Sunday, March 01, 2015

THE GET-READY MAN RETURNS.

What say we start the week with Rod Dreher crying Get ready! The Worr-uld is coming to an end! This time the big issue is trans people born one thing who call themselves the other thing. Normals say who gives a shit but Dreher sees the End Times, and he is especially disappointed in the liberals, who should after all understand why it's so important:
This is a principle that the American Left can see is terribly damaging when put into practice by those who clear-cut forests. But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies.
It's a wonder we haven't got abortion clinic protesters putting in extra shifts outside practices that do gender assignment surgery. Maybe harrying scared pregnant women is a less daunting prospect than confronting someone like Fallon Fox.

Also, per Dreher, Dante put Ulysses in Hell because of his "corrupt desire to defy the gods in pursuit of his own will," and "this is us. This is the West. This is America, 2015," with our homos and test-tube two-daddy babies and space travel, too, no doubt -- imagine what Dante would have thought of that! Not to mention harnessing the power of lightning to run artificial brain-machines -- so the Saving Remnant better Get Ready:
This is not going to be stopped by us. But one day, it is going to stop. We know where this is going. The task of the traditionalist today is to live in such a way that truth and sanity survive the darkening of our collective intellect. That we not forget who we are, and what is. This is hard work, but as the Noah myth should instruct us, it is past time to start building that cultural ark.
The ark will no doubt be filled with VeggieTales, well-beaten Bibles, and Brother Rod's approved reading list, which will be fine until some passenger finds it insufficient and in the margins of some Flannery O'Connor paperback defies the Captain in pursuit of his own will. Then come the floating witch trials and the Aguirre The Wrath of God ending. Go with God, dummies!
It may well be that this civilization continues in relative peace and prosperity for some time. I certainly hope it does, because I live in it.
Also because he's about to fuck off on yet another foreign foodie vacation:
Really, though, Anthony Bourdain’s CNN show episode on Lyon, with Daniel Boulud, put things over the top. I’ve watched it three times on Netflix streaming. I want to go eat at a bouchon or two (or three), and I want to make a pilgrimage to Reynon the traiteur, and taste his saucisson à cuire. I think this must be the first time I’ve ever chosen a travel destination solely for the purpose of eating.
Been to Lyon? Where should we stay? Where should we eat? Talk to me.
How about you stay in a monk's cell and pray for a clue?

UPDATE. Comments are very good. Jeffrey_Kramer:
I'm not sure whether the literature to be preserved on the Cultural Ark would lean more towards the Autobiography of Saint Teresa or the collected works of Anders Breivik
And JayB, by coincidence, recently happened to be passing through Lyon himself:
Since Rod asked, I did come across a gay AND 'libertine' Sauna on the Croix-Rousse. I didn't partake, but someone with his hangups would surely find something a bit rogue going on. I'm sure he'll be there in a week with a camera, a notepad and a heart filled with angry curiosity. Bon champs, you dickhead.

219 comments:

  1. GeniusLemur9:33 PM

    "But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies."
    So trans people are completely destroying their own bodies? What the hell is he talking about?
    Wait, it's the modern right-wing argument:
    Premise 1:X is bad, or so people keep telling me.
    Premise 2:I hate Y.
    Conclusion: Being a Y is like X.

    In this particular case, X is clear-cutting, and Y is being a trans person.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Megalon9:33 PM

    "This is a principle that the American Left can see is terribly damaging
    when put into practice by those who clear-cut forests. But they are
    blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their
    own bodies."

    Damn. Move over Jonah, THIS is the stupidest thing ever written! Though I suppose I'd expect nothing less from Jihadi Rod.

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  3. It should be noted to Rod that in the Garden of Eden there were neither chefs nor cooking, everything was eaten raw, & then he can take it from there.

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  4. M. Krebs9:52 PM

    Yep, no disease, and no weeds.

    http://youtu.be/-EQHdu-rS6E

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  5. Chez Reynon:
    Quelques spécialités dans la pure tradition lyonnaise
    Rosette 42 €/kg
    Saucisson à cuire 24,50 €/kg
    Cervelas pistaché 36,50 €/kg
    Saucisson en brioche 35 €/kg
    Quenelles de brochet 2,50 €/pièce de 120 gr
    Terrine de canard à la pistache 30 €/kgC'est cher, ça!

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  6. To accommodate the preferences of an estimated 700,000 Americans (of a population of 320 million) — that’s 0.2 percent of the population — we are being instructed, indeed commanded, to abandon the idea that there is something essential and unchosen about maleness and femaleness.


    it is almost as if we're supposed to give a shit about preferences of, say, members of the eastern orthodox catholic church, an estimated 84,900 of americans, (of a population of 320 million)--that's .0026531 of the population--like rod dreher.

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  7. "But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies."
    Can anyone imagine a more useful phrase in the English language than "So to speak"? Ranks right up there with "By my lights", and "In a manner of speaking". Dreher and Jonah must have taken the same mail order course on "How To Rite Inglish Good".

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  8. Destroying the environment is just like...something Rod disapproves of.

    Sure. And you can't spell analogy without anal.
    ~

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  9. Dean Golden10:21 PM

    Mock if you will, but he got his column out.
    He's riding the Bacon train.

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  10. JennOfArk10:22 PM

    But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies.

    Rod's weird obsession with naughty bits combined with the above very weird metaphor or simile or whatever the fuck it is, made me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqldA6vdvMk

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  11. Chad Hill10:33 PM

    ... we are being instructed, indeed commanded, to abandon the idea that there is something essential and unchosen about maleness and femaleness.


