Happy 80th Birthday, John Derbyshire!
One of two journalistic geniuses I encountered at VDARE--both immigration patriots. Details supplied
John Derbyshire is 80 years old today (June 3 ). I believe that he was one of the two journalistic geniuses (gennii?) that I encountered in editing VDARE 1999-2024—the other being Steve Sailer.
John, although equally affable in person, was easier to deal with editorially.
The above picture (there was some sort of issue at John’s house in Long Island) was taken after the hysteria that followed “The Talk.” I love it because I think it symbolizes the increasingly deep hole into which John had increasingly but unrepentantly dug himself simply by being honest—or, as Steve Sailer says, Noticing. (But I have to admit that John doesn’t seem to find this picture as funny as I do)
When John turned 70, in the wake of his betrayal by National Review, VDARE hosted a party for him at an exclusive Manhattan club. And he later spoke for us at our Berkeley Springs Castle conferences.
I am filled with bitterness that, because of our ongoing mugging by New York’s race-communist Attorney General Letitia James, we have been unable to host a celebration for John this year.
But I append a list of John’s VDARE journalism:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240721135335/https://vdare.com/writers/john-derbyshire
John Derbyshire was the person who single-handedly turned me towards the Dark Side. This was initially through his article 'The Talk' and subsequently through his columns in Takimag, his Radio Derb podcast and his back catalogue of writing on his own website. For years he remained the first person I referred to about pretty much anything.
I read 'We Are Doomed' with pleasure, as well as his two novels (I thought, and still think, 'Fire from the Sun' was brilliant) and absorbed his thoughts on poetry. The only thing I never read were his books on Maths or his Maths Corner column. But hey, I was educated at a 1970's English Comprehensive so my knowledge of Maths begins and ends with adding and subtracting.
After reading something John had written I would occasionally write to him and he was always gracious enough to write back. Even when I complained to him about how much I hated British TV presenters no longer being able to say 'battle', 'medal' and 'hospital' properly, he was able to tell me what the linguistic term was for the thing they could do and why they are unable to do it: apparently this is the last sound English children master and some fools, who are then employed by the BBC, never succeed in mastering it.
Today, about 13 years after reading The Talk, I'm still grateful that I came across it and that my eyes were opened to things that in those days were 'unknown unknowns' to me. Not any more.
Anyway, in case you're reading this John, Happy 80th birthday!
Mr. Derb sez we should leave NATO, but I realized the other day that the U.S. will never do so. First reason is that U.S. presidents love to go to Europe and get treated as the lead military potentate. Second reason is, very powerful Jews in the U.S. and elsewhere do NOT want to see Germany untethered from NATO. The point of NATO is to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. Too many people are afraid of a Fourth Reich, even the Germans themselves.