… places that will be serving up the “hand-wrapped garbage disposal delight” known as the “Burrito” (so named because it contains scraps of otherwise inedible food that was, in the past, fed only to Burros.) Touted by the poor and the brain-dead alike as a “tasty snack,” the Burrito violates the primary rule of dining, “Never eat anything bigger than your head,” while recycling stuff usually found in the dumpsters of good restaurants through the innards of a human host who should know better and — shortly — will.
This last item is probably why the Burrito (AKA “Tomorrow’s Turd Today”) remains popular with liberal medheads hooked on keeping human ethnic pets on their progressive political plantations. After all, if you can only afford to eat or to feed people once a day, the Burrito is your huckleberry. And if you can also reduce food scraps that would otherwise go straight to the landfill into human waste, you also have a food object that “walks lightly on the planet.”
Gerard VanderLeun, “GRINGO DE MAYO!: A Counter-Celebration for May 7”, American Digest, 2018-05-04.
July 21, 2020
QotD: Burritos
July 20, 2020
History Hijinks: Plague
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 17 Jul 2020Escape the worries of our modern world by visiting the high middle ages and learning about something esoteric and irrelevant: Plague!
In this video, I attempt to actually teach you something about how the medieval world worked and how it responded to this existential threat, rather than dredging up 3rd grade plague facts for easy views. Oops, did I say that out loud?
SOURCES & Further Reading: The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague via The Great Courses by Dorsey Armstrong, “From Plague Doctor to PPE” by Bernadette Banner (https://youtu.be/ZniriC-jTHg), “Biological Warfare at the Siege of Caffa” from the CDC (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9…)
This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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A lost nation that lasted for 300 years in (relative) peace and prosperity
I’d heard of the Khazar Khaganate occasionally, but didn’t know much about it until I read a useful summary by Lawrence W. Reed:
Borders of the Khazar Khaganate between 650 and 850 A.D.
Wikimedia Commons.
The list of extinct countries includes the better known ones like the USSR (aptly dubbed “the Evil Empire” by Ronald Reagan) and Yugoslavia, as well as hundreds of largely forgotten others like Majapahit, Assyria, Babylonia, Burgundy, and the Ottoman Empire. Far more countries are long gone, in fact, than the 195 on the map today. As a history lover, I’ve never yet discovered a country whose inhabitants’ experience was devoid of interesting facts and lessons.
Take Khazaria, for example. It lasted over 300 years (650 to 965 AD) and covered more territory than the combined Scandinavian nations of our time. It spanned the eastern half of modern-day Ukraine, the steppes of the Volga-Don region of present Russia, the entire Crimean Peninsula, and the northern Caucasus. Its southern portion took in most of the shorelines of three seas: the Black, the Caspian and the Aral.
It’s my thesis that for a country to be “successful” for a considerable period — success being defined loosely here as economically prosperous, politically stable, and militarily defensible — it must possess substantial TTD. That’s not a pronounceable acronym, unfortunately, but it stands for trade, tolerance and decentralization.
Each of these three criteria for success is worth volumes of discussion but here’s the nub of it: When economic freedom and private property exist, trade flourishes. And trade is what peaceful humans do to satisfy wants and improve material well-being. Choke it off and living standards plummet. Tolerance is a sign that people appreciate the benefits derived from diversity in personal choices. An intolerant people deprive themselves of what others can offer and waste time and resources fighting instead of collaborating. Decentralization preserves the rich identities of local communities and stymies the concentration of authority with its inevitable corruption. Power dispersed is power tamed.
So a successful country is one that can boast a lot of TTD. It encourages exchange, celebrates diversity and avoids top-down, political command-and-control. Almost every “failed state” in history did just the opposite by stifling commerce; stoking racial, ethnic or nationalistic hatred; and/or installing a dictatorship.
Khazaria, to its great credit, practiced remarkable measures of trade and tolerance and enough decentralization to prevent its government from sabotaging either one. In the end, it met its demise not from internal decay but from foreign assault.
