More Sontag

Christopher Hitchens writes his own Sontag obituary.

Susan Sontag, R.I.P.

Her influence on me was subtle and formidable. Disgard her novels as curiosities; I will pass over her infamous remarks on the 9-11 attacks. Just buy Against Interpreation or Styles of Radical Will.

One task [of the intellecutal], is to promote dialogue, support the right of a multiplicity of voices to be heard, strengthen skepticism about received opinion. This means standing up to those whose idea of education and culture is the imprinting of ideas ("ideals") such as the love of the nation or tribe.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

The U.S. vs the EU

Francis Fukayama reviews Timothy Garton Ash's "Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West," which, in the spirit of Robert Kagan's useful "Of Paradise and Power", argues that the sociopolitical and cultural differences between the EU and America may be permanent and irreconcilable. Link. Fukayama writes:

But the perceived legitimacy of the American role depends entirely on its being successful. You will be regarded as a leader if you break Serbian power without suffering a single casualty; you will be regarded as an arrogant unilateralist if you fail to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or get bogged down in a guerrilla insurgency. For Tony Blair, the cost of being associated with George W. Bush has been so high as to put into question the ability of any future British prime minister to be so protective of the “special relationship” with the United States.

Due to some technical difficulties this post will show up as an Andy post. It was actually posted by Alfred.

Get Your 2005 Great American Conservative Women Calendar!

They're Barbie doll bland and as interesting in conversation as their male counterparts. In short: unboyfriendable. Link.

A Grand Illusion is curious. Which of these women would you rather boink? I know that each one them is repulsive in myriad ways, but you know, if you had to choose.

Ann Coulter


Condoleezza Rice


Phyllis Schlafly (left)


Shemane Nugent


Laura Schlessinger


Michelle Malkin


Monica Crowley

"Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?"

I direct you to a very good post on the subject on Alas, a Blog.

FBI memo on prisoner abuses

In PDF. Notice how the FBI carefully differentiates between their procedural limits, which they say they never breached, and the much looser ones of the president's executive order.

I can't stop looking at this picture.

The sarcasm point

Is it wrong of me to think this might be a good idea?

It is time for the adoption of the sarcasm point. Why the sarcasm point? We have a mark that conveys that we mean or know something. We have one that says it with volume and force! We have one that communicates that we don't know something, don't we? We need one more: to do for language what shade did for drawing, what color did for television, and what eyebrows did for expressions—introduce finesse.

Don't knock it until you've seen it in action:

Believe it or not, the world we've landed in is not only more image-obsessed than we've ever been. It's also more text-based than ever. We finger-type and we thumb-type. We e-mail, we IM, we blog. And the forms cannot contain the content. There's a dastardly disconnect. Among other things, it makes Dave Barry columns somewhat difficult to read. Someone must step into the sarcasm chasm¡

I'm serious¡ See, there are people who are relentlessly sincere. So, what are they supposed to do when they're trying to sound a bit bitter? Suppose you're IM'ing that oft-earnest friend you have, and he writes: "I need to go to church tomorrow and confess the jealousy in my heart." You forget—have you ever heard him say nice things about God or do the opposite? "Wait … do you really?" "Sorry. I mean, I need to go to church tomorrow¡ To confess my jealousy¡ And the fact that I just renewed my subscription to Maxim¡" "Oh. Me too. Only as a Jew, I must do these things in synagogue¡"

I'm going to start using this sarcasm point--as an experiment. I'm serious. Notice the lack of sarcasm. Man, this is great¡

Anyway, for those who are technically challenged: alt+173.

The WP finally buys Slate:

Weisberg pronounced himself "delighted" with the move. "Microsoft has been a great place for us for the last 8-1/2 years," he said, but "it was a tough place to develop our business because it wasn't a media company and doesn't want to be a media company. They're really big and we're really small. The joke was always that we're almost a rounding error, but a rounding error probably exaggerated our status."

The Vietnam parallel is becoming harder and harder to dismiss...

