ARTS BEAT: Poor pitiful pathetical us!

The soul of Salon's "arts" division: Good god, but our emerging tribe is truly pathetic.

Today, Salon posts a report from its ARTS subdivision. These are the headlines it bears:
SALON (7/9/12) Who are you, Katie Holmes?

We thought we knew the teenager on "Dawson's Creek." Then she married Tom Cruise. Now she must reintroduce herself.
Willa Paskin handles the pap. She's "Salon's staff TV writer."

While we're at it, we might as well mention the pitiful piece Salon posted over the weekend. It was written by a 17-year-old uber-nuisance who needs to be told to scram.

The nuisance in question is Jonathan Krohn. When he was 13, he became a right-wing darling.

Now that he is 17, Krohn has come out as a liberal! Showing how sad our emerging team is, Salon has published his memoir.

(Headline: "I was a right-wing child dstar." Dude! You're a left-wing child star today!)

A week or so back, Krohn was showcased all over MSNBC. Lawrence had met his match!

It gets worse. In a sign that the apocalyse is nigh, Digby has reacted to Krohn's re-emergence in this thoughtful manner:
DIGBY (7/8/12): I think this kid provides a real insight into conservatism: they are emotionally and intellectually stunted. This kid was smarter than most, so he was probably a little ahead of the curve. I would suppose that the usual conservative mental age is around 15.
If they were "stunted" for pimping him at 13, what exactly does that make us? He's only 17 now!

Katie Holmes must reintroduce herself—and here are the thoughts of our teen-aged wonder! It’s truly time for Krohn to go.

But how sad, that our "liberal" tribe is so much the mirror of theirs!

21 comments:

  1. Making fun of celeb driven nonsense? What an elitist!

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    1. Boy, you are one ridiculous attack poodle.

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    2. That was a joke dear, though it's actually kidding on the square.

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    3. Actually, it was an 'ankle bite', Furball.

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    4. Refute what? That you're ankle-biting rather than indulging in pointed humor?

      Oh, look Bowzer, I had.

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  2. "It was written by a 17-year-old uber-nuisance who needs to be told to scram."

    Umm, I understand that this kid may be overhyped on the liberal side because he defected from conservatism, but I don't understand the hostility directed against him above. How is he an uber-nuisance who should scram?

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    1. Because he's yet one more ridiculous and adolescent (literally, in his case...)distraction/substitute for the discussion of ideological demarcations (and the ideas entailed) that are about more than ginned-up tribal symbolism, and are therefore truly important.

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    2. I more upset with the media with this. Why does anybody care about this kid now, or, more importantly, when he was 13 years-old?

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    3. Ok, then lets distinguish between legitimate hostility directed at the way krohn is being used as a pawn to advance an ideological agenda [not his fault] and hostility directed AT HIM for some reason. As far as I can tell Krohn himself hasn't behaved badly.

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    4. I suppose it depends upon your definition of "hostility".

      In my book 'beat it, kid', is fairly innocuous and utterly apropo...

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    5. majneb -

      if it were about an ideological agenda, and therefore ideas, i think you could make a case. but the pimping of krohn is about a corporate agenda. it apes tribal divisions for profit and creates the illusion of political discourse.

      this has been bob's point all along. we aren't actually discussing our problems. we're aping tribal conflicts which are mostly trivial.

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    6. No, Bob definitely intended hostility against this minor child whose only crime seems to be precociousness. Otherwise, he would have prefaced his attacks with his standard "Just to be clear, as far as we know, Krohn himself may be a thoroughly decent fellow. Most people are."

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    7. Oldmancoyote, I pretty much agree with the overrall critique, I was just puzzled with the hostility Bob seems to have against the kid himself.

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    8. majneb - hows about a good ol stfu. no offense.

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    9. "he's yet one more ridiculous and adolescent (literally, in his case...)distraction/substitute for the discussion of ideological demarcations (and the ideas entailed) that are about more than ginned-up tribal symbolism, and are therefore truly important"

      Good God, CeceliaMc! The way you express yourself! You guarantee that you'll seem like an elitist!

      Who taught you how to talk?

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    10. Who taught you how to play coy?

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  3. The Politico article that discussed this said the kid's family tried talking him out of his move, pointing out, among other things, how much money he could make if he stayed in the conservative fold as a hack. Discussing wingnut welfare, even tangentially, isn't done in the Politico world. But it is really interesting that his family, which is where he learned his conservatism, was that naked and corrupt about things. With their own kid. "Sell your soul for a little of the Kochs' money, son. It's the smart thing to do." That's modern conservatism right there. And nobody talks about it.

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    1. proof youre a nut of your own sort is your implication that politico is some home of your dreaded right wing koch conspiracy...what is it with you paranoiac obama fanboys?

      bob has been right from the start - our tribe is in this age of obama has become just as loonie as theirs.

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    2. I'm sorry, but I don't see where I said Politico was part of a Koch conspiracy.
      Can you yank your head out of your ass long enough to point out where I said that? Or is it too far up there?

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  4. Krohn often talks about how he cringes at videos of speeches he gave when he was 13/14. It strikes me that, in a few years time, he may end up regretting what he's doing right now as well, even if he remains liberal on most issues.

    It's a wonderful feeling when you can finally develop your own views about things you were told as a youngster. But all this publicity for his "awakening" doesn't seem very healthy.

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  5. Hey, the kid's all grown up now. He's exchanged Hayek and Oakeshott for Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and dropping names like Chalmers and Kripke and spicing his monlogues with philosophy-of-mind catchphrases. With that kind of reading list no wonder he now sports a more mature understanding of the current events.

    MSNBC should talk, however. They've got Harry Potter hosting a show on Saturday mornings.

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