Just today, I decided to pony up fifty bucks for a year. I have had several one month subscriptions, but canceled because I couldn't take Rod's torrential outpouring. He seems, as the old putdown goes, never to have had an unexpressed thought, but his thoughts are almost always worth reading. Also, he and I are in agreement about much, but he had the formal education I never had. ( The same is true of Jon, who disheartens me with the level of his knowledge even as I am grateful for it. )
I'm going to handle the inundation by showering in it when I'm in the mood, sheltering when I'm not.
( Nice to see you here, Dawgs. I used to be Robert Kirby. )
I think journalistic standards have fallen in my lifetime. All too often there is little vetting or fact checking done and even basic editing has gotten rather minimal. There's so much competition with "new" (online) media that they just rush things into print or broadcast in the drive to be First.
Journalistic standards haven’t just fallen. They’ve abandoned wholesale all their ethics, professionalism, and standards to become a gross caricature of what they once were.
I'm glad to hear you opine that things are not continuing as they always have, but have deteriorated after all. I'd stay away from the tar baby of lawsuits, though, and let a writer's effective use of his craft to tell the truth be the disinfectant to lies.
Hi Rod, I believe you said on one of your last TAC blogs that you’d still be involved with TAC and write for them from time to time. Is that no longer the case?
I also would like to take this opportunity to clarify recent scurrilous reporting. My family’s historic ties to the Hungarian coffee house industry are in no way influencing my financial support of this substack. We cut all ties to the Hungarian dessert business decades ago, approximately at the same time we fled the country for our lives, and have no residual fiduciary relationship with any sugary magyar delicacies. Mr Dreher’s praise of local Budapest confectionery remains, to my knowledge, entirely spontaneous and sincere, and any imputations to the contrary in the corrupt corporate media are slanderous lies, likely linked to a malicious whisper campaign that I suspect is being masterminded by my ancestral enemy, the American Academy of Pediatrics. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify the situation.
I've read pretty much everything Rod Dreher published at The American Conservative over many years and this is the first I've heard of him in relation to Tarkovsky. I hadn't followed all his posts at his substack, only the few free ones he sent. Nothing in TAC I can confirm.
Given the political positions of the scurrilous magazine, a smear is in character. Trying to kick someone when they judge that person vulnerable in furtherance of the politics of personal destruction is par for their course, but subpar to common human decency. Moreover, it's not surprising that it goes beyond living by lies, to a moral violation of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
Same here--as a long-time reader of Rod's TAC blog, I was like, "Tarkovsky? St. Gal-who?" Someone was just slinging gossip to Vanity Fair. It's a shame, as they'll never miss a chance to kick dirt on a prominent Christian or conservative writer, but glad Ahmanson did the right thing in moving to clear things up.
What can you say, written by Caleb Ecarma, who a shallow dive into his online persona and work is some sort of Woke demi-denizen of semi-celebrity gossip outlets.
Without the readers knowing those involved or what they actually said, the author of this self described "scoop" can't be trusted except as a Woke s--t disturber intent on getting a kick out of fomenting conflict among those he targets as enemies. Vanity, for sure, but it's hardly fair, defamation driven by animus and resentment.
Evidently "they" got "their" snit in a wringer because "they" don't like Christian schools who won't tolerate homosexual activism within the student body.
Libel suits. I suppose every writer dealing with anything controversial has been threatened with a defamation suit from time to time. I was threatened with a libel suit BY MY GRADE SIX TEACHER for something I had written a class newspaper that I briefly once wrote. By hand, every copy by hand. Something about his inability to spell, of his confusing words like "site" and "sight". I may have called him "dumb" as well.I think he was serious too. He was certainly angry. I wasn't worried, though, because every word I wrote was true, and truth is an absolute defence to defamation.
Rod Dreher has a following, certainly, because of the quality of his insights over the years. I don't consider it to be a cult following, however, as I've offered my own critical opinions in comments, that I hope add to understanding, rather than simply idolizing. I think other commenters certainly aren't shy about disagreeing with the author in a reasonable manner. I cannot myself afford to pay to read and comment, (thanks Emil) and it was a stretch to get a TAC subscription, however the requirement to financially contribute does not make of Rod Dreher a cult leader. On the other hand, Ecarma shares in the cult of Woke, but while he barks, Rod's caravan of reason moves on.