...but I still don't buy it.

I think I heard on CNN this morning that the Mosul attack was some kind of artillery barage. I forget the actual military term. But the NYT article, which is unusually vague, makes no mention of it:

A powerful explosion ripped through an American military base in northern Iraq today, causing many casualties, the American military said.
A short announcement from the military said the explosion occurred at noon Iraqi time near the city of Mosul, scene of raids by insurgents on police stations in the past six weeks.

Bull Moose has the most eloquent post to date on the Vietnam connection:

And as days pass, Donald "I don't do condolence letters"Rumsfeld bears a striking resemblance to Robert Strange McNamara. Moreover, the current Texan in the White House also clearly sees the light at the end of the tunnel. The Moose agrees with those who believe that the primary difference between Vietnam and Iraq is that the latter is far more strategically important. America can't afford a failed state in that critical region. Let's hope that this time history does not repeat itself as tragedy or farce.

Hippies

Christopher Hitchens wrote up Eleanor Agnew's "Hippies," a memoir in which the author analyzes how world-historic events turned into iconography suitable for Madison Avenue marketers. I like the modulated irony of his conclusion:

Meanwhile, though, the anti-globalization movement has started to reject modernity altogether, to set its sights on laboratories and on the idea of the division of labor, and to adopt symbols from Fallujah as the emblems of its resistance. Conservatism cannot and does not, despite itself, remain static. It mutates into something far more reactionary than anything from which the hippies were ever fleeing.

O'Reilly got it right this time

Bill O'Reilly's indictment is right. I am boycotting Christmas.

A Grand Illusion is starting a petition to rename--or rechristen--Christmas National Have Homosexual Sex with an Atheist While Injecting Heroin into the Arm of a 9 Year Old Boy Singing La Marseillaise Day. Now that wily O'Reilly is on to me, I will have to cease my rampant anti-Americanism. And I would've gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling turkey gobblerered talking head and his cable news network.

Wolcott on Carlson

James Wolcott has a very good post on MSNBC recruiting the insufferable Tucker Carlson:

If liberal opinions and interests are going to be blacked out from cable news, maybe liberal guests and viewers should boycott and let conservative monopolize the conversation amongst themselves, which is what they want to do anyway.

Cable debate shows are becoming a choice between people I hate and people who don't make me vomit.

I'm curious who CNN is going to hire to replace Carlson on Crossfire. I say go with Jonah Goldberg. He's not as good looking as Tucker--but then again, who is?--but he's just as annoying. Yeah, replace him with Jonah Goldberg wearing a monocle and an ascot to continue the outdated fashion trend.

Obligatory Sullivan derision

Throw what you will at Andrew Sullivan, and there're plenty of opportunities for mockery, but one is rather unimpeachable: he’s not a very good writer.

From Time:

One word brought together the disparate events of 2004: insurgency. It's a strange term — but we've got quite used to it. Think of it as not quite a revolution but more than mere discontent. The dictionary describes it as "a condition of revolt against a recognized government that does not reach the proportions of an organized revolutionary government." Yep, a war that is not a real war, a halfway, inconclusive revolt without end, a battle of attrition that polarizes as it goes essentially nowhere.

For Bill Safire, retirement from the NYT also entails a complete estrangement from the realm of reason and reality. Read his latest column where Bill concocts an alternate reality so impossible that he pitches it as the sequel to Roth's The Plot Against America. (I very much doubt senile Safire has read the book; I think he just liked the title.) Then he goes on to argue against it with much aplomb. Next in Safire's itinerary will be entering ass-kicking contests where he will be the only two-legged participant and other aphoristic likes.

I'm going to make this post brief since I'm mired in housework and haven't had time to catch up on the day's news:

Many thanks to Charles Perez over at The Fulcrum for linking us. Check out his blog--it's a good one.

If you want to read something truly disgusting and ignorant and plain old nauseating, check out this letter to the FCC from the suburban fascists of the American Family Association on AMERICABlog.

