Letters to the Editor
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I pray ...
for her students. How this woman secured a teaching job at an institution of higher learning, I can't imagine. It must be that tenure/academic freedom business, I don't know. Then again, how on earth did W get appointed to the Presidency? What was (is) all this fascination with Anna Nicole Smith? Lord, my head hurts! Make it stop!
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$35 value
How much is Salon charging for Premium now? Because right at the top of this page, and in the pop-up ad appearing here and there, it clearly says, "Free Salon Premium Membership. A $35 value." Hmmmm.
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this about sums it up
from a pro-CP LW:
I am politically conservative but often agree with Camile's brand of feminism.
Her 'brand of feminism' is anti-feminism. Of course a conservative Texan would agree with her.
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boo
Has it been six years? I barely noticed not having to skip her articles.
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""libertarian Democrat"? How does *that* work?"
Salon recently has appeared to be infatuated with libertarian-types. I suppose we'll learn the depth (or -- more likely -- shallowness) of this disturbing trend when Joan's daily blog is launched.
I don't care much about Paglia -- sometimes, rarely, she amuses me, but she's even less relevant than "The Fix" or "Broadsheet" both of which rely on the republication of the work of others (but at least they have those "real" reporters/journalist's credentials to support the content).
Salon has published some trash journalism at late -- yesterday's piece on sorta-sometimes-violent non-homeless non-kid urban ur-gang ur-families, an excellent case in point, being more of this non-objective, in fact, absurdly subjective anectdotal journalling/transcription masquerading as "journalism" -- so, at least Paglia generally only speaks for Paglia, take it or leave it.
I find the subjectivity and the shallowness discouraging ... particularly when marketed as some sort of "new" or "postmodern" feminism. I find libertarians similarly self-centered and self-serving, so maybe it's not surprising; however, I find the snark and the self-referencing adolescent and off-putting.
Why Salon would want to be Paglia's pedestal is beyond me, but name-dropping and star-fucking and gossip-mongering is "big" these days in some circles ...
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Thank you, MN Observer
The Molly Ivins quote, as usual, goes straight to the bone.
When she's not ineffably stuffy and boring, she's just a fashion-bound academic. A dime a dozen. Earwax for the pseudo-intellectual. When I see so many Salon readers who actually like her, I'm less and less attached to the Salon community.
The final revelation that does her in? That she wrote for the New Republic, for Andrew Sullivan. Oh, I know. There's a lot of mouth-breathing fashionistas who will condemn me for being "partisan." Damn right I am.
I don't care what she thinks of Edwards' haircut! What about his healthcare plan? I don't care about her lesbian love-hate of Hillary! What will she do about Iraq?
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Another Italian Broad From Syracuse
Great, just what the world needs - an Italian broad from Syracuse telling us what to think. Listening to one will have you trying to sell your ears before your head swells up and explodes from all the bitchin'.
I'm related to enough Syracuse Italian Broads to know they're all crazy as shithouse rats.
Here's another thing: get one of 'em pissed and she'll put dents in your head faster than you can rub 'em.
So PLEASE don't listen to Camile Paglia. She may not hurt you, but she can make you hurt yourself.
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Global Warming??
I would be very interested in reading Paglia's take on the current Science As Religion fixation of the "Global Warming is Human-Caused" Chicken Littles.
I thought efforts at marginalization, invalidation, demonization, loss of employment/grants, and such went out with the Spanish Inquisition. Maybe not.
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Paglia v. Hitchens
Does anyone serious equate these two, simply because they are both "provocateurs", after a fashion? If so, get real. Hitchens is wrong, dead wrong, on many thing (Iraq being foremost), but at least he's relevant and insightful. His condemnation of Ford's foreign policy during the spate of tepid obits that came out following his death being but one case in point. I always come away from a Hitchens column entertained, and usually informed. Paglia is simply a wretched self-promoter, as countless others have noted. She's not interested in niggling details like "facts" or "reason", she only seeks to stir up the pot without adding any constructive and workable solutions. Those kind of people suck.
Comparing Hitchens to Paglia is like comparing Upton Sinclair to P.T. Barnum.
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Katie, please feel free to order a subscription
Salon needs the money. And unless you and other freeloaders like you start paying up, they are not going to be around in another two or three years.
I already put in my seven, so it's time for you to step up to the plate. If you love paglia in Salon so much, pay for it. Otherwise, STFU.
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Can we make a rule?
As interesting as Ms. Paglia's commentary is, I'd have enjoyed it more were she not hyping everything she writes and says. Not only the books but the publishers. And links to it all. I didn't read it to get another set of ads for her work. Can we make a rule that each columnist gets one plug each submission and leave it at that?
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Paglia's floundering wallow of self-regard
I'm a fan of Paglia when she gets beyond herself and writes about the culture and the arts it produces. It's here, and nowhere else, where the claims of her intellectual virtuosity and originality have merit. Sexual Personae had more outrageous and wonderfully defended propositions than any bit of academic criticism I've read, and Break, Blow,Burn
brought an old school rigor to discussions of poetry , prate and self-consuming criticalese and connecting her selection of poems to the world. With those two books she makes the life of the mind exciting and attractive to someone wondering whether they should bother with Great Books and avant gard posturings. As a columnist, though, Paglia tries her hand at being the public intellectual, or worse,the celebrity intellectual,and
comes up seeming comic rather than compelling. Doubtless she has Norman Mailer in mind as the self-aggrandizing
firebrand, but strange as it seemes she lacks Mailer's
charm and musical finess as a prose stylist.
Mailer might have been a boor and a lout, but he could write rings around his peers and segue into a metaphor rich discussion of war, poverty, women's rights, sexuality , theology, architecture with an intoxicating urgency. One need only compare Mailer's essay collections like Advertisements for Myself and The Presidential Papers to realize that Paglia has modeled her public persona on his amazing self confidence. What she lacks in this fast-paced world of instant opinion, though, is grace or a sense of her own absurdity, a quality that Mailer had , expressed and which endeared him even to this critics. He had a sense of irony about his attempts to light a fire in the conciousness of a post war generation he knew had been seduced by television.
Paglia, I'm afraid, is just another typing head as this stage; pioneer she may be as an ur-blogger, but her return to Salon is not a return to form. An extended bout of self-congratulation makes her sound like she's interviewing for a entry position in a new media company.
The remarks about Hillary, Obama, John Edwards et al
are likewise unremarkable. I hope that Paglia's columns yet to come are better than this slogging mass of egomania and trite conjecture. Sad to say for someone of
her daunting intellect, but she seems out of her depth.