The willingness of millions of us to go through further airport search and seizure is further evidence of how all of this functions as ritual purification for our state religious devotion. The threat of terror gives us the religious awe, chaos and a slight frisson of ecstasy we long for. We purify ourselves of pointed objects and evil waters in expiation for the guilt we feel for flying in the first place. We are wealthy and able to fly. Our enemies wish to destroy our planes for their symbolic value as carriers of our total devotion. We strip and purify and thereby having suffered and been redeemed, we are justified anew for flight.

intellectual life in this country

why indeed did it take so long to counter Said? I

stopped reading him after I had read the first

hundred or so pages of his book "Beginnings"

and could see that his reading of "Nostromo"

was tendentious to say the least, and not just

wrong but wrongheaded.

Hooray for Ben Van Heuvelen---best definition of man-crush &

Anthony Lane ('s mind) totally fits the bill.

Another hooray for Megan Doll. Marías all she says.

Good to know the back story on Owen Wilson. Met him one day

at South by Southwest in Austin two years ago (for five minutes).

"Junkie" sure fits better than "suicide." He's too "cute." Luke

still the man. "Darjeeling" worth it though.

Should I renew Premium? hmmmmmmm

Come on, Camille, when are you going to give us a psycho family

analysis of Madonna to match the brilliance of your take on

the Clintons.

Your insight is so profound I've had to dust off my orgone box.

Good column, for sure. But where's AIPAC & Israel in your analysis??

Well

but why did you not calculate the damage to the environment created by the manufacturing

of the computers and printers versus the manufacturing of the paper? Its not just a matter

of what your laptop does in the next five minutes, is it?? The manufacturing of the laptop

and all the laptops versus the making of typewriters or other printers etc .

Calculate all of that.

Bravo Phantom

You totally nail it with absolute and exquisite perfection. I speak as a professor at another new england university---not Ivy---way down below on the state uni level and as a person who grew up ten miles down the road from Skip's hometown of Piedmont, WVa. Class is what it is all about here. And as a 30+ year outsider resident of new england I have to add that I have always thought that no other part of the country can realize (because of history) quite just how "class-abused" everyone who lives in new england is without realizing it. The Ivies are just the tip of this social iceberg.