Letters to the Editor
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Yeeesh.
I had decided that Salon's giving a forum to this inane columnist was a youthful indiscretion that it had outgrown. I was about to subscribe again until I saw that she was actually going to be writing again for Salon. Not only did I not subscribe, I can barely stand to even check in.
You diminish yourself, Salon, with sensationlist nonesense. Lumping Foucault with Derrida and Postmodernism all mushed together, this alone makes you want to crumple up the page and toss it. Unfortunately one can't do that to a computer monitor. Well no, fortunately, I suppose.
Now we find she's also a climate change denier. Imagine my surprise.
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A common error
Paglia makes a common grammatical mistake. "Consensus" does not have to mean that every single scientist has to agree about glocal warming, just that as a body, a large majority must agree on basic propositions. In this case, while it is true that there are an isolated few scientists on the payrolls of polluting industries who dispute the broad consensus on global warming, they do not thereby invalidate the use of the word "consensus." Paglia should consult a dictionary, esp Brian Garner's excellent dictionary of modern American usage to learn more about subtleties of our language!
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On Climate Change
I too was disappointed to read Camille Paglia's comments on climate change, but it's also a shame to read ad hominem attacks.
Instead, I'll list there interesting URLs that I hope Paglia reads:
- The graph of global temperatures for the last 150 years. Note that this cannot have been caused by solar changes, since the sun and the earth's orbit doesn't change on 20 year time scales like that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
- The IPCC report on the physics of climate change. Bear in mind that the people who write this report are scientists, not democrats or activists. http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf
- The IPCC report on the biological and environmental effects of climate change. Again, Al Gore had nothing to do with writing this. http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf
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pilot?
wtf?
I'm with you on Obama. As for "European Orthodoxy"... mayhaps you could define that for us? Mayhaps you're the spokesperson for all of European opinion!? That'd be awesome. Just like Rockstar Blair. And, apparently, quite unlike periods.
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Friday the 13th returns
Paglia is baaack. Self styled provocateur that she is, now there will be more letters to the editor. In fact her column is another bunch of letters from admirers.
I guess time to let go of Salon and find something else to read.
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Who's Afraid of Camille Paglia??
This wasn't my favorite of Paglia reads, but I love that this woman is out there, and I'm glad she's back with Salon. So she challenges a few precious liberal tenets, she's far from a "righty," and I for one appreciate her expression of alternative view points a lot!
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Sorry my dear Camille
But you were way off this time. You really need to spend less time listening to Sean Hannity and get out more. Others have commented on your "global warming" intelligence so, I'll let it go myself. While I agree its always good to question the general concensus, this one is a no-brainer . . . we need to address what we're doing to our environment plain and simple. And even if the reports are alarmist or overblown, what do we actually lose by addressing CO2 emissions?
Also, as for the Pelosi trip, Newt Gingrich did just the same as Nancy Pelosi during the Clinton administration, as did Denny Hastert. Also, Pelosi stood firm on the Bush Administrations position on Syria. I believe the only criticism of Bush during these meetings came from a Republican congressman named Issa. Please note: the Dems who you regard as sooooo full of hate are not giving Mr. Issa the Dixie Chick treatment and sending him death threats.
But I guess in addition to being full of hate, we also lazy.
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Book title
"Life Against Death"
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Joseph come and hava go if you think you're hard enough
Joseph
I would be very glad to take this up with you.
I shall be in the US from May 12-20th
Lets find a bar and stand outside and you can take me on.
And yes, there is such a thing as European orthodoxy. Its called hating America (some sort of crime probably in your beloved constitution)
Shame slavery was not similarly outlawed.
I recall we did that 60 years before you
And as for periods?
Sounds like something you are having today my friend
Perhaps you need a diaper, just like all the other screaming babies that hate Camile
Pilot
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The Part of History that Comes after The Middle Ages
I'm starting to believe that Paglia's column exists to piss off those fools, who enjoying the majority of intelligent and diverse analysis found on this website, expect a certain level of intellectual rigor from it and are thus incensed whenever encountering Paglia's column and the inordinate amount of space that it takes up. Its an old ploy, find a muckraking idiot and watch the people flock to the publication to wax indignant about his/her stupidity (Coulter, O'Reilly, etc.). Maybe I'm projecting. In any case, I won't spend much time "hating" on the various awfulness of Paglia's writing, or the convention of her "responses to readers" as if she were a daytime soap star (and, of course, the cherry picked and obviously content-edited nature of those letters.).
Here's a letter not likely to see the light of monitor in her column.
Camille, in one of your responses to a letter concerning the West's preferred mode as chaperone to the immature cultures of the world, you claim that "After 9/11, what should have been perfectly clear is that we need a long, slow process of reeducating the peoples of the world, to try to convince Muslims of the fundamental benevolence of American intentions."
Oh Camille, how sad it is that not everyone has limited their study of history, geography and sociology to the transition from Roman empire to middle ages, as you have. So many ignorant peoples out there suspicious of the US's motives. Here are but a few and there crazy ideas about US actions based ON THEIR OWN HISTORY!!!
--Egyptians. These hotheads think that the Mubarak regime is a oligarchic dictatorship simply because democracy has been suspended for over a quarter century. What do they do? They elect members of the muslim brotherhood to the legislature. Once there they have the temerity to question Mubarak's authoritarian rule. Don't they know that's gonna test our benevolence?
--Lebanese. This benevolence may come as news to the hundreds of Lebanese killed and maimed by US made cluster bomblets in Israel's romp through the country side last Summer. Go figure, you know they don't get FOX over there. UN and health organizations estimate that there are 1 million such bomblets dotting the countryside. Still, with your rhetorical skills, I'm sure you could convinve them that the US has their best interests at heart.
--Vietnamese. They thought Napalm, Agent Orange, and mass murder were bad, but you don't see anyone complaining about the great sweatshop jobs. Hurry up, Camille. The Vietnamese may be forgetting all that they gained from the US's most benevolent action in recent history. At least they're not commies. Oh wait.
--Latin America. Its easy to forget the down under and those former purveyors of US sponsored benevolence Pinochet, Duvalier, Somoza, Costa e Silva. Since then things have taken a slide, of course, with democratically elected hotheads like that Chavez outlawing drinking and driving and nationalizing those oil fields.
Anyway. Come on Salon. I'd prefer Ann Coulter.