    Of course, no trans person would disagree with this sentiment either. But then Dreher entirely misses the point. (Apparently, his rather superficial assessment of someone's gender identity must trump that person's own. Because Jesus.)


    I wonder if Dreher still believes that people like me have "chosen" to be gay against some sort of "essential" contrary predisposition. I must assume he does, or otherwise his snide transphobic ignorance borders on the explicable.

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  12. Magatha10:37 PM

    "Let's have no more talk about surgery, young man. God gave you that appendix for a reason."

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  13. What Rod calls "the darkening of our collective intellect" is nothing more or less than allowing individuals to live in the manner they see fit, as long as it doesn't harm anyone. Rod would prefer a world in which people are forced to live a lie or be marginalized or killed.

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  14. Also, per Dreher, Dante put Ulysses in Hell because of his "corrupt desire to defy the gods in pursuit of his own will,"


    And that's the beauty of Hell, you can put whosoever you wish in there.

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  15. It's really painful to watch them try to play "gotcha!" with their straw liberals.

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  16. The bacon train to Lyon,
    Lardons in le bouchon!

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  17. dante, the original dungeon master

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  18. Roll for initiative, Virgil!

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  19. i can't give this enough upvotes

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  20. sharculese11:25 PM

    In my deepest darkest worries about what a diseased coterie of bigots, corporatists and warmongers were going to do to this nation and planet, it would never ever ever ever have occurred to me to write out the phrase 'the American Right' with capital fucking letters, so at least I've got that going for me over Rod.

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  21. AGoodQuestion11:25 PM

    Liberals are transhumanists who want to live forever as machines, I guess? This is the history that conservatives are standing athwart, yelling "Stop!"? Whatever. Dreher and the Ole Perfesser should book a room and get together to talk this out. Bring lots of lube.

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  22. AGoodQuestion11:30 PM

    I'm sorry, Filippo Argenti, you're out of hit points.

    ReplyDelete
  23. sharculese11:32 PM

    Also too:


    Hey Rod, do you know what non-France place is filled with not only great food, but straight up probably Anthony Bourdain approved great food? This weird new place they have called Louisiana.


    It's not like your fake doomsday compound is in Montana* or Arizona. You don't have to skitter halfway around the world to stuff butter-soaked shellfish down your beardo gob. It's right fucking there.


    *Gentle ribbing. Some of the best food I've ever eaten I ate in Montana.

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  24. AGoodQuestion11:33 PM

    Sure that's not an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile?

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  25. And now, a list of ways that life could irrevocably change should transgender rights become as culturally predominant as gay rights:

    -Potentially a slight increase in rates of gender reassignment surgery.
    -One could not say "tranny" without having people shake their heads.
    -Dating sites become more complicated to navigate.
    -An additional lesson (or portion thereof) in sex ed.
    -And yes, one might pass someone in a public bathroom whose genetic and chosen genders don't match, thus shattering the serenity that comes with shitting in a public place.

    I can certainly see why Rod Dreher is terrified - this could potentially change his daily life by a small-but-technically-non-zero amount.

    (By the way, nothing about the long-ass Douthat quote in this bastard? You're trying to pad out your post, and that's who you pick?)

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  26. He would have landed in Gehenna but I lost my Planescape materials.

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  27. DocAmazing11:42 PM

    Pity. Rod passed up some real opportunities to giggle about "chopping wood". Hey, what's the point of being a prig if you get no cheap laffs?

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  28. M. Krebs12:01 AM

    Doesn't the bacon train go to Mâcon?

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  29. Jon Hendry12:04 AM

    Is Dreher talking about sex reassignment surgery, or pubic waxing?

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  30. Jon Hendry12:09 AM

    If you can find room, like Dante says, it's full of bloody Christians.

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  31. Jon Hendry12:09 AM

    http://www.rpgnow.com has legal PDFs (once again)

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  32. hellslittlestangel12:46 AM

    4B, I had no idea Scopitones went back to the 1950s! I love Stereo Total's cover of this tune, but I had no idea Trenet was such a goof.

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  33. Steve-O12:54 AM

    Don't bother with a "cultural" ark, Brother Rob, just please go build a real one and you and your like-minded Bible humpers can hop aboard set sail. Bon voyage!

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  34. Baron Elmo1:49 AM

    Of course Dreher and his coterie of God-botherers are horrified by the thought of trans men in ladies' rooms. After all, SOME of them might be lesbians...

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  35. Devolutionist1:54 AM

    Rod's also got a very entertaining whine going right now about how there's no place in the GOP for social conservatives anymore because Jeb Bush is a-ok with the gays, or some shit. It's always a shame when modern times overtake a man's bigoted, revanchist views and he just can't bring himself to accept it.

    http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/queering-the-gop-jeb-bush/

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  36. MichaelNewsham2:05 AM

    Roy Edroso said:

    Also, per Dreher, Dante put Ulysses in Hell because of his "corrupt desire to defy the gods in pursuit of his own will," and "this is us.
    This is the West. This is America, 2015,"

    As phrased like that, this is exactly true. Dante's complaint against Ulysses, as quoted by Rod, (and yes, I've read it before this, did a paper on this quote in college) was

    O brothers,’ I said, ‘who, in the course
    of a hundred thousand perils, at last
    have reached the west, to such brief wakefulness
    of our senses as remains to us,
    do not deny yourselves the chance to know –
    following the sun – the world where no one lives.

