Thanks for the pep talk yesterday
I’m talking about your comments on this thread. Most of you know it’s been a hard year for me, and the October 7 massacre and the fact that it sometimes feels as though we’re on the brink of WWIII has increased the gloom.
Being a solo blogger is a strange activity. The blogger works quite alone, and puts out material at a fast clip. But the result is seen by so many people, most of whom are known to the blogger and each other only in cyberspace. When I began this blog I thought I’d do it for a month and see what happened. Now, nineteen years later, I guess this is what happened.
The heyday of the blog is over, and solo bloggers are much fewer in number than they used to be. But I have no intention of quitting.
Thanks again.
I read your blog firat thing every day
I’ll just put this out there since I know it’s true for me…
I reckon it’s we who owe you a debt of gratitude.
And some encouragement across the board… for the Neo tribe….
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” – Galatians 6:9
First Stop in the Morning, and several throughout the day. I learn a lot from you and from other commentors here. Thank you all.
You have a lot of great qualities that you exhibit here on your blog, neo. One of those is your outstanding journalism. The pandemic and George Floyd stories are two examples where I was truly getting better, more useful information here than I was at any other, single source. It especially helped during the pandemic.
THANK YOU!!!
Neo, I read your blog every day as well, and have for many, many years! I appreciate you (and many of the commenters as well) so very much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alqj0nd9-A
Thanks for your coverage of what’s going on here. I also got support vicariously from that post and responses.
Like many in Israeli Hi tech I am working from home, but it is very hard to remain focused. This is complicated because most schools and daycare are closed.
Although my parents know their grandsons have been called up, they are old and focused on heath issues and their own small circle. We filter what we tell them…
Right now we are holding our collective breaths. I think there is much good in this waiting game for Israel, but it is nerve wracking for those who were called up and their families.
I do not even go near the clips and photos of the pogrom. Over the years I have limited my dwelling on the violence targeting civilians in Judea and Samaria. Similar stories of entire families killed…
I am encouraging people to call this The Oslo War. That is how history will remember all the ‘limited incursions’ with the macho names, and all the victims of terror the Left heartlessly dismissed as “sacrifices for peace”…. Like the 30 Year’s War or the Punic Wars. Only Marxist dreamers could turn a miraculous Six Day War – unquestioned by anyone – into 60 years of bloodshed that leaves us apologizing for defending ourselves.
Calling this The 5th Oso War (let the historians argue over the count) is not only more accurate – it ensures that the Lefties who caused this keep their heads down: there are already creeps here trying to peddle the “Bibi sould step down” angle.
To those who read Psalms I suggest 144
Cheering up friends is part of being a friend.
We also appreciate you as a person we really like to “visit” with every day.
The news IS over-whelming, but at least you start the day’s journey with beautiful pictures, music, dance, or…random interesting oddities.
@ Neo > “solo bloggers are much fewer in number”
It seems to me there are still a lot of them, but they publish on platforms other than the traditional blog hosts.
Substack is arguably a blog site, since individuals can post articles and have commenters. X-Twitter is moving into blog territory with the chained threads, longer wordcounts, linking, and other abilities. Retweeting is a form of commenting.
A lot of “news” media on-line consists largely of bloggers, but they are called columnists and they cross-reference each other more frequently and directly than isolated individuals do. RedState (as a platform) differs from Powerline differs from ChicagoBoyz only in size and funding.
Many, many individuals have “private” blogs, some of which they link to in their avatars; fewer make a living (or substantial augmentation of their day job) from blogs.
In fact, there are so many blogs (in all formats) that I limit my regular daily reading to Neo, Powerline, Hoyt, and a few others; most of my “news” comes from links by those posters.
And there is still more than I can get around to reading, even though I spend WAY too much time doing it already!
Long live the Blog-o-sphere!
AesopFan:
This is probably a bit nitpicky, but I think of substackers as columnists. A blog is more of a total experience, including design as well as short pieces and pictorial pieces.
Most actual blogs (political blogs, that is) these days are group blogs.
Ben David:
The best to you and to Israel. The stress is bad enough here, but in Israel it must be stratospheric.
Your thoughts are an important part of the Badger’s day. Keep at it!
Ben David: Oslo Wars — I like that.
neo:
Essential information and analysis (on many diverse fields) is what you give to us. May God watch over you.