To Save the World Takes Only One Good Man | The Cuban Missile Crisis | Day 13
TimeGhost History
Published 19 Jul 2020On Sunday, 28 October, 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis comes to an end to end all things, and almost everything. Only one young man, Vasili Arkhipov will stand between humanity and nuclear armageddon.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Spartacus Olsson
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek KaminskiColorizations:
– Carlos Ortega Pereira (BlauColorizations) – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…Sources:
http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/hotline.htmlSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Cold Eyes” – Elliot Holmes
– “From the Depths” – Walt Adams
– “Moving to Disturbia” – Experia
– “When They Fell” – Wendel Scherer
– “Under the Dome” – Philip Ayers
– “Scope” – Got Happy
– “Symphony of the Cold-Blooded” – Christian Andersen
– “City Night Lights” – Elliot Holmes
– “Secret Cargo” – Craft Case
– “Too Young for This Shirt” – Elliot Holmes
– “Juvenile Delinquent” – Elliot Holmes
– “Drifting Emotions 3” – Gavin LukeArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
59 minutes ago (edited)
When we recorded this the first time, we didn’t have the chance to release these day by day. It took us almost half a year from when we had the idea until the last episode came out. We still felt that it was a revelation to see it chronologically. For me as writer it was in any case a deep dive into a story that I thought I knew, but rediscovered by reassembling the source documents in the exact order things happened. I learnt new aspects and gained an incredibly more detailed understanding of both the events and the people involved. But today, on Sunday July 19, 2020 it is the fourteenth day that both Indy, Astrid and I watch the remade episodes completed as they are released every day, I haven’t even watched this last episode yet, and even though I know exactly what is going to happen, I’m excited. This is crazy, crazy stuff.And now, the three of us are sitting in the garden in Bavaria preparing to shoot the next months shows. And when we look back and talk about it it we’re all so glad that we got the chance to make this even better. Astrid could go full out on the set, and do even more with Indy’s costume. We had fun adding drama with the light. Indy make the delivery even better by changing the tenses to the present and altering the script slightly so that it felt more immediate. But perhaps more than anything, we could get more, better archive, get our editors added touch, and rethink the music score so that it was more consistent and period appropriate.
We also want to take this moment to thank:
The TimeGhost Army – it is your membership that enabled us to improve to this level from 2017 until now – you are the souls of TimeGhost.
Wieke, who directed the post-production and put his personal flair into it – especially grateful for the choice of music.
Daniel and Karolina who did a fantastic job on the editing.
All of our colorizers that made the portraits come alive in technicolor splendor (OK, OK… RGB splendor, but same, same)
Marek who sound engineered and made it sound so much better than what I managed in the first round.
Joram who made sure that we had all the publishing in order so that it worked day by day.And all of the rest of the TimeGhost team that as usual had their hands full with this and all the mad stuff we do.
For Astrid, Indy and myself,
I’m Spartacus.
The “epic failure” of the RCMP during the Nova Scotia killing spree
In the Halifax Examiner, Paul Palango reconstructs the (known) series of events during the April pursuit of the killer at large in Nova Scotia:
The RCMP has claimed it did its best in trying to deal with the Nova Scotia mass killer on the weekend of April 18 and 19, but a reconstruction of events by the Halifax Examiner strongly suggests that the police force made no attempt to save lives by confronting the gunman or stopping his spree at any point.
“Public safety and preservation of life are the primary duties of any peace officer,” said a former high ranking RCMP executive officer who asked for anonymity out of fear of retaliation by current and former law enforcement officials who are vigilant about any criticism of policing by those in the field. “As far as I can tell, the RCMP did nothing in Nova Scotia to save a life. They weren’t ready. It is embarrassing to me. The entire thing was an epic failure.”
Based upon interviews with other current and former police officers, witnesses, and law enforcement, and on emergency services transcripts, it seems clear that there was a collapse of the policing function on that weekend.
At no point in the two-day rampage did the RCMP get in front of the killer, who the Examiner identifies as GW. It also seems apparent that some Mounties, many of whom were called in from distant locales, were stunningly unaware of the geography and landmarks in the general area as the RCMP tried to keep up with GW.
