At my 45th high school reunion, which I discuss near the end of this piece, a high point was a remark that somebody who I did not know that well made to me.  He talked about having read my stuff, but the piece he mentioned was on my alternative blog.  It was one of the most quirky and personal things I have written.  That one person noticed it meant a lot to me.

Well, yesterday was a real treat.  I watched a youtube video that Robert Baty had recommended.  It was A Goblin Reads – Kent With Bent CrossOver – Sovereign Citizen

Three very clever, somewhat snarky people read two of my posts making comments as they went along, They only had two hours, so they did not get to the third post.  It was very gratifying that the remarks on my work were quite positive.  Here are the three posts.

Kent Hovind Sues US Government For Over Half A Billion Dollars

Kent Hovind’s Half-Billion Dolar Lawsuit – Legal Analysis

Paul Hansen Provides Legal Theory Behind Kent Hovind’s Half-Billion Dollar Lawsuit.

The performance was a collaboration of two separate vlogs – Goblin Reads on Cheshire Viq’s channel and Kent With Bent on Dapper Dino’s channel.

About Cheshire Viq

The about section of Cheshire Viq’s channel is pretty brief – ART! Get some F*king Culture!.

Cheshire Viq links to Steve McRae and visa versa they seem to collaborate on something called Caffeine Corner. FWIW there was a pretty strange conflict between Steve McRae and Robert Baty that I never studied very hard.  McRae also had a very serious conflict with his apparent partner that made a big splash including coverage by Nate Broady, who also covered Hovind.

McRae filed a lawsuit about ownership of The NonSequitur Show.  Here is some background on the runup to that.

It is a pretty interesting story, but I don’t think I am going to go into it any further.

I can’t get a handle on how to characterize Cheshire’s material overall. I really enjoyed this piece she did on incels.

Unfortunately, I really can’t spend that much time on youtube.  Unless it’s about me of course.  Anytime anybody does a couple of hours on me or my stuff, I will be all over it. I definitely plan to check in on Cheshire in the future even if I don’t have time for her complete presentations.

I found another Hovind related video where she was on Dapper Dinosaur’s channel and really enjoyed that also.

About Dapper Dino

Dapper Dino’s reason for covering Kent Hovind is clear from the About section.

This channel is for science-related videos focused on debunking the scientific claims of creationism. The videos are hosted by The Dapper Dino, a CGI Ceratosaurus created, animated (poorly), and voiced by one man using Blender Cycles.

I discuss topics such as evolution, creationism, evo devo, paleontology, comparative anatomy, and any other science that refutes a pseudo-scientific claim I find interesting.

Dapper Dino also links to Steve McRae. McRae’s description of his channel is

My channel is the place where people can come bring their presentations and thoughts on science and philosophy to discuss that would be of interest in the Great Debate Community. Featuring prominent Phd’s and experts to engage them in real time on various topics relating to refuting Young Earth Creationism and bad science in general.

So they seem to be rational science-oriented people who enjoy mocking Kent Hovind.  I might argue that my following of Hovind is more of a public service because people do follow his tax mishegas and get themselves in trouble, but that would be pretentious of me.  It happens that belief in young-earth creationism does not trouble me that much.

The other participant in all this is “Bent Hovind”, who does not appear to have his own channel. The Kent with Bent series is now on 33.

Kent with Bent seems to include a sort of drinking game.

Reflections

I’m starting to think of myself as a writer.  There is some satisfaction to that as it is one of my boyhood vocation ambitions.  There are a lot of them, a couple of which I took a serious run at like being an English teacher or a historian.  Priest, cowboy, baseball player, and Army officer not so much.  There was also this desire to be something of an activist, which was not entirely unrealized, but that is a different story.  The calling that eventually stuck – public accounting – was not exactly of the “Well you have to do something to feed your family” variety, but there was a large element of it.

A couple of years ago there was a conference of Forbes contributors at the original company headquarters on Fifth Avenue.  Come on, I don’t have to tell you what city.  They are an interesting bunch.  The Forbes contributor model is that you have shit covered by people who know that shit. It has evolved over the nine years I have been at it actually narrowing in a way.  I used to take guest posts and I wrote about whatever I felt like, which was usually tax stuff.  No more guest posts and we now have “Stay in your lane” instructions, which would prevent me from my doing something like the series of pieces on the Gettysburg Sesquicentennial.

One of the most fascinating observations that one of the contributors who spoke made was that the feedback we get is nothing like what journalists in the past had to deal with.  Back in the day, you could write a fantastic piece that won the Pulitzer Prize or something like that, but nobody would know how many people actually looked at, never mind read your column.  We, on the other hand, get live real-time feedback.  And it is how we get paid.  It can be a little demoralizing as it often seems that your best work gets the least pay and posts that you might view as marginally Forbes worthy get fantastic pageview counts.

Regardless of all that feedback like that from Bent Hovind, Dapper Dino and Cheshire Viq is very rewarding.