Hang in there Neo, I think I can speak for many here by saying we very much appreciate what you do and that it is an important part of our day to visit and read what you create. Even someone like me that doesn’t comment often.
I’ve told this story many times, and I’m sure a few times here.
When I was in Israel in the early eighties, I met a LOT of foreign journalists who were covering the Middle East. There was a bar close to an office building that housed a number of new agencies. (I liked the bar because it had GREAT cheeseburgers and a fun trivia night.)
They were covering the entire Middle East from Jerusalem because Israel was the nicest place to spend most of your time and be based out of: You could find a bar, for one. And it was the most (and frankly, still is the most) westernized country in the Middle East. It’s not as uncomfortable as loving in Cairo or Amman.
They knew very little Hebrew and almost no Arabic. The agencies relied heavily on local stringers. They paid local stringers VERY badly, so pretty much the only people they could hire were Arabs. (Israelis could get better jobs at Israeli news periodicals and didn’t need the slave wages of the foreign news agencies.)
At some point, the PLO/PA figured that out (and I’m sure Hamas, too) and the stringers where on the PLO/PA payroll. And unfortunately, this is true with Hamas in Gaza.
Have you ever seen “The Year of Living Dangerously”? All those journalists just hanging out in the bar, waiting for something to happen? They really don’t seem to know or understand the country in which they are living. That seems pretty accurate.
My impression from getting to know these journalists in Jerusalem over the course of a year was that they never actually really went out to learn about a story, or investigate — they waited until someone told them what was happening. And they knew nothing about Israel or Israelis, and any of the history of the area. They knew even less about the Arabs or any of the other countries of the Middle East that they were supposedly covering.
They all just covered the Middle East from a bar stool in Jerusalem. Why should the bother to learn anything?
And since journalism has seen a step decline in quality, I’m sure the journalists covering the Middle East are as bad or worse, now, some forty years later.
BTW, Neo, I’ve been reading you since forever. I tried my hand at blogging and it’s VERY DIFFICULT to keep it up. My blog is still out there, but it’s been over ten years since I contributed to it. (It’s funny how some of that stuff comes back up. Like Green is the New Red: https://moxiehoxie.blogspot.com/2008/02/green-is-new-red.html?m=1
or the crazy language crap with pronouns: https://moxiehoxie.blogspot.com/2007/12/jennifer-roback-morse-recently.html?m=1)
I’m thankful you’re still around. I read you and Ace of Spades ever day, professional check in with Sarah Hoyt, Maggie’s Farm, Never Yet Melted, and the Diplomad.
Your blog is the best. Thank you for your work!
In a manner similar to many whose comments have preceded this one, I cannot think of a day when I have not stopped by neo’s place. Oh, I imagine there’s been a couple — like when I moved across country by car (and moving van). But that was more than a decade ago.
*All* of these foregoing sentiments apply to me as well, and those sentiments are expressed so well:
CHECK – “I reckon it’s we who owe you a debt of gratitude.”
CHECK – “I learn a lot from you and from other commentors here. Thank you all.”
CHECK – “You have a lot of great qualities that you exhibit here on your blog, neo. One of those is your outstanding journalism.”
I know I’ve expressed appreciation for your work as well as for the contributions of commenters here, but here I’ll go again.
I am both grateful and relieved that you’re going to keep on keepin’ on.
You and I aren’t acquainted, I know that we’re different (I know that because I know a lot more about you than you know about me), but I do feel I have a friend and an ally in you. Those are good to have. I trust you feel that way about so many of us.
Thanks for continuing to be there.
M J R
I’ve been reading and commenting since the beginning. Heck, I even remember the Shrink Wrapped, Siggy, Dr. Sanity, and Neo-neocon podcasts.
https://shrinkwrapped.blogs.com/blog/2006/11/saying_whatever.html 🙂
It’s been a long time and you’ve done wonderful work for all we followers. I don’t know how you do it but am very grateful to you.
I love your blog Neo. I visit every day. You are an obviously intelligent lady. Please keep it up as long as you can.
Erronius
Neo, I’d like to add that it is rare to find someone who is open to new ideas yet firm in what he or she believes without returning to the same rant over and over. To me that’s a sign of a young mind, regardless of the length of the tooth.
I hope you keep questioning what is true and what isn’t. You’ve set yourself an increasingly difficult task while poring over the media these days.
What I value above all, neo, is your honesty. You never say anything you don’t believe in just for effect or “clicks”.
