on Hillary Clinton at the moment (your feelings for her over time resemble a roller coaster), but I hope we will always agree that at any given time, Kate Winslet is not being honored as she deserves. Did you see her in the series premiere of Ricky Gervais' show "Extras," where she plays herself as an Oscar-hungry fake nun? Precious.

I'm glad Camille Paglia is softening her formulaic iconoclasm against global warming somewhat. She seems to bring it up in every column, almost as an instinctive provocation. As long as you keep bringing it up, Camille, I am going to challenge you to read any of the basic scientific literature on the matter.

Paglia has clearly stated that she refuses to watch "An Inconvenient Truth," in spite of knowing her way around Netflix. Come on, Camille, I challenge you to watch the film Fast-forward through the brief interludes where Gore ruminates about his childhood vacations and election loss, if you must.

Or better yet, Camille, go to Amazon.com or the public library and do a search on "global warming" and grab a handful of books by mainstream, respected authors. Other than your citation of this "debate" website (as if there were a 50/50 debate and not a 99/1 debate) you haven't shown any evidence of having done any hard reading on the matter of global warming.

All of your discussion of global warming on Salon.com has been limited to your praise for the awe and glory of nature. (Any readers here don't believe me? Go back through Camille's archives.) This is a real insult to your readers' intelligence, and it seems to trivialize an important matter by reducing it to such a single-minded analysis.

If you come back here next month and can demonstrate that you've read EVEN ONE BOOK about global warming before writing your opinions about it as if your cultural authority somehow extends into realms of hard science, I will be impressed.

After propping up an inexperienced Democratic candidate running a corrupt campaign just to be taken down in a landslide defeat, to add insult to injury you have to subject you readers to THIS bucket of cloudy urine too.

McCain, Clinton and Revenge of the Sith?

Seriously, you guys at Salon are just fucking with us now, right? No one could take this article seriously.

Paglia opines: But there needs to be far more stringent control of this questionable practice, which can be manipulated by aggressive party operatives trolling through working-class or immigrant neighborhoods.

Absentee ballots are attractive to these populations because they have to work for a living in jobs where they cannot easily get time off to vote. Shift work, hourly wage work, and other types of work typically engaged in by those who do not enjoy professional careers make voting absentee attractive. Moreover, they need not ask for time off from an employers who might inquire to closely into whom their employees support. People dependent upon assistive devices (hearing aids, walkers, wheel chairs) are more likely to vote absentee for obvious reasons. People who cannot stand for long periods prefer to vote absentee. Older people, especially elderly women, may need to arrange transportation. Older people vote absentee much more often. My mother once voted absentee because she needed a mastectomy scheduled on election day.

Isn't it curious that in complaining about absentee voters, Paglia is really complaining about those voters more likely to support Clinton? She actually casts her objection in such a way as to assume that there is something suspicious about absentee voting. Oh sure, many of those voters don't have a latte a day and cannot claim to have high incomes or advanced degrees. However, the nonsense being spouted on this board that this makes them less intelligent amounts to a Tory argument.

Shame on Paglia, who is obviously an Obama supporter, for not being honest about why she is attacking the long tradition and helpful practice of absentee voting. Many absentee ballots are naturally cast for Hillary Clinton by the older, working class, and immigrant populations. Paglia implies that these populations are too stupid or doddering not to be influenced by unscrupulous campaign workers. Elitist much?

Camille, are you trying out for Jerk of the Year?

But as a national candidate, the stumpy, uptight McCain is a lemon. Oy, that weaselly voice and those dated locutions and stilted intonations.

So true! Whenever I hear McCain on the radio -- that sing-song/tone lowering at the end of sentences, there's something off-putting going on there that makes it sound like he's reading bedtime stories or doing bad acting. After all his years in politics, you'd think the man could execute simple speech more effectively.

Contrast that with Obama. Imagine a "State of the Union" that would be a pleasure to listen to?

For once, I agree with Anonymous.

(the first one)

I know that many find the letters about Paglia’s monthly mental effluvia much more entertaining than her actual bloviations so here’s a quick summary so you don’t have to dumb yourself down actually reading the column:

1. The ritual flak about Hillary and the “old guard feminists” that support her (What would a Paglia diatribe be without it?).

2. The standard paragraph fawning over Rush Limbaugh and company. This month Camille has trotted out this gem: “...talk radio, from both hosts and callers, have been truly operatic in drama and intensity. It's been a riveting spectator sport. But this eruption would come as no surprise to longtime listeners.” Is your spine tingling as much as mine?

3. Another paragraph of Camille wresting over the true origin of global warming: “…this heavily politicized battle, which has been very difficult to follow for everyone but fanatical true believers. Climate change, whether man-made or (as I think) natural, will remain a vital issue for decades.” Evidently Camille was too busy listening to right wing talk radio when the undisputed global warming verdict came in years ago.

4. Three paragraphs of her shock and awe at the death of Susanne Pleshette.

5. Four more on another one of Paglia’s morbid obsessions: Susan Sontag. These segue into seven turgid paragraphs droning on about what movies she watched recently (two of which were a fawning tribute to ‘Revenge of the Sith’; one of the least accomplished of the Star Wars series).

My question to the panjandrums at Salon is this: Is Paglia subject to any editorial oversight at all?