Miscellaneous: Twitter, More Twitter, Karlin, And Dylan
12/14/2016
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Some random comments.

1. Sometime today my number of followers on Twitter (@DissidentRight)passed 5,000.

No, it's not a sensational number as Twitter-follower numbers go. It is kind of amazing, though, given that I don't get Twitter, never actually engage in any exchanges on it (because I don't know how), and only use it to post notices of when Radio Derb is up or when I've published something lengthy elsewhere.

Thanks anyway to all 5,000-plus, and a Merry Christmas to each and every one.

2. If you're following my minimalist Twitterings, you might also want to follow @DerbQOTD. It's not me, it's a fan — I met him at the Mencken Conference — who re-posts when I say something pithy.

Can't load tweet https://twitter.com/DerbQOTD/status/665331810335719425: Sorry, you are not authorized to see this status.

Thanks, guy.

3. A reader has directed my attention to some peculiar remarks by Anatoly Karlin over at The Unz Review.

Vladimir Bukovsky, a Russian “dissident” who lives in Britain, and the “hero” of the NYT article cited by Yudkowsky, was found to have child pornography on his computer in 2015. He has since been charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with possession. On his part, Bukovsky has insisted that he was framed. (Incidentally, this was an explanation that The Unz Review’s John Derbyshire was curiously eager to buy into. I suppose boy fiddlin’ might be a kebab pervasion when practiced by Asian grooming gangs, but it is also a hallowed tradition of the English upper class, and hey, dey culcha has to be respected).  [Yudkowsky: It's Child Porn or the Putlerreich by Anatoly Karlin; The Unz Review, December 12th 2016.]
What's up with that? asks my reader indignantly.  (Indignant on my behalf, that is.  He even suggests Karlin's remarks may be tortious, although I think that's a stretch.)

Answer:  No idea.  I have no acquaintance with Anatoly Karlin beyond our both appearing on the Unz Review masthead.

In any case I am neither shaken nor stirred.  Karlin's remark is certainly snide, but I don't think it rises to the level of pistols at dawn.  Writers get inured to this kind of thing.

I'm just going to assume Karlin was drunk when he wrote.  After all, he's Russian.

4. Congratulations to listeners who spotted the Bob Dylan allusion in the December 9th Radio Derb.  I'm sorry Dylan passed up the chance to meet my old pal Professor Malmqvist.

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