Well, I'm letting my sub to TAC lapse. Partly economy and partly the stable at NR is of higher quality. No, I don't mean Ponnuru, I mean Dougherty and McCarthy and Geraghty.
I emailed TAC that I’m dropping my sub and not to charge my cc when it comes due in July. I didn’t mention it to them, but it’s annoying when you can’t sign in to TAC on any device except the one you registered on. I would have liked to have been able to comment from my phone, but no, if I read something I wanted to comment on I had to get up and go to the PC. Anyway, I’m here now, reading and commenting on any device I like. To boot, it’s a great interface and ad free.
I have not had this problem, and have logged in and posted at TAC using multiple devices. I use the email address I registered with and the original password. If you need to change the password, you can do so while logged in on that original device. What I don't like with their improved comment section, is that there is no edit facility, and that comments on articles are only seen by paid, logged in subscribers.
Wow. I might have been able to do something, but assumed it was system wide. Oh well, it’s moot now because I was only following Rod, have followed him here, and will let my TAC sub lapse. I can still read any TAC article I want for free if I want, and don’t need to pay $60 a year for comment privileges.
Fran, I told you yesterday, but get the impression sometimes that you consider yourself too lofty to read my words to you: if you leave a long comment, then go back to edit it, however slightly, when you look at the edit you've just made, it will have been cut off. The solution to that, to use the cliche, is to refresh the page. When you come back a moment later, you'll see your edited comment in its fullness.
It's worse than that, in my opinion. They got rid of Sailer (who is still going strong on Unz), they got rid of Giraldi (ditto), and to console us we got Declan Leary, who wrote, and whose editor saw fit to pass, in re Andrew Cuomo, "I never cared much for Italians" (I know, stop the presses). Forget Leary, the two-toilet Irish Tertullian ("credo quia impossibile sum"). He's just another quarter-educated little slob. This is conservatism? Right now Carmel Richardson is the only one there with a future, in my opinion. The rest will in 20 years be pretending to each other over coffee at Politics and Prose that they finished A la recherche as their waistlines bulge. Ciao ciao bambini.
Steve Sailer's emphases are contrary to the purposes of the American Conservative's program to build a mainstream, main street populist conservative movement that can provide good governance. Sailer is extremely clever, but he enjoys being the gadfly who points out the unpleasant realities of denying statistical truths about ethnic behavior. That approach is of negative use in building a democratic consensus of a majority that has to include enough people from all ethnicities to succeed in governing our country. He writes for Taki's as well as Unz, and Taki was originally a TAC founder. I have personally corresponded with Phil Giraldi, and his insights about a lot are valuable. But again, electoral success cannot be achieved to reform our nation, by concentrating on overemphasizing certain obvious truths, to the point where personal hurt feelings lead a person to publicly doubt the Holocaust. Once again, targeting Jewish people in a way that seems to tar them especially is harmful to the TAC political project. Phil really shot himself in the foot by doubling down on some intemperate and inaccurate statements he made, and I urged him to modify them, without success. So Run Unz, Jewish himself, a free speech absolutist, gives him a perch, where he often has excellent insights, but tragically has lost the influence he once had. To paraphrase you, he never cared much for Jews. Now Rod especially has promoted his own version of almost NeverTrump in his writings, to the point that he even considered voting for Joe Biden, that unmitigated disaster of a President, and even mulled over it being possible Trump betrayed America by colluding with Russia. This too is an alienating perspective to undercut the TAC effort, because it might be that Trump's preferred policies align better with TAC's antiwar and anti globalist agenda than anyone else's. So once significant funding ended for Rod's highly personalized and self edited TAC pieces, who became the most read contributor not only no longer brought in that money, but was distorting and deamplifying the core message of what TAC is promoting. I share their perspectives somewhat more strongly than I do Rod's. Now we share a Christian perspective, but mine is from an historical Anabaptist position. Ironically I have a more positive opinion of anticommunist and anti-Woke Russia than he does, despite him having converted to the Russian Orthodox church.
Buchanan, Taki and McConnell took their lives in their hands when they started TAC, opposing an hubristic, unjust, and stupid war. And Sailer is far more, and far better, than a gadfly. His incalculably brilliant take on cousin marriage in Iraq and why it made the establishment there of civil society a pipe dream should have been the first step in getting him a Pulitzer, har har. And if you look at what's happening in Palestine now, at this writing, does Giraldi seem intemperate to you? Not to me.
