There’s a wonderful episode of Bari Weiss’s Honestly that covers the Leonard Cohen memoir (published April 6 of this year), it’s such an incredible story.
I loved the interview with him intertwined with the music of Cohen. The book covers the time Cohen spent in Israel during the Yom Kippur War visiting the military. Fascinating story.
That baseball picture now has me wondering if there’s an entire set of Israeli versions of American League teams - an “AL’chaim” if you will. Is there a Haifa Astros club that can’t have garbage cans in their clubhouse? A Tel Aviv Angels squad that’s wasting the best years of Mike Troutstein’s career? The Jewish baseball fan in me wants to believe.
I'm still wondering why there's been no backstory given about this Israel junket that seems to have included several of my favorite 'heterodox' podcasters - not just Monihan and Welch, but Jesse Singal and Nancy Rommelman, and I guess Andrew Shulz and several others were on the trip as well. Since I don't think it was a case where a bunch of journalists from the 'heterodox' or 'centrist' space all got together one day and said, "Hey, gents, lets all go to Israel!", it's not hard to conclude that it was a sponsored trip, though it was mentioned in one of the recent podcasts that it was an invite by the Israeli consulate.
And just to contextualize my comments, I'm not someone who's particularly anti-Israel or has a hobbyhorse about that country, though I am pretty critical of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians (and critical of the ruling factions in Palestine as well) and I think Likud and everything it represents is pretty awful.
The thing is, like embedded reporting with the military, I think press junkets sponsored by NGOs or governments really do entail some potential conflict of interest, and there needs to be disclosure of who's sponsoring it and the backstory for the trip. I hear none of that in any of the "5th in Israel" podcasts I've heard so far - just some, "Hey, guys, we're in Israel" - and I'm kind of disappointed by the lack of transparency there.
I'll give a shoutout to Jesse Singal for giving a disclosure about sponsorship of this trip and for making a point of meeting with an opposition group to tour the West Bank and report on conditions there, rather than just settle for a presentation by one side:
The whole thing leaves me with some unanswered questions, notably, why is the Israeli government doing an outreach to the 'heterodox podcast' space and what are they hoping to get out of it? And what are the journalists involved doing to make sure they're not just being mouthpieces for the Israeli government. Much like the established leftie genre of sponsored junkets to Cuba or Sandinista-era Nicaragua, it smacks of charm offensive and propaganda.
The "backstory" is this: The Israeli Consulate in New York paid for & organized an information-gathering week-long trip for a dozen or so journalists and podcasters, whose general political views and specific views on Israel are across the spectrum. (Andrew Shulz was not one of them.) Countries, and organizations dedicated to relations between specific countries, tend to arrange such "junkets" with the hope of increasing the level of understanding/familiarity among (hold your nose at the term) "thought-leaders," and presumably leading to the host countries being portrayed in a more favorable light. (This did not work out well when Moynihan was invited to Qadaffi's Libya: https://reason.com/2010/02/22/a-libyan-charm-offensive/.)
I went on a similar excursion a decade ago w/ Kmele, care of the Swiss-America Foundation, and had a swell and informative time in a country I already knew quite a bit. I also played in-country journalist-briefer for visiting junkets to Bratislava and Budapest, exchanges that I found worthwhile if a tad odd.
In this particular case, there was no quid pro quo, no expectation of producing journalistic output, no dominant political storyline to tell (if indeed any such thing would be possible in Israel, which it really isn't). So, with the added prospect of bonding w/ my Fifth bros & whoever else of interest was going on (or that we would meet) on the trip, I happily said yes to a free information-gathering trip to a part of the world I am fantastically ignorant of. If/when I write anything of substance about the trip, I will gladly be disclosing how I got there.
I will let whoever else was on the trip to describe their involvement (or not) on their own schedule. It's a volatile subject everywhere in the world, and not everyone is equally comfortable taking heat, especically from bad-faith actors. As you mention, Jesse and others (including Nancy) made their own independent reporting before the trip, and others did likewise after. I didn't have the extra time, and -- importantly! -- was not there on assignment, so I had to make due with our 14-hour days of visitations, contentious conversations (including virtually nonstop on the bus between participants), and briefings by various journalists, Foreign Ministry types, politicians, security types, tour guides, Supreme Court justices, Holocaust survivors, hawks, doves, atheists, Muslims, and so forth. To give you a flavor, Israelis on each of our last two days there described the current situation w/ Palestinians as "apartheid"; other people we visited with vigorously disputed that characterization. The conversations were wide-ranging and diverse, if necessarily not comprehensive.
I had a fantastic time, am glad to have had the opportunity, and will almost certainly be going back to the region.
Also, did Desantis for President pay for Moynihan's trip to Florida? The people want to know.
Alright, alright, to steel-man pgwerner's point: yes, transparency is good, it demystifies the trip for the casual listener, and yes, the Israeli Consulate's job is to persuade the world that their country isn't sheer evil. Apparently the whole reason Julia Child lived in France is because her husband did similar work for the State Department.
