Calm Down

3 weeks ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

There are lots of good conservatives in America. Fine, thoughtful, friendly people with whom I disagree about a lot of political stuff, but it’s a free country so who cares. One of my foundational beliefs is that my political opinions don’t make me a better person than anyone else (for the most part; I mean, if you’re in the Ku Klux Klan or Hamas, I am a better person than you). This description applies to a lot of you! Decent folks.

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

Bruce Willis is 70 years old today. Bruce Willis is great. I love Bruce Willis. I’ve never known him well, but like everyone in Sun Valley, I have interacted with him 700,000 times. After he and Demi got divorced, he actually moved into the house across the street from us.

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

Kevin Drum has passed away from cancer. I can’t claim to have known Kevin terribly well, or even as well as I wanted, but I did get to know him somewhat and I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you. In 2013, I got a DM from the editor in chief of Mother Jones. We knew each other vaguely through Twitter. She wanted to know if I could recommend a good engagement editor, essentially a person to do social media. I gave her some names. At the time, I was the social media editor at CNET.

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss |Josh Barro |Megan McArdle |Mike Pesca

Hey there cats and kittens,, , , and I jumped on another podcast from the center and chatted about all of the [motions widely] stuff going on in the news. (You can listen in Substack above or if that isn’t your cup of tea, here is the Apple link.)The opening premise of this episode is that a lot of reader feedback to the previousepisodes was that we were insufficiently panicked about everything going on with Trump. Speaking for myself, I think it’s all been pretty bad so far.

1 month ago | calmdownben.com | Ben Dreyfuss

Dear Calm Down,My wife and I met in high school and fell in love despite having somewhat different teen experiences. I was a jock and a partier. She had strict parents and was studious, shy, and buttoned up. She didn’t consume alcohol or smoke pot until we got to college. (We went to the school to be together.)Our son was born while we were at college. That was hard, and I don’t recommend it. We’re now in our mid-thirties, and our son is 16.