Right and left and center...

October 27, 2006 4:40 PM

Camille Paglia opines on how the Foley story coverage hurts not only gays but Democrats; on how women have a stake In Conoleeeza Rice's success; talk radio in general; and how the Democrats have to play the religion card well to win, not only now, but in 2008.
posted by nj_subgenius (70 comments total)

...argh. Condoleeza.
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:42 PM on October 27, 2006

actually it's Condoleezza.

ugh, Paglia is such a tool. Well, at least she's trying to be controversial.
posted by fungible at 4:51 PM on October 27, 2006

I've gotten very tired of this "Republicans did something stupid and/or evil but it's really a bad thing for the Democrats" story line.
posted by octothorpe at 4:59 PM on October 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

Paglia is the new Dawkins.
posted by bardic at 5:02 PM on October 27, 2006

I spell it Ccoonnddoolleezzaa.
posted by mr_roboto at 5:05 PM on October 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

I've always wondered why gay women tend to be ugly and hate men, while gay men tend to be attractive and love women. Does anyone have links to where Camille Paglia addresses these stereotypes?
posted by four panels at 5:10 PM on October 27, 2006

Paglia: You'll poke your eye out. Or you already did but do not yet realize it. Plus: I told you so.
posted by hal9k at 5:14 PM on October 27, 2006

bardic:
Paglia is the new Dawkins.

What?
posted by Target Practice at 5:15 PM on October 27, 2006

Remind me why anyone gives a shit what Paglia thinks about anything again? She's like a fart in the breeze after a fine meal. Just because good stuff went in, doesn't mean good stuff will come out...
posted by stenseng at 5:22 PM on October 27, 2006

She is a gas bag. Well, send her a membership, then, Matt. If nothing else, that should make for some memorable threads in the grey.
posted by y2karl at 5:22 PM on October 27, 2006

Someone I have some sympathies for, or at least used to, but who's jumped the ol' intellectual shark-tank a few too many times by now.
posted by bardic at 5:25 PM on October 27, 2006

ugh, Paglia is such a tool.

To a word my first thought as I glanced at the FPP. Ugh.
posted by trip and a half at 5:29 PM on October 27, 2006

I spell it EVIL.
posted by taosbat at 5:36 PM on October 27, 2006

Paglia is not a tool. What she is, is a golden oldie. When "Sexual Personae" came out, it was nearly the biggest buzz book published in the united states that year. The only people who were sneered at then were the people who had not read it.

If you haven't read it and you are over 35 I sneer at you.
posted by bukvich at 5:38 PM on October 27, 2006

Paglia still thinks Rice has a chance at "success"? Memo to Camille: get your head out of 2003.

Paglia lost me a few years ago when she praised Rush Limbaugh's erudition. Amazingly, she's gone downhill since then.
posted by telstar at 5:39 PM on October 27, 2006

I know many actual feminists, and Paglia is a joke to all of them. Yet still, the media goes to her for the "Feminist" perspective. Oh that liberal media!
posted by emjaybee at 5:39 PM on October 27, 2006

bardic: Someone I have some sympathies for, or at least used to, but who's jumped the ol' intellectual shark-tank a few too many times by now.

Fair enough, though the only stupid thing I would accuse Dawkins of doing is supporting the use of the term "brights" as an alternative to atheist/etc.
posted by Target Practice at 5:45 PM on October 27, 2006

She attended the same elementary school I did. 23 years before me. That is all.
posted by gubo at 5:49 PM on October 27, 2006

As far as blowhard pundits go, I didn't think it was possible that Paglia could be any dumber than Coulter, but there you go.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:50 PM on October 27, 2006

I just read the interview, and, huh? Paglia says she's a progressive? I read her column in Salon for years and came to the conclusion she was some kind of protofascist.
posted by verb at 5:56 PM on October 27, 2006

I spell it Ccoonnddoolleezzaa.

I bet you do.

And is it not equally insulting for everyone to refer to keep referring to this woman by her first name? It's Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, but the black woman is Condoleezza. Now granted, it's an unusual name, but we call him Cheney when we could much better refer to him always and only as DICK?

Like friggin' Tiger Woods. It's Tiger this, and Tiger that, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger.

Not so often Rice and Woods. Less often Dr. Rice and damn if not never Mr. Woods.

Dr. Rice is a tool and she deserves scorn for who she is - not what she is.

/rant
posted by three blind mice at 6:03 PM on October 27, 2006

> we could much better refer to him always and only as DICK?