    ‘Consider how your souls were sown:
    you were not made to live like brutes or beasts,
    but to pursue virtue and knowledge.’”

    Ulysses was exhorting his men to sail beyond the Pillars of Heracles, "following the [setting] sun".

    The Divine Comedy was written in about 1300; two hundred years later a fellow named Chris Columbus defied Dante's warnings and headed west. (Some people say he should be in Hell, but that's a different topic.)


    Though given what we know of the correlation between poverty, lack of education, and religious belief, I can understand the Church wanting to dissuade people from seeking virtue and knowledge, and instead live like brutes and beasts.

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  37. Pseudonym2:58 AM

    So Dreher thinks Ulysses should be consigned to hell for refusing to follow the will of gods that Dreher doesn't think exist, and that Dreher believes his God explicitly told people not to worship? Like most Christian conservatives, he finds authoritarianism a more important principle than his own theology.

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  38. smut clyde3:42 AM

    we are being instructed, indeed commanded, to abandon the idea that
    there is something essential and unchosen about maleness and femaleness.



    Count your blessings, Rod. It could be worse. Imagine a Dystopian alternative reality in which no-one cared about your opinion enough to coerce it one way or the other.

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  39. coozledad4:19 AM

    People get ready there's a train to Lyon
    you'd best keep your pecker if you want to eat
    Raymon the traiteur has his cookware hummin'.
    You can't have no pudding without that meat.

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  40. Jeffrey_Kramer6:18 AM

    Jesus put people in hell for being entitled-feeling rich guys, and it's not as if that matters a damn

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  41. Clear cutting...so to speak? Im speechless.

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  42. I would raise hell with this comment.

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  43. Jeffrey_Kramer6:38 AM

    I'm not sure whether the literature to be preserved on the Cultural Ark would lean more towards The Autobiography of Saint Teresa or the collected works of Anders Breivik.

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  44. Obviously the men are cutting down the old growth forest, so to speak, while the women are cutting down those teeny tiny things...what are they called, btw, because rod doesn't know their name since they are so small they can't be called timber. But if they remove their hills and dales I guess the metaphor kind of works. If you squint. Before blinding yourself.

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  45. Is there a collective intellect, and he in it? because I'm not seeing it.

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  46. Les acidites...qui font malheur au grande cites? Oh come on.

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  47. Or at the very least an oil can.

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  48. I just can't be bothered worrying about this. I have a hard enough time keeping track of my purse, let alone the gender of the other residents.

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  49. But the thing is, all they're being told to do is act like their supposed savior told them to act--to be kind, compassionate, and not do to others what you don't want done to yourself.

    But I guess the Jesus of Beatitudes was really just something inserted by time-travel Obama because the REAL Jesus said, "And you shall condemn and execute all those whom you disagree, especially those icky homos."

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  50. For certain definitions of intellect that include "Jersey Shore" and "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."

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  51. The idea of deciding to be gay is inherent to their prejudice. I used to work with a man who was a Christian minister on the side. He was a full-throated hate teh gheys preacher. I was having lunch with him one day when the subject came up, so I asked him one question:

    At what point in your life could someone have talked you into being gay?

    He thought about that for a full minute and I could see the lights coming on in his head. He finally said, "Never. I don't think I could ever have been talked into being gay because I'm not gay."

    And that was the last time he said anything against gay people. He finally realized it's not a choice, it's not something that you can "influence" people into adopting. He ended up leaving the ministry a few years later.

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  52. Obviously the men are cutting down the old growth forest, so to speak, while the women are cutting down those teeny tiny things...what are they called, btw, because rod doesn't know their name since they are so small they can't be called timber. But if they remove their hills and dales I guess the metaphor kind of works.

    The women are cutting down their ladywood. As for removing their hills and dales, well, that's just mountaintop removal mining.

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  53. Given Rod's dismay about clear-cutting, I wonder how he feels about taking a little off the top? After all, Rod's God actually commands the believers to get circumcised or get gone.

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  54. redoubtagain8:05 AM

    Can't do that here; too many family members people know him.
    I imagine him going over there, pockets full of francs, loudly demanding in English that as a journalist for a very important publication, he must have first place at the table. (Unfortunately my imagination ends at him being hit over the head and thrown into the Rhone.)

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  55. mgmonklewis8:08 AM

    They must have been absolute hell as toddlers. Oh, who am I kidding? They still are.

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  56. I'm not seeing any "collective intellect."

    What are we, ants?

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  57. mgmonklewis8:17 AM

    Regardless of whether he's currently back in favor, that Tennyson boy could write.

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  58. mgmonklewis8:20 AM

    The full course title is "ENGL 120 — Be That As It May: How To Rite Inglish Good."

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  59. I don't think this has anything to do with the Bible or traditionalism or "the collective intellect." It's self-determination that the authoritarians hate.



    An individual in society looks at him or herself, thinks about it, then stands up and declares "I am ____________!" (fill in the blank with whatever that person decided.)


    The authoritarian hears this declaration, and without hesitation says "No, you're not. Sit down and shut up."

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  60. Jay B.8:29 AM

    Funny! I'm in Lyon right now. I just took a selfie in the Roman amphitheatre up in Fourviere in which I was mock cheering the lions because I thought it was a funny gag, even though it wasn't the kind of public space where Romans tossed the Christians to the lions. Which I now feel was a lost opportunity on the part of the Romans.



