This week on the show informally known as GLoP, a look at the horrific shootings in Connecticut with a discussion about dealing with the mentally ill, and what to change about the nation's gun laws. Also, how Obama could really make a difference in the country by showing some leadership on the state of the black family, and the American family in general (see Jonah's recent column on this topic here. Then, we segue a look at Hanukah versus Christmas, depictions of the holidays in television and the movies, (including The Brady Bunch and a Charlie Brown Christmas).
See you next year, everybody!
Special thanks to Santa's Helper extraordinaire, EJHill.
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Comments:
Jul '12
Re: The Christmas Special
Just when you think it can't get any worse than the Mike Murphy interview, here come Podhoretz and Jonah. I had to bail when Podhoretz [Redacted for CoC -- a crass reference to Podhoretz speaking approvingly of Obama]. Are you kidding me?
Edited on December 15, 2012 at 11:48pmJan '11
Re: The Christmas Special
As I mentioned on Dunphy's post - I would like this horrible event in CT to be examined by the National Transportation Safety Board as they would the crash of an airliner. Having watched many episodes of Mayday/Air Crash Investigation, I really appreciate the thoroughness and complexities of their investigations. They haven't yet banned planes, remember. I'm sure their recommendations would be well worth considering.
Re: The Christmas Special
Matt, you and I must be listening to different conversations. John is and remains one of Obama's most vocal critics. What I heard him say was that for someone with such a unique and exhalted place in African American culture, Obama refuses to speak to its very real problems -- ie. fatherless children and fractured families. John was criticizing him. Not sucking up. Listen to it again. I'm baffled by your oddly violent misunderstanding of what he said.
Feb '11
Re: The Christmas Special
Jonah, please read Amity Schlaes. "The Forgotten Man" is the taxpayer.
Feb '11
Re: The Christmas Special
I hear alot of talk from our threesome about issues with Black families, which is good and right. But I don't think that has anything to do with mass murderers. I think those are whites - plus that Asian at Va Tech.
Re: The Christmas Special
Israel, I agree. We drifted, as these conversations do.
Jul '12
Re: The Christmas Special
I'm beginning to wonder if Jonah even wrote on of my favorite books of all time, "Liberal Fascism." He sounds more like David Frum, and Kathleen Parker every day...
Sep '10
Re: The Christmas Special
If all guns were confiscated and all new sales prohibited, folks intent on mass murder would start using bombs. The tool is important, crucial even, but it's always the person. But people in general want more certainty than that, thus so-called control.
Jul '12
Re: The Christmas Special
Fair enough, I was distracted while listening, any references to Obama that do not include "he's a stone cold Alinskyite Communist hellbent on destroying the free market capitalist system in this country" strike me as disingenuous.
May '10
Re: The Christmas Special
As for A Charlie Brown Christmas it was unbelievable how much the Bible reading made the suits at CBS nervous and they wanted it taken out. (And this was 1965!) Additionally they hated the real children's voices, the lack of a laugh track and the Vince Guaraldi jazz score.
When Charles Schulz and his partners, Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez, refused to bend they promised to air it but admited that the results were so disappointing that they wouldn't be ordering anymore specials.
Of course, it was both a critical (Emmy and Peabody) and commercial hit. By it's fourth showing it was getting almost a 35 Neilsen rating. Even today, when it's readily available on home video, it still does respectable numbers. This year it gave ABC it's highest Wednesday night showing in five years.
Edited on December 16, 2012 at 2:54amOct '11
Re: The Christmas Special
Rob, I really appreciated how you started this podcast (and I listened live!). The real issue is mental illness, and our society's push towards "rights" for mentally insane people.
Re: The Christmas Special
Ah, the animated laugh track, an idea that perplexes to this day. I can't tell you how confused I was by "The Flintstones" as a child.
Edited on December 16, 2012 at 1:12amMay '10
Re: The Christmas Special
And that was in reruns. Imagine the damage it did in first run with Fred and Barney pushing those Winston smokes!
Sep '10
Re: The Christmas Special
Troy Senik, Ed.
Ah, the animated laugh track, an idea that perplexes to this day. I can't tell you how confused I was by "The Flintstones" as a child. · 9 minutes ago
Edited 8 minutes ago
To say nothing of Get Smart.
Re: The Christmas Special
EJHill
And that was in reruns. Imagine the damage it did in first run with Fred and Barney pushing those Winston smokes! · 24 minutes ago
No, no. That I'd be fine with.
Sep '11
Re: The Christmas Special
Podhoretz is a ball hog. Good podcast nonetheless!
Sep '10
Re: The Christmas Special
REALLY GOOD episode. i complained about JPod on the "dying Ricochet" thread...because on episode 4 or 5 of these he just drove me batty...screaming back at him in the car while commuting to work...today, he was great. i'll think about forgiving him for his "i oppose stopping Mexican immigration because of the "Exodus" [ship fleeing Hitler]" argument on The Corner back in the dark days of Bush immigration insanity.
Jonah's laugh is the best. AND, Rob* is thoughtful as hell.
8 minutes in, i stopped to post this on my FB wall to encourage others to hear such a good conversation about the shooting and mental health. apparently i wasn't the only one to think of Geraldo yesterday.
*hope he's not mad about my "you suck old media man" comments on the "dying" thread. i was just trying to keep these podcasts coming for the rest of my natural life. please...look to "The Ace Man", Leo Laporte, Adam Curry, Corey Doctorow for the key to succeeding on the internet...and probably other somewhate more conventional guys. someone inside Ricochet ought to be listening to all they can at twit.tv for guidance.
Sep '10
Re: The Christmas Special
wow...that is really unfair to Jonah. he consistently makes great conservative arguments. his most recent book is really good....although [sorry about what's to follow, Jonah], i bought it on audible.com....and ummmm...there is an idea out there that...aaaaaah authors shouldn't read their own works for audio books.....yeeeeaaaah...that's probably right. :S
oh...back to the show: the way Jonah described "the forgotten man" is how FDR used it; he changed it from the original usage...it's been years since i read "Forgotten Man", but i'm pretty sure that Amity describes what it was intended to demonstrate (A takes from C to give to B; and C is forgotten...or some such) and what FDR did to it (poor B is forgotten by society, so i help him). what FDR did is what Jonah was describing, no?
Matt Travis
I'm beginning to wonder if Jonah even wrote on of my favorite books of all time, "Liberal Fascism." He sounds more like David Frum, and Kathleen Parker every day... · 3 hours ago
Feb '11
Re: The Christmas Special
Memo to John Podhoretz:
Papa Toad and I have been celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah happily for the past 17 years. He's the Jew and I'm not, but as a Catholic I love the story of the Maccabees. It is part of our Jewish Catholic children's heritage in both a tribal and a spiritual sense. Feel free to not want to celebrate that way yourself, but your blanket statement that it is impossible to do so is annoying and wrong.
Also, please learn to wait your turn. Not everyone is as fascinated as you by 1970s-era sitcoms, and not every issue needs to be linked to your childhood memories of same. And if you interrupt Rob Long again.... well, let's just say you need to stop interrupting.
Oct '10
Re: The Christmas Special
We are posting this at 29:00 into the podcast. Hopefully we will be proven wrong.
Amazing that neither J,P or L made note that Obama is himself a fatherless black and also a motherless black who has no American family experience of his own.
Also, arguably, Obama and his administration are hostile to the cohesive historic American family and working vigorously against it.
How could they have missed this?