HOWEVER, it was a big group, and as Nancy said, not everyone wanted their whereabouts known immediately, so to explain the funding would have potentially "outed" some of the writers. Also, give them two minutes to collect their thoughts. This pod is also a personal journal of sorts. The scrupulosity seems a bit overkill.
Laura was right. They should all shut up and dribble. They are not more than basketball players. They literally play a game for entertainment. I cannot fathom a class of person whose opinions matters less.
Really enjoyed the conversation on Glenn's show. You guys should look into John Amaechi and consider having him as a guest. Extremely intelligent and well educated guy. Super interesting life and career arc in the NBA and after. Has views on race that cut through the mainstream but would most likely run counter to Kmele.
As your local terrier lunatic, I of course watched the entire terrier judging online, with comment. Scream-laughed over the Irish Terrier captioning: “He takes naturally to Porter, and he’s not shy of guns.”
Glenn is dropping the full race realism debate on black Friday.....clearly it's one more tick in the "race is real" column, there is a whole damn day dedicated to Black.
I thought it was nice of Eric Nuzum to back up every point that Kmele was making regarding the irrelevance of Public Radio, although Kmele didn't really need the help. Was he aware of the meaning behind what he was saying regarding BBC vs NYC market share?
Really thought Kmele (and everyone else) was great on the Glenn Show. Four different opinions being shared politely in a productive conversation kind of makes it like the antithesis of any cable "news" show where the host brings up a topic and 4 assholes yell at one another about it.
Wow man, brought a tear to my eye. That’s fantastic. Known a couple of force-of-nature people like that in my life, and when you’re around them, it’s like breaking bread with a hurricane.
There’s a wonderful episode of Bari Weiss’s Honestly that covers the Leonard Cohen memoir (published April 6 of this year), it’s such an incredible story.
Econtalk also interviewed the author of the Cohen book. Very good episode as usual.
Here’s the link for people: https://www.honestlypod.com/podcast/episode/2cf5c7b4/who-by-fire-why-leonard-cohen-ran-toward-war
I loved the interview with him intertwined with the music of Cohen. The book covers the time Cohen spent in Israel during the Yom Kippur War visiting the military. Fascinating story.
The Casanova Brown feature on Let The Turkey Cook was *chefs kiss*
That baseball picture now has me wondering if there’s an entire set of Israeli versions of American League teams - an “AL’chaim” if you will. Is there a Haifa Astros club that can’t have garbage cans in their clubhouse? A Tel Aviv Angels squad that’s wasting the best years of Mike Troutstein’s career? The Jewish baseball fan in me wants to believe.
I'm still wondering why there's been no backstory given about this Israel junket that seems to have included several of my favorite 'heterodox' podcasters - not just Monihan and Welch, but Jesse Singal and Nancy Rommelman, and I guess Andrew Shulz and several others were on the trip as well. Since I don't think it was a case where a bunch of journalists from the 'heterodox' or 'centrist' space all got together one day and said, "Hey, gents, lets all go to Israel!", it's not hard to conclude that it was a sponsored trip, though it was mentioned in one of the recent podcasts that it was an invite by the Israeli consulate.
And just to contextualize my comments, I'm not someone who's particularly anti-Israel or has a hobbyhorse about that country, though I am pretty critical of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians (and critical of the ruling factions in Palestine as well) and I think Likud and everything it represents is pretty awful.
The thing is, like embedded reporting with the military, I think press junkets sponsored by NGOs or governments really do entail some potential conflict of interest, and there needs to be disclosure of who's sponsoring it and the backstory for the trip. I hear none of that in any of the "5th in Israel" podcasts I've heard so far - just some, "Hey, guys, we're in Israel" - and I'm kind of disappointed by the lack of transparency there.
I'll give a shoutout to Jesse Singal for giving a disclosure about sponsorship of this trip and for making a point of meeting with an opposition group to tour the West Bank and report on conditions there, rather than just settle for a presentation by one side:
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/disclosures
https://jessesingal.substack.com/p/more-jews-should-visit-the-west-bank
The whole thing leaves me with some unanswered questions, notably, why is the Israeli government doing an outreach to the 'heterodox podcast' space and what are they hoping to get out of it? And what are the journalists involved doing to make sure they're not just being mouthpieces for the Israeli government. Much like the established leftie genre of sponsored junkets to Cuba or Sandinista-era Nicaragua, it smacks of charm offensive and propaganda.
The "backstory" is this: The Israeli Consulate in New York paid for & organized an information-gathering week-long trip for a dozen or so journalists and podcasters, whose general political views and specific views on Israel are across the spectrum. (Andrew Shulz was not one of them.) Countries, and organizations dedicated to relations between specific countries, tend to arrange such "junkets" with the hope of increasing the level of understanding/familiarity among (hold your nose at the term) "thought-leaders," and presumably leading to the host countries being portrayed in a more favorable light. (This did not work out well when Moynihan was invited to Qadaffi's Libya: https://reason.com/2010/02/22/a-libyan-charm-offensive/.)
I went on a similar excursion a decade ago w/ Kmele, care of the Swiss-America Foundation, and had a swell and informative time in a country I already knew quite a bit. I also played in-country journalist-briefer for visiting junkets to Bratislava and Budapest, exchanges that I found worthwhile if a tad odd.