    Since Rod asked, I did come across a gay AND 'libertine' Sauna on the Croix-Rousse. I didn't partake, but someone with his hangups would surely find something a bit rogue going on. I'm sure he'll be there in a week with a camera, a notepad and a heart filled with angry curiosity. Bon champs, you dickhead.

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  61. AmusedAmused8:39 AM

    But God wants him to eat saucisson à cuire. And for everyone else to stay in a monk's cell and repent.

    The mark of a true authoritarian is arguing passionately for and working tirelessly towards the goal of making sure future generations live less enjoyably than he.

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  62. coozledad8:52 AM

    I have spoken with people whose close reading of the Bible tells them that heaven has a maximum occupancy of 500. All dudes, all already dead.


    In other words, Rod has to hope KFC starts serving saucisson a cuire.

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  63. Cato the Censor8:56 AM

    "This is a principle that the American Left can see is terribly damaging
    when put into practice by those who clear-cut forests. But they are
    blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their
    own bodies."


    Even for a reactionary, the man has a stunning gift for logical non sequiturs. Forest = human body?

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  64. coozledad8:59 AM

    I haven't seen a picture of Rod lately. It must be hell typing with those four foot long fingernails.


    I'll bet the full Rasputin suits him, though.

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  65. . . . heaven has a maximum occupancy of 500. All dudes, all already dead.

    So, heaven is a sausage fest?

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  66. coozledad9:01 AM

    If a cock falls in the woods, can no one stitch it back on?

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  67. Jay B.9:02 AM

    To be fair, he's conflicted about tree-huggers too.

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  68. What I want to know is, who spends their time in public restrooms checking out the gender of the other residents? Isn't that, in and of itself, pretty pervey? I think that would get you a lecture from the gendarmes in most states--if not a free stay in the Ironbar Hotel.

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  69. coozledad9:08 AM

    Well, everyone knows ladywood is just for ornament. You can saw at those things all you want and never get it right. Might as well yank those out and replace them with a beautiful new kitchen.

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  70. Socialist Cubone9:13 AM

    And I thought the left had taken all the reservations at Grand Hotel Abyss.

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  71. Mike Adamson9:16 AM

    What does he mean by the "Noah myth?" Myth?

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  72. M. Krebs9:16 AM

    ... but as the Noah myth should instruct us, ...


    Myth? Fucking backslider.

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  73. Mike Adamson9:17 AM

    Well that's a little spooky.

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  74. M. Krebs9:19 AM

    Great minds etc etc.

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  75. Might as well yank them out and replace them with a beautiful new kitchen.

    With an integral peninsula and sculptured faucet?

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  76. coozledad9:21 AM

    a lost opportunity on the part of the Romans.

    Goddamn Italians. Their natural laziness keeps them from following through.

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  77. Helmut Monotreme9:31 AM

    Yeah Rod's just mad because real life is a little more complicated than "Dick and Jane at the Seashore" depicted. Or was it the Malleus Maleficarum? I always get those two mixed up.

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  78. EllisWeiner9:32 AM

    "The task of the traditionalist today is to live in such a way that"


    --enables one to condemn *on principle* the deepest-felt instincts of some stranger when they pertain to the most fundamental issues of body, self, sex, and soul, and then to ponce all over the globe in search of fancy-schmancy hi-kwality eats, because gluttony isn't really a sin, and eating good is Nature's Way.

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  79. BigHank539:33 AM

    Been to Lyon? asks Rod.

    Hey, let's take a quick look at some of the headlines over at The American Conservative, like these:

    Paranoia Strikes U.S. Intelligence
    The Perils of Disillusionment
    Wendell Berry, Burkean
    Queering the GOP
    Week 5—Libertarianism: Sources and Themes

    This is the shit that their readers eat with a spoon. Which means it's one of the worst possible audiences to ask if they've been to Lyon. No, they haven't been to Lyon, you fuckwit, and something makes me doubt they're going to be all that impressed by your tugging on your saucisson.

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  80. EllisWeiner9:36 AM

    This. Period.

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  81. Helmut Monotreme9:39 AM

    Here's why I want Rod to shut the fuck up today:
    in the first four months of 2014...
    An 8-year-old boy was beaten to death by his father
    A 14-year-old was strangled to death and stuffed under a bed
    Two 16-year-olds were shot to death
    Three 18-year-olds were stabbed to death, dismembered or shot
    Two 18-year-olds were murdered with no details being reported
    An 18-year-old suffered two violent attacks by a mob and survived
    Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aj-walkley/2014-transgender-violence_b_5298554.html
    Here's an article saying that 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide from the LA Times:
    http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/28/local/la-me-ln-suicide-attempts-alarming-transgender-20140127

    People are not prey. People are not disposable. Even, maybe especially if you find their very existence to be troubling.
    Isn't suicide a sin? Isn't murder a sin? So, please Rod, even if you personally don't give a shit about trans people, stop encouraging sin.

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  82. BigHank539:41 AM

    Rod's got three kids. Without modern medicine, at least one of 'em would be dead, either from disease or an ear infection that got treated with $4 worth of antibiotics. Funny, I don't remember the columns where he complained about the hubris of mankind when that happened.

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  83. Well said.

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  84. Halloween_Jack9:57 AM

    Rod "Crunchy" Dreher: the Lorax of the Peen.

