The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Priorities: Plastic Straws or Fentanyl?

Did you know that the idea of banning plastic straws was inspired by a nine-year-old boy’s science project? After reading that startling fact, I found myself going down a research rabbit-hole, during which I discovered that in 2018, Seattle became “the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastic straws and utensils in food service.” […]

‘Tunnel Girl’ Update: Why KiwiFarms Is Better Than Mainstream Journalism

In my previous post, I expressed dismay that KiwiFarms didn’t have a “lolcow” thread about “Kala,” the TikTok personality who is digging an (apparently illegal) tunnel under “her” Northern Virginia home. Now I must apologize to the KF crew, after a commenter pointed out that there was such a thread, which I hadn’t found because […]

Matt Taibbi vs. the Borg

If you wish to amuse yourself sometime, go check out Matt Taibbi’s feed on The Social Media Platform Formerly Known as Twitter. In case you weren’t aware, Taibbi is a (former?) left-wing journalist once celebrated by his peers for his reporting in Rolling Stone, but who reached some kind of epiphany during the Trump years, […]

The Strange Return of ‘Radical Chic’

When I was a college student, Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers was one of the assigned texts in our feature writing class — studying the “New Journalism” as it was then called. The slim volume combined two articles Wolfe wrote for New York magazine, a publication that has since become just […]

While Hamas Supporters Terrorize Jews, Can You Guess What Noah Berlatsky Considers a More Important Menace?

America must beware of “Christofascism,” Berlatsky practically screams. The “white evangelical Christian nationalist tradition” of new House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, must be stopped: Based on his stated supposedly biblical positions, the Bible in Johnson’s head is a silly, vicious farrago of ignorance and bigotry, and a blueprint for Christofascist tyranny. . . . […]

Why Is KiwiFarms.net ‘Harassment,’ But What Taylor Lorenz Does Is ‘Journalism’?

Did you know that Taylor Lorenz has her own Kiwi Farms thread? Anyway, the question in the headline crossed my mind after reading KiwiFarms founder Joshua Moon’s complaint about how payment processors have blacklisted him. That was referenced in a comment on yesterday’s post about how Instapundit got demonetized by Google Adsense because of allegedly […]

The Taylor Lorenz-ing of Journalism

To explain what’s gone wrong with American journalism is a task so enormous that it’s hard to know where to begin. Whatever faults and failures the profession had back in the days of printing words on paper — yes, kids, that actually happened — there were nevertheless certain standards that were enforced, because you couldn’t […]

‘All I Wanted Was a Pepsi’

So you’re gonna be institutionalized. You’ll come out brainwashed with bloodshot eyes. You won’t have any say. They’ll brainwash you until you see their way. For many years, I’ve complained about the “Compulsory Approval Doctrine” of the gay-rights movement, which seeks to forbid anyone from expressing disapproval of homosexual behavior or, for that matter, criticizing […]

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