btw— it seems to me that Taibbi and Kirn must be the most loathed people by the corporate media. You 2 routinely rub their faces in the utter bullshit they have peddled for some time.
Would be interesting to see/hear what ATW community thinks about this assessment?
Either way congratulations on—in one person’s view— holding corporate media’ feet to the fire
Who's hide do we want? We want the child fuckers to be prosecuted. What planet are you guys on? It's not just the MAGA morons who want the Epstein truth. Maybe not the DNC and Big D's either. But Epstein shows the rot and crime at the center of the Empire.
Really enjoyed the discussion of how many foreign correspondents don't actually speak the language of the people they're covering-- it sounds like the military. Three of my brothers were/are in, and two were so frustrated (and also highly intelligent danger junkies) at their inability to communicate with locals that they made a point of learning the languages of anywhere they were stationed. So I've got a brother fluent in French and good at Pashto, and another who is good at Japanese and Spanish and passable in Arabic. It makes for far more interesting night lives. The stories I hear from them are so different from what comes through the media it could make a person crazy if they focused on it too much.
The joy of solving old crimes is the prevention of new crimes. Like blackmail, prostitution, pedophilia, and money laundering. What does our world look like absent 20 years of AIPAC and Israel coercion? What does our world look like if it continues because the guilty go unpunished? ATW proves once again that they hate the “great never mind “ until they don’t. You don’t need to discredit yourself any further. Your audience size suggests that you are almost two morons at the end of the bar.
Loved the optimism. I also have faith in American ingenuity, and our general attitude of not taking any crap from anyone just because they think they're better than we are.
Really thought provoking interview.
Would love to see Walter running the Library of Congress.
Imagine they said "We know who killed Kennedy. Name coming next week." Then a few days later, "Stop being conspiracy theorists. Who said we have a name?" It's not about the Epstein files. It's the gaslighting.
Here's where I want to tell the story of my trip last week to Barnes & Noble nearby. I specifically went there to read Thomas Pynchon's Foreword to "1984". Having heard from Walter about the 75th edition with the EXTRA foreword, with trigger warnings, I wanted to read them both.
But there was NO WAY I was giving the publisher or Orwell's estate any money. So. I walked to the information desk and told them I was going to stand in the stacks and read the two introductions but not going to buy the book. I explained the situation. I told them that my beef was not with B&N but with the publishers, and that I really appreciated the existence of this B&N store where I could browse and read the bits I wanted. In fact I appreciated this enough that I was giving them $5, essentially to "rent" the book for twenty minutes. I laid a $5 bill (admittedly somewhat crumpled) on the counter.
They were confused. The girl there seemed to get it, but the bald manager-guy in the corporate faux-casual chambray shirt and black wireless headset looked apprehensive. Like, "Oh we got us a crazy guy, remember last time where's that button under the counter....". I offered the $5 again and he said he wouldn't take it, and I said just put it in the register, dude, what kind of crappy store manager refuses money from customers? ? I left it on the counter and suggested he find a place to put it.
I went to the stacks and found 1984. It was the edition Walter had brandished on the podcast, several copies, and another version that was actually ALSO the same 75th Anniv. Edition in a slightly smaller form factor, for obscure reasons. Meaning that anybody, say a high school student, reading this book for the first time, the very first thing they will read is the trigger warnings, which I realize, is EXACTLY THE POINT.
The intro by Kenji Alt-Harvard or whomever did not interest me and anyway Walter had already beat it to death. I read Pynchon's Foreword. It was wonderful. Insightful, informative, sharp, funny, and also warm and beautiful. I had to be careful not to drip a tear on my temporary rental book. On my way out I chatted up a different manager, a pleasant middle aged woman who looked like she had kind of lived in book stores her whole life. She was perplexed, then astonished, then appalled that the new edition of 1984 required trigger warnings, and I think she actually thanked me and marched right over to the FICTION section to Check This Out. I last saw her heading kinda towards "O" but I'm not sure because she was only 5'-2" and I couldn't see her over the shelves, which would stress me out if I was her but I'm also not 5'-2", I'm sure she has cope.
PS -- After I left and was trying to get back to the commuter rail in an environment designed for cars, and I was halfway through the empty Macy's with the scary perfume ladies when I stopped, reconsidered, and walked back to B&N. You're already here, dude, might as well check....
