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It’s our final podcast of 2013, and we’ve assembled a full compliment of Ricochet editors and contributors as we’re joined by Troy Senik, Jon Gabriel, and D.C. McAllister. They talk Pajama Boy, Duck Dynasty, the best and most memorable posts of the year, and what to look forward to to in 2014. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Music from this week’s episode:
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Ella Fitzgerald
The Ricochet Podcast opening theme was composed and produced by James Lileks.
A warm cup of cocoa, EJHill.
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For some reason Stitcher thinks this podcast is 9 minutes long, so I am listening to this from my web browser. Strange.
I had to stoop to listening in windows media player.
Lileks was spot on about Steven King. I just read his novel “11/22/63” and it was fun and gripping and all that, time-travel, and stuff and right in the middle of it he threw in that there was a hate group in Dallas in 1958 called “Dallas Tea Party Patriots” (or something like that).
I went to the same high school as King (not at the same time…), and the main character in 11/22/63 is an English teacher at Lisbon High School, so it was really fun to read the parts of the book that take place in Lisbon Falls. But, damn, King is annoyingly liberal. I actually wrote a review on Amazon about who I liked the book except for the annoying political intrusions.
This appears to be an issue on Stitcher’s end. We have reported it to them.
James had probably his funniest line since urging John Yoo to run for the Water Board, when he said about Pajama Boy that “I wouldn’t exactly call him the Mattress King” [not an exact quote], and the others completely missed it.
If you have listened to the podcast, please JOIN Ricochet (it’s so inexpensive!).
I wanna hear what the duck guy has to say about Pajama Boy.
Get the duck outa here..
NBC News’s deputy political editor informs us that “we are not supposed to like Pajama Boy”. The shill writes:
Then why didn’t the copy say, “Don’t wear pajamas. Don’t drink hot chocolate. Talk about getting health insurance.”?
NBC News’s deputy political editor informs us that “we are not supposed to like Pajama Boy”. The shill writes:
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Simply magnificent, EJ.
What? No appearance by RyanM?! BOO!!
(edit: whoops, I forgot to post that anonymously)
The 3 prettiest people on your podcast aren’t in the picture.
They’re hiding in Phil’s beard.
you, me, and troy?? 2 of us weren’t even on the podcast!
oh, you said “on your podcast,” not “on ricochet.” And seeing that picture of Whiskey Sam… now there’s a good looking monkey.
If God proved his existence through the creation of life, he proved his goodness through the creation of Southerners.
Her laugh is also charmingly similar to Mollie’s.
Their irony and humor are so clever they need to be explained. Brilliant!
It was nice to have DC on the podcast. She sounds wonderful which comes as no surprise to one who enjoys reading all her posts.
I think the sales pitch was more effective in this podcast than it usually is.
Typically we have Rob saying, “we need you to join.” Here, it was more about “why YOU need to join.” (Having DC tell what is so great about Ricochet, mentioning that listeners will really want to be members when the midterm campaigns heat up, etc.)
I am calling out James. He gifted everyone with a prediction saying Peter would be last, then he blithely ends the show after John gives his about Hillary. Peter deserves a prediction on the next podcast.
Z in MT: Yikes, did I do that? Well, we were, uh, coming up to a hard break. Yes, that’s it, a hard break. Or, as Pajama Boy calls it, “a stiff biscotti.”
EJ–Thank you for news. I presume that it has not been published yet. ·9 hours ago
You presume incorrectly. Published in hardcover last year, paperback last month:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Lion-Churchill-1940-1965/dp/0345548639
EJ–Thank you for news. I presume that it has not been published yet. ·9 hours ago
You presume incorrectly. Published in hardcover last year, paperback last month:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Lion-Churchill-1940-1965/dp/0345548639 ·39 minutes ago
Quite right. I see from the Amazon web site that, “Paul Reid is an award-winning journalist. In late 2003 his friend, William Manchester, in failing health, asked Paul to complete The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm. Paul lives in North Carolina.” Much obliged.
In the plug for Audible.com one participant (Troy Senik?) recommended The Last Lion and identified it as the “final volume” of William Manchester’s muti-volume biography of Winston Churchill—as if the narrative on The Last Lion covered the latter part of Churchill’s life, including World War Two. In fact, Manchester wrote The Last Lion as the middle volume of a planned trilogy. The narrative of this middle volume ends in 1940 at the time Churchill ascends to the prime ministership and so includes only the early months of that war. In the plug for Audible.com I think James Likes made a jocular reference to possible “spoilers” in The Last Lion to wit: “The good guys win World War Two.” Would that it were so! Manchester’s health declined during his work on the third volume and he died before it was completed, having left instructions that his incomplete work be burned. Having read The Last Lion when it was first published, waiting eagerly for the third volume, and then learning that the author had died before finishing it I regret that my recollection of the foregoing facts is all too clear.
John Russell – Manchester’s estate hired someone to finish the trilogy from his outline and his notes.
Checking my bookshelf just now I see that the first two volumes of Manchester’s biography of Churchill have the titles, The Last Lion/Visions of Glory and The Last Lion/Alone. Most of the second is devoted to his time in the political wilderness following his resignation from the cabinet at the end of the 1920s (He opposed the government policy of home rule for India). I can also recommend American Caesar, Manchester’s biography of Douglas McArthur, and Goodbye Darkness, a personal memoir. Manchester saw heavy combat in the Marine Corps during the battle of Okinawa and was severely wounded in action (His wounds were bad enough for the triage person to assign him to the hopeless group). He later suffered from chronic depression. Goodbye Darkness describes what amounts to a pilgrimage through several sites of especially violent battles involving Americans in the Pacific Theater, a trip that proved therapeutic for Manchester. For boomers like me such sources offer an inestimable opportunity to get a long overdue clue about the sacrifices our parents generation paid for the opportunity to live an Ozzie-and-Harriet type life in the fifties.
EJ–Thank you for news. I presume that it has not been published yet.
I just want to thank Rob Long for keeping the foul-mouthed Peter Robinson in line. Peter really walked up to the edge there with his angry words when he described how he would react to his boys talking to him about Obamacare. Our side can’t afford such unsettling, controversial, bomb-throwing language.
Please keep your hand’s off Pajama Boy’s stiff biscotti and Hillary’s inevitability.
To be clear, The Last Lion is the name given to the entire three-volume series. I was referring specifically to the third and final volume, Defender of the Realm, which Manchester began work on but died before finishing. Paul Reid finished the volume and it came out about a year ago. I hadn’t been anticipating being asked for an Audible pick, so even though I mentioned that it was the final volume, I don’t think I specifically mentioned the Defender of the Realm title. For what it’s worth, all three volumes are worth your time.