In the last six months or so, Reason magazine, and even more so the Reason website, has increasingly taken on the tone of the asinine college sophomore. You know, the kid who knows more than everybody else, or at least thinks he does, but can't understand why nobody thinks he's funny or really cares about his opinion. Worse, he doesn't understand why he's not cool, even though he rides a skateboard to class and has "Bad Brains" patches on his backpack. Even the stoners don't want to get high with him because he's always laughing at how much smarter he is than everybody else. This is too bad because there's often some very good stuff in Reason and I respect some of the authors in its orbit. But good gawd, how lame is this? I have no doubt that the gang around Reason's editorial room think this "parody" of the Corner is downright hilarious. And that's what's so embarrassing. The silly ethnic-name games, the giggling over Catholics who care about Catholicism, the snooty bad-faith mockery etc: It says so much more about those guys than it says about us. Seriously: I'm mortified for you guys. It's not even sophomoric, it's junior-high caliber. I feel like I should be in a TV after-school special where everyone laughs at you in the cafeteria.
-Jonah Goldberg, Butch Honcho, National Review Online


Wasn't very impressed with your take-off on the corner - not very satirical, just fake names and exaggerated versions of the Corner commentators' favorite topics... There's a lot more to make fun of about blogging and web commentary - the endless back and forth, the way obscure topics become subjects of full-throated, spittle-emitting debate, the tendency to blur ancient philosophers with Star Trek and Simpsons references... In "The Corndog", you just put words in peoples' mouths that are so far out there as to be unrealistic and not that funny. I think good satire has to be similar enough to its target to fool the reader/viewer for a few seconds... kind of like the best fake commercials on Saturday Night Live (the recent one for hating France, the bank that just makes change, the one where Alec Baldwin is giving investment advice to a client as he prepares to jump out a window, etc.) It might have been smarter to start out with very run-of-the-mill comments from the Corner folks (with less ridiculous, Mad-magazine wannabe names) that gradually grow more extreme and out there, and climax with calls for bombing gay priests in Baghdad in the name of Bart Simpson... That's my two cents...
-Jim G.


REASON HAS POSTED THIS "PARODY" OF THE CORNER by Tim Cavanaugh. I don't think it's funny -- just kind of mean and lame. It's not Mad Magazine-level parody, which is what it's shooting for. I don't think it's even Cracked-level parody. Cavanaugh wrote a pretty good piece on "message" pictures in this month's Reason, but I find that his efforts to be humorous just come across as , well, mean and lame. I'm kind of surprised that Reason went with this.
-The Instapundit


Dear Mr. Cavanaugh and the Staff of Reason, I just want to send you a quick letter with regard to the attempted "parody" of NROs The Corner. I am not really an avid reader of NRO, I have been more so of Reason. As an American ex-Pat living in Europe however, I have been in general, a very avid fan of Web sources for news and commentary. To some extent, this includes a few of the various weblogs. As such, I happen to be familiar with Mr. Cavanaugh's vested disinterest in such ventures as the Corner, and his vain desire to be a "spoiler". My advice to the editors of Reason, based on my contact with a VERY broad network of ex-pats here, as well as Europeans in whom you might be interested in having among your readership, would be that you are on an ill-advised course with gestures such as this. In this case, Mr. Cavanaugh's self indulgent and intellectually lazy enterprise has quite significantly diminished my respect for the content (and indeed the chosen label) of "Reason". It was a sub-par parody to begin with, but more importantly is quite clearly dripping with the tell tale signs of a hidden agenda as well as professional insecurity. I have asked a few people I know today who read Reason, and all were QUITE put off. Pitiful, truly pitiful.
To Mr. Cavanaugh my question would be: Do you actually do anything that is part of a creative process, or are you merely a journalistic vandal. Not a critic, a vandal. You are a sad case, and I will avoid anything with your name attached to it in the future. Arrogance and ignorance are a bad combination, and those who deign to hold the mantle of intellectual superiority, by definition lack it. But then, I think you already know that.
-Mr. Kevin McDonnell, Norway


Dear Mr. Cavanaugh
I must admit, I'm a tad confused. Though your "Corndog" piece has all the earmarks of parody, it simply baffles me in its complete and utter lack of any humor whatsoever. I think perhaps you could improve your mirth-making craft by studying under some people who are infinitely more talented than you, like Carrot Top, for instance, although I am a little worried that his highly intellectual brand of comedy could go over your head in many instances.
Your piece has all the awkward obviousness of a Mad Magazine piece, only lacking even that small amount of juvenile laugh-value that Mad can claim. Were 12 year-old boys to read "The Corndog," I imagine they wouldn't even be able to mock you, only shake their heads in pity. That's quite an accomplishment Mr. Cavanaugh.
Sincerely hoping you get over your crippling lack of wit,
-Russell Wardlow


