He's a Geek, Jim
With most conservative pundits in a tizzy about gay marriage, it's nice to see the National Review's round mound of sub-par Dowd, Jonah Goldberg, focusing on the issues: Namely, giving verbal beat-downs to B-list actors who dare criticize Bush's dream of manned Mars missions.
TRAITOROUS CRAPWEASEL [Jonah Goldberg]
I don't mind that much that Jean-Luc Picard thinks it's too expensive to go to space. But when he starts bashing our "significantly flawed civilization" it makes me wonder if he ever even understood what Star Trek was about. Disgraceful.
What's important to remember here is that Goldberg does, in fact, understand what Star Trek was about. And don't pretend that you don't: As Goldberg says in a later post, "This is all stuff I've written about before and hardly controversial." Specifically, "[T]he [original] show was explicit about Federation culture being American culture. . . . The conflict with the Klingons (and Romulans) was an excplitly Cold War morality tale. . . [It celebrated] dedication to scientific discovery, the quest for truth and individual liberty. . . I can quote episodes if I must."
We bet you can. Obviously. You don't get that pale and overweight by going outside and doing exercise.
Jonah was 28 before his Mom would let him go to Star Trek conventions on his own, but he's really made up for lost time.
UPDATE: We kid. Goldberg is not particularly heavy (compared to us). He does look peaked. And as for the Star Trek/fantasy fiction obsession. . . well, let's just put it this way, Nick Confessore of Tapped once tried to have a conversation with us in Elvish and we still talk to him. We do, however, refuse to crack open that copy of Silmarillion he gave us for Christmas.
TRAITOROUS CRAPWEASEL [NRO's The Corner]
TREK AND PANDAGON [NRO's The Corner]