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Earlier this week I asked readers in the Corner to ask me any questions they wanted and I would do a FAQ. Some 400 of you did. But because that slave driver, Rich Lowry, assigned me an article for the next issue of the print magazine, I didn't get a chance to sift through them all properly. The two most frequent questions — by far — were questions of the "How do I get into journalism?" or "How do I get your job?" variety and "Could you please explain all the different varieties of conservatism — neo, paleo, crunchy, etc.?" Since so many of you are interested in these subjects I figured I should dedicate whole columns to just these two questions, either jointly or separated. So, with the exception of filtering those queries out and a few frightening/bizarre/nonsensical/dull inquiries what follows below are some questions literally taken at random. I will probably revisit many of the questions I couldn't get to today later on. Also, since many of you are not Corner readers (WHY NOT?!?), I'd like to give everyone a chance to ask more questions. Send them to Gfilecorrections@aol.com (and please only to that address) and I will get to them in due time. Here we go. If the regular contributors from The Corner crashed in the Andes, how long before someone was sacrificed for food and who would be eaten first? This is a fascinating question and one I've long pondered. My first instinct was to size up the various contributors physically and figure out who would be the least capable of defending him or herself. This immediately rules out me — I'm huge, and deadly when cornered — Brookhiser who looks like a retired Belgian assassin, and Derbyshire who sometimes strikes me as one of those British movie villains who carries a cane with a stiletto in it. But then it dawned on me that we would probably discuss cannibalism for a very long time before actually venturing to eat somebody. But assuming that didn't happen and we had to actually decide to eat, I'd bet at the end of the day, Stanley Kurtz would be toast(ed). First, Stan looks like a very sensible eater. Indeed, he might be kosher. And while I'm not kosher myself, I do think I would prefer to eat only kosher people. But, more important, Stanley is a sociologist so he would probably have the most compelling arguments in favor cannibalism. He'd cite arguments from the perspective of social utility and whatnot — sort of along the lines of his defense of the Muslim veil. My guess is that someone — probably Brookhiser — would eventually say, "Well, Stan thinks cannibalism is morally acceptable and the rest of us don't, it seems only fair to eat him first as this would cause the least objection." The great irony is that Stanley argues from the typically neoconservative vantage point of social utility, so the fact that we ate him would be wonderful commentary on the limits of such argumentation.
Hmmm. I've never thought about this. I just always assumed that the Star Wars movies were far superior to the Star Trek movies. But once you think about it, it's not as dumb a question as it sounds. There really has been a string of bad Star Wars movies. Still, since Star Trek Two: The Wrath of Khan is really the only legitimately excellent Star Trek movie, and there are numerically more bad Trek films than Wars films, I'd have to say the Star Wars movies are better. Also, you can't leave out the fact that Star Wars (Episode IV) launched a new chapter in sci-fi films generally and has to be given extra credit for originality.
"Flying Monkeys" — a reference to The Wizard of Oz — is the name Jack Fowler (top NR business brass) gave to my readers a very long time ago. Here's how I described them in NRODT a long time ago:
Through his sheer doggie goodness and my shameless and unstoppable pursuit of promoting Cosmo as the "'It-dog of the American right." That's the slogan I want on his next line of products. (Find his current line of products here.) If he produced offspring he either did it very young or very unconventionally.
This is a guess, but I think I'm right. It stands for the "G-Block." The first segment is the A-block. The second segment is the B-block. The third segment is-oh, you get the pattern by now. Personally, I usually don't like these sorts of conventions but they are very common. Sometimes you'll hear about a radio show called Studio 360 or some such. This usually means the producers couldn't think of anything better so they just named it after the room. It's sort of like newspapers or magazines that refer to "the last page" or some such. To me it's like naming this column "http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg.asp."
In a sense it's odd; of course, having a kid is hugely life changing but it's also one of the most-commonplace things in the world. It changes everything for me, but next to nothing for you. It's sort of like death — but completely different too. As your own death approaches, few things could seem more important, but for most of the world it's just another day. To me, it's still a relatively private joy. But I'm sure Lucy will be appearing more and more overtime (by the way she's three months old now, very beautiful, in the 100th percentile in height (length really) for her age). For example, she's just started wearing dresses over her tights, pants, whatever. Whenever we inspect her in her crib she's pulling her dress over her head. We call that "pulling a Krugman" — because whenever Paul Krugman's hysterical, I say "he's got his dress over his head again."