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  85. gocart mozart10:12 AM

    "This is a principle that the American Left can see is terribly damaging when put into practice by those who clear-cut forests. But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies."



    Is he saying that transexualism promotes global warming? If not, I'm at a loss.

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  86. gocart mozart10:15 AM

    Hugging a tree is well down the slippery slope to box turtle sex.

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  87. gocart mozart10:23 AM

    Yes he is.

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  88. dstatton10:52 AM

    This Dreher guy sounds a little fascist.

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  89. dstatton10:53 AM

    The do have really good food there.

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  90. Also corporate rape of natural resources is not equivalent to personal autonomy. Corporatiins arent people and the human body is not a piece of property.

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  91. I think they will be enthralled, if they can see into the metaphor and realize its porn.

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  92. What I want to know is, who spends their time in public restrooms checking out the gender of the other residents?Since you've previously noted your work for Republican politicians, I presume this question is rhetorical.

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  93. Magatha11:14 AM

    Well, as soon as I read "the Noah myth", I thought about screaming "Apostate!", only I didn't say it, but I still think I could be considered great-mind adjacent. Actually, I was going to check his comments to see if anyone objected, but then I decided I'd rather floss my teeth. (And I think flossing is permissible, because there must have been floss-like fibers somewhere in the Garden of Eden.)

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  94. redoubtagain11:14 AM

    People being "prey" and "disposable" is the essence of conservatism.

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  95. But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies.Added to emphasize the end of the debate, Rod. Now cram your sausage in it.

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  96. The ark will no doubt be filled with VeggieTalesHey, I ... [shuffles feet, glances around nervously] I kinda like some of those VeggieTales. Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah's Umbrella had some pretty good lines, for instance. If more Christian types were coming up with Python-inspired gags, I might be marinating in slightly less flaming bile right now.

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  97. I did not work for Larry Craig.

    Of note, though: Going to a Republican fundraiser always guaranteed a good time from the sociological perspective. Late-middle-age men acting like frat boys, their wives turning into drunken floppy dolls, and the non-stop scheming that would make your hair turn white. The whole thing was indescribably ludicrous.

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  98. coozledad11:34 AM

    Anything like this?

    http://gawker.com/michigan-frats-48-hour-rager-wrecks-resort-causes-430-1688877451

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  99. J Neo Marvin11:48 AM

    So the Christian Hell punishes those who defy the Greek Gods? And how exactly does that square with "thou shalt have no other gods before me"?

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  100. No. These people were destructive of society, not property.

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  101. One could not say "tranny" without having people shake their heads.

    "Goddamnit! My tranny blew on the Grapevine at rush hour!"

    And everyone shook their heads in sad acknowledgement of so cruel a fate.

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  102. J Neo Marvin11:52 AM

    Seasteaders for Jeezus!

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  103. Magatha12:00 PM

    Okay, so I flossed my teeth and then got out of the boat, and found this among the comments:


    Joan says:
    February 27, 2015 at 3:57 pm
    Part of the problem here is that the warning at the end of this article has been sounded before, about inventions such as lightning rods and preventive medicine, on the grounds that lightning bolts and diseases were expressions of the will of God and any attempt at fending them off was a sign of insufficient spiritual submission. But the people went ahead with them anyway and, instead of a smiting, we got reductions in the number of house fires and in the rates of many formerly widespread diseases. It’s enough to make people suspicious when, a few years after the human population topped seven billion, we’re warned that this generation’s deviations from traditional erotic/reproductive morality could end up causing the human race to die out.

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  104. You mention Flannery O'Connor, so I'll just say - O'Connor would have had a field day with some of these folks. They're the sort of characters who would have had rude awakenings and harsh redemptions in her stories. She had no patience for hypocritical pieties and petty sniping in the name of truth and goodness.

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  105. BigHank5312:16 PM

    All the seasteaders are going to be calling out His name once they realize they bought their bilge pumps from a libertarian.

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  106. redoubtagain12:21 PM

    "She'd of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life" applies to such a large grouping of them (of all genders) I'm afraid America won't have enough bullets.

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  107. tigrismus12:22 PM

    Pretty sure he's talking about felling mighty pines, though I bet he disapproves of trimming the hedges, too.

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  108. tigrismus12:27 PM

    Come in twos? So to speak.

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  109. bekabot12:42 PM

    "It may well be that this civilization continues in relative peace and prosperity for some time. I certainly hope it does, because I live in it."

    Typical. "It will last my time and after that it's not like I give a shit."

    — "This is hard work, but as the Noah myth should instruct us, it is past time to start building that cultural ark."

    — "The ark will no doubt be filled with VeggieTales, well-beaten Bibles, and Brother Rod's approved reading list, which will be fine until some passenger finds it insufficient and in the margins of some Flannery O'Connor paperback defies the Captain in pursuit of his own will."

    I have much internal fanfic stipulating that first, Yes, Brer Rod does make it to Heaven, but second, Lo, how much the righteous who are already there make fun of him when he does.

    In my fantasies this fails to clue Rod in, since Heaven is Heaven and no one's unhappy there. So Rod plods through the rest of eternity still patting himself on the back for the amount of attention he gets, telling himself that he must have been doing the Lord's Work much more than he was ever aware of when he was alive, which is what has earned him all this special notice Up Top. Then the ranks of the saved point and hoot and titter behind their hands even more, and so on and so on and so on.