I pay money to pubs who hire writers I want to read. National Review in the old days had Sobran, and then Florence King, but they also had bottom feeders like Hart, and money worshipping happy talkers like Milton Friedman. The thing about TAC is that now there aren't any Sobrans or Kings. It's not worth the money.
Phil Giraldi happens to share my take on 9/11, which is some healthy doubt about the official story. For most of two decades I considered such doubts to be signs of stupidity and malice. A few years ago my Orthodox friend prevailed on me to reconsider, earnestly begging me to not be a fool. I looked into the questioners, but not being a demolition expert or structural engineer, my insights are merely average. I'm just watching multi-story buildings getting hit by explosive missiles on TV in Ukraine, and yet, a geat many of those those buildings stand, half-gutted. Meanwhile, according to the morning of 9/11, if you believe your eyes, all it takes is one airplane each, hitting the tops of two massive buildings, and not only those two structures, but even a third one nearby, will rapidly collapse. Random falling debris can cause a building to utterly collapse. On a battlefield, how come you can bomb a building, and it still stands?
I sighed in relief when I read disturbing sentiments in the same vein somewhat forlornly expressed by Phil, long after he was "de-platformed" of course. He would never have dared to write such things on TAC.
Excuse me, this comment was supposed to have been addressed to Macadam.
I truly don’t mind sending Rod $5/mo.
It’s all his book recommendations that are really costing me money!
Just today, I decided to pony up fifty bucks for a year. I have had several one month subscriptions, but canceled because I couldn't take Rod's torrential outpouring. He seems, as the old putdown goes, never to have had an unexpressed thought, but his thoughts are almost always worth reading. Also, he and I are in agreement about much, but he had the formal education I never had. ( The same is true of Jon, who disheartens me with the level of his knowledge even as I am grateful for it. )
I'm going to handle the inundation by showering in it when I'm in the mood, sheltering when I'm not.
( Nice to see you here, Dawgs. I used to be Robert Kirby. )
I think journalistic standards have fallen in my lifetime. All too often there is little vetting or fact checking done and even basic editing has gotten rather minimal. There's so much competition with "new" (online) media that they just rush things into print or broadcast in the drive to be First.
Journalistic standards haven’t just fallen. They’ve abandoned wholesale all their ethics, professionalism, and standards to become a gross caricature of what they once were.
I'm glad to hear you opine that things are not continuing as they always have, but have deteriorated after all. I'd stay away from the tar baby of lawsuits, though, and let a writer's effective use of his craft to tell the truth be the disinfectant to lies.
Yes, please continue the podcast!
Hi Rod, I believe you said on one of your last TAC blogs that you’d still be involved with TAC and write for them from time to time. Is that no longer the case?
I'm wondering about that, too. I read the same thing; but, in this article, I'm reading, "I’m no longer part of TAC."
Is it definitely someone in TAC world who went to Vanity Fair?
Rather vague isn't it. More of a s--t piece than a hit piece.
I also would like to take this opportunity to clarify recent scurrilous reporting. My family’s historic ties to the Hungarian coffee house industry are in no way influencing my financial support of this substack. We cut all ties to the Hungarian dessert business decades ago, approximately at the same time we fled the country for our lives, and have no residual fiduciary relationship with any sugary magyar delicacies. Mr Dreher’s praise of local Budapest confectionery remains, to my knowledge, entirely spontaneous and sincere, and any imputations to the contrary in the corrupt corporate media are slanderous lies, likely linked to a malicious whisper campaign that I suspect is being masterminded by my ancestral enemy, the American Academy of Pediatrics. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify the situation.
Gaty.substack.com
Hilarious
Yes would like the General Eclectic podcast to continue
Ah, sounds like the mysterious anonymous sources of the Censorship Industrial Complex
I've read pretty much everything Rod Dreher published at The American Conservative over many years and this is the first I've heard of him in relation to Tarkovsky. I hadn't followed all his posts at his substack, only the few free ones he sent. Nothing in TAC I can confirm.
Given the political positions of the scurrilous magazine, a smear is in character. Trying to kick someone when they judge that person vulnerable in furtherance of the politics of personal destruction is par for their course, but subpar to common human decency. Moreover, it's not surprising that it goes beyond living by lies, to a moral violation of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
Same here--as a long-time reader of Rod's TAC blog, I was like, "Tarkovsky? St. Gal-who?" Someone was just slinging gossip to Vanity Fair. It's a shame, as they'll never miss a chance to kick dirt on a prominent Christian or conservative writer, but glad Ahmanson did the right thing in moving to clear things up.
