Oh joyful day. Brad Delong has returned to the Daily Gimpei. Witness this comment to my latest post. It is surely the finest example of the synthesis of the Sinnestrieb ("the sensuous drive") and Formtrieb ("the formal drive") into the Spieltrieb ("the play drive") since Schiller himself! It is short and yet it contains worlds:

I *do* have a day job...

In honor of this most auspicious event, I do hereby declare April the 24th Brad Delong day, and will heretofore add him to my blogroll.

P.S. Brad may be off the hook, but there's still the little matter of Malaysia. Despite my entreaties, I haven't gotten a single hit! Watch out Malaysia, I'm posting photoshoped naked pictures of you unless I see some results.

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Brad where are you? Was the shoulder rub bad? Did you not approve of my grappa? I made it myself from the grape residue left over from some wine I also made myself. Did I mention that I did it the old fashion way, stomping on the grapes like a... person who stomps a lot. Please come back, even if you aren't the real Brad Delong. The illusion of a famous visitor is enough for me. I hate being disillusioned; I want to be reillusioned. More illusioning damn it!

P.S. Don't make me photoshop your head onto nude pictures.

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OMG OMG OMG. Warren Ellis + GI Joe. This is too good to be true. I keep slapping myself in case it's all actually a dream, but no it's real! I always liked Transformers, but GI Joe definitely had better storylines. Like the one where a Iceberg gets turned into a killer whale, or when dusty gets transported into an alternate universe where Cobra is good and GI Joe is bad, except there are no goatees! Now all they need to do is bring back Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light. I think Alan Moore would be good for this one. After all, they had to recite poems in order to get their abilities to activate.

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Things are really heating up in the comment section to my post on Brad Delong's blog. A little context, Robin is taking issue with Brad Delong's critique of the media's reportage of a book by Amity Shlaes that questions the success of the New Deal. Brad thinks the book is deeply flawed and that its flaws aren't being properly emphasized by the media. Robin's response follows.

If a book says the earth is not round and congressmen and congresswomen are quoting it, then I do want to know what the hell they're thinking, or not thinking. Like Bush, I don't want to hear their whole argument or reality's forceful rebuttal. I just want to get a sense of this phenomenon on its own terms -- which de long is unwilling, but not ill-equipped, to do. I also want to know the arguments for the world ending in 2012 -- I don't need Brad DeLong to tell me it's not going to end on that date. And I don't really need a piece in the article saying "Experts say the world isn't going to end."

I think, Brad -- whether you be real or fake -- that you over-estimate the imprimatur those articles give Shlaes's opinion and under-estimate how interesting people like Shlaes and their arguments are, whether or not they're right. And i also think you over-estimate how effective your rebuttals are.

For instance, your attack on Updike got all the right points about where Updike was wrong about Shlaes being factually wrong. Good stuff! But you really couldn't think why anyone would want to know Updike's take on this book, whether or not he knew anything about Aggregate Demand? I loved your dismantling of all his and her errors. But you didn't give any credit to Updike for being sarcastic about her book throughout his summaries -- the rebuttal doesn't come at the end, it comes in little stabs like "in a bold stroke of pyschologizing" "[FDR] was more charming, she has to admit, than Hoover" and the condemnation of her style and structure - which for Updike perhaps isn't all, but enough to expose her as a sham. The point is he didn't need to be an economist to see through her. His mockery of her is as effective as yours, if not more so, for being so wry and charming in its Updikean way. And you also condemn him for his little novelistic take on the 1930s at the end. Jesus! I found that part really interesting, but I guess only economists can discuss those 10 years of history now. god forbid the New York Times ever quote Steinbeck again. Or Dos Passos. I'd actually enjoy your reading of Steinbeck, even though you'd apparently be utterly deaf to his style (or lack of it).

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/06/poor-john-updik.html

I'm objecting to the tone more than anything else: you get angry in a way that your supporters will cheer and the people who disagree will look elsewhere and the people who don't care will wonder why you're shouting. And you also come across as something of a cultural commisar, which is mean and absurd to say, given how generous you are with your thoughts when in a good mood and given that you're blogging. But your attitude when you want to fight your corner is basically what made Pravda so boring and useless: no need to give any time to enemies of the state, the central committee already established months ago they were ideologically and factually unsound.

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One of the responses to my post on Brad Delong's was from a visitor named... Brad!

Is that you Professor Delong? If so, sit back in my massage chair, relax and make yourself at home. See that art deco liquor cabinet to your right, go ahead and open it. Feel free to pour yourself a snifter; I recommend the grappa.

What, you're leaving already? Have some more grappa... You look tense, would you like a shoulder rub? If you're an impostor, I'll be really angry. Actually, I really need the traffic. Check out my post on slate!

Don't mind that Robin guy who criticized you in the comments section; he's just being defensive because he's a journalist.

Between you and me, journalists are all lazy rubes. They're constantly writing on a deadline, so they don't have the time to check anything they say. Hell, they're so pressed for time that they often let the PR directors of the companies they're supposed to be monitoring write their copy.

As for journalists not reporting accurately on Keynes, the great depression, etc., agreed, criticize away!

At the same time, are you really surprised that the reporting is bad? The subject matter is complicated to the point of incomprehensibility. It's like asking someone to explain Hegel. Nobody understands Hegel, not even... Hegel! Now imagine trying to condense your explanation into a 250 word article. What would you do in this situation? What would you do?!

I know what I'd do: panic and call the first person I could find who could say something about Hegel. I wouldn't be stupid enough to call two people because they'd probably disagree leaving me back at square one. Then I'd send the copy off to my editor as quickly as possible. If it's biased, so what, it's the editor's job to fix that. Besides, I have forty minutes to get something out on Merleau-Ponty. Aaaah.

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Where did Brad Delong's blog title, grasping reality with both hands, come from. Am I alone in finding it extremely irritating? I hope its derived from some famous quote; otherwise it's a perfect example of a horrifically overwritten title, like A Heartbreaking Jerk of Staggering Penis, only worse since there's no irony.

P.S. I do enjoy the blog, I just hate clicking on that title everyday in google reader.

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