one of Thomas Frank’s (_What’s the Matter With Kansas_ and others) appearances on C-SPAN Book TV. One questioner asked Frank if he had considered writing a comparison of the USA in recent years and Weimar Germany. Frank immediately got a classic “deer in the headlights” look on his face, babbled for a little bit, and finally said that he couldn’t do that because he doesn’t speak German. He completely avoided the real point of the question.

    Posted by  on  03/07  at  11:41 AM

  20. PZ Myers said: Are you trying to twist both my and Sean’s nipples simultaneously here?

    Does anyone know if the video is available yet?

    Posted by HP  on  03/08  at  02:28 PM

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