Went back to FICTION, found "K" .... K, K, Kinsella, Kinshasa,... No Walter Kirn. Drat. Capitalist Bastards!!!! Aaargh!!!! I then noted, not for the first time, that "Celebrity/Music Biography" was a big heavily promoted section with a dozen books about Bob Dylan, his music, and of course the recent bio-pic, but there was no book *BY* Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I bought a lovely short story collection by Zadie Smith. I noted that my spurned $5 had vanished from the counter, and I tried to find any of the people I Had talked to, to maybe apply that $5 to the purchase of this charming Zadie Smith book, but even though I am broke I couldn't raise a ruckus to essentially kinda chisel ZS out of $5.
"Grand Union" is great. B&N Needs more Walter Kirn. 3.5/5 stars, needs improvement.
BR, I took the time to travel with you in your comments here, thank you. I would totally have offered something like the $5!,...put it in their wokey collection jar for their trouble of refusing. Maybe they'll talk about it in the staff room and realize something useful to their clientele.
I learned on last episode of ATW that Orwell et al worked for British Ministry of Info during WWII. I had never felt that it made sense that 1984 was about the USSR. Having lived thru the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, I can tell you that My Weekly Reader and Highlights for Children wrote that kind of thing constantly. Why would Orwell bother? It would be beneath him to replicate the stereotypes we were being subjected to daily. It makes sense to me now that he was writing about ‘our side’ and warning us about what we are seeing now. For the record, I feel like we in the US are watching Big Brother vs Il Duce.
btw— it seems to me that Taibbi and Kirn must be the most loathed people by the corporate media. You 2 routinely rub their faces in the utter bullshit they have peddled for some time.
Would be interesting to see/hear what ATW community thinks about this assessment?
Either way congratulations on—in one person’s view— holding corporate media’ feet to the fire
As a normal thinking person, I agree. Except I don’t think those attributes are useful in this analysis.
Corporate media deserves everything coming its way.
It has outlived its usefulness.
Who's hide do we want? We want the child fuckers to be prosecuted. What planet are you guys on? It's not just the MAGA morons who want the Epstein truth. Maybe not the DNC and Big D's either. But Epstein shows the rot and crime at the center of the Empire.
Really enjoyed the discussion of how many foreign correspondents don't actually speak the language of the people they're covering-- it sounds like the military. Three of my brothers were/are in, and two were so frustrated (and also highly intelligent danger junkies) at their inability to communicate with locals that they made a point of learning the languages of anywhere they were stationed. So I've got a brother fluent in French and good at Pashto, and another who is good at Japanese and Spanish and passable in Arabic. It makes for far more interesting night lives. The stories I hear from them are so different from what comes through the media it could make a person crazy if they focused on it too much.
The joy of solving old crimes is the prevention of new crimes. Like blackmail, prostitution, pedophilia, and money laundering. What does our world look like absent 20 years of AIPAC and Israel coercion? What does our world look like if it continues because the guilty go unpunished? ATW proves once again that they hate the “great never mind “ until they don’t. You don’t need to discredit yourself any further. Your audience size suggests that you are almost two morons at the end of the bar.
Just watched Walter's interview with Tucker.
Awesome!
Loved the optimism. I also have faith in American ingenuity, and our general attitude of not taking any crap from anyone just because they think they're better than we are.
Really thought provoking interview.
Would love to see Walter running the Library of Congress.
🤮
Imagine they said "We know who killed Kennedy. Name coming next week." Then a few days later, "Stop being conspiracy theorists. Who said we have a name?" It's not about the Epstein files. It's the gaslighting.
Walter‘s location reminds me of that story about the recording of the legendary record from Peter Gabriel, “so “
Peter was refusing to finish lyrics on some of the songs so producer Daniel Lanois locked him in some shed and wouldn’t let him out until he finished.
And they are getting ideas from the Babylon Bee
The auto pen story is an attempt to prebunk the issue.
Wonderful show!
The issue is not whether the affordability issue needs to be resolved, it is how - and all the Dems will propose will be Socialism.
I watched the movie "Network" last night. My Freaking GOD. How could a network journalist or talking head ever meet any person's eye after that?
But, is this pardon business not emblematic of progressive ideology, you are not an individual but merely a member of a group.
The question, probably for SCOTUS, is whether the President can pardon “categories” of people vs. individual people.
Here's where I want to tell the story of my trip last week to Barnes & Noble nearby. I specifically went there to read Thomas Pynchon's Foreword to "1984". Having heard from Walter about the 75th edition with the EXTRA foreword, with trigger warnings, I wanted to read them both.