It is likely the slinging is entirely on Ecarma's part. Can you really trust zir, just because Vanity Fair is the conduit?
The real question is who is Ecarma's editor? That's the responsible party. Do they just pass unnamed sources?
Seriously? For a while there he posted about him A LOT. it’s his blog so I don’t mind, but it really was his monomania for a bit there.
What can you say, written by Caleb Ecarma, who a shallow dive into his online persona and work is some sort of Woke demi-denizen of semi-celebrity gossip outlets.
When did the name "Caleb", like, become a thing?
About 3,000 years ago???
Aren't you the cutest thang?
At my age, no. I am neither.
Without the readers knowing those involved or what they actually said, the author of this self described "scoop" can't be trusted except as a Woke s--t disturber intent on getting a kick out of fomenting conflict among those he targets as enemies. Vanity, for sure, but it's hardly fair, defamation driven by animus and resentment.
Evidently "they" got "their" snit in a wringer because "they" don't like Christian schools who won't tolerate homosexual activism within the student body.
Vanity Fair is living up to their name.
Libel suits. I suppose every writer dealing with anything controversial has been threatened with a defamation suit from time to time. I was threatened with a libel suit BY MY GRADE SIX TEACHER for something I had written a class newspaper that I briefly once wrote. By hand, every copy by hand. Something about his inability to spell, of his confusing words like "site" and "sight". I may have called him "dumb" as well.I think he was serious too. He was certainly angry. I wasn't worried, though, because every word I wrote was true, and truth is an absolute defence to defamation.
In that minor venue. Certainly not in terms of enormous lawyer costs further up to defend yourself.
You're telling us that the standards of reporting at VANITY FAIR suck? Quick, sal volatile. Eff 'em, friend.
Rod Dreher has a following, certainly, because of the quality of his insights over the years. I don't consider it to be a cult following, however, as I've offered my own critical opinions in comments, that I hope add to understanding, rather than simply idolizing. I think other commenters certainly aren't shy about disagreeing with the author in a reasonable manner. I cannot myself afford to pay to read and comment, (thanks Emil) and it was a stretch to get a TAC subscription, however the requirement to financially contribute does not make of Rod Dreher a cult leader. On the other hand, Ecarma shares in the cult of Woke, but while he barks, Rod's caravan of reason moves on.
Well, I'm letting my sub to TAC lapse. Partly economy and partly the stable at NR is of higher quality. No, I don't mean Ponnuru, I mean Dougherty and McCarthy and Geraghty.
Begorrah, it's St. Patrick's Day!
Too much Neocon 101 for me, even if they have well known writers as the professors.
NR's support of the war in Ukraine is disheartening but at least a few staffers like Dougherty seem a bit more circumspect.
I emailed TAC that I’m dropping my sub and not to charge my cc when it comes due in July. I didn’t mention it to them, but it’s annoying when you can’t sign in to TAC on any device except the one you registered on. I would have liked to have been able to comment from my phone, but no, if I read something I wanted to comment on I had to get up and go to the PC. Anyway, I’m here now, reading and commenting on any device I like. To boot, it’s a great interface and ad free.
I have not had this problem, and have logged in and posted at TAC using multiple devices. I use the email address I registered with and the original password. If you need to change the password, you can do so while logged in on that original device. What I don't like with their improved comment section, is that there is no edit facility, and that comments on articles are only seen by paid, logged in subscribers.
Wow. I might have been able to do something, but assumed it was system wide. Oh well, it’s moot now because I was only following Rod, have followed him here, and will let my TAC sub lapse. I can still read any TAC article I want for free if I want, and don’t need to pay $60 a year for comment privileges.
I get you. I was able to make it when they offered half price.
Sometimes, when you edit on this substack, the last portion doesn't appear and thus cannot be edited.
Fran, I told you yesterday, but get the impression sometimes that you consider yourself too lofty to read my words to you: if you leave a long comment, then go back to edit it, however slightly, when you look at the edit you've just made, it will have been cut off. The solution to that, to use the cliche, is to refresh the page. When you come back a moment later, you'll see your edited comment in its fullness.
