Letters to the Editor
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Gee Thanks
Gee, thanks Salon, for bringing back the female George Will. Thesaurus in hand, Paglia once again claims to be a liberal, before gushing over Rush and Drudge. Why not title the column "What's Wrong with Hillary?"
But mostly, thanks for reminding me why I stopped reading Salon (I was once a subscriber) - between Walsh's screed about those nasty bloggers and Paglia's praise of my flip-floppy anti-choice former Governor, Romney, I thought I had accidentally stumbled upon the Washington Times' web site.
See you in another ten years,
RLH
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Dearest A.B.
Asking for a sample of Camille's wit when one is provided at the top of the page seems rather silly don't you think?
Now I myself find Picasso to be an over hyped hack, others find his art insightful and provocative.
For me Dali is the apotheosis of everything art should be, to others he is the worst of all worlds in art.
If you do not find her words skillfully bent then I don't think you appreciate her style of art and humor, just as others might not see the masterfulness of Picasso, Dali, Lenny Bruce, or Stephen Colbert.
I see many people object to Camille's politics and ideas. That is fair; however such a dislike is not based on artistic merit, simply content. What separates Camille from her critics is that although she may find ideas presented by others morally reprehensible, she can appreciate their talent and skill.
Clearly you don't like Camille and that is fair, the most popular (based on comments posted) writers on Salon are usually those most despised. There is something to be said about despised artists however. If the primary purpose of art is inspire emotion and thought, certainly those that anger are the most effective of artists. If this was an artist who simply aped your personal views back to you (what I think some readers expect from Salon writers) you might be happy, but would you be stimulated? Would you have passion for the arguments or simply quiet acceptance that all is right with the world?
By standing up and saying, perhaps not everything the left holds dear is in the best interest of the left, perhaps the other side has some talent and skill if not good ideas; Camille forces the left to reevaluate strategies and purposes, and that is a good thing, and something that simply repeating "what good little children are we" does not do.
As a case in point, right now the Democratic Congress, despite having the country squarely behind them, is crippled in the Iraq war debate because the minority party is using their power as the minority to block a vote. Has the majority party wheeled out the nuclear option to do the will of the people? Have they sought to use the very same powers used against them as the minority? And more tellingly has the new minority acted with cowardice and fealty against their ideals as the old minority did? The answer is no.
A great deal can be learned from the right, but if you refuse to admire their talent you leave yourself to repeat the same mistakes of the past.
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Molly forgot "self-promoting and obvious"
Formerly a fan of CP, found myself saying “Wait a minute…” too many times.
Let’s list her observations:
Quit to write my book (here’s the link!) after writing my essays (more links!).
Here’s another book (link). My Salon column used to be like my Spy article with a cover I did not design (with link)
Higher education is expensive, biased and spiritless. Here’s proof I said this (with link).
I always said the Iraq war was unjust (see my link?). Lives are wasted on this Manchean enterprise.
Hillary got slammed for being a political opportunist! Yay!
I loved/hated Hillary. Then she screwed up healthcare. I wrote an article that might have gotten Andrew Sullivan fired.
But Hillary will get my vote anyway. That Edwards has a light resume!
It’s too early for Obama; he needs seasoning.
Anna Smith’s death was tragic, like the real tragedies we had in the ‘60’s.
Sandra Bernhard is transgressive.
Conservative radio can be funny, but boy do they generalize about war protesters.
Drudge has good taste in music.
I wrote some lines for a movie (link-link-link!)
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Molly Ivins article
Click the link for a good chuckle. Bet if MI were to have been able to post it as a letter here, it would not get the red star it so rightly deserves! Aye, the CP fangurls & fanbois would have dismissed it as simplistc, kneejerking, echo chamber fodder!!
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~erich/misc/ivins_on_paglia
Clockwork Smurf: CP pisses off just for the sake of pissing off! She contributes little original thought. But the psuedo-intellectual SNOBS just can't get enough of her, eh?
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the girls next door and the excellent health of the bombshell
no loss of place for the bombshell, just a shift of venue:
the fascination that brilliant young college women, pre-med, pre-law, have for the reality show "the girls next door", about hef's three girlfriends, proves that the bombshell is alive and well. they don't need to write movies about them, they're all over TV still having fun and getting their way.
and what young women are learning from holly, bridget and kendra, something they'll never learn from their anti-sexual mothers, is how clear it is that women get much more out of male sexuality than men do.
the more intuitive the woman, the more she benefits from male sexuality.
thanks for coming back to salon, camille--
philly white trash girl loves you.
jean hantman, ph.d.
www.bottleblonde.us
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My Sharona
You have to wonder if articles like those by Paglia, Deborah Dickerson and their kin aren't the web version of a radio station's playing the same godawful song over and over until the original audience leaves in disgust, clearing the way, they hope, for a new, more advertiser-friendly demographic.
If so (or if not? who knows?), what is this new market you're searching for? Women who hate men, of course, but?
Blacks who hate blacks? Gays who hate other gays? Self-absorbed, self-styled metrolectuals incapable of seeing anything without their triple-distortion, reverse mirror lenses? "So the world IS about me. And I have a love/hate relationship (I'm perfect, but I'm not on top of the heap, so what's wrong with me?) with myself. So...."
In that case, get ready for a weekly David Broder column. (Thanks, Glenn Greenwald.) And some David Brooks. Yes, Salon will become just like Slate, which set its self-referential mirror on the Establishment media years ago, the reason it's the website most respected by them.
And, I wish I could say, something unique will be lost. But it is lost. Broadsheet, not the idea but the content, was the first sign of faulty perspective. And so you lurch from Traister to Dickerson to Paglia, with dozens of forgotten ones with the same voice inbetween, all self-referential, very pleased with themselves, pitying the world for its failure to recognize them, and so far left they don't notice (since they watch only themselves) that they've come full circle to the right.
Which explains why Paglia hates the Sixties, and was far more comfortable in the PC years of the late 80s -- early 90s. Freedom makes this crowd uneasy.
Beyond the lenses, there are things worth reading in the real world. In today's WaPo, next to Broder, there's a column by Marjorie Valbrun, a Haitian immigrant who explains why, after living in the U.S. for over thirty years, she's disgusted with being told that neither she nor Obama are black enough to count for anything in this country.
As Molly would have said, Y'all just ought to be ashamed. I know, a construction not used in the metro. I don't care. It's worked. I'm not listening anymore, either.