It’s inspiring that finally people are treating her exactly the way grown-up reporters are treated, whether they are irredeemable hacks or the best of their profession.

Bon voyage! I remember Cheever being mostly free of that kind of baggage. I’m basically allergic to self-important explorations of American manhood. Speaking of DFW: he had some interesting things to say about Updike, et. al., that were salutary to me in that I felt validated, finally, in my opinions. I think I’m…

Of course, that too.

Sorry to keep going: But I just came across a Q&A on Thompson with Taibbi, and he says the same thing about categorizing Thompson, but from the other direction: That he was the only gonzo journalist. Which sounds right to me.

We are eye-to-eye. Grouping Thompson with Wolfe and Talese doesn’t feel right. They were always striving for respectability, belonging, and their work and selves seem fundamentally conservative — not capital C. Thompson never gave any impression that he was pursuing anything as banal as a career or a legacy. I feel…

Harsh on Thompson. Can’t stand one sentence of Mailer and I gave up on Updike three quarters of the way through “Rabbit, Run.” Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese always gave me the creeps with their affectations and was never impressed with their work. Thompson, though, was a genuine iconoclast and I miss him every electoral…

Katherine Boo has spent time with and written about people that Gay Talese, in his prime, would have fainted over the concept of meeting.

Yeah, agreed. “Inspired” is kind of a stupid thing to ask an established writer to say/admit to. Dumb journalism word and concept. But the generalizations are so stupid.

Nintendo’s claim about Rapp’s dismissal is being taken with an undeserved credulity. I guess you’re probably being professionally reticent about the dubiousness of those claims, but on Twitter, at least, I have noticed people who really shouldn’t treating the moonlighting justification as other than a mere pretext. Is…

Came here to ask wtf about that choice.

You know, my response has been bugging me. I don’t want to sound like the jingoistic morons I am responding to. Trivial was in comparison to the costs and contributions of the U.K., the country that is being said here to have been saved by the U.S. in both world wars. That is a boorish, rude and ... gross opinion, and…

“The UK and France certainly contributed much, much more the the overall war effort than the US, of course”

Let’s be honest: Read a fucking book. It doesn’t even have to be one about WWI; it would do you good, anyway. You’re completely ignorant. U.S. involvement in WWI was trivial and after the fact. The only country you could argue you “saved” in WWII is France. I can understand why you might get the two countries…

On the one hand, there’s the overwhelming weight of historical fact. On the other,that is a picture. The U.S. was hardly involved in WWI, and the Battle of Britain, in II, was won by the time it arrived again.

But ... your last sentence contradicts the rest! There is no reason to believe that “by recognizing that ONE group has cultural subtleties, you necessarily have to recognize that EVERY group has such subtleties” That’s simply not true! I wish it were. People have immense blind spots, and often the more so when they…

I think that’s a bit precious. If I were to say that people who care about regional distinctions between ethnic Russians care about the nuances of Native American culture, that would be ridiculous. Instead, I think that pious self-regard is at work in those people assuming they know and then flaring up when it’s…

I mean yeah but have you seen what happens here when you point out that a given Scotsman, for example, is not English? Thinking it’s all a bit cute how the American commentariat here is so enthusiastic to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of their own country and continent, as if they don’t live within…

I saw this and was all ready to write a rant about how “cultural appropriation” is thrown around here as a categorical epithet, with little thought or justification — inspired in part by the Iron Fist article — but this does it right: It diagnoses, distinguishes, etc.

But your position depends on there being something in the email that hasn’t been shown! And even if it is, he’s not violated an off-the-record promise.

I think you’re a little confused; it’s not illegal to break an off-the-record promise, either. It’s purely a question of ethics, and here, his are sound. Walton didn’t make one mention of not wanting to be quoted, not wanting to be on-the-record, not wanting to comment. She disavowed both sides and offered some…