Jokerman

Not political, but a terrific Bob Dylan interview by Kurt Loder in 1984. This is my way of promoting "Chronicles," his surprisingly terrific first volume of memoirs.

"It takes more than a bullet to stop a Bull Moose"

Or the round up:

The always informative and amusing Bull Moose has a very good post on Republican bickering after the election. Check it.

Digby got his hands on what appears to be George and Laura Bush's christmas card. Nevermind. It's a joke card--and I feel devoid of all humor as well as observational ability.

And Frank Rich is on a roll.

One quick link

This is a fascinating idea for a class.

a quick word

It's going to be a busy day for me so blogging will be slow. I'm going to leave most of the posting to our new contributor, Alfred Soto. Alfred teaches English at Florida International University and is also the assistant director of student media--needless to say, his views do not reflect the university's... thankfully--and a close and valued friend. We're lucky to have him here at A Grand Illusion.

I'm working on having a profile section on the side bar for all Illusionites, as well as redesigned and fancier nameplate, but they won't be up for a couple of days.

Also, I'd like to remind you to visit Left2Right and support them by participitating in their debates and so on.

Was Abraham Lincoln gay?

Well, the book is finally out. I'll have to read it myself, I guess. But casually using the word "gay" and "homosexual" to describe a mode of behavior or pathology that didn't exist in the mid nineteenth century is reductive. Even more reductive is the banal assertion by Jean Baker in today's NYT story:

Ms. Baker said that his outsider status would explain his independence and his ability to take anti-Establishment positions like the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. As a homosexual, she said, "he would be on the margins of tradition."

That Lincoln may have had same-sex escapades as a young man is likely: most young men, then and now, did too. But the eagerness by homosexual activists (like Larry Kramer) to turn this this theorizing into a lament for what the Republican party has become strikes this homosexual as overheated. Kramer's comment has to be read to be believed.

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars

From NYT:

Because about one million American troops have served so far in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures, some experts predict that the number eventually requiring mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.

Adding insult to injury might be the ineluctable Oliver Stone movie.

In other news, the good people at Left2Right have started linking A Grand Illusion. Many thanks!

What happened? Zell Miller didn't want to pass up on the big bucks he's going to be making over at Fox. Considering this is as close to the White House as his ever going to get, maybe Lieberman is not that big of a Putz after all:

The Cabinet vacancy at the Department of Homeland Security was the subject of the latest overture, according to congressional and other government sources. Those sources said the earlier overture was to see whether Lieberman might be interested in becoming the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Nah, he's still a putz. That gives me an idea for the future: Top Ten Reasons Why Lieberman is a putz.

I stole this from Josh Marshall

It appears Lynne Cheney wrote a lesbian romance novel--recently adapted for the stage in the East Village--in 1981, which I didn't know. I think everyone should own a copy of the book but it's out of print. (Amazon is selling one used copy for a whopping $500!) I hereby declare that A Grand Illusion is starting a petition to bring back this poignant epic of woman on woman action in the American frontier.

Bill Kristol, a neocon in good standing, has been a consistent thorn in the Bush administraton's side (and not just this Bush; he didn't get along very well with Pappy either). Check out the bitchslap he gives Rumsfeld in today's WP.

Visit Left2Right for a nice discussion on the media and its responsibilities in educating society--especially in our society which seems to be ripe with pandemic ignorance. Anyhow my argument is that it's probably asking a lot of "the media," without resorting to some Habermas type model of deliberative democracy where EVERYONE shares the burden of this critical review.

Politics aside...

Read this intelligent dichotomy on It's a Wonderful Life and The Dead by Amanda Marcotte of Mouse Words fame.

The best piece of news for the day

http://cnn.aimtoday.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?&idq=/ff/story/0002%2F20041214%2F0801587608.htm&photoid=20041026LON99

I say it's between that and McCain saying he has no faith in Rumsfeld. It's a tough one.