Amazon warrior? Are we watching the same person? I saw a woman, trying to be cutesy with winking, shout outs and sprinkling colloquialisms throughout the debate.....definitely not what I picture an Amazon warrior to be.
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:09 PM, Robert Munn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And my favorite liberal columnist, Camille Paglia, continues to praise her: > > http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/10/08/palin/index1.html > > Yes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had > never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new > symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his > champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies > and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism. > > Although nothing will sway my vote for Obama, I continue to enjoy Sarah > Palin's performance on the national stage. During her vice-presidential > debate last week with Joe Biden (whose conspiratorial smiles with moderator > Gwen Ifill were outrageous and condescending toward his opponent), I laughed > heartily at Palin's digs and slams and marveled at the way she slowly took > over the entire event. I was sorry when it ended! But Biden wasn't judging > by his Gore-like sighs and his slow sinking like a punctured blimp. Of > course Biden won on points, but TV (a visual medium) never cares about that. > > > The mountain of rubbish poured out about Palin over the past month would > rival Everest. What a disgrace for our jabbering army of liberal journalists > and commentators, too many of whom behaved like snippy jackasses. The > bourgeois conventionalism and rank snobbery of these alleged humanitarians > stank up the place. As for Palin's brutally edited interviews with Charlie > Gibson and that viper, Katie Couric, don't we all know that the best bits > ended up on the cutting-room floor? Something has gone seriously wrong with > Democratic ideology, which seems to have become a candied set of > holier-than-thou bromides attached like tutti-frutti to a quivering green > Jell-O mold of adolescent sentimentality. > > And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah > Palin, I don't think sex I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive > spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal. The > question that keeps popping up for me is whether Palin, who was born in > Idaho, could possibly be part Native American (as we know her husband is), > which sometimes seems suggested by her strong facial contours. I have felt > that same extraordinary energy and hyper-alertness billowing out from other > women with Native American ancestry including two overpowering celebrity > icons with whom I have worked. > > One of the most idiotic allegations batting around out there among urban > media insiders is that Palin is "dumb." Are they kidding? What level of > stupidity is now par for the course in those musty circles? (The value of > Ivy League degrees, like sub-prime mortgages, has certainly been plummeting. > As a Yale Ph.D., I have a perfect right to my scorn.) People who can't see > how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism the > tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary. > > As someone whose first seven years were spent among Italian-American > immigrants (I never met an elderly person who spoke English until we moved > from Endicott to rural Oxford, New York, when I was in first grade), I am > very used to understanding meaning through what might seem to others to be > outlandish or fractured variations on standard English. Furthermore, I have > spent virtually my entire teaching career (nearly four decades) in arts > colleges, where the expressiveness of highly talented students in dance, > music and the visual arts takes a hundred different forms. Finally, as a > lover of poetry (my last book was about > that)<http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBreak-Blow-Burn-Camille-Forty-three%2Fdp%2F0375725393%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fqid%3D1171405802%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks&tag=salonco08-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325>, > I savor every kind of experimentation with standard English beginning with > Shakespeare, who was the greatest improviser of them all at a time when > there were no grammar rules. > > <http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/paglia/content/[EMAIL > PROTECTED]> > > Many others listening to Sarah Palin at her debate went into conniptions > about what they assailed as her incoherence or incompetence. But I was never > in doubt about what she intended at any given moment. On the contrary, I was > admiring not only her always shapely and syncopated syllables but the innate > structures of her discourse which did seem to fly by in fragments at times > but are plainly ready to be filled with deeper policy knowledge, as she > gains it (hopefully over the next eight years of the Obama presidencies). > This is a tremendously talented politician whose moment has not yet come. > That she holds views completely opposed to mine is irrelevant. > > Even if she disappears from the scene forever after a McCain defeat, Palin > will still have made an enormous and lasting contribution to feminism. As I > said in my last column<http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/>, > Palin has made the biggest step forward in reshaping the persona of female > authority since Madonna danced her dominatrix way through the shattered > puritan barricades of the feminist establishment. In 1990, in a highly > controversial New York Times op-ed that attacked old-guard feminist > ideology, I declared that "Madonna is the future of feminism" a prophecy > that was ridiculed at the time but that turned out to be quite true. Madonna > put pro-sex feminism on the international map. > > But it is now 18 years later the span of an entire generation. The > instabilities and diminishments for young women raised in an increasingly > shallow media environment have become all too obvious. I had grown up in a > vibrant pop culture with glorious women stars of voluptuous sensuality > above all Elizabeth Taylor, sewn into that silky white slip as the vixen > Manhattan call girl of "Butterfield 8." In college, I feasted on foreign > films starring sexual sophisticates like Jeanne Moreau, Anouk Aimée and > Catherine Deneuve. Sex today, however, has become brittle and superficial. > Except for the occasional diverting flash of Lindsay Lohan's borrowed bosom, > I see nothing whatever that is worth a second glance. Pro-sex feminism has > worked itself out and, like all movements, has degenerated into clichés. And > even Madonna, with her skeletal megalomania, looks like a refugee from a > horror movie. > > The next phase of feminism must circle back and reappropriate the ancient > persona of the mother without losing career ambition or power of > assertion. Betty Friedan, who had first attacked the cult of postwar > domesticity, had long warned second-wave feminists such as Gloria Steinem > about the damaging exclusion of homemakers from their value system. The > animus of liberal feminists toward religion must also end (I am speaking as > an atheist). Feminism must reexamine all of its assumptions, including its > death grip on abortion, if it wishes to survive. > > The hysterical emotionalism and eruptions of amoral malice at the arrival of > Sarah Palin exposed the weaknesses and limitations of current feminism. But > I am convinced that Palin's bracing mix of male and female voices, as well > as her grounding in frontier grit and audacity, will prove to be a > galvanizing influence on aspiring Democratic women politicians too, from the > municipal level on up. Palin has shown a brand-new way of defining female > ambition without losing femininity, spontaneity or humor. She's no > pre-programmed wonk of the backstage Hillary Clinton school; she's > pugnacious and self-created, the product of no educational or political > elite which is why her outsider style has been so hard for media lemmings > to comprehend. And by the way, I think Tina Fey's witty impersonations of > Palin have been fabulous. But while Fey has nailed Palin's cadences and > charm, she can't capture the energy, which is a force of nature. > > > On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:53 PM, Gruss wrote: > >> NY Times conservative columnist David Brooks, one of my favorite >> commentators really slams Palin. Again. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:273149 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
