I’ll never forget when Chris was an editor at Esquire and I was a writer doing the first investigative piece on the super secret society that Chris (and his father and his father’s father) were members of. You know: Skull and Bones. We’d both been at Yale, but it was a dicey situation and he handled it with customary diplomacy and tact while I brooded in customary paranoid suspicion. Was he some kind of mole? (no)
First of all why can’t all Republicans be like Chris or P.J. O’ Rourke or mark Steyn (all of whom I’m a fan of however much I might disagree on some issues)? You know, tolerant, most of all funny. Take a look at Chris’ Class Day address at this year’s Yale graduation from his Daily Beastblog.
It’s hilarious and knowing, but not know-it-all z(the ideologue commenter’s disease–along with cyber-disnhibition of course)) There’s only one point I’d take issue with in Chris’s speech: the origin of the all purpose word “Whatever”.
Chris perhaps deliberately misattributes it to the millennial generation, as a brilliant verbal, philosohical invention, but take my word for it, it’s a boomer/slacker phrase. I remember when I was still a reporter for The Village Voice back in the 70’s, hearing my high school friend Rich Molyneux do a whole riff on why “whatever” was…whatever it was.
Chris, it’s ours, not theirs. It may be our greatest most lasting contribution. Don’ take it away from us.
Ron Rosenbaum, Writer 
Based on my exposure to my fellow Yalie over the years, he’s kind of a dweeb with no real sense of humor. William F. Buckley was a terribel writer: facile, supercilious, jejeune to the point of ridiculousness. The problem with him and the whole Kimball/Lowry/Kristol crowd is a dry effeteness: Oscar Wilde without the flower. Don’t fall in love with these stale butterflies, Ron. There’s a hole in your net!
Comment by charlie finch — May 27, 2009 @ 1:04 pm |
“William F. Buckley was a terribel writer”
Somehow, though, I think that William F. Buckley knew how to spell terrible. Mark Steyn is among my favorites. He also most certainly never attended Yale University. On the contrary, I am not even sure if he completed high school. God was nice to Steyn. The Almighty One saved him from a fate worst than death. Only bad and negligent parents send their own flesh and blood to Yale. There is an especially hot place in hell for such people.
Comment by David Thomson — May 27, 2009 @ 1:22 pm |
I am getting so tired of the jerks on this blog. Time to shut it down, Ron. You are too good a writer and thinker for these morons.
Comment by charlie finch — May 28, 2009 @ 1:17 pm |
Everyone’s tired of the jerks on this blog. Their names are Ron Rosenbaum and Charlie Finch.
I tried to be nice on the ‘Fake Twitter’ thread, and I shared my hospital experience on the ‘pain management’ thgread. But all Ron can do is sneer at his readers and commenters.
Oh, and he can attack Jeff Jarvis too. But I don’t think Jeff Jarvis is aware of this.
You are both childish, silly people. You are not good enough to be bloggers. Go back to newspapers, TV and magazines, where you belong.
Comment by Evil Pundit — May 28, 2009 @ 11:20 pm |