I use Facebook as my primary social medium, but I have a Twitter account on which I follow people I find funny and/or interesting, and I enjoy the fact that many of the columnists/reporters I follow post links to news stories I might not otherwise see.  I re-tweet a lot of stuff and only occasionally actually compose an original tweet (140 characters is difficult for me.)  (Iowahawk gets re-tweeted a lot...)  I guess the short answer is that I enjoy Twitter, but if it went away it wouldn't bother me much.

I usually enjoy Matt Labash, but I didn't find his Twitter rant particularly funny.  

I watched the YouTube video of Pitbull's "Open Letter" and I agree with the assertion that he was castigating Jay-Z for his casual attitude towards a freedom suppressing regime.  I've never listened to any of his music before, and only marginally even heard of him, but he did earn a modicum of grudging respect from me.

...Oh, and something else I've noticed: while my adult children do engage a bit with pop culture (some more than others), I've noticed they don't watch a lot of broadcast television (On Demand or Netflix is how they do it) and only one of the four older children even listens to the radio, and yet their music tastes are so much more broad than mine were as a teenager.  Based on what I have observed of my own kids I agree with the theories I've heard floated that many young people today are tired of being plugged in all the time and are disengaging from all but their core interests.  I don't what that means for the future of pop culture, but it will be interesting to see.

I loved the post and the follow-up arguments.  I'm a Conservative Christian mom of five (ages 25 to 10.)  I love rock music, the occasional hip hop or pop song, some country, etc. (mostly rock).  I enjoy a lot of pop culture, but not all.  Being familiar with something and wallowing in it are very different things.  It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.  

I've used song lyrics or movie/TV plots in speaking to my children about moral issues as examples of the pain these lifestyles can cause.  These provide teaching moments in which we show them why they are held to a different standard than most of their friends.

If pop culture truly isn't your thing, don't fake it.  It gets old when people dismissively look down their noses at those who enjoy it.  

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I enjoyed listening to this live so very much.  Looking forward to sharing it with my husband this evening.  These guys are so hilarious.

When we expect the Steyn-Goldberg-Long stuff to appear here as a podcast?  I was cracking up listening to it live, but my husband (also a Ricochet member) wasn't able to hear with me.  I want to share it with him :)

I am so near and yet so far down here in Southern Maryland!  Wish I could be there more than just in spirit.  Someone please have a drink for me.

I haven't read through all the comments here.  I just wanted to add my own female voice:  The Hobbit and LOTR are wonderful.  My entire family are devoted fans of the entire series (I have 4 daughters, so that is a relevant point.)  Our New Year's Eve tradition has become a LOTR movie marathon, finishing the extended versions right before midnight.  They are overall pretty well done, but omitting Tom Bombadil was a mistake, as was enhancing Arwen's role for the sake of adding more female characters to the movie.

A couple of observations:

1) The vast majority of the storyline is limited to a handful of characters on a quest or in battle scenes. In the ancient world of Middle Earth Tolkien created, it would be strange to see a lot of female characters in those contexts.

2) I would not have paid noticed the lack of female characters if it hadn't been pointed out to me.  Female characters just weren't that integral to this particular storyline.

Why can't people just read books and enjoy the works on their own merits without dissecting silly things like this! 

1. Are you married? Yes
2. How old were you when you got married? 22
3. Is it your first marriage? No
4. How long have you been married? 22 years
5. Children? 1 son from a previous marriage, 4 daughters.

I didn't grow up in a family with a very good track record of making marriage work.  My mom and grandmother are each on their third marriages.  After one short-lived, poorly considered false start, I seem to have gotten it right.  Marriage is a lot of work, though, and involves a resolute willingness by both parties to stick it out when times get really tough. As far as the comments about the modernization of women, we have raised some modern women with pretty old-fashioned ideas about marriage.  Two of them were married this past year (one at 21, a month after graduating from college, and the other at 19.)  They're perhaps a bit young, but found some very nice young men who each asked my husband's blessing before proposing to them.  (Our daughters let their boyfriends know they expected that of them.)  They are out there!

Now that 3 of our 5 kids are grown and gone, I'm reflecting more each year on the way we celebrate Christmas.  We are Methodists, and although the Methodist church does "officially" follow a Liturgical calendar, it's rarely advertised (to use a poor word - my brain is so befuddled by over-eating/-drinking I can't think straight) so the whole 12 Days of Christmas thing applies but is seldom observed.  I've recently been thinking about changing our Christmas celebration up a bit so we can properly observe the 12 Days.  Things like waiting until Dec. 24th to put up our tree so that it stays fresh throughout.  (We never take the tree down until Epiphany anyway, and it's usually quite dead and shedding needles everywhere by then.) Planning a special dinner for Twelfth Night, etc.

New Year's Eve is our recently established family tradition of having a Lord of the Rings marathon (extended versions, thank you very much.)  If we start them at noon, they finish up just before midnight.  Everyone knows the movies so well we wander in and out and visit all afternoon and evening.

Very timely post! Thank you!

Just devastated at the news.  Thank you for a wonderful eulogy, Dave.  He was a draw to Ricochet for me in the early days, too, and I loved that he was such a wonderful representative to Harry Potter.  Glorious, sparkling wit...RIP.

I would favor some sort of streamlined temporary amnesty/work permit for illegals who can prove they are gainfully employed and self-supporting, contributing members of their communities.  I don't think they should be moved to the front of the line for citizenship, and there should eventually be a hearing of some sort with the govt reserving the right to deport them.  There are people waiting to come into this country who can't simply walk here, and it's patently unfair to give head-of-the-line privileges to people who broke the rules.

Once they have their temporary amnesty, they should be able to qualify for in-state tuition and other benefits, but until then, I don't think so.  Quite frankly, America cannot afford it right now.

I know there are a lot of hard-working, wonderful Hispanics in the US who arrived here illegally. I don't have a problem with paving a way for them to legalize their status.  But we have to control our borders.

Although, if our economy keeps tanking, there won't be much incentive for illegals to continue sneaking in to work, will there?

Oh, my Lord...I could have posted this.  I could not sleep last night, and have determined that my family needs to get out of debt and become as self-sufficient as possible.  I wondered what had gone wrong inside my brain to suddenly feel an anxious need to prepare for doomsday scenarios, but apparently I'm not the only one...

Yes, I am feeling a new emotion this morning with regard to the election results: bitter, hateful despair.  It's difficult, because I rallied decently after '08.  I just cannot wrap my mind around a country that would re-elect him with the country in the state it's in.  I feel numb, but angrily so.  My sister told me she was so upset when Ohio was called for Obama that she began dry-heaving (caused by her severe anxiety for which she takes medication.)

I am torn between getting back out there even more aggressively, Breitbart-style and disengaging completely.  Either way, I plan to begin slowly preparing for America's collapse.  It may not happen for another 100 years, but after last night's election, I firmly believe it's coming.  (I read Mark Steyn...)

And if Texas secedes, I will abandon plans to head for my home state of Florida and head straight for Texas.

I was wondering the same thing when I read this earlier.  Beautiful!

I saw it for the first time this afternoon.  I thought it was wonderful.  I did take note of the fact that the people/person who put the video together made a point of putting the most controversial conservatives front and center.  I thought that was okay, actually.  I think that if I was a moderate disenchanted with the liberal lines, this video would make me curious...maybe even curious enough to do some research.

I loved it!