Sources within the RCMP say a major problem was that communications between various RCMP units was never co-ordinated. “Everyone was on their own channels,” the source said. “Nothing was synchronized. They could have gone to a single channel and brought in the municipal cops as well, but for some reason they didn’t. It was like no one was in charge.”
This incident is revealing:
Several RCMP and law enforcement sources say that a corporal from a nearby detachment who was the initial supervisor on the scene froze in place to the distress of other Mounties. The corporal later ran into nearby woods and turned off their flashlight and hid. That officer continues to be off work on stress leave.
Some veteran Mounties say that there were likely a number of factors which caused the first Mounties on the scene to hesitate.
“It could have been inexperience. Maybe there was no backup. And then there’s always that Canada Labour Code thing,” said one long time Mountie.
The “Canada Labour Code thing” is an interesting insight, although it doesn’t excuse the RCMP’s disorganization and lack of effective leadership over the two days.
An annotated RCMP map shows the killer’s route from 123 Ventura Drive in Debert to 2328 Hunter Road in Wentworth. Insets of still images taken from different videos show the killer’s replica police car at 5:43am in Debert and passing a driveway on Hunter Road in Wentworth at 6:29am.
As they say, “read the whole thing“, as the events unfold with what seems like an endless series of missed opportunities on the part of the RCMP to stop the killings.
H/T to Colby Cosh for the link.
How They Did It – Baby Names in Ancient Rome (Tria Nomina)
Invicta
Published 9 Apr 2016The Romans took great pride in setting themselves apart from foreigners and even themselves. The tria nomina naming convention was one such way of achieving this and can tell us much about an individual.
Literary Sources:
Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Goldsworthy
Who’s Who in the Roman World by John HazelGame Engine:
Total War: Rome IIMusic:
Cinematic Music – “Beneath the Sun”
Cinematic Music – “Fade Away”
QotD: Protectionists misunderstand the role of money
The Econ 101 teacher typically draws on the white board a diagram of two countries trading with each other. Country A is shown exporting (say) steel to country B in exchange for dollars, and then using those dollars to buy lumber from country B. The Econ 101 teacher informs his or her class that, while these exchanges are mediated by dollars, what ultimately is going on in this diagram is that the people of country A produce steel and send some of that steel to the people of country B because the people of country A want lumber from country B. Likewise, the people of country B produce lumber and send some of it to the people of country A because the people of country B want steel from country A. “The money that you see, class,” explains the Econ 101 teacher, “merely facilitates the exchange of steel for lumber. What’s important here is the getting of steel and of lumber. Money is a tool used by the people of country A to transform some of the steel they produce into lumber that they want to consume. Likewise, money is a tool used by the people of country B to transform some of the lumber they produce into steel that they want to consume.”
The protectionist thinks of this hypothetical two-country exchange entirely differently from the way that the Econ 101 teacher thinks of it. For the protectionist, the people of country A produce steel as a means of getting money; that is the ultimate goal. And the people of country B produce lumber as a means of getting money; that – the getting of money – is the ultimate goal. While for the Econ 101 teacher the two-country diagram that he or she draws is meant to show how money facilitates the ultimate acquisition by the peoples of each country of real goods, for the protectionist the diagram seems to show that the production of real goods is a means of facilitating the ultimate acquisition by the peoples of each country of money.
Don Boudreaux, “A Protectionist is Someone Who…”, Café Hayek, 2018-04-10.