Sorry, DICK is taken. Forever.
posted by jfuller at 6:12 PM on October 27, 2006

Funny thing about Rice, I happened to see her on TV here in Tokyo a few weeks back and the way they identified her was odd. Foreign names are spelled in katakana (one of Japan's two phonetic scripts), and I expected to see: ライス (ra-i-su) as the identifier on TV. Instead they identified her as: 米 (kome) which is the kanji (Chinese script) character for "Rice". I have no idea if that was some tech's idea of a joke, or just a mistake, or what, but I did think it was interesting.

As for some people calling her Condoleezza, I'll agree that it does seem to be a result of her being a woman and/or black. I've always called her Rice, but I'll admit that at least part of that is because Condoleezza is so bloody hard to spell.

I do disagree, strongly, with the conclusions drawn by Paglia. She's just echoing the conventional wisdom that absolutely anything that happens is bad for Democrats. If Jesus appeared and said "Vote Democrat or you'll go to hell" I'm sure that the next day the talking heads would be talking about how it would hurt the Democrats.

More importantly, I think the "you've got to be super-churchy to win elections" is BS, or at least unproven. At this point not a single member of either major party has run as an athiest, or even an agnostic, not one. We *have* seen that the typical "I'm religious, really, you've got to believe me" stance we see from many Democrats doesn't work, but I'll argue that's becuase people think its a wimpy approach. Neither party has run someone who says "nope, I'm an athiest, and so what, here's why you should vote for me and why your co-religionist is going to screw you". I'm not going to say it'd work, but I *am* going to say that no one can say it can't work because it hasn't been tried yet.
posted by sotonohito at 6:25 PM on October 27, 2006

Camille Paglia is, or was, a very good cultural critic. The bit at the start of the interview where she speaks briefly about Andy Warhol is almost worthwhile. But she is a mediocre-to-poor political analyst. The curse of the "public intellectual" - got to have opinions on everything.
posted by stammer at 6:27 PM on October 27, 2006

Who?
posted by VulcanMike at 6:31 PM on October 27, 2006

Case in point: on the fourth page, after talking about the "nascent fascism" of the Republicans, she then decides that Republicans are the "liberty party" and derides the Democrats' "nanny-state mentality" - and THEN she talks about how she really liked Ralph Nader, even voted for him. You could spend hours trying to figure out what, if any, ethical principles Paglia hopes to find in her ideal political party. And that's just one paragraph.
posted by stammer at 6:31 PM on October 27, 2006

Oh. Amusingly, reading the search results for her name on Metafilter isn't much different than reading any of the individual threads.
posted by VulcanMike at 6:36 PM on October 27, 2006

At this point not a single member of either major party has run as an athiest, or even an agnostic, not one

Howard Dean came pretty close with his "I'm tired of listening to fundamentalist preachers!" line in Sacto, mid-2003.

Polling shows that 'atheist' ranks just below 'muslim' as far as 'tolerable son-in-law' goes.

60+% of this country isn't buying the evolution of man.

The Christianist vote is 20M+. That's a big bloc.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 6:37 PM on October 27, 2006

I have always gotten the sense that Paglia is just a savvy careerist, happy enough to apply her ample intellect to whatever polital or personal positions will gain her the most controversy and attention. There is a certain type of "ick" that applies to people like herself who undermine positive feminist movements by claiming to be a poster child for thinking, progressive, women and then chipping away at all of their gains by taking such high-profile but backward and misogynistic stances on so many important issues. She's Phyllis Schlafly, but with a brain and tenure.

Oh, and having a "big buzz" book, bukvich (I love alliteration) is a sure sign of credibilty!
posted by stagewhisper at 6:49 PM on October 27, 2006

Sotonohito: They may have been referring to her nationality. In formal Japanese, America is known as 米国, beikoku. Not because America is famous for it's rice, but because a long time ago, the bei kanji for rice was pronounced mei and was used as part of the ateji for 亜米利加 A-Me-Ri-Ka. Any Japanese person would know this, and they all call 米 rice half the time anyway, so obviously the subtitle guy was making a funny. It must actually seem pretty funny that the US has a representative named Rice; it's a little bit like if the Japanese Ambassador was named Mr. Japan.
posted by donkeymon at 6:53 PM on October 27, 2006

Heywood Mogroot Twenty million out of three hundred million is nothing. Not to deny that in politics as its practiced today the radical religious bloc is powerful, they war, but in terms of overall population they're nothing.

As I said, I'm not going to argue that an athiest candidate would