I am a long-time fan of Reason magazine and especially authors like Nick Gillespie, Mike Lynch and Ronald Bailey (and Virginia Postrel when she was affiliated with your magazine). Nevertheless, you can count me among those who find your parody of NRO's The Corner to be in poor tase and not funny. Hell, it isn't even original. The Weekly Standard did a much better parody of web logs months ago.
-James B. Morse Jr.
Snell & Wilmer, LLP


Grow Up - What are you? thirteen
-aftan romanczak


I'm a member of the libertarian party, former subscriber to Reason and National Review, and visit both websites regularly. Jonah and Glenn Reynolds are right--the Corner parody is awful. Unfunny and depressingly juvenile.
-Chris Casper


I'm tremendously disappointed in you. Sophomoric and sad are the words I would use to describe this supposed satire. I've always expected more from Reason and hope that you won't find it necessary to stoop to such ad hominem attacks. Your characterization of many of the contributors as either mentally deficient or homophobic is completely wrong-headed.
I read the Corner, as well as Reason, on a regular basis. I can't say that I always agree with the commentary on either site (or in either magazine), but that I've found much to respect in both. Your satire is merely name calling and finger pointing for juveniles. In fact, some of it was simply disgusting.
You really should apologize for your childish behavior.
Sincerely,
-David Jones
Creative Services Manager
WestNet Learning Technologies


Your so-called parody of "The Corner" is just really, really bad, shallow and mean spirited and not at all funny. I've seen better satire in the last decade of Mad Magazine. You ought to follow NRO's example--they at least take your publication seriously, often more so than it deserves. Especially when you're posting this kind of tripe.
-Eric A. Kroczek


And one other thing....
The reason (one reason anyway) doing whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else isn't always such a good idea? Because it's so often just stupid and tasteless.
-Eric A. Kroczek


My liberal friends are fond of telling me that conservatism and libertarianism are about being selfish and immature - a mere lashing out of the political Id.  In the past, I have been able to point them to Reason.com to show them that it's not about self-indulgent pleasure-seeking; rather libertarianism has strong rational underpinnings which apply to a wide variety of contemporary issues.  Reason always came across as the credible, mature voice of libertarian thought.  
Well, no longer.  Your juvenile sendup of National Review Online, to me, signals that I can't take your web site seriously any more, nor can I recommend it to anyone.  This may make no sense to you, but you can't really bounce back and forth between a puerile narrative voice and a mature narrative voice, and expect to be taken seriously.  It takes a light touch to do satire right -- but your sendup has the subtlety of a Mike Tyson press conference.
The doody joke - John Dingleberry - is almost funny, in a Beavis & Butthead sort of way.  Moreover, John Derbyshire seems to have a self-deprecating sense of humor and might have gotten a laugh out of it.  But "Kaddish Bonobo"?  You are getting into some pretty scummy racist waters when you send up Ramesh Ponnuru as a chimp.  I hope that your editorial staff enjoys sharing the bathwater with Bull Connor and 1967-vintage George Wallace.
It is also highly ironic that a man with an Irish name would compare anyone to a chimpanzee.  You see, the Brits called the subhuman Irish apes for hundreds of years.  
Even if this wasn't intentionally racist, it was tremendously poor judgment.  In spite of my fondness for Sullum's and Postrel's writings, I don't think I'll be visiting your web site any longer.  It's no cosmological event; you are just losing one reader who stops by a couple times a week.  But you do it often enough and those hit numbers will drop off.  Racism ain't good for business, even among conservatives and libertarians.  
Moreover, you really hurt the conservative / libertarian movement when you allow your site to discredit itself in this fashion.  It's bad enough when Hayekian ideas wind up pinned to wack-job candidates; but when the leading Hayekian website publishes an article tainted with racism?  
You've lost my support.
-James McNeely
Wheaton, MD


Apparently, your little spoof has got Jonah Goldberg upset. I confess, I am not as smart as he, and what you've written goes mostly over my head (as if it were written by Dennis Miller). I'm not sure what the point of all of it is, but one thing I do know. You should have had a great deal more respect for the name of a woman who died when her plane was smashed into the Pentagon. I don't care if that was a reference to something an NRO contributor actually wrote or not. Can one thing- just one thing- be held back from our constant need to parody? Can that thing please be the atrocities of September 11th? Consider it an act of benevolence toward me and millions of other souls.
-Brendan R. Merrick
Budd Lake, NJ