It’s a column day, so I don’t expect either of the posts currently in the pipes to come through until tomorrow (or, more likely, this
weekend). Instead, I have for you this morning documented evidence that Ivy League twentysomethings run Washington–or at least the Washington blogosphere.
The roster of contributors for the New Republic’s group blog, The Plank:
Jonathan Chait, Michigan ‘94 or ‘95
Jonathan Cohn, Harvard
Eve Fairbanks, Yale ‘05
Jamie Kirchick, Yale ‘06 (not on some news feeds)
Zvika Krieger, Yale ‘06
Dayo Olopade, Yale ‘07
Christopher Orr, BU
Cara Parks, Bard ‘05
Josh Patashnik, Harvard ‘07
Barron YoungSmith, Brown ‘06
I can’t find university information for John B. Judis, Laurence Lowe or Jason Zengerle. But that’s an Ivy majority regardless, and almost certainly a Yale plurality. (Another corner of the blogosphere we’ve taken over, though I doubt Poulos refers to the TNR kids when he plugs the “Yale mafia“…)
NOTE REGARDING THE TITLE: Krieger was actually in Scroll and Key, which most undergrads agree is better than Bones these days anyway. I don’t know about the rest of them, though given what he’s written I doubt Kirchick was in any…)
- Writing a midterm paper on the appropriate relationship between participation in and criticism of tradition in the American university. Quoth the professor, anachronistically: “Plato’s Guardians aren’t public intellectuals, because public intellectuals usually don’t know how to fire guns.”
- Having arguments with nihilists. “Well, that depends on what you mean by relativism.”
- Trying to write a cover letter which contains phrases other than “Robert Nisbet would love your organization’s work, and I love Robert Nisbet, so please hire me.” Also, the term “intermediate institution” is probably out.
- Finding conservatives to condemn the welfare state in Thursday’s debate.
- Indulging in fantasies about the anarchistic/neo-feudal science fiction novel I will
one day probably never write. Come on! Manorialism! What respectable sci-fi novel doesn’t include manorialism? Don’t answer that.
Actual content to return after Thursday…
I know it’s poor form to throw up another link before making an honest woman of the first one. But this doesn’t need to be wrapped in the warm puff pastry of a post, except to say that comparing cigarette smoking to terrorism is wrong on the following levels:
- It elides the distinction between a homicidal telos and a suicidal telos with collateral damage — ruinously;
- It continues the anti-smoking trend of turning all nonsmokers into anti-smokers, which is both
- a failure to recognize that recreational smoking exists and
- an unnecessary introduction of strife into society;
- There actually were lung disease risks associated with the debris from the towers, but they could have been averted by proper reactive government action rather than the proactive (and usually inappropriate) government action of smoking bans;
- If using 9/11 imagery to make a point were effective, Rudy Giuliani would still be in the presidential race. (Thank heavens for backlash.)
h/t: Copyranter, to whom I’d be tempted to send in my resume and cover letter if I didn’t suspect it would be posted for the mockery of the masses.
You have to understand: I was up all night writing a magazine-style piece for a class, kicking myself for thinking I could ever do journalism, and then I got out of class and read this piece and now I want to run away and join the paper.
Eventually, this will be replaced by a post on Characteristics of a Postmodern Journalism, or The Case For Using Facts On Occasion, and Eschewing Anecdotes. For now, though, I’d better nap, as visions of beat reports dance in my head.
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