Letters to the Editor
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Infomercial:
Infomercials have the same format: the worn, but terminally perky blond and the square-jawed booming man of authority, who constantly reassures the blond that "Yes, it's really true. The Vegomatic doesn't just slice. It dices too."
So it goes with Ms. Paglia, who intones in a semantic baritone and then feigns perky surprise at her pontifications.
Luckily for fans of melodrama, her academic authority always assures her blond side that "Yes, it's really so. I don't just slice. I also dice."
Yeah. And the Ginsu knife really cuts through steel too.
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To ktbrownz
"Someone who can piss off this many people must be on to something. Welcome back, Camille."
So if Salon hired Rush Limbaugh to pen a column a month you think the extreme negative reaction here would mean that he is "on to something"? Would you welcome him, because he knows how to get people all riled up?
Crap is crap, people are calling it like it is.
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Oh boy
The intellectual homogeneity of this site and of its readers is one reason I frequent this site so little these days. Not anymore. Welcome back Camille!
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I nominate an Editors' Choice letter
Laura Erickson's "Count me Out" letter should get a red star.
I'm disgusted that Salon is "thrilled" to have CP back; that is so obviously out-of-touch with your readers. You are willfully arrogant.
The people you should have been thrilled with are your readers. We're the ones who got you where you are. Without us, you're a tree falling on the internet.
I am boycotting Salon. I will have nothing to do with supporting CP's narcissism.
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Why all the negativity? I adore Camille and am thrilled she's back!
I must say, as a longtime Paglia fan, Salon reader, and passionate feminist, I was thrilled when I saw today's headline. Paglia and James Wolcott are the only cultural commentators I look forward to hearing from these days - despite all the opinions out there on the web and in the news, Paglia is the rare bird who make incisive, surprising connections between serious academia, politics, history, and the world of pop media. Anyone who can riff on classical poetry, Nancy Pelosi, and Anna Nicole Smith is all right by me. Paglia appreciates the full spectrum of human endeavor - and is open-minded enough to see what people dig about right-wing radio even as she disagrees with it. Well, I for one love reading her column -- even when I disagree with her, which is often.
But I was shocked to see today's letters pages - hundreds of jeering, vulgar insults that don't even have the flair of bathroom graffiti, hurled at a woman who dares to take a swipe at the sacred cows of the left. These politically correct, hysterical trolls are Salon readers? If this is a representative sample, than the so-called left is indeed in trouble. Are people so insecure in their own convictions that they can't form a cogent response to her assertions, but just resort to playground-level taunts?
I remember the arguments I used to get into back when Paglia's first book came out -- I loved to defebd her against sputtering feminists and angry men who just simply couldn't accept that she might have a point, and would have happily banned her work and burned her books. I thought society might have moved on in the last 15 years, but apparently not.
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That's darned funny about Molly Ivins
It's funny that Ivins hated Paglia, because Ivins liked to adopt the pose of a libertarian Democrat. So you'd think they'd have gotten along!
But you can't be a libertarian Democrat when you stick up for the Clintons. The Clintons' worship of big government power provided a natural prelude for the big government arrogance of neoconservatives under Bush.
At least Paglia tries to be a libertarian Democrat on a consistent basis, without selling out to the DNC like Ivins did.
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Disappointed
After receiving the recent notice that Salon's subscription price is going up, I am seriously considering cancelling. I was thrilled when Glenn Greenwald came on board, but I am extremely disappointed at the return of Ms. Paglia.
I think I will just click through the ads to read Glenn rather than pay a higher subscription price to be subjected to the narcissistic rantings of Camille. How very 90's of Salon to resurrect this pop culture mummy who "burst onto the scene" at the beginning of the Clinton administration.
For Paglia to be hired at Salon just a week after the death of the great Molly Ivins just rubs salt in the wound. I think Salon has greatly miscalculated here.
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Why the apologists don't get it.
What's so funny is how willing all you uptight liberals are to swallow the bait.
No one is swallowing the bait. We're telling the editors that we don't like eating worms.
We're not stupid, OK? We know what a contrarian is, and the readers of Salon are hardly monolithic liberals. There are good, clever contrarians, and then there are just self-absorbed has beens.
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Miz Camille
Now, now ladies and gentlemen, we are supposedly of one ilk here, radical thinking, open to new ideas, probably pro Dem and such, and all I read are a bunch of whiny snippets from so many of you. Such is life that we are able to pick and chose who we read and who we don't read. But cancel your salon.com sub, please, how silly is that just cuz you take issue with what Lady Camille espouses. I luv her "stuff", her boldness, her bravada, her gutts...you go Camille, glad to see you aboard again. I suppose some of your down siders are the same ones who also despise Annie LaMott. What is it about we free speaking radical broads that some people just cannot tolerate, hmmmm.
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Where are the Editors' Choices
Seems funny that out of all these letters which, by the way, are overwhelmingly not in favor of Salon's move in hiring Paglia there are zero editors' choice picks. Could it be that Salon has nothing to say? That the readers, primarily those us who pay to be here, have opinions that don't really matter? Salon isn't doing much of a job in convincing me that the content is worth paying for.
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Who's next, Bill Kristol?
A "level gaze" that would prefer Pelosi as a presidential candidate? Nice strategic for victory, Camille. As "Fox liberals" go, Paglia is right down there with Susan Estrich on the credibility scale. After the last two Obama slams, bringing back Paglia is shitastic icing on the urinal cake.