July 19, 2020
Barbarossa: a Wehrmacht Soap Opera – WW2 – 099 – July 18 1941
World War Two
Published 18 Jul 2020As the German armed forces stretch further and further into the USSR, the Wehrmacht command doesn’t seem to agree where they are really going. In the Middle East, the Fascist French forces are delivered a hard blow as the Allied Syrian campaign comes to an end.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_two_realtime
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesWritten and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory (https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory)
Map consultants: Rabih Rached and Patrick AdaimyColorizations by:
– Carlos Ortega Pereira, BlauColorizations – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
– Norman Stewart – https://oldtimesincolor.blogspot.com
– Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization
– Cassowary Colorizations – https://www.cassowarycolor.com
– Denis Marinov from WikimediaSources:
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Imperial War Museum: TR 1762
– Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0: Bild_146-1971-068-10, Bild_101I-009-0882-04, Bild_101I-209-0090-29, Bild_183-B0716-0005-002, Bild_183-B0716-0005-003, Bild_146-1974-170-23.Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
“Evolved cognition is a kludge – more properly, multiple stacks of kludges – developed under selection to be just barely adequate at coping”
ESR considers the role of programmers who need to document their software, after a brief trip into the kludginess of human cognition:
Maybe you’re one of the tiny minority of programmers that, like me, already enjoys writing documentation and works hard at doing it right. If so,the rest of this essay is not for you and you can skip it.
Otherwise, you might want to re-read (or at least re-skim) Ground-Truth Documents before continuing. Because ground-truth documents are a special case of a more general reason why you might want to try to change your mindset about documentation.
In that earlier essay I used the term “knowledge capture” in passing. This is a term of art from AI; it refers to the process of extracting domain knowledge from the heads of human experts into a form that can be expressed as an algorithm executable by the literalistic logic of a computer.
What I invite you to think about now is how writing documentation for software you are working on can save you pain and effort by (a) capturing knowledge you have but don’t know you have, and (b) eliciting knowledge that you have not yet developed.
Humans, including me and you, are sloppy and analogical thinkers who tend to solve problems by pattern-matching against noisy data first and checking our intuitions with logic after the fact (if we actually get that far). There’s no point in protesting that it shouldn’t be that way, that we should use rigorous logic all the way down, because our brains simply aren’t wired for that. Evolved cognition is a kludge – more properly, multiple stacks of kludges – developed under selection to be just barely adequate at coping.
This kludginess is revealed by, for example, optical illusions. And by the famous 7±2 result about the very limited sized of the human working set. And the various well-documented ways that human beings are extremely bad at statistical reasoning. And in many other ways …
Black Saturday, Nuclear War on Autopilot | The Cuban Missile Crisis | Day 12
TimeGhost History
Published 18 Jul 2020On October 27, 1962 a deal to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis is ever so close, but then almost everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. The world is left teetering on the brink, and someone has to die.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Spartacus Olsson
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Spartacus Olsson
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek KaminskiColorizations:
– Carlos Ortega Pereira (BlauColorizations) – https://www.instagram.com/blaucoloriz…
– Daniel Weiss
– Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man?Sources:
From the Noun Project:
diary By Astoe
Handshake By priyanka
telegraph By Luke Anthony FirthSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Cold Eyes” – Elliot Holmes
– “Nightclub Standoff” – Elliot Holmes
– “From the Depths” – Walt Adams
– “When They Fell” – Wendel Scherer
– “Juvenile Delinquent” – Elliot Holmes
– “Kissed by Thunder” – Elliot HolmesArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
26 minutes ago
Just when everything looks OK again, the house of cards that the USSR and USA have built starts to crumble. To us in 2020 that should serve to remind us that words matter. Because that’s all it was to begin with — words like “give it to the Reds!” and “down with the Bourgeoisie!” But words easily become bluster, and bluster easily becomes action, and action is always hard to control.Remembering the past so that we can learn from it, without ideological bias, without demagoguery, and proposing oversimplified solutions to complex problems. That is our mission here at TimeGhost Become a part of that effort by joining the TimeGhost Army at https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory or https://timeghost.tv
In some mature countries, politicians resign when caught in ethics violations … but this is Canada (by definition, an immature country)
Chris Selley lists some of the ethical mire the Trudeau Liberals are wading through, and points out that other countries wouldn’t put up with corrupt sh!t like Canadians do:
Other countries’ prime ministers occasionally have to work at keeping their jobs. Not so much Canada’s. We look down our noses at Australia’s “leadership spills” as unconscionably chaotic, though they have ushered in a new prime minister a grand total of three times in 30 years. If only we had such chaos, PMs might at least be reminded occasionally they aren’t elected emperor in non-negotiable four-year chunks. Instead many of us blanch even at the idea of minority governance. So unstable!
