Firehose #132: The Fifth’s Very Own Terry Gilliam

Also: Super Bowl Second Sunday 1 pm ET

Lookie here, we’ve got a LOT of pressing business to go over in this missive, but we can’t just look a gift animator in the yappy-chinned mouth—such questionable behavior requires encouragement! Without further ado, I present the recap/excerpt stylings of the peerless Arch Stanton:

* Let’s make a numbered & chronological list of time-sensitive events. 1) Our monthly Second Sunday Zoom call for paying subscribers, as teased at the end of Episode #489, is slated to take place tomorrow, Feb. 9, Super Bowl Sunday, at 1 p.m. ET. Pay attention to this space for call-in details between now and then. 2) As teased in the Chat, some of us are going to meet up in Miami Beach this Wednesday, Feb. 12, somewhere in the early evening, and all of you are invited! Just give a heads-up whether you are likely to attend, so we can plan accordingly. 3) The Valentine’s Day Massacre of The Fifth Column keynoting a U. of Florida media & privacy conference on The Demand for B.S. and How to Stop It is indeed taking place this Friday. As detailed last week, other participants include George Mason economists Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson, the American Enterprise Institute’s Jim Harper, Reason’s Zach Weissmueller, and suchlike. Registration here; a flier to remind ya:

* On Wednesday we were fortunate enough to be the full-episode guests (I mean, after Moynihan was forced to watch the obscenely handsome/fit/nice Doug pour his beloved some champagne) on the 1,000^th episode of (and our 30^th appearance on!) The Megyn Kelly Show. Always a non-polarizing experience for our listeners! We discussed Donald Trump’s proposal the afternoon before to own and operate Gaza, how this might work as a negotiating tactic; Democrats’ crusade against Elon Musk, the Current-Thing interest in USAID, and Trump’s executive order banning Title IX recipients from allowing born males to compete in female sports. Whole thing:

* On the topic of the keeping-women’s-sports-for-women E.O., Ethan Strauss (veteran of Episodes #185, #333, #383, Members Only #151, & #408), has a super-interesting-to-me piece talking—yes!—about how “ultimately what will likely be lost to history is just how precarious it was to take this now 79 percent (!) position,” but then pivoting to some useful navel-gazing about why he “was not involved in the counter activist push that turned the tide on this.” An excerpt that will call to mind some of the debates we’ve had on this podcast, particularly about and with Chris Rufo (#322):

Jennifer Sey, Founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, reached out multiple times to appear on my podcast, and I did not accept.

Why did I not? I’m still puzzling over it. As stated, I agreed with Sey on this specific subject, but I’m also generally uncomfortable with formally joining activists. […]

I considered having Sey on, but decided against. I’m looking to have an honest conversation here, where someone might even explore their doubts or misgivings. An activist is usually more of a preacher, and generally not oriented towards being reflective. I’m not making that observation about Sey in the specific, or criticizing her in the slightest. I’ve just got my own hangups about a conversation that’s going to maybe read as more in service of a goal than in service of a conversation.

And if I’m Sey? I probably resent a “neutral” person like myself. I see this sort of tension throughout political and cultural commentary. For instance, Trump-aligned anti DEI activist Chris Rufo knows he’s advancing certain agendas that centrists and even some liberals are quietly thrilled about. The 2012-2022 insanity had gone too far and the “respectable” didn’t have the spine to walk it back. But they wanted someone to save them from their own friends.

So, Rufo gets publicly angry when those who secretly cheer a cause of his also make a show of distancing themselves. At the same time, because Rufo is an activist, he’s constantly manipulating events in service of his agenda. It’s his mandate to make the crazy seem even crazier, or at least more salient. I completely understand why some reasonable, thoughtful commentators want distance from a project like that.

No, I’m not getting into a bunch of citations here. This isn’t a Rufo piece, I’m using him as an example of the general dynamic. We unaligned people sometimes benefit from the sort of rhetoric we’d never engage in, and maybe even judge.

I agreed with the Outkick position that Lia Thomas shouldn’t be running roughshod over women’s swimming, but they drove that story. I can say they’re often unnuanced, wrong and obsessed with an agenda, but that approach accomplished more on this than whatever I was doing with my observations. I can claim to be thoughtful, but here, they can claim to be useful.

I still don’t know what to make of that distinction. I’m still uncomfortable joining in with people who are zealously part of a political agenda, even when there are points of agreement. It just so happens that, whatever the cause, history is more often made by the fervent.

* Another interesting reaction by ostensible semi-supporters to another interesting Trump E.O. that we have talked about here came this week from Glenn Loury (#121, #188, #366) and John McWhorter (#84, #121, #188 & #366), in regards to the president’s dismantling of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. From Loury’s write-up: “We both agree that sweeping away DEI excesses is a good thing, but DEI and anti-discrimination are not the same thing. The pendulum is swinging, but how far is it going to go?... I worry that the appetite for undoing progressive reforms will end up leaving troubled African American communities to languish. But what are we to do? John wonders aloud if the present state of affairs is the best we can do.”

* In the hopes of being marginally useful to people on all sides of the ongoing DOGE Wars & related, here are a couple of possibly relevant old pieces of mine: “Big Government Is Offensive” (2012), about how “the faster the state expands, the more likely it is to violate your values”; “Village Voice Writer States Falsely That Reason Defends Bigoted Bakers More Than the Right of Gays to Be Legally Married” (2014), which attempts (in vain) to explain how the righteous cause of gay marriage is not furthered by the non-righteous cause of state-sanctioned punishments against those who disagree with it; and “Self-Defense Is Sexy” (2022), about how “social change often comes after a politician or government goes too heavily on offense against individuals wishing merely to stand their ground and assert their rights.” With the expansion of both government and executive authority, the first 100 days of any new administration, particularly one from a new political team, is just going to snap necks; the question is whether many people will take the opportunity to reflect on the nature of power itself. (For those who are currently flinching and wincing, it may be helpful to remember that when “reformers” go from defense to offense, their popularity inexorably declines.)

