Letters to the Editor
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TIRED . . . just plain tired
. . .and she said, "Their actual political accomplishments are fairly slight." And Bill Clinton was the President of this country for eight years, and Hillary,the first lady - and CP sees this as a "slight accomplishment"! I know, I know CP - where you are coming from on the Clintons, but I still consider this a worthless and wrong statement. I'm tired today, have a bad cold, but more than that or anything else I can think of at this time, I am tired of you. You are evil and small-thinking. Salon should do its loyal readers a huge favor and send you on your way. ss
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Camille ... ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Shorter Camille: "Look at ME! Look at ME! I still hate the Clintons!"
She hasn't said one word worth hearing or reading since the '80's. She's so stale, and yet Salon thinks she's revolutionary!?!?! She tries to shock with her hate-filled blather, much the same as Ann Coulter does, and fails just as spectacularly.
Perhaps she’s jealous that Madonna is still on top of her game ... LOL!
Camille is completely irrelevant and Salon should drop her immediately.
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It's interesting...
and telling to see the liberals here reaching for the axe of censorship at the first sign of deviation from the party line. Don't like what Paglia has to say? Get rid of her! Get her out of here! Silence her! Censor her! Fire her! We only want to read people who agree with us! Not very "tolerant" of you, not at all. Where's the support for independent thought, for freedom of ideas? Very telling. There's a little Hillary in all of you.
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Camille Shadows Hillary's Complicity
As a conservative, I nonetheless share much of what Camille has to say. Indeed, regarding Hillary, she's nearly "spot on." However, I suggest that Camille's own willingness to vote for Hillary -- despite her misgivings about Senator Clinton -- is the same type of complicit, whorish behavior for which she condemns Mrs. Clinton. Despite my fairly conservative nature, I believe I would vote for Senator Obama instead of Governor Huckabee or Senator McCain -- because in the case of the former, he's not genuine (Senator Obama is -- regardless of whether we share views -- and, genuineness is my litmus test), and in the case of the latter, Senator McCain has far more negative qualities -- compared to Senator Obama -- so I would tend to select the lesser of two evils. Camille's willingness to vote for Hillary despite her ravaging of Hillary's character and motivations is not much different from that which she ravages.
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If Hillary wins she will establish two firsts in our history
However, it's most unsettling to know we could conceivably elect a president who will be the first to have failed the Washington DC bar exam - and is a woman to boot.
It's comforting to know that Obama didn't have to move to Arkansas to pass his.
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Cheer, smile on cue, clap and spin!
"And let's not forget Hillary, the governor's wife, pulling out a book and rudely reading in the bleachers during University of Arkansas football games back in Little Rock."- CP
Camille Paglia, a fan of cheerleaders and that cheesy "I know I am on camera" smile?
Very interesting. I'd rather see someone reading a book.
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gender-blind
paglia's letter and these posters make obvious that very few salon readers have any understanding of feminism at all. it matters that a woman gets into office. there's nothing wrong - and a lot right - with voting for her because she is a woman. being gender-blind (or race-blind for that matter) is unhelpful, insulting and a cornerstone of the republican party. liberals are supposed to acknowledge and even celebrate differences. so why are som many posters against the idea of taking the fact that hill's a woman into account?
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But Iran Can Pose a Direct Threat
Camille: Love ya, but beg to differ with your comment that Iran poses no direct threat. Armed with a nuclear device (or several), Iran needs no long-range missile. It has other options including a medium-range missile from Venezuela or delivery via freighter. With the current level of security at our ports--something I know fairly well as I work in shipping--this is by no means an impossibility. To argue to the contrary belies the overwhelming reality of mass illegal immigration and illegal drug importation. Remember too that most of the Chinese illegals that have entered since the early 90's came aboard freighters. If millions of people can sneak in, surely a contraband weapon is at minimum a possibility.
God forbid such a smuggling operation were successful and led to a disaster. But would we even know who the perpetrator was? Perhaps eventually. In any case, given Mahmoud's crazy talk about the Twelfth Imam, we would do well to recognize the threat. Pious talk about having such weapons ourselves while denying the same to others may avoid philosophical self-contradiction, but if a great American city is burning, it won't much matter.