But there was NO WAY I was giving the publisher or Orwell's estate any money. So. I walked to the information desk and told them I was going to stand in the stacks and read the two introductions but not going to buy the book. I explained the situation. I told them that my beef was not with B&N but with the publishers, and that I really appreciated the existence of this B&N store where I could browse and read the bits I wanted. In fact I appreciated this enough that I was giving them $5, essentially to "rent" the book for twenty minutes. I laid a $5 bill (admittedly somewhat crumpled) on the counter.
They were confused. The girl there seemed to get it, but the bald manager-guy in the corporate faux-casual chambray shirt and black wireless headset looked apprehensive. Like, "Oh we got us a crazy guy, remember last time where's that button under the counter....". I offered the $5 again and he said he wouldn't take it, and I said just put it in the register, dude, what kind of crappy store manager refuses money from customers? ? I left it on the counter and suggested he find a place to put it.
I went to the stacks and found 1984. It was the edition Walter had brandished on the podcast, several copies, and another version that was actually ALSO the same 75th Anniv. Edition in a slightly smaller form factor, for obscure reasons. Meaning that anybody, say a high school student, reading this book for the first time, the very first thing they will read is the trigger warnings, which I realize, is EXACTLY THE POINT.
The intro by Kenji Alt-Harvard or whomever did not interest me and anyway Walter had already beat it to death. I read Pynchon's Foreword. It was wonderful. Insightful, informative, sharp, funny, and also warm and beautiful. I had to be careful not to drip a tear on my temporary rental book. On my way out I chatted up a different manager, a pleasant middle aged woman who looked like she had kind of lived in book stores her whole life. She was perplexed, then astonished, then appalled that the new edition of 1984 required trigger warnings, and I think she actually thanked me and marched right over to the FICTION section to Check This Out. I last saw her heading kinda towards "O" but I'm not sure because she was only 5'-2" and I couldn't see her over the shelves, which would stress me out if I was her but I'm also not 5'-2", I'm sure she has cope.
I would have just sat down and read it without messing with the $5.
Corporate retail can't deal with extra cash; the cash drawer has to balance out at the end of the shift.
Enjoyable interlude to read about, though. Thank you.
PS -- After I left and was trying to get back to the commuter rail in an environment designed for cars, and I was halfway through the empty Macy's with the scary perfume ladies when I stopped, reconsidered, and walked back to B&N. You're already here, dude, might as well check....
Went back to FICTION, found "K" .... K, K, Kinsella, Kinshasa,... No Walter Kirn. Drat. Capitalist Bastards!!!! Aaargh!!!! I then noted, not for the first time, that "Celebrity/Music Biography" was a big heavily promoted section with a dozen books about Bob Dylan, his music, and of course the recent bio-pic, but there was no book *BY* Bob Dylan, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
I bought a lovely short story collection by Zadie Smith. I noted that my spurned $5 had vanished from the counter, and I tried to find any of the people I Had talked to, to maybe apply that $5 to the purchase of this charming Zadie Smith book, but even though I am broke I couldn't raise a ruckus to essentially kinda chisel ZS out of $5.
"Grand Union" is great. B&N Needs more Walter Kirn. 3.5/5 stars, needs improvement.
I had one dark moment where I wondered if "Up in the Air" might be shelved under not Kirn but Clooney.
BR, I took the time to travel with you in your comments here, thank you. I would totally have offered something like the $5!,...put it in their wokey collection jar for their trouble of refusing. Maybe they'll talk about it in the staff room and realize something useful to their clientele.
Thank you, Paige. The phrase," ... travel in your comments" is aces. My comment was long, but fundamentally Walter and Matt adjacent.
The real question: Did you read the Pynchon Foreword? It smote my heart.
I learned on last episode of ATW that Orwell et al worked for British Ministry of Info during WWII. I had never felt that it made sense that 1984 was about the USSR. Having lived thru the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, I can tell you that My Weekly Reader and Highlights for Children wrote that kind of thing constantly. Why would Orwell bother? It would be beneath him to replicate the stereotypes we were being subjected to daily. It makes sense to me now that he was writing about ‘our side’ and warning us about what we are seeing now. For the record, I feel like we in the US are watching Big Brother vs Il Duce.
This was discussed near the end of the Kirn live interview on Tucker just an hour ago.
Thanks I will listen.