Rad Geek People's Daily

This manages both to be wildly, overtly mean-spirited and smug, while also a relatively interesting read about something that is noticeable and remarkable (viz., the proliferation and flourishing of many kinds of mid-size to small fan communities).^[1]

1. ^[1]Of course, like many other ventures by the New York Times into How We Live, it is a Dataless Trend Story, which manages to find N=2 fans to talk to, interviews or quotes N=3 people involved in the business of podcasting, advertising, and Patreon, and mentions a total of N=13 podcasts (most of them only a passing reference in a single sentence). An extended passage is devoted to discussing Game of Thrones, which is a perfectly conventional millions-strong SF/Fantasy television fandom centered around one of the most widely viewed and commercially successful television shows of the past decade.↩

Speaking for myself (not for Irfan, who wrote these two commentary pieces) — I have no desire to offer a brief for voting for Tulsi Gabbard (or anybody else), or to vote for Tulsi Gabbard (or anybody else), or for her (or anybody else) to become President of the United States of America. But this has been a particularly atrocious stretch of Liberal Electioneering Silly Season, especially when it comes to the rhetorical pitch of much of anything that touches on American foreign policy.

(I owe the phrase guilt by free associaiton to Crispin Sartwell.)