Been reading you all along, Ne (may I call you Ne?). All of your work, your careful thinking, research, and superb writing are a blessing and I deeply appreciate the opportunity to partake. Love ya, and in a totally non-creepy way.
Thank you, Neo.
Among other things, your comment threads have more genuine thinking, less repetition, and almost zero flame wars.
It is rare that one can depend on comments for actual education.
Those are your people, Neo.
Ben David, I am told that Hebrew and Greek numbering to the Psalms differ. If we are using the Greek numbering, Ps. 144:1-2:
Blessed be the LORD, my rock,
who trains my hands for war,
and my fingers for battle;
he is my steadfast love and my fortress,
my stronghold and my deliverer.
But Hebrew Ps. 144 (Greek 143) would also do. Ps. 143: 9-12:
Deliver me from my enemies, O LORD!
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me
on level ground!
For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!
And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies,
and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul,
for I am your servant.
(All ESV)
“I have no intention of quitting.”
🙂
You have a lot of great qualities that you exhibit here on your blog, neo. One of those is your outstanding journalism.
–Rufus T. Firefly
neo:
I’ll chime in with Rufus.
You cover the waterfront, and I love you for that and this forum, but you are also one ferocious journalist!
“Be strong and of good courage…”
– – – – – – – – – – –
And a rather bizarre, if illuminating, “Changer” story…
‘I was you, “Defender of the Palestinians,” and now I want to puke;
Decades ago the left declared that Israeli settlers were fascists who could be blown away at will; today all Israelis are deemed fascists who can be blown away at will.’
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/379002
@ Barry > “And a rather bizarre, if illuminating, “Changer” story”
First, everyone please take time to read Kathleen Hayes’ post at the INN link.
Second, her changer story is not bizarre, or even radically different from others who were deep-dyed Leftist red-diaper babies (how clever of them to obfuscate history by switching colors with conservatives/Republicans!).
I’m thinking mostly of David Mamet, but there seems to be a growing cadre of left-leaning public pundits & intellectuals who have reached their personal breaking point with Leftist hypocrisy and viciousness. See Substack for many of them.
Hayes says “I took leave of my party some years ago,” apparently sometime after 9/11 due to the reaction of the Left and the Muslims to that atrocity, which seems to have been a “red flag / red line” for other erstwhile socialists who decided that the ideology they had always championed couldn’t be stretched that far, did their research, and dropped the whole load of false assumptions and constructs.
Kudos to Hayes for seeing the light and reclaiming her Jewish heritage!
May she have many followers.
“Be strong and of good courage…”
Barry Meislin:
That’s from Joshua 1:9, which is a Big Bible Quote for me:
__________________________
Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
–Joshua 1:9 (King James Version)
______________________________
Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing, maybe I just like the word “undaunted” but I love this translation too:
______________________________
Have I not told you? Be fearless and undaunted, for go where you may, Yahweh your God is with you.
–Joshua, 1:9 (New Jerusalem Bible)
______________________________
Thanks for a great changer link.
For anyone cares to understand how leftists are imperfect humans, not slavering Marxist zombies, Barry’s link is an excellent account to read. She was an effin’ Trotskyite!
______________________________
Now it feels personal. I am a Jew and a Zionist, and I intend to use whatever insight I have from my ignominious past to fight for my people. About the only thing that is certain about the coming weeks and months is that there will be another deluge of hatred against the Jews for continuing to exist and even struggling for it. Count me in, heart and soul.
–Kathleen Hayes
If you’ve never read Mamet’s “outing” of his real identity as a conservative, in March 2008, it’s available from the Wayback machine. If you have read it before, it’s worth re-visiting in light of the current Palestinian crisis.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080830083601/http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811%2C374064%2C374064%2C1.html/full
See the recently (and several times in the past) mentioned work of Thomas Sowell explaining the difference between the Left and conservatives (only a portion of what is called the Right) in regard to their views of human nature.
https://sowell.org/books/a-conflict-of-visions
The Leftists and brain-dead-liberals (and a few misguided conservatives) believe that, of course, THEY should be the ones directing these malleable humans toward perfection aka complete conformity with the Left’s agenda (they only have one principle, as many pundits have posited: whatever advances their agenda is their policy du jour – and usually de jure as well).
@ huxley — I’m not a deep student of the varieties of socialism in the early years, but it’s always seemed to me that the course of history would have been different if Trotsky’s version had triumphed over Lenin’s.
