Attention, readers: Radio Derb is back. John Derbyshire, following his defenestration by National Review, has dusted himself off and taken his weekly podcast over to Taki’s.
So far, there are three new installments. Have a listen here. And speaking of Derb, here’s a recent essay of his, also at Taki’s: Ridding Myself of the Day.
8 Comments
Interesting that his white supremacist shtick was too much for National Review. As H. L. Mencken wrote: “freedom of press is limited to those who own one.”
That’s not how I’d characterize his “schtick”, but it certainly did seem to be a little too pungent for NRO. Writing about race is… what’s the right metaphor? A tightrope? A minefield? And of course the rules are completely different, depending on the race of the writer.
What’s “interesting” is NRO’s turning right around and criticizing the Chronicle of Higher Education for its firing of Naomi Riley over the same sort of race-commentary taboo-violations committed by Derb.
Not only that, NRO just got some serious egg on its face with its charge that Elizabeth Warren had plagiarized the recipes she contributed to Pow Wow Chow. (It now appears she was the plagiaree.) For NRO to jump on that they way they did was pure journalistic greed, given that Ms. Warren was already coping with some serious political embarrassment over that Cherokee business. They should have been more careful. William Buckley certainly would have been.
What a circus! The more I see of politics the less I think of mankind.
The line you quote was certainly true. (And boy, would H.L. Mencken have trouble keeping a job in 2012!)
What’s different now is that everyone can have a “press”. Much more democratic. (I use WordPress.)
Arguably the greatest invention of all time – Gutenberg’s invention of movable type – is now obsolete, and its passage into obsolescence was barely.noticed.
Very good point. Well worth a post of its own.
“And speaking of Derb, here’s a recent essay of his…”
No, thanks. I find his lack of couth disDerbing.
And Kevin knows couth!
Jeffery Hodges
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Wait — I seem to have been mistaken about NRO having got the Pow Wow Chow story wrong: it does indeed seem that Elizabeth Warren swiped those recipes. The NRO error had to do with a post by Katrina Trinko suggesting that Ms. Warren plagiarized parts of another book.