    "Even Gandhi and Mother Theresa don't get noticed this much," thinks Dreher, "look how all their eyes are always on me. And all the time I thought of myself as merely a humble hack writer, while I must have been doing very big things indeed. Life everlasting is going to be wonderful — the marvelous thing about Heaven is that at last one is alerted to the fact of one's true stature."

    O, Lord, yes.

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  110. bekabot12:53 PM

    The Romans didn't persecute Christians as much as everybody thinks. A couple of Emperors (like Nero and Diocletian, for example) made a point of persecuting and executing Christians, sometimes in very terrible ways, but for the most part the Christians, ironically, were left alone to carry on down in the catacombs and to do their own thing.


    The Romans were connoisseurs of arena-fights and what they really liked were situations which pitted highly trained fighters against other highly-trained fighters...watching badly-armed civilians get eaten by big cats must have made them yawn. They would have considered that the circuses were not up to snuff. They would have thrown food and complained. They would have yearned for Dolby and CGI without knowing what those things were. (Virtual bloodshed being, of course, better than none at all, as long as the fight scene is cool.)

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  111. bekabot12:54 PM

    But the Romans were industrious Italians, so it doesn't really fit.

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  112. Gromet1:03 PM

    A saucisson fest!

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  113. coozledad1:05 PM

    And arena fighting continued well into the Christian era.

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  114. Gromet1:07 PM

    If you ask me, it sounds like he's advocating Communism.

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  115. Gromet1:12 PM

    This is a principle that the American Left can see is terribly damaging
    when put into practice by those who clear-cut forests. But they are
    blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their
    own bodies.



    Call me when a corporation chops the dicks off 100,000 square miles of Brazilian men without giving them any say in it and it wrecks our oxygen supply.

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  116. bekabot1:15 PM

    And Dreher would have been at home in the stands because he's a believer in tradition.

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  117. realinterrobang1:24 PM

    Wait, he wants to go to France? Aren't wingnuts the same people who have been calling the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" for the last fifteen years? It's okay for wingnuts to go to France now?

    Oh, wait, that would be expecting them to be a) consistent, b) not hypocrites. Mea culpa.

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  118. Promotes global warming, destroys habitat, hinders biodiversity, accelerates erosion, causes mudslides, blocks up watercourses...

    But when has a conservative ever cared about any of that?

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  119. John Wesley Hardin1:50 PM

    Maybe Rod's problem is, he's always at a point in his life where someone could talk him into being gay. At any rate, there is something 'essential' about gender only when you need to reproduce, or you're looking for a reason to tell other people which bathroom they can use, because miserable, uptight prick.

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  120. John Wesley Hardin1:53 PM

    "I am a selfish asshole!"
    "Come sit here by me."

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  121. John Wesley Hardin1:55 PM

    "If I only had a brain."
    "I don't want you for your brain, big fella."

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  122. John Wesley Hardin2:00 PM

    "being hit over the head" You forgot "with a stale baguette"

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  123. John Wesley Hardin2:06 PM

    See, but Rod knows better than those types that denigrate all French culture. He's an elitist AND an authoritarian prig.

    ReplyDelete
  124. ranks right up there with "some say...

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  125. mrstilton2:24 PM

    The pile of firewood around that stake needs to be at least... three times as big.

    ReplyDelete
  126. there is something essential and unchosen about maleness and femaleness ... and that's why if you walk thru a Toys R Us store you'll find the girl's section a hideous shade of pink with some lavender and turquoise. The boys section will be a manly RED and Orange and Black!


    We don't want people to be puzzled by what is "essential & unchosen" about sexual traits.

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  127. Nimmo E Null2:29 PM

    But you know, he's right. There IS something essential and unchosen about maleness and femaleness. It's just that sometimes that essential unchosen maleness is felt by someone in a female body, or vice versa. Or you're a male with an essential unchosen attraction to other males, or a female attracted to other women - not a matter of choice, just how it is.
    No one's commanding Rod to abandon any ideas but it sure wouldn't hurt him to expand them a little. Oh, and stop being a dickhead too.

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  128. Rod's only into woodworking for the hand-rubbed finish.

    ReplyDelete
  129. I liked the "Cheeseburger Song".

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  130. While they wonder if their pumps come with a Bitcoin-back guarantee. (Hint: You're Libertarians, so hope you learned to swim, motherfucker.)

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  131. "Dante put Ulysses in Hell . . ." Hell (so to speak), Dante put all the Greeks in Hell --well, Limbo, with no chance for Heaven--for the crime of being born before Jesus. No fair!

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  132. That's quite the God he has. That God created millions of people with the explicit intention of denying them salvation.

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  133. Gromet3:03 PM

    Maybe it helps 'em overcome their inferiority complex when at dinner parties surrounded by well-traveled libtards. "Hey, I read a guy who goes to Lyon."

    Of course, no one will have any idea what they're talking about, because they'll be pronouncing it "Lion."

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  134. smut clyde3:04 PM

    Which body-mod corresponds to fracking? AFAF.

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  135. Call me when a corporation chops the dicks off 100,000 square miles of
    Brazilian men without giving them any say in it and it wrecks our oxygen
    supply.Well, I suppose it's possible that the remaining supply of Brazilian men would have to start breathing much more heavily.

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  136. LookWhosInTheFreezer3:15 PM

    Don't forget: people might be pressured to learn new words like "Cis", which is apparently an unacceptable burden to place on any human being.

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  137. Oh, like rod woulld object to that?

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  138. I have to wonder why he's using a fictional character for this.

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  139. Ask Jonah Goldberg.

