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Folks, we’re getting to the final act of the election and there’s no one better qualified to help us parse it than the Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson. We talk Hillary, we talk Trump and his bizarre relationship with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, the Beatles, and of course, the Nobelist himself, Bob Dylan. Also, where might we be headed from here (and by “we” we mean Ricochet)? @FatherB. asks the question in his post “In which I disparage this website and its founders” on the member feed and as promised, gets it answered on the podcast.
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Music from this week’s podcast: Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan
The brand new opening sequence for the Ricochet Podcast was composed and produced byJames Lileks.
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@peterrobinson Liar! It was quite the opposite actually.
Oh how fun was the start of this podcast. Can I get in on it? Donald Trump is a Stupido! Hahaha, this is fun!
Andy Ferguson’s critique of the media’s role in dumbing down our culture should have included a mention of The Weekly Standard’s decision to sell its inside front cover to a faux-Catholic organization demanding taxpayer funding for abortion.
Aha! Now we know you listen to the very end!
I had never heard the Shelter From The Storm until I watched the movie Jerry McGuire (1996) and the song was played over the closing credits. I downloaded the Bob Dylan version from iTunes and almost immediately interpreted the narrator as Jesus by virtue of the lyrics: “my crown of thorns” and “they gambled for my clothes.” The problem was the identification of the antecedant of the pronoun “she.” I finally formed the hypothesis that Dylan was inverting the biblical injunction for a husband to love his wife as Christ loves the church, to wit: a wife should love her husband like the church loves Christ. This interpretation seemed like a stretch so I did a little Google searching to see what other interpretations were out there. I was surprised to find that of the half dozen or so interpretations I read none even identified the narrator as Jesus. I was pleased by Rob’s comment in re the dumbing down of our culture, specifically that a person who is not familiar with the Bible can not get the references in most of the literature of Western Civilization. Do any other Ricochetti share my interpretation of Shelter From The Storm?
Apparently you save the choice nuggets of wisdom for the finale. This may be an opportunity for highly target advertising.
Ok guys – what about Evan McMullen? How about trying to get him to act as spoiler to keep Hilary from 270?
The version on the Jerry Maguire ST is also Dylan, it’s just an alternate version (the first take, according to Wikipedia). Had never heard the narrator interpretation before. Interesting theory.
I say Dylan’s faithful fans deserve a Nobel Prize in Listenerture.
Having a hard time listening to rob on the podcasts. I get, it you hate Trump, ok got it. But to say that Trump is the one sucking up the oxygen is to complete exonerate the medias total culpability in their choices of what to report and what not to report. So the media decides to focus on trump, but left and right wing media, meanwhile we have all this evidence on Hillary that is being ignored.
The media focuses our attention over here and everyone looks over here and forgets we’re being sent down a rat hole of corruption over there. Would be nice to hear the same hang wringing over Hillary Clinton as I hear about trump.
Andy Ferguson’s optimism can only exist if one assumes we’ve not , as a Nation, as a Republic, not already gone beyond the tipping point. He speaks of surviving HRC because we’ll react to her….??
OK—Trump is execrable, BUT we’ve had 8 years of Obama and still seem to be rushing to embrace at least 4 more years! I cannot share his optimism. The SCOTUS and the Executive Orders of hers PLUS the honeymoon she’ll get as yet ‘another first’...will be too much, I fear, for this Nation to enter into and come out the other side looking anything like the bold experiment in self-governance, under God, that we were created for.
(PS–by nature, in my 70 years, I’ve not been a pessimist!)
There’s your problem.
We know the media, and predicted a year ago what they would do about Trump (push his nomination then spend all day every day revealing the suddenly discovered truth about what a bad candidate and person he is).
It is Republicans who voted for him in the primaries and soulless morons like Reince Priebus and various “consultants” who blocked every attempt to bring him down while the damage was more manageable.
The current debacle is not the fault of the media. They simply played their normal role of being Democrat operatives with by-lines, which fact we have known forever. The suicide was strictly elected by Republicans, from Jeb to Kasich to Cruz to Christie on down the line.
@duaneoyen oh I disagree, the media has done more to damage the United States (along with eduction, and Hollywood) than anything else. We do not have an informed electorate, and much of that comes from what the media chooses NOT to report rather than what it does report. Most Americans have jobs and catch the news after a long day, they don’t know what is going on because it isn’t reported. Also because our news cycles goes by so quickly it gives no one any time to actually think about the information they just got. Media is all about manipulation. The problem the right has is that they haven’t figured out how to fight against the media narrative, until they figure that out the conservative, republican brand will be a hard sell, no matter who the candidate is. Mitt Romney was a Boy Scout and they still turned him into a dog torturing, cancer causing, rich guy who didn’t care about anyone. He was tha nicest most charitable guy ever and they dragged his name through the mud. That is what they do. They have one purpose to push a leftist agenda, that’s it. That is what the right needs to come to grips with. We need to defeat the left not capitulate to them or compromise with them, not if you want freedom
@peterrobinson Looks good in a photoshoped hat.
I would think we can all see the truth of the statement “all politics is downstream of culture”.
I think in light of everything we can see going on around us, it is foolish & a waste of time to focus so heavily on politics. The Left did a Long March through the culture: it took years, & it didn’t happen overnight.
Speaking as someone who lived & worked for years in DC, & who learned to treat politics as entertainment, I know how hard it is to let go of the idea if we conservatives could just get smarter with the politics & the policies & all that, we’d make things better.
None of it matters if we don’t reach people where they live, & they don’t live politics 24/7, like all of us Richochetti. We have to reshape the culture. That was shy I was so disappointed in Santorum: I thought he had gotten involved in a christian movie studio start up of some sort, but then he jumped into Presidential politics again. I think the movie gig bids fair to be a far better use of his time.
Thx @roblong and @peterrobinson for addressing my concerns about the website. I understand the pickle you’re in re: not being able to pay the contributors and therefore not expecting too much of them. I think half the problem (as I see it) would be solved by removing the podcasts from the main feed and maybe listing them on the side, out of the way? Right now they tend to overwhelm everything else and push the written content quickly out of sight.
That is my main problem with what Mr. Ferguson said. After 4 years of Obama, our side was saying “It took us a Carter to get a Reagan” and other things along that line. Now we’ve had 8 of Obama and the prospect of another 4-8 from Mrs. Clinton. By the time 2024 rolls around, people voting for the first time will know nothing else than leftist governance.
Looking back at our history, it’s true that we’ve wandered in the wilderness a couple times and have come back to our side’s principals of limited government and personal freedom. I’d love for it to happen soon, but in the meantime, I weep for the republic.
Amazing reading the old comments about Trump now that he is Pres.
Rob and Peter looking for ideas on how to reward contributors. Interview some of the contributors either on the main podcast or a special podcast. I mean some of us have interesting skills and backgrounds that just never get asked about and would appreciate an interview to highlight our contributions.
Just a thought.