* In #489, whilst discussing tariff uncertainty, I kinda/sorta referenced the classic text Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, plus Frédéric Bastiat’s “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.” Via the Chat (and sorry not to give individual hat-tips throughout this post, but y’all flooding the Chat w/ material these days, and scrolling up and down ain’t great), I see that Brian Albrecht has a good, chart-tastic post this week titled “Chaos Kills Coordination.” Excerpt:

When policy areas face arbitrary day-by-day reversals, it breaks the web of expectations that make our economic order possible. Research consistently documents how policy uncertainty harms investment. […]

Research by Scott Baker, Nick Bloom, and Steven Davis (along with many follow-up papers) demonstrates that this isn’t just theory. They’ve developed metrics of policy uncertainty that are incorporated into their Economic Policy Uncertainty Index.

Their research quantifies these effects: when policy uncertainty jumped from 2005-2006 levels to 2011-2012 levels, it preceded a 6% decline in business investment, a 1.1% drop in industrial production, and a 0.35% fall in employment. These aren’t just academic estimates: they represent real factories not built, machines not purchased, and jobs not created. When policy becomes as unpredictable as it did during the financial crisis, the economic toll is substantial and measurable.

That kind of uncertainty is rapidly on the rise in the United States.

* Also in #489 we discussed Trump & Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr vs. 60 Minutes. Some relevant Reason reading: “Trump Is Flat-Out Lying About the 60 Minutes Interview With Harris,” by Jacob Sullum; “How the FCC's 'Warrior for Free Speech' Became Our Censor in Chief,” by Joe Lancaster, and “Paramount Shouldn’t Fold to Trump,” by Ronnie London.

* Friend o’ the podcast Nico Perrino, executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), went on The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie (Special Dispatch #72, #379) to talk about “What the Trump-Musk Alliance Means for Free Speech.”

* On FIRE’s So to Speak podcast this week, Perrino invited on former Fif’ guest Ilya Shapiro (#361) to talk about his new book Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites, as well as Shapiro’s “firsthand experience with cancel culture,” how “the American Bar Association’s policies influence legal education,” and some “major free speech cases before the Supreme Court, including the TikTok ownership battle and Texas’ age verification law for adult content.”

* Breaking History, the great new Free Press podcast from pal Eli Lake (#52, #65, #141, #174, S.D. #51, #326, #368, #407, Members Only #184, M.O. #244), used the Pacific Palisades/Altadena fires as a jumping-off point to discuss how “Radicals Have Burned California Before.” I am one of the talking heads, as is TGIF star Nellie Bowles (#187). From the promo text: “California was once a place where industry and imagination locked arms and showed us how great the human experiment could be. It secured democracy by manufacturing the weapons that won World War II. It built the dream factory of Hollywood; it gave us Silicon Valley and personal computing. It gave us Dr. Dre and Dr. Strangelove. Without California there are no hippies, no tech bros, no gangsters in our rap music, no hardcore in our punk, no Boys on our Beach, and no movie stars. In other words: When we surrender California, we surrender the dreams that built the American century.”

* Moar fires: My drummer pal S.W. Lauden/Steve Coulter, who lost his Altadena house in the Eaton catastrophe, has another heart-challenging post, illustrated by this:

* Here’s a Fifiverse pile-up: Mike Pesca (#343, #418, #467) invited onto his Gist sub-pub Not Even Mad the dynamic duo of Katie Herzog (#228, #331) and Jonah Goldberg (#182) to talk about “if Donald Trump's attempts to blame DEI for a tragic military plane crash and Elon Musk's unplugging of USAID will wind up hurting the Trumpian agenda.” Also: “the Democrats’ disastrous brand -- what can a party that once prided itself on broad appeal do to find favor with voters?”

* Speaking of Pesca, for you NYC-adjacent Never Fly Coachers, there’s gonna be an in-person Gist/Fifth Column live crossover event March 6 at the swank events/recording penthouse we’ve somehow swindled access into. More details to come soon.

* Email of the Week, which I present without endorsement of the ultra-violence, comes with the truth-in-advertising subject line “Black Hock-Story Month,” and is from Max:

Hey fellas,

After your last episode, I figured I’d throw in some hockey history for black players. As a Canadian (And a Bruins fan which is a nightmare for me here) I am genetically predisposed to love the game.

While most players were Canadian or US northern state born, the attached list has some notable mentions from unlikely hockey environments. Just a few:

Emerson Etem from Long Beach CA

Seth Jones (and brother Caleb) from Arlington TX

Rumun Ndur from Nigeria.

Willie O’Ree is often celebrated as the first black player in the NHL and is a Boston legend. however, all Bruins fans tend to have a more special place in their hearts for a guy that’s never played for them. Evander Kane.

Quick karma story: Matt Cooke from Pittsburgh was known as one of the dirtiest players of all time injuring multiple players with questionable hits or targeting knees. His hit on Bruins Marc Savard essentially ended the Top Line Center’s career. I don’t even want to post the link it sickens me to watch.

Players detested Cooke and not long after the hit on Savard, his arrogance brought him face to face with an emerging star power forward named Evander Kane. The clip below will illustrate why it is unwise to ever challenge a guy named Evander to a fight. Bruins fans rejoiced.

Here’s a freeze frame of the best part.

F$&king beautiful.

Go Bruins!

Walkoff music, which I cannot believe I haven’t included here before, is that rare live television event (from the GOAT of Super Bowl performers, no less!) that changes one’s life.