In this particular case, there was no quid pro quo, no expectation of producing journalistic output, no dominant political storyline to tell (if indeed any such thing would be possible in Israel, which it really isn't). So, with the added prospect of bonding w/ my Fifth bros & whoever else of interest was going on (or that we would meet) on the trip, I happily said yes to a free information-gathering trip to a part of the world I am fantastically ignorant of. If/when I write anything of substance about the trip, I will gladly be disclosing how I got there.
I will let whoever else was on the trip to describe their involvement (or not) on their own schedule. It's a volatile subject everywhere in the world, and not everyone is equally comfortable taking heat, especically from bad-faith actors. As you mention, Jesse and others (including Nancy) made their own independent reporting before the trip, and others did likewise after. I didn't have the extra time, and -- importantly! -- was not there on assignment, so I had to make due with our 14-hour days of visitations, contentious conversations (including virtually nonstop on the bus between participants), and briefings by various journalists, Foreign Ministry types, politicians, security types, tour guides, Supreme Court justices, Holocaust survivors, hawks, doves, atheists, Muslims, and so forth. To give you a flavor, Israelis on each of our last two days there described the current situation w/ Palestinians as "apartheid"; other people we visited with vigorously disputed that characterization. The conversations were wide-ranging and diverse, if necessarily not comprehensive.
I had a fantastic time, am glad to have had the opportunity, and will almost certainly be going back to the region.
Matt, you're an exceedingly decent man, in a world where that virtue is highly underrated.
For a goy, you're a good man.
When you get an opportunity read "Who by Fire" by Matti Friedman. It is a great story about Leonard Cohen & the Yom Kippur war.
Watch this (NSFW) because it is the funniest comedy special this year (Shulz fans may disagree but I'm up for that debate):
Ari Shaffir - JEW (2022) FULL SPECIAL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2YtIBYM4w0&t=3721s
It's complicated........it's always been complicated, it will always be complicated.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Holy shit, this guy is absolutely hilarious :D Thanks a lot for sharing!
Also, did Desantis for President pay for Moynihan's trip to Florida? The people want to know.
Alright, alright, to steel-man pgwerner's point: yes, transparency is good, it demystifies the trip for the casual listener, and yes, the Israeli Consulate's job is to persuade the world that their country isn't sheer evil. Apparently the whole reason Julia Child lived in France is because her husband did similar work for the State Department.
HOWEVER, it was a big group, and as Nancy said, not everyone wanted their whereabouts known immediately, so to explain the funding would have potentially "outed" some of the writers. Also, give them two minutes to collect their thoughts. This pod is also a personal journal of sorts. The scrupulosity seems a bit overkill.
There was not, mostly because Jesse was too busy trying to eat bread.
He needs to put on weight.
I only just heard of Nick Cave on the last episode and have since checked him out. I like his stuff.
Does anyone in the 5th fam have any recommendations on his best stuff that I should be sure to listen to?
Thanks 🙏
Start with the album “Let Love In”, and then head on over to “The Boatman’s Call”. I used to sing “Into My Arms” to my baby daughter as a lullaby.
Oh, and go off and listen to Johnny Cash covering Nick’s “The Mercy Seat” on “American III: Solitary Man”
How many IDF women did Moynihan ask "Do you have your passport? Did you get your shots?"
Happy thanksgiving gents
*And Moynihan
Laura was right. They should all shut up and dribble. They are not more than basketball players. They literally play a game for entertainment. I cannot fathom a class of person whose opinions matters less.
Really enjoyed the conversation on Glenn's show. You guys should look into John Amaechi and consider having him as a guest. Extremely intelligent and well educated guy. Super interesting life and career arc in the NBA and after. Has views on race that cut through the mainstream but would most likely run counter to Kmele.
Korsnacki canine analysis, for those who celebrate- https://youtu.be/KqxtIf9dtmI
As your local terrier lunatic, I of course watched the entire terrier judging online, with comment. Scream-laughed over the Irish Terrier captioning: “He takes naturally to Porter, and he’s not shy of guns.”
https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTU1NzY0OTI3MjI4OTg3?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=
I fucking love you guys. The fifth column is the best damn podcast out there. Happy Thanksgiving 🦃
Bill Burr is 100% right about FSU in that clip! Them and Tennessee each only know one song
Glenn is dropping the full race realism debate on black Friday.....clearly it's one more tick in the "race is real" column, there is a whole damn day dedicated to Black.
I thought it was nice of Eric Nuzum to back up every point that Kmele was making regarding the irrelevance of Public Radio, although Kmele didn't really need the help. Was he aware of the meaning behind what he was saying regarding BBC vs NYC market share?
Really thought Kmele (and everyone else) was great on the Glenn Show. Four different opinions being shared politely in a productive conversation kind of makes it like the antithesis of any cable "news" show where the host brings up a topic and 4 assholes yell at one another about it.
Wow man, brought a tear to my eye. That’s fantastic. Known a couple of force-of-nature people like that in my life, and when you’re around them, it’s like breaking bread with a hurricane.
She must be the choir leader. And the family harmony! Nothing like it.