Do you have an opinion on that?
Recognizing, of course, that alt-hist speculations are not far removed from outright fiction, but it’s a valuable intellectual exercise.
Adding my two cents to the compliments paid to Neo: I have half a dozen or so regular (as in almost every day) stops on the net, and this is one of them. I actually rely on this blog as a source of news–not necessarily everything, of course, but a sort of trustworthy filter, giving me important and scrupulously factual information about events that I’m interested in.
Ben David above refers to the 1967 war as “a miraculous Six Day War – unquestioned by anyone.” Not entirely. My awareness that the left is anti-Israel goes back to a remark I heard then. In the spring of ’67 was part of a little group of college hippies of which an older guy, a very left-wing grad student, was a sort of central figure. His apartment was a sort of bohemian salon.
I myself paid near-zero attention to world news at the time, but I was aware that there was some kind of conflict brewing and that it had to do with Israel. There was a Jewish girl in the group. And I recall the grad student saying to her “Your people are trying to start a war.” It’s odd that this one remark stuck with me all these years. Apparently anti-Israel sentiment was already doctrine on the left. And the “your people” suggests how easily that can overlap with anti-Semitism.
I am Facebook friends now with that “girl”–we are old now, obviously. She posted that her relatives in Israel are safe. I was glad to hear that.
huxley; AesopFan:
Trotsky was not the kinder gentler one. See this:
…alt-hist speculations are not far removed from outright fiction, but it’s a valuable intellectual exercise.
AesopFan:
To be sure!
Trotsky is the communist whom some leftists gravitate towards as the Guy Who Would Have Done Communism Right. Christopher Hitchens comes to mind.
I’m pretty sure Trotsky would have been better than Stalin (an extraordinarily low bar). Trotsky probably wouldn’t have made an alliance with Hitler.
But Trotsky was an intellectual communist fanatic. I don’t believe he would have had any qualms with enforcing ideological “unity” with violence. If he had supreme power and was in a tight spot, I wouldn’t put anything past him.
The big difference between Stalin and Trotsky was Trotsky focused on worldwide revolution and Stalin on building socialism in the USSR, which is a difference in strategy, not on principles.
I pointed to Hayes as an “effin’ Trotskyite” to indicate she was a serious, booked leftist, not someone who picked up a t-shirt at a demo then wore it.
“I have no intention of quitting.”
That is inspiring but don’t flame out either.
Make sure to take a day every once in a while to not do this.
@ Neo – thanks for the response; as I said, I haven’t really studied the question.
@ huxley > “to indicate she was a serious, booked leftist,”
That is how I interpreted your comment – only the serious Left made any distinction between the founders of Communism back in the day; now it’s just T-shirt chic all the way down.
These are the times that try men’s and women’s souls.
How to ‘vacation’ away from the day to day ugliness? What’s a good break?
Indulging in something escapist or new, for one thing. Another trick is to mix up one’s routine — the adjustment it forces distracts one from worries.
There are many expression of gratitude here. Neo deserves them.
I’ll only echo J.J. and huxley, as he writes,
“neo:
“I’ll chime in with Rufus.
“You cover the waterfront, and I love you for that and this forum, but you are also one ferocious journalist!”
Ditto that!
“…Joshua…”
Yes, but not only. The expression, not uncommon in the OT, also appears elsewhere, e.g., towards the end of Deuteronomy (also in plural form)…as Moses, about to die, encourages the people and Joshua, his servant/assistant, and soon-to-be-successor, for what will be the upcoming campaign of conquest, even as he vigorously chastises them for the past—and future(!)—backsliding.
The expression has become part of the vernacular in modern Hebrew as an expression of encouragement (though one may well assume it was always used—i.e., over the past several thousand years—wherever Hebrew was spoken or written).
Neo, thank you for continuing to write and share your thoughts and understanding with us. Each morning when I go online to get an idea of what’s been happening in this old world, I go to my bookmark for “The New Neo” first to see what you are thinking and sharing, for I know I will get a very reasonable and insightful takeaway and a good start to my day.
Thank you, and best wishes to you.
Thank you for your efforts Neo. I read you nearly every day – you, Sarah Hoyt, and Don Surber. The 3 of you keep me sane.
Keep writing!
Neo
First thank you for your blogging although I am not follow you on daly bases but from time to time goes and read, you have put many subject that really in-lighting and informative. But with recent ME problem I see that most to point