Other countries’ ministers sometimes stand on points of principle, too, and not just over epochal events like the Iraq War or Brexit. Sajid Javid resigned as Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer last year after Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted on appointing Javid’s senior staff. “No self-respecting minister would accept those terms,” he said. Every Trudeau minister accepts those terms.
There is simply no culture of accountability in Ottawa — not for big stuff and not for small. When Trudeau headed off to Harrington Lake while advising everyone else to hide under the bed, it was considered gauche to complain. The National Post reported this week that Health Minister Patty Hajdu took four round trips in a government jet between Ottawa and Thunder Bay during the lockdown, and Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos was chauffeured six times to and from Quebec City. Ho hum. Another nothingburger.
OK, many conclude, so let’s at least give the Conflict of Interest Act some teeth! Some legislative dentures might be worth a try — though they’re by no means universally appreciated. When the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee reviewed the Conflict of Interest Act in 2014, some witnesses argued for doing away with financial penalties altogether, on the theory “the strongest sanctions the Commissioner has at her disposal are her moral authority and the power of condemnation.” The current maximum fine of $500 may well be the worst of both worlds: Not only does it offer no deterrent, it brings the law itself into disrepute.
[…]
On Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was “really sorry” about the WE debacle. But she expressed her “full confidence” in the prime minister. In other countries, it might be seen as ominous that she felt it necessary. Here, however, it’s safe to take it at face value. None of us expect much of our politicians, and that’s exactly what we get.
How To Lay Siege On A Star Fortress In The 16th and Early 17th Century | Early-Modern Warfare
SandRhoman History
Published 29 Mar 2020From the 14th to the 17th century, the star fortress became ever more important for siege warfare. Engineers and tacticians developed fortresses that were more elaborate and more solid than ever before. As a result, siege warfare reached an immense level of complexity. Throughout the middle ages, high and relatively thin walls were enough protection against storming ladders, siege equipment and projectiles.
But since the 14th century ever more effective firearms and artillery challenged the defensive potential of fortresses. A to and fro of military innovations began – improved fortifications countered improved gunpowder weapons and vice versa. This went on until the end of the 16th century, when according to historian Stephan Hoppe, “a successful solution to all important issues of defense had been found”. One famous type of stronghold that was crucial to this evolution was the trace italienne better known as the star fortress. It was to be found quickly all over Europe, though in a variety of forms. Historian John A. Lynn states that at the same time the number of fortified sites increased drastically, so that central European warfare shifted away from open field battles and finally revolved above all around sieges.
If you want to support us you can do that here: https://www.patreon.com/sandrhomanhis…
#history #siege #sandrhoman
Sources:
Hoppe, S., s.v. “Festungsbau”, in: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit.
Lynn, J. A., “States in Conflict 1661-1763”, in: Parker, G. (Ed.), The Cambridge History of Warfare, Cambridge 2005.
Lynn, J. A., “The trace itallienne and the Growth of Armies”, in: Rogers, C. J. (Ed.), The Military Revolution Debate. Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, Boulder / San Francisco / Oxford 1995.
Ortenburg, G., Waffe und Waffengebrauch im Zeitalter der Landsknechte (Heerwesen der Neuzeit, Abt. 1, Bd. 1) Koblenz 1984.
Parker, G., “The Limits to Revolutions in Military Affairs: Maurice of Nassau, the Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600), and the Legacy”, in The Journal of Military History, 71;2, 2007; S. 331 – 372.
Rogers, C.J. / Tallet F. (editors), European Warfare, 1350–1750, 2010.
Van Nimwegen, O., The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions, 1588-1688.
QotD: How to raise a God-Emperor son
Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, 2018.
July 18, 2020
Gluing The Side Frames! | The Japanese Inspired Picnic Bench Project
Matt Estlea
Published 16 Jul 2020In this video, we start the nerveracking task of gluing the side frames together. This involves a fair bit of jiggery due to the various curves and angles we need to content with.