I don't know. I'm sort of at a loss as to why anyone should read Chomsky at any age. The beauty of Chomsky is that the caricatures actually summarize his thought perfectly well. Of the few dozen college students who've thrown Chomsky in my face in an argument, I never once felt like if I'd only read more of him I could be more effective in ridiculing him. I do think you should read criticisms of Chomsky from time to time, just to remind yourself of why you're not reading him. See Keith Windschuttle's excellent piece in the current New Criterion, for example. It will keep you from Chomsky for years.
Well it depends what drugs. After all 99 percent of them are already legal. And before you ask a follow-up: Yes, I know that was a smart-ass response. No, I'm not for drug legalization. I am for decriminalizing pot, but keeping narcotics illegal. My reasons why are too long to get into here, but you can read this for a start. And yes, it's true I am in the minority at NR on this score (heh heh).
Jonah, You & Peter Beinart [editor of The New Republic] are the highlights of my Sunday-morning news-show rounds. You two are the coolest pundits on Sunday morning. Ever thought about asking CNN for your own nightly program? Something like Beinart & Goldberg — along the lines of The Beltway Boys. Anyway, my real
burning question is; What's up w/ the sides of Peter B's hair? You know,
the sideburn and over-the-ear area. If you've never noticed it before,
check it out next Sunday Which (and why), in your opinion, are the best three Simpsons episodes. This is really, really hard, especially because I often remember scenes disjointed from their requisite episodes. I would have to say off the top of my head "Much Apu About Nothing" is very, very strong. It has the "We're here! We're Queer! We don't want anymore bears!" chant and the anti-immigration sign which reads "The Only Good Foreigner is Rod Stewart." As many readers must know by now, "Deep Space Homer" is a personal favorite because of the whole Kent Brockman/Hail Ants thing and the screams of the ants when they break free of their ant farm: "Freedom! Horrible Freedom!" I'm also very partial to the episode where the Germans take over the power plant ("Burns Verkaufen Der Kraftwerk"), the one with the Stonemasons, the Kang and Kodos as Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, and a bunch others. I could explain why I like them but the answers are pretty obvious: I think they're the funniest ones. As much I like quoting The Simpsons for political effect, I don't really judge the individual episodes for their ideological content. During the whole Lewinsky thing, I seem to recall a pair of news stories about you. The gist was that you'd made some appearance with Ken Starr's grand jury, and the media asked who you were. I recall that you introduced yourself as "Abe Frohman, the sausage king of Chicago." The Washington Post story explained the reference parenthetically. The New York Times's reporter, though, had no idea what you meant. So, did this actually happen? If so, you're a genius. Did you even consider the grave damage to the NY Times's hip reputation your remark caused? Amazingly, I've gotten four or five questions about this. Sadly, the answer is no. I'm neither Abe Frohman the sausage king of Chicago, nor have I ever claimed to be a "sausage king" east of the Mississippi. That was Kathleen Willey's son. Here's the relevant passage from the Washington Post.
Well, golly. Generally speaking I'd have to say Beinart and Chait, both of The New Republic. While they are obviously often wrong, they are both usually interesting and thoughtful and consistent. And if you can get past the weird sideburns…. Of the liberals on the NYT op-ed page, except for Tom Friedman, I can't say any of them deserve to be taken all that seriously on the basis of what they write. Rather than read Krugman's translation of Josh Marshall's column, you might as well read the real thing. Richard Cohen is an all-or-anything guy, sometimes he's very good and sometimes he seems off his meds. I can't say I'm a big fan of E. J. Dionne's column, but I think highly of him and his books. I do think there
are a lot of liberal academics who deserve serious respect. I always read
what Alan Wolfe writes. Christopher Jencks is honest and very smart. Henry
Louis Gates and Stanley Fish are often very interesting and worth reading.
I'm sure there are plenty of others. Of course, these guys are oldsters.
The Washington Monthly seems to be getting better and better while
The American Prospect is spinning off into the void like Darth
Vader's ship at the end of Star Wars. Are your syndicated columns more sanitized/homogenized/different somehow from the stuff you write for NRO? Are there considerations of audience or demographics? For instance, your column on Bill Bennett in Townhall this morning seemed plain (distilled perhaps) compared to your NRO piece. I'm not sure I'm using the right words, and I'm not being critical of your work, it's just that they seem different. Yes, My syndicated column appears sporadically in many papers across the country. Readers don't necessarily know who I am and they're not in on the inside jokes. Also, I have a free hand here at NRO while newspapers tend to be more conservative. Also, there are space limitations when it comes to the column.
Does it bother you as much as it bothers me that we have no idea at all who the Simpson's other next-door neighbor is? Thirteen seasons now and not even a glimpse. It does now! |
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ear readers and those who have this column read to them (that joke just
never gets tired),