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  140. I can't imagine why his sister hated him.

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  141. BigHank533:27 PM

    Scrotal saline infusion?

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  142. smut clyde3:28 PM

    I got Rod's Cultural Ark right here!

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  143. Maybe G-d lacked foresight? While I yield to no one in my hatred and contempt for Dershowitz his book The Genesis of Justice http://www.amazon.com/The-Genesis-Justice-Injustice-Commandments/dp/0446524794# is really pretty interesting and argues that G-d is learning, all through the Torah. He starts out as one kind of god and learns from his mistakes (sort of).

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  144. DocAmazing3:45 PM

    He would go over there, pockets full of francs, and wonder why everyone wants to be paid in Euros.

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  145. ColBatGuano3:56 PM

    How many board feet of that "timber" will it take to build a cultural ark?

    ReplyDelete
  146. Dreher being what he is, I'm sure he would have made his living denouncing Christians to the authorities while lamenting in the Temple of Zeus that nobody really respects the old ways any more.

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  147. coozledad4:15 PM

    I don't know, but neither of them are good for potable water.

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  148. coozledad4:21 PM

    everything was eaten raw

    You've lost Rod there.

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  149. Ah! Cis-gendered people. Why do we need this term, exactly?

    It's up there with the new push to expand LGBT to LGBTQIU. For most people outside the small activist base, this sort of thing is at once confusing and off-putting. Rather than coming across as expansive, it makes it more difficult for John Q. Citizen to empathize with those whom the enlarged umbrella might cover. Hell, even my gay friends find this (the ever-expanding abbreviation) objectionable.

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  150. brandonrg4:27 PM

    I wonder if rod will be annoyed by hearing French people pronouncing French words and names correctly.

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  151. brandonrg4:27 PM

    Also, that whole consent and agency thing, he clearly does not get it. Human bodies are like forest ecosystems? Huh?

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  152. You say that now, but when the giant magnifying lens is hovering overhead . . .

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  153. M. Krebs4:36 PM

    Yes, Friends, welcome to Pastor Dreher’s Hour of Reckoning, with Organ Leroy at his organ again, and the Fifty-Voice St. Louis Aquarium Choir.

    I’m Deacon E. L. Mouse.

    But, Dear Friends, in these days of modern time, when you can’t tell the ACs from the DCs, well aren’t we all yearning for someone who can turn on a little stopping power?

    Dear Friends, I mean a smokey glass. Don’t you think I mean a lightning Rod with which to chase these spooks away?

    Don’t you know I mean our own Pastor Rod Dreher!

    He’s been up for a week, but he’s coming down!

    White Lightning, white Lightning, this is Ground Beef Control. Do you read me? Over.

    I read only Good Books. Over.

    Ho, ho, ho! You must be way out there, Pastor. Over.

    I’m high alright, but not on false drugs. I’m high on the real thing, powerful gasoline, a clean windshield,and a shoeshine. Over.

    He’s turning over!

    I’m all right, Roger. Just a little argument with my co-pilot. And guess what, Rog? The little needle pointing to “E,” and, while that’s always stood for excellent in my book, I guess it means I’m out of gas.

    You’ll have to sing me in, my friends. My favorite. Hymn 15--17.

    Aghh . . .

    I’m down!

    Thank you, Dear Friends, I’m down, I’m grounded, safe and sound, trailing clouds of glory, I’m down.

    And I’m marching! Yes, Dear Friends, I’m marching to dinner!

    ‘Cause Godamighty, I’m hungry!

    Yes! I’m hungry!

    Safe and sound and hungry!


    We’re hungry!

    Of course you’re hungry! I’m hungry! We’re all hungry! So let’s eat!

    Let’s eat!

    And he said the word! What was it?

    Hot dog!

    And we ate it! And what was the word?

    Hot Dog!

    Yes, dear friends, a mighty Hot Dog is our Lord!

    I’m not talking about Hate! No, I’m talking about Eight! Dinner at Eight! Let’s eat!

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  154. Duncan4:43 PM

    I don't see what ground Dreher has for complaint. Jesus, after all, extolled those who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. Dreher should be calling for faith-based sex-reassignment clinics, instead of denying his Lord.

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  155. smut clyde5:18 PM

    Turns out that slippery elms are not actually that well lubricated.

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  156. ColBatGuano5:20 PM

    And how do you even check out their gender? Best case is you're peaking at the urinal, but just using the urinal is pretty much a dead give away. If someone is in a stall, you're going to have to go to some heroic effort to catch a glimpse.

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  157. ColBatGuano5:27 PM

    I wonder how many of Rod's reader's heads exploded upon seeing that comment.

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  158. tigrismus5:36 PM

    Tree huggers, the man said.

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  159. And I forget; was that before or after He demanded the Israelites commit genocide on all their polytheistic neighbors?

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  160. smut clyde5:42 PM

    Do cultural ark-ists dream of mechanical cows?

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  161. If you read the Old Testament, God comes across as being seriously character disordered.

    ReplyDelete
  162. davdoodles6:10 PM

    I believe he's bemoaning how difficult it's becoming to get his "eco-tourist" jollies on in a forest of towering, lush, humid cocks.
    .

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  163. Liberal Facialist6:16 PM

    "clear cutting, so to speak, their own bodies."

    yeah, what the hell is that? He's opposed to shaving? Cutting the foreskin off the penis? wax treatments? Eyebrow plucking?