_________________________________________________________________Support what I do by becoming a Patron! This will help fund new tools, equipment and cover my overheads. Meaning I can continue to bring you regular, high quality, free content. Thank you so much for your support! https://www.patreon.com/mattestlea
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_________________________________________________________________My name is Matt Estlea, I’m a 24 year old Woodworker from Basingstoke in England and my aim is to make your woodworking less s***.
I come from 5 years tuition at Rycotewood Furniture Centre with a further 1 year working as an Artist in Residence at the Sylva Foundation. I now teach City and Guilds Furniture Making at Rycotewood as of September 2018.
If you’re interested in studying at Rycotewood, view their courses here:
www.mattestlea.com/rycotewoodI also had 5 years of experience working at Axminster Tools and Machinery where I helped customers with purchasing tools, demonstrated in stores and events, and gained extensive knowledge about a variety of tools and brands. I discontinued this at the start of 2019 to focus solely on video creation and teaching.
During the week, I film woodworking projects, tutorials, reviews and a viewer favourite ‘Tool Duel’ where I compare two competitive manufacturers tools against one another to find out which is best. I also have a Free Online Woodworking School which you should definitely check out!
www.mattestlea.com/school
I like to have a laugh and my videos are quite fast paced BUT you will learn a lot, I assure you.
Lets go make a mess.
Andrew Sullivan and New York magazine part company “amicably”
In his final column for New York, Andrew Sullivan announces he’s going back to blogging and stop making employees there feel unsafe:
The good news is that my last column in this space is not about “cancel culture.” Well, almost. I agree with some of the critics that it’s a little nuts to say I’ve just been “canceled,” sent into oblivion and exile for some alleged sin. I haven’t. I’m just no longer going to be writing for a magazine that has every right to hire and fire anyone it wants when it comes to the content of what it wants to publish.
The quality of my work does not appear to be the problem. I have a long essay in the coming print magazine on how plagues change societies, after all. I have written some of the most widely read essays in the history of the magazine, and my column has been popular with readers. And I have no complaints about my interaction with the wonderful editors and fact-checkers here — and, in fact, am deeply grateful for their extraordinary talent, skill, and compassion. I’ve been in the office maybe a handful of times over four years, and so there’s no question of anyone mistreating me or vice versa. In fact, I’ve been proud and happy to be a part of this venture.
What has happened, I think, is relatively simple: A critical mass of the staff and management at New York Magazine and Vox Media no longer want to associate with me, and, in a time of ever tightening budgets, I’m a luxury item they don’t want to afford. And that’s entirely their prerogative. They seem to believe, and this is increasingly the orthodoxy in mainstream media, that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here.
Two years ago, I wrote that we all live on campus now. That is an understatement. In academia, a tiny fraction of professors and administrators have not yet bent the knee to the woke program — and those few left are being purged. The latest study of Harvard University faculty, for example, finds that only 1.46 percent call themselves conservative. But that’s probably higher than the proportion of journalists who call themselves conservative at the New York Times or CNN or New York Magazine. And maybe it’s worth pointing out that “conservative” in my case means that I have passionately opposed Donald J. Trump and pioneered marriage equality, that I support legalized drugs, criminal-justice reform, more redistribution of wealth, aggressive action against climate change, police reform, a realist foreign policy, and laws to protect transgender people from discrimination. I was one of the first journalists in established media to come out. I was a major and early supporter of Barack Obama. I intend to vote for Biden in November.
It seems to me that if this conservatism is so foul that many of my peers are embarrassed to be working at the same magazine, then I have no idea what version of conservatism could ever be tolerated. And that’s fine. We have freedom of association in this country, and if the mainstream media want to cut ties with even moderate anti-Trump conservatives, because they won’t bend the knee to critical theory’s version of reality, that’s their prerogative. It may even win them more readers, at least temporarily. But this is less of a systemic problem than in the past, because the web has massively eroded the power of gatekeepers to suppress and control speech. I was among the first to recognize this potential for individual freedom of speech, and helped pioneer individual online media, specifically blogging, 20 years ago.
And this is where I’m now headed.
