dcnovice
Posts: 37282
Joined: 8/2/2006 Status: offline
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Alas, the page won't load on my elderly Mac. But since we're using Paglia as a judge of character, I thought it might be interesting to see some of her other observations about life, the universe, and everything. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions? Men know they are sexual exiles. They wander the earth seeking satisfaction, craving and despising, never content. There is nothing in that anguished motion for women to envy. If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. There is no female Mozart because there is no female Jack the Ripper. I am a registered Democrat who is determined to return my party to the proletarian principles of the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. Our presence in Afghanistan is not worth the price of any more American lives or treasure. Except for naval and air exercises, our military should be stationed on American soil, where service men and women can lead normal lives in close proximity to family and friends. The moment is ripe for an experienced businessman to talk practical, prudent economics to the electorate - which is why Mitt Romney's political fortunes are steadily being resurrected from the grave. History shows that male homosexuality, which like prostitution flourishes with urbanization and soon becomes predictably ritualized, always tends toward decadence. Though men may be deep, mentally they are slow. My thinking tends to be libertarian. That is, I oppose intrusions of the state into the private realm - as in abortion, sodomy, prostitution, pornography, drug use, or suicide, all of which I would strongly defend as matters of free choice in a representative democracy. “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men, but rather their conqueror, an outlaw, who controls the sexual channels between nature and culture.” “Gay men are guardians of the masculine impulse. To have anonymous sex in a dark alleyway is to pay homage to the dream of male freedom. The unknown stranger is a wandering pagan god. The altar, as in pre-history, is anywhere you kneel.” “Moralism and ignorance are responsible for the constant stereotyping of prostitutes by their lowest common denominator -- the sick, strung-out addicts, couched on city stoops, who turn tricks for drug money. . . . The most successful prostitutes in history have been invisible. That invisibility was produced by their high intelligence, which gives them the power to perceive, and move freely but undetected in the social frame. The prostitute is a superb analyst, not only in evading the law but in initiating the unique constellation of convention and fantasy that produces a stranger’s orgasm. She lives by her wits as much as her body. She is a psychologist, actor, and dancer, a performance artist of hyper-developed sexual imagination.” Jesus was a brilliant Jewish stand-up comedian, a phenomenal improvisor. His parables are great one-liners. Definitely an interesting lens for looking at the world.
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No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up. JANE WAGNER, THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE
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