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  164. davdoodles6:27 PM

    Dreher: "The task of the traditionalist today is to live in such a way that truth
    and sanity survive the darkening of our collective intellect."


    The crazy repressed bastard really does hit the old "stopped clock" meme on the head with surprising, albeit utterly insight-less, regularity.
    .

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  165. whetstone6:38 PM

    It may well be that this civilization continues in relative peace and
    prosperity for some time. I certainly hope it does, because I live in
    it.


    "Father, how did the war begin?"
    "Well, son, you see, there were some people who were born with one kind of sexual organ, and then they changed them to the other kind."
    "It wasn't complete economic collapse, followed by the election of an authoritarian fascist who promised a return to national and ethnic manifest destiny on a foundation of war? Like usual?"
    "No, son, you'd think so. But this time around it was about sexy bits. You're going to have to trust me on this one."

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  166. Sounds like the Star Trek (TOS) "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708435/ only with hermaphrodites. Or maybe I mean the Sneetches if they were obsessed with genitalia instead of stars.

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  167. I believe this is no more than the last cry of the anchorite before he takes up his sandwich board reading "The End is Nigh" and backs himself into a corner/cave.

    ReplyDelete
  168. coozledad7:12 PM

    Oh blinding light, oh light that blinds
    I can not see
    look out for me.

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  169. As a member of The American Left, I'd be just fine if those who clear-cut forests would undertake to become "the other thing".

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  170. Smurch7:33 PM

    Bearing in mind that saying someone is "a little fascist" is like saying someone is "a little pregnant".

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  171. "instead of"?

    (Happy Dr. Seuss' Birthday, everyone.)

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  172. billcinsd7:50 PM

    aren't the clear cutters more or less balanced by people planting new growth forests? or do only birth penii count?

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  173. redoubtagain7:59 PM

    Food Lion, the nearest of which is in Hinesville, Georgia, outside Fort Stewart, which he can always claim to have visited instead (don't know about the saucisson, though)

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  174. smut clyde8:00 PM

    I checked the Whackyweedia about "gopher-wood" and learned stuff:
    Others, noting the physical similarity between the Hebrew letters g and k, suggest that the word may actually be kopher, the Hebrew word meaning "pitch"; thus kopher wood would be pitched wood.
    HURR HURR "pitch wood" HURR HURR

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  175. M. Krebs8:26 PM

    I've seen a few of those bovine ushers in movie theaters.

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  176. billcinsd8:26 PM

    one of those erectile dysfunction pumps?

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  177. billcinsd8:26 PM

    or Madame Lyon, that woman what lives over on 4th Street and who our Cousin Jimmy said was "kinda easy"

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  178. billcinsd8:27 PM

    "I am ____________!"

    Spartacus

    and what Servile War are we up to now? Spartacus' events were the 3rd Servile War. I'm guessing we could be in the 50s by now.

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  179. M. Krebs8:27 PM

    Huh? Nearest to what? Maybe Lyons, GA? (Which actually is pronounced "Lions" and isn't that far from Hinesville.)

    ReplyDelete
  180. M. Krebs8:27 PM

    Not board feet, silly. Cubit feet.

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  181. M. Krebs8:27 PM

    That's a nice euphemism for being a prick.

    ReplyDelete
  182. smut clyde8:54 PM

    http://www.artcornwall.org/ithell%20pine%20family%201941.jpg

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  183. gocart mozart8:54 PM

    Conservatives are against trans people but they are for the Trans Pacific Partnership ! Hypocrites!

    ReplyDelete
  184. He couldn't have tried out his stuff on an ant colony first?

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  185. It's to do with the grifternomics of scale.

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  186. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:27 PM

    But they are blind when it applies to human beings clear-cutting, so to speak, their own bodies.

    So to speak. Yes. If the speaking is in tongues, the tongues are all in your cheek, and the cheek is not on your face...

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  187. coozledad9:28 PM

    From Halstead's cyclopedia of miniature golf courses that did not advance beyond the planning stage

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  188. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person9:47 PM

    Tell me again what this "crunchiness" of Drear''s Conservatism is all about. Because What little I read of his stuff (which I primarily do here) come across as just as fresh-dog-turd-underfoot squishy as any of the rest of 'em. Hell, Cardinal Douthat's sick-beagle plop has more meat on it, and it's mostly bones picked over by better writers before him, and not even in this century.
    I apologize for the disgusting mix of metaphors, there...

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  189. bekabot9:49 PM

    As a hardcore admirer of capitalism, he'd do it for pay.

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  190. satch9:59 PM

    Can what I heard be true... that Dreher ordered six dozen Rhonda Rousey tee shirts?

    ReplyDelete
  191. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:02 PM

    "Mowing the lawn", nudge-nudge...

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  192. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:18 PM

    Not like they were back in the early 20th, when pink was a manly man'sboy's color, and blue was for those sissy girls...

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  193. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:27 PM

    Cis is creeping pseudointellectuallism, used precisely for its if-I-have-to-explain-it-you-ain't-gonna-understand-it qualities...

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  194. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:27 PM

    I'm sure he's really rather you didn't remind him. Really.

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  195. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:27 PM

    Well, Zocialism of one sort or another, at any rate. The phrase "the darkening of our collective intellect" has a most definite Hitlerian ring to it. Are we really sure it's not a quote from Mein Kampf?

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  196. Is that a franc or your pocket, or . . .

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  197. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:49 PM

    Riiiiight...

    ReplyDelete