How to deal the Iranian threat is another issue, for which no easy answer avails itself.
Saludos,
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You said what?
Clinton tough, bad and ineffectual. Pelosi tough, good and ineffectual (war funding).
Hypocracy and hate mongering are such fun?
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Must not write anything nasty about Camille
Must not call her an intellectually bankrupt has-been. Must not call her a hard right nutcase hiding in a female body, making a small fortune disparaging the movement that got America to pay the slightest attention to her. Must not disparage her clientele, who've also got their heads up an anatomically-impossible location.
After all, as the Hillary rebound shows, it might just rally people to her side.
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Camille, get real
I had to stop reading after this bit of craziness:
"Their actual political accomplishments are fairly slight."
Really? He was elected POTUS twice and has the respect of the entire world, and she has been the most successful first lady-as-politician in U.S. history.
Paglia's spin on the Clintons is toxic, utterly cynical, and wrong. Otherwise, I kinda like her.
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LED ZEPPELIN, et al
I have enjoyed the music of CREAM, LED ZEPPELIN, ROLLING STONES, and scores of other 'classic rock' acts for years. The bands are still excellent in concert, although their recent and newer material is pallid compared to their greatest works.
The music industry is dying however, in large part because the business people who run it are clueless about content.
It seems however, that something has also failed or gone seriously awry in arts (especially music) education. Unlike the kids of the 1960's and 1970's (disclosure: I was one of those brats), the kids today don't seem to want to create music because they enjoy it - they want to imitate their favorite acts, and believe that this will allow them to somehow escape having to study in school or work for a living.
The state of the music industry is dismal, and would be more so if the corporations could not rely on the cash flows from aging 1960's and 1970's rockers.
The pathetic state of the industry (adoration of talent that's well past its prime) is brought home every weekend here in Austin, TX. Here, we have dozens of bands made up of middle-aged (or older) slackers and hippies, who still think they can impress people by acting like they did when they were teenagers.
It's one thing for a group of 15-17 year old boys to play badly written songs at full intensity because it's their creation and they want the world to know. But it's almost putrid when 40+ year olds do the same things. I do rock videos and produce SPACE SHOTS, a rock music TV program. Music per-se is not what hooks and retains audiences; it's visual aesthetics -- not surprising when you consider that over 80% of all sensory input for humans comes through the sense of vision. Bottom line: old rock musicians belong in a museum, not on television, in most cases.
Essentially, popular music has stagnated. The last creative burst occurred during the 1980's when the Reagan Administration and the religious right clamped down on "adult entertainment" businesses*, chasing billions of production dollars out of porn and into music (mainly video and other visual arts to complement the music itself). Since then, commercial music has largely abandoned aesthetics (with a few noteworthy exceptions), with two major trends emerging in the 1990's: one a sanitized kitsch (with vapid boy bands, pop-divas, etc.); the other anti-social (with death metal, pseudo-Satanism, and the like). The net-result has been shrinking prospects for new acts, and an over-reliance on re-packaging of older material for re-consumption (remastered CD's, MP3 & iPod files, re-releases, box sets, etc.).
Radio used to be a excellent medium for music, but as independent radio stations have vanished and corporate chains have grown, music radio has become basically dead-air (with the exception of a few low power stations). Talk radio has expanded to fill in the vacuum.
I never held out much hope for internet radio -- the barriers to entry are too low, and the rapid proliferation of online-streams meant that there were no operational economies of scale that could be harvested to fund ongoing development. So marketing costs ultimately overwhelmed the cost/revenue structure for attracting and retaining audiences.
The huge losses at Sirius Corp. and XM Radio confirm a similar set of business problems for Satellite Radio, where marketing not only needs to build awareness of a station's existence, but also convince people to pay for access.
The current contraction of the music business is ultimately going to be healthy I think, since it will weed out slack talent with the ruthless efficiency of market forces. Unfortunately, it may also create a climate where fewer people care for music, and where financial capital for music talent investments is scarce.
-Brian Lynch
Austin, Texas
* initially with organized zoning and other local ordinance changes to shut down 'adult-oriented businesses', and later with spurious child pornography charges in the wake of the 'Traci Lords scandal'.