Happy Birthday to The Mark Steyn Club, which was born one year ago today - May 6th 2017. And Happy Birthday too to all our first-day Founding Members who joined on this day twelve months ago, starting with the very first - a gentleman from a small town in Idaho who signed up just after noon Pacific time. We hope our first-day founders have enjoyed this first year and that you'll consider renewing for a second. It's a great privilege to have you with us for our various endeavors.
As the graphic at right subtly suggests, among the new Club features for the coming year is the inaugural Mark Steyn Club Cruise, an innovation which came by way of request from many members. This first voyage will be at sea from September 29th to October 6th down the Eastern Seaboard at the peak of fall foliage: We'll travel from Montreal to Boston via historic Quebec City, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Maine and the highly minimal New Hampshire seacoast in the company of Mark and his special guests. Club members will receive an email with more information about this event later today.
Meanwhile, in case you missed it, here's how the last seven days looked to Steyn:
~The week began very hectically with Jenny, Jeanine and Julie: The first was another of Mark's excursions into video poetry - "Jenny Kiss'd Me"; the second was Judge Jeanine and Steyn talking Trump and Mueller; and the third was the composer of our long-time Song of the Week theme tune, "I've Heard That Song Before".
~On Monday Mark swung by "Tucker Carlson Tonight" to discuss the fiasco that was the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
~On Tuesday The Mark Steyn Club kicked off its first-anniversary observances with a special edition of our Clubland Q&A, in which Mark takes questions from Steyn Club members live around the planet. For our first birthday, we talked about what members liked and disliked about the Club, but Steyn also answered queries about seedy scofflaw Cary Katz, the CRTV head honcho who lost his case against Mark comprehensively and is now refusing to pay what he owes us. (See our CRTV deadbeat debt clock at right.) Steyn, however, also found time to tackle more profound questions, such as the decline of human dignity in a world without work. You can listen to the full show here.
~Wednesday brought a rare midweek appearance by Mark with Tucker Carlson, talking about post-Boy Scouts, the return of Nancy Pelosi, and Michelle Obama's descent into soft rock shlock. Click below to watch:
~On Thursday Steyn considered the human wreckage left by the Deep State's refusal to accept the result of the 2016 election. "The Process is the Punishment (As Always)" was our most-read piece of the week.
~On Friday Mark offered a postscript to this week's news about Boy Scouts of America with a look at how we got here.
~Saturday's movie date revisited a boring film but a brilliant trailer: Godzilla.
Steyn and Bo Snerdley from "The Rush Limbaugh Show" had a marvelous night in Polk County, Florida on Friday: Mark was very touched by Mr Snerdley's generous introduction, and by the warm welcome from Polk County Republicans, including Agriculture Commissioner and gubernatorial contender Adam Putnam and many other political candidates. Tonight, Sunday, he'll be in New York for the annual gala fundraiser for CAMERA, the indispensable institution for the truth of what's happening in the Middle East. More details here - and please note the admission price is considered a tax-deductible donation, and you can get $50 off if you enter promo code MARK.
Next month Steyn will be in Toronto to receive the very first George Jonas Freedom Award. This is a huge and very humbling honor for Mark, who treasures the memory of the late Mr Jonas, a genuine champion of liberty and a truly great Canadian. You can find more details about the event here.
As mentioned above, despite comprehensively losing their case against Steyn, Cary Katz's sleazy CRTV has decided to sue Mark all over again - this time for a mere $5 million. In addition, the deadbeat poker-playing student-loan billionaire is also suing CRTV - in other words, suing himself to make his own company sufficiently bankrupt to be unable to pay us. This devious maneuver has attracted little attention from the conservative media, but the poker press is all over it:
PokerGo Owner's Bizarre $20 Million Lawsuit Makes Headlines
Also:
Poker Central, CRTV Sued By Their Owner
And one more:
Billionaire Poker Player Sues His Own Company
Mark will be in Nevada District Court in Clark County on May 29th in an attempt to prevent this obvious nonsense. If you're one of our many Vegas readers, do swing by and say hello. As for CRTV's new suit against Steyn, the complaint is 200 pages long and includes as exhibits two of Mark's recent Song of the Week selections. Apparently Cary Katz asserts that Steyn's essay on "Oh, Happy Day" is disparaging and defamatory of him. So we're running a special competition for readers to identify anything actionable in that "Happy Day" column. Email your entry here, and Mark will select the best at the end of this coming week. The winner will receive a year's subscription to CRTV. The second-placed entry will win two subscriptions to CRTV, but you probably saw that joke coming.
Much of our content at SteynOnline this last year has been funded by members of The Mark Steyn Club. Don't worry, none of our regular features are being paywalled, or anything like that: we're proud to say that there's more free content at SteynOnline than ever before in our fifteen-year history. But we are providing Club members with a few extras, such as our Sunday Poem, Tales for Our Time, participation in our Clubland Q&As, and the opportunity to sail with Mark on that above-mentioned Steyn Club Cruise.
You'll find more details about The Mark Steyn Club here. And don't forget our Steyn Club Gift Membership (not to be confused with our SteynOnline gift certificates).
The first week of Year Two of The Mark Steyn Club begins tonight with a suitably celebratory Song of the Week - and with many more anniversary observances in the days ahead. Thank you again for your support - and many happy returns!