It's worse than that, in my opinion. They got rid of Sailer (who is still going strong on Unz), they got rid of Giraldi (ditto), and to console us we got Declan Leary, who wrote, and whose editor saw fit to pass, in re Andrew Cuomo, "I never cared much for Italians" (I know, stop the presses). Forget Leary, the two-toilet Irish Tertullian ("credo quia impossibile sum"). He's just another quarter-educated little slob. This is conservatism? Right now Carmel Richardson is the only one there with a future, in my opinion. The rest will in 20 years be pretending to each other over coffee at Politics and Prose that they finished A la recherche as their waistlines bulge. Ciao ciao bambini.
Steve Sailer's emphases are contrary to the purposes of the American Conservative's program to build a mainstream, main street populist conservative movement that can provide good governance. Sailer is extremely clever, but he enjoys being the gadfly who points out the unpleasant realities of denying statistical truths about ethnic behavior. That approach is of negative use in building a democratic consensus of a majority that has to include enough people from all ethnicities to succeed in governing our country. He writes for Taki's as well as Unz, and Taki was originally a TAC founder. I have personally corresponded with Phil Giraldi, and his insights about a lot are valuable. But again, electoral success cannot be achieved to reform our nation, by concentrating on overemphasizing certain obvious truths, to the point where personal hurt feelings lead a person to publicly doubt the Holocaust. Once again, targeting Jewish people in a way that seems to tar them especially is harmful to the TAC political project. Phil really shot himself in the foot by doubling down on some intemperate and inaccurate statements he made, and I urged him to modify them, without success. So Run Unz, Jewish himself, a free speech absolutist, gives him a perch, where he often has excellent insights, but tragically has lost the influence he once had. To paraphrase you, he never cared much for Jews. Now Rod especially has promoted his own version of almost NeverTrump in his writings, to the point that he even considered voting for Joe Biden, that unmitigated disaster of a President, and even mulled over it being possible Trump betrayed America by colluding with Russia. This too is an alienating perspective to undercut the TAC effort, because it might be that Trump's preferred policies align better with TAC's antiwar and anti globalist agenda than anyone else's. So once significant funding ended for Rod's highly personalized and self edited TAC pieces, who became the most read contributor not only no longer brought in that money, but was distorting and deamplifying the core message of what TAC is promoting. I share their perspectives somewhat more strongly than I do Rod's. Now we share a Christian perspective, but mine is from an historical Anabaptist position. Ironically I have a more positive opinion of anticommunist and anti-Woke Russia than he does, despite him having converted to the Russian Orthodox church.
I take your point, but--the truth is the truth.
Buchanan, Taki and McConnell took their lives in their hands when they started TAC, opposing an hubristic, unjust, and stupid war. And Sailer is far more, and far better, than a gadfly. His incalculably brilliant take on cousin marriage in Iraq and why it made the establishment there of civil society a pipe dream should have been the first step in getting him a Pulitzer, har har. And if you look at what's happening in Palestine now, at this writing, does Giraldi seem intemperate to you? Not to me.
I pay money to pubs who hire writers I want to read. National Review in the old days had Sobran, and then Florence King, but they also had bottom feeders like Hart, and money worshipping happy talkers like Milton Friedman. The thing about TAC is that now there aren't any Sobrans or Kings. It's not worth the money.
Phil Giraldi happens to share my take on 9/11, which is some healthy doubt about the official story. For most of two decades I considered such doubts to be signs of stupidity and malice. A few years ago my Orthodox friend prevailed on me to reconsider, earnestly begging me to not be a fool. I looked into the questioners, but not being a demolition expert or structural engineer, my insights are merely average. I'm just watching multi-story buildings getting hit by explosive missiles on TV in Ukraine, and yet, a geat many of those those buildings stand, half-gutted. Meanwhile, according to the morning of 9/11, if you believe your eyes, all it takes is one airplane each, hitting the tops of two massive buildings, and not only those two structures, but even a third one nearby, will rapidly collapse. Random falling debris can cause a building to utterly collapse. On a battlefield, how come you can bomb a building, and it still stands?
I sighed in relief when I read disturbing sentiments in the same vein somewhat forlornly expressed by Phil, long after he was "de-platformed" of course. He would never have dared to write such things on TAC.
Excuse me, this comment was supposed to have been addressed to Macadam.
I don't recall ever reading about the chance that Rod would consider voting Biden, where is that?
Before the election. His son did vote for Biden.