Just A Little More on Joel Stein

Joel Stein of the L.A. Times (about whom more here) is enjoying his 15 minutes of fame, er, infamy, according to Reuters:

Stein said that, despite the fact that his e-mail address was not made public by the paper, he had received some 100 "hate e-mails" by noon. "They're telling me to leave the country, which sounded good at first because I thought they meant a vacation. But they didn't mean a vacation," he said. The columnist said he suspected the reaction was largely fueled by the Web sites, adding: "My guess is that it will die down pretty quickly."

Well, yes, Mr. Stein; that's because you haven't said much of any significance.

I've only read a Joel Stein column once before. The piece was so sophomoric that I thought Stein was probably a non-writer who had been given a guest column, perhaps an aging comedian trying very hard to be funny:

We Jews find it a little embarrassing that adults can still make such a big fuss over Christmas. To us, Jesus was just a cool guy everyone liked because he died young. And even 16-year-old girls eventually take down their James Dean posters. . . . So please, go nuts with your celebration, with your lying to children about where presents come from and your beverages made from raw eggs and your desperate use of greenery to get women to kiss you.

Seriously, folks, who really thinks that kind of Christmas-season writing is amusing or interesting, in a general-circulation newspaper?

I only happened to notice Stein's latest because of the clever title: "Warriors and Wusses." It turns out that he's a young guy, in his early 30s, with little life experience. That may explain why he seems to confuse writing something provocative with writing something interesting or important. I hope he doesn't think that simply angering a lot of people means he's written something good, or that more people will read his column in the Times now due to his brain droppings of yesterday.

Mostly, Mr. Stein, we've noted your writing as the silly blatherings of yet another young leftist Bill Maher wannabe. We hate to disappoint you, but we won't be paying much attention in the future.

PATERRICO has more.

UPDATE: Could work like Mr. Stein's be the cause of the phenomenon reflected in this Day by Day cartoon?