Firehose #89: Nice Lions

Also: Frankly a bit too much Moynihan out there (though more to come!)

It’s always nice to see who turns up at—or even helps organize!—Reason events in New York City. This past week’s, serially advertised here, was a terrific intellectual exchange between the great social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and the libertarian critics of his number-one bestseller The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic in Mental Illness. Interlocutor Nick Gillespie (veteran of Special Dispatch #72 and Episode #379) asked the author to give an elevator pitch for his book, but first Haidt said this:

I want to just make a very brief opening statement, which is [that] when…we were all milling around before, Matt Welch said, "Welcome to the lion's den," because there's an interesting thing going on with this issue, which is that there's not really a left-right divide. Left and right are actually pretty much together. The main debate is actually between left and right and libertarians. And here's the great thing about libertarians: When they disagree with you, if they hate what you're doing, you know what they do? They make arguments, and they give evidence, and they have fun doing it. There's humor and there's excitement, things like this. As Matt acknowledged, it was a joke like, "You guys are very nice lions." You're not all libertarians, but you're all nice lions.

Then the other thing I just wanted to say is when my wife Jan and I, when we moved to New York in 2011, we were welcomed by Gerry Ohrstrom, and you and Matt and many others. So the extended Reason network in New York City has been really the most exciting intellectual community. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for all of that.

Kill me with kindness, Jonathan Haidt! Anyway, here’s the whole shebang:

* Big week for Moynihan sightings in the wild. First came an Honestly conversation about Iran/Israel/America with former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren. Then Ol’ Reaction Face made a legendary Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em appearance under the come-hither headline “Michael Moynihan and the Eternal Orgasm,” which among other topics discusses the new PBS doc The Incomparable Mr. Buckley (embedded below). Rumor also has it that you may soon get to read a long-awaited piece from our salmon-shorts-wearing-weirdo over at The Free Press! And what the hell, via (who else!) Busty, here’s a playlist of Michael’s oddly truncated Business of Life hosting gig on Vice News.

* Speaking of both TFP and, uh, SEIYGE, Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, S.D. #51, #326, #368, #407, Members Only #184) this past week chewed the cud with Sarah Hepola (#354) and Nancy Rommelmann (#79, S.D. #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111) about “the paradox of anarchists attending meetings, why writers can be precious little bitches,” and “the upcoming DNC in Chicago,” the latter of which Eli wrote on this week. Boy, a live show in Chicago two days before the Democratic National Convention sure sounds like a fun idea, right? (More deets TK.)

* Speaking of our fun Chicago meet-up the other Friday, um, sorry about the whole Covid super-spreader thing! While y’all convalesce, do check out beloved ChiTown listener Vincent Caruso’s great Illinois Policy Institute mini-documentary, Local 1: The Rise of America's Most Powerful Teachers Union.

* Gratified to see y’all enjoy #451 w/ Batya Ungar-Sargon. Her new book is Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women; her old book is Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy. Reason’s Robby Soave (#332) recently gave Batya the C-SPAN Book TV treatment.

* Speaking of C-SPAN, here’s another of my ye olde Book TV interviews recently dumped onto YouTube: a June 2021 special with Breitbart’s Alex Marlow about his book Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media's Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption. Which generated the classic Breitbart headline, “Reason’s Matt Welch Confronts Alex Marlow with Debunked Charlottesville Hoax on C-SPAN.”

* There are frankly too many NPR-related links chasing too few minutes before the weekend runs out. Suffice it to say that a forthcoming Members Only episode includes an AMAZING bit of listener research; and in the meantime, via Claire, comes “GUEST COLUMN: Who the Fuck Did You THINK Ran NPR?”

* Comment of the Week, of special resonance to our Chicago superspreader pals, comes from Cluis, on the Smoke ‘Em site:

Holy shit. Talk about some unexpected feels. So one of the guys that was really foundational for me to start doodling people in cafes, bars and the like was an old school caricature artist who had a shockingly similar line quality to Nancy's stepdad up there.

I was a junior in high school, and he was about 20 years out of his professional life and just working as a technical assistant for this random class I ended up in. He always smelled like 2 stroke fuel (from his moped) and whiskey. He was gruff, leathery, and generally kept to himself amongst most the kids there. But one day he caught me doing a quick sketch on the chalk board and said something like "Hey kid, you aren't going to get any ladies or money from doing that shit, but if you want to know how to do it better I might have some suggestions."

I never had an interest in caricature drawings, I have WAY too many issues with my own lopsided head to start drawing other people exaggerated. But it turns out in order to be good at doing caricature well, you gotta know how to draw what is actually there first. Over the next two years or so he would drop little pearls of wisdom and encouragement on that score and it was pretty foundational for me.

To make a long story longer, fast forward almost 30 years and I was in a bar in Michigan doing my doodle thing (I just take a few postcard sized bits of paper, do the doodle and them leave them at the bar when I stumble out) and this old fossil wanders up to me and tells me about this guy that did all the drawings on the walls. I hadn't noticed them (tunnel vison for the booze) but there were a few dozen of them a la Old Town Ale House mingled in with other bullshit in a way that it almost becomes wallpaper. They looked familiar to me, so I asked who was the guy that did them and he told me. Same dude. Used to come into that bar when it was in a different location back in the day and do the same shit I was doing. He died some years back after years of drinking and living a hard life, but I think about him often when I am doing the doodles of people. Anywho, clearly ol’ Charlie wasn't on the level of Mr. Levine up there, but he def. made a dent. Thanks for that.

fwiw link to said bar doodles I do if you like: https://photos.app.goo.gl/fHEi6zCuihBLe9mu6

good pod obviously. But then again I could listen to you three chat about anything; I can fully comprehend, respect and enjoy any reference all three of you make. It’s like you are all in my head!

* Chat of the Week comes from Daniel Boharic; you have to click on the link to get the full visual.

* Speaking of Comments/Chats: After nearly two years, we have had to for the first time revoke the commenting/chatting privileges of one paying customer. Hopefully the last one. Please don’t be a dick, relentlessly, to other members of the community, then continue to do so after being serially asked to behave in more relatably human fashion. Not hard!

This week’s Walkoff obituary comes recommended by McCaffeinated: