I meant to write a long, reflective post about my fellow libertarians and paleo-conservatives and their (often disappointing) reaction to the Ron Paul newsletters. But that horrow show hasn't played itself out long enough to form valuable thoughts on it. Instead, I thought I’d mention a phone call I got a few hours ago - one that will haunt me for a week. But first, a little theological background

Evangelicals have an incredible confidence in their ability to understand Scripture. One of the central (and most radical) doctrines of the Protestant Reformation was that man could understand Holy Writ without any mediators (i.e. The Church, Tradition -etc…). Less then a decade ago, this confidence led me to take charge of my public high school’s Bible Club. We sought no official recognition from the school, and in turn the school was delighted not to recognize us. The people that came would have been horrified to know that I was on my way back into the Catholic Church but no one else would take care of it. I often prepared the week’s lessons while in my AP English class - taking occasional five-minute breaks to stare at my friend Andrea’s mini-skirts and the long pink legs that ran out of them.* That may not be what Luther imagined the consequence of Sola Scriptura.

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Here it is, your exclusive look inside the office of The American Conservative - or at least a part of my desk during lunch. What's interesting here? Well There is the fact that I don't keep my books separated into any categories. There is some David Foster Wallace right near a huge biography of Jefferson Davis. Apparently I can't even keep my volumes of the Encyclopedia of Tariffs and Trade in U.S. History in their proper order and they oddly sit next to a collection of Truman Capote's fiction.

 

In the foreground there is my daily calendar which features pinup drawings from the late 50s and early 60s and a short story collection I'm working through - "Cheating at Canasta" by William Trevor - an amazing collection of well crafted stories by a sure-handed Irish author. Also, you can see my instruction manual for the camera itself. I might get flack for the Huckabee bumper sticker. All I can say is that as a reporter you tend to collect this stuff. On another part of my desk I have both the American and Isreali flags I took from a conference of Christian Zionists.

Looking over the picture it seems that the oddest concentration of books happens on the lefthand side. I have those encyclopedias next to a collection of Antonio Gramci's work, then Dave Egger's "How We Are Hungry" and then Hilaire Belloc's "The Servile State" and a biography of Mikhail Bakunin (which I loved).

Lots of people gave my employers hell for our last issue's cover art.

Some of these same people want to support a campaign that makes this its closing pitch:

 

Fitting that on the day of the Iowa Caucuses, Reason magazine discovers that there is a libertarian in the race. Sure, sure, you say: Dave Weigel has been covering this Ron Paul thing from the start.

Absolutely. Wonderfully, in fact.

And Jesse Walker wrote a few pieces online too.

Yep.

But, according to this month's cover story,by Brian Doherty,

These Paulistas are what hopeful libertarians have fantasized about for decades: a disaffected but engageable mass of Americans, many of them hidden among the 45 percent or so who tend not to vote. They support an argument advanced by David Boaz of the Cato Institute and David Kirby of the America’s Future Foundation, who estimate, based on detailed polling data, that 9 to 14 percent of Americans hew to a roughly libertarian political ideology—and that this group has been shifting away from the GOP during the current Bush administration.

(Somehow I doubt David Boaz has been fantasizing about Ron Paul. Don't tell Ron Paul either, or else we might have another reason to call him Dr. No) So, if these Paulistas are a libertarian dream, why is it making the cover of the leading libertarian magazine six months after Paul made his big splash?

Normally I'm against the whole anti-cocktail-party critique of D.C. I want to be at the cocktail parties myself. They are nice. I want people who go to fancy cocktail parties to adopt my politics. I think that is one of the definitions of success. But indulge me for a moment:: it doesn't seem like D.C. libertarians were all that against the war in Iraq - at least when it counted. Ron Paul privileges fidelity to the Constitution more than, say, abortion rights. And that tamps down the enthusiasm of the Beltway set too.

There is a cultural divide in libertarianism. Reason stands for the future in which, presumably, we'll freely and capitalistically upload our brains and genitals onto a Vivendi-Murdoch server to our great pleasure and profit. Ron Paul talks about things in the past, like the Founder's vision for our country and the Constitution they wrote. How quaint!

Is the Ron Paul candidacy perfect? No. Should libertarians be falling over themselves to support him? Absolutely. In fact, his campaign has, in many respects been so poorly managed that I'm surprised it hasn't ruined his candidacy. Noteworthy also is the fact that this piece as many others did, profiled not the man, but the movement - which is more colorful than Paul himself.

Read the piece. It's better late than never. Welcome aboard Reason magazine, the beer is getting warm here. But most of us are friendly.

You all know how much we like Michael Cera here. But you don't need to see Juno, Helen Rittelmeyer saw it for us. Bookmark her blog now and say you were into Cigarette Smoking back when...

In the meantime, I found something to look forward to in '08.

 

 

 

So, one of the New Year's resolutions of this blog is to blog more. So, to that end, I got a digital camera thinking that the photographs I take would occasion a thought. Here goes. This underexposed beauty was taken at Brother Jimmy's near MSG - literally around the corner from the store I got the camera in.

I ask: What has happened to Pabst Blue Ribbon? Less than a decade ago Pabst had to close its Milwaukee operations and move to Texas. Then in 2001, at the lowest of the low, one bar in Portland, Oregon switches from a local brew to Pabst, and one barbershop in that same city starts to carry it.

Suddenly, I discovered a world in New York where bearded hipsters played Kings of Leon records at bars that offered "Blue Collar Tuesday" specials to those  (usually unbearded middle-aged souls) who showed their union cards. These bars invariably smell like urine. Now two years later, here it is being sold in a top flight sports-bar chain in NYC right next to Madison Square Garden.

I can't precisely explain how a product goes from iconicly boring brand, to being hip overnight, except to say that precisely because it was so iconicly boring - and cheap - PBR was a prime target for a cohort that has tried to rehabilitate mutton-chop facial hair and Southern Rock. Now that PBR is in places like Brother Jimmy's - an establishment whose only hipster cache is that until a year ago it occasionally played Ben Folds Five records while the patrons scarfed down buffalo wings and NBA playoff upsets -- I think it is safe to say that PBR will decline in status-value to hipsters. One beer brand that is particularly well suited to the next hipster renovation is Schaefer - just get a load of that perfectly down-market authentic can design. It just so happens, Schaefer was purchased by Pabst in 1999.

And it even has a perfect YouTube video.  

 

 

But if I had to guess, my bet is that young people begin rejecting the ironic embrace of long-defunct brands, and begin once again to ironicly embrace the almost-defunct projects of major corporate brands. Expect to see lots of Bud Ice at the hipest bars near you.  I close my eyes and hear the faint strains of a Feist CD and an idiot 24 yr. old in a mustache explaining that, "The ad guys at A.B. [that's Anheuser Busch] have wanted to dump the Ice for years man. They don't even know what they've got!"

Some of my friends and acquaintances in this business of content production put out end of year lists of albums (Peter Suderman, and Matt Yglesias occur to me.) At my advanced age of twenty-five, I find this task impossible. Maybe four years ago I would have had some idea. Now, I find I don't have time to listen to that much new music. If I think about the albums I've listened to this year- I find that only a few were released this year: Easy Tiger (an e.p. technically) by Ryan Adams and the Cardinals was okay. Old Crow Medicine Show's album, Big Iron World was a constant companion on my long car trips and I find it came out last summer.

I only bought the Kanye West album, Graduation (which tops Peter's list), in the last week of the year and I like it. I was always delighted when "Stronger" came on the radio. I like "Flashing Lights" too. But the pleasures of this album are slightly diminished by a thought which was embryonic earlier in the decade when OutKast was at the top of the hip-hop charts, that this is "safe-for-whites" hip-hop.  (More thoughts on that later)

 Only a few years ago I was the first person I knew to buy The Shins first album, Oh Inverted World. Now, I can't say that I've listened to Arcade Fire, or St. Vincent. I've let my music magazine subscriptions expire, so I can barely even tell you what they are supposed to sound like. The two last things I remember as being "cool" (to me) when they came out were The Yeah Yeah Yeahs first album (haven't heard their others), and The White Stripes.

Film, likewise. I saw "The Lives of Others" this year - which makes Peter's list also - and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Technically it came out in 2006.

As we passed into 2008, it became time to print our predictions. I did this once before, and was only correct that in two predictions - that my writing would appear in a magazine, and that I would terribly wound and offend about 20% of the people I met.

As for political predictions, I have very few. I can make a case that Romney will win Iowa tomorrow and the nomination. I can make a case that Huckabee will win the nomination.  Same with Clinton and Obama. But in January of '06 I predicted the Republicans would hold onto the Senate.

I will predict that the salutory effects of "the surge" will begin to end. The surge will have only made it possible for conservatives to blame our next Democrat president for losing Iraq, the way some people still blame Democrats for "losing" Vietnam. It will also have made the narrative of the war sufficiently unclear and prevent the political elites of our nation from drawing any meaningful lessons from Iraq.

Other than that I expect death will continue to end every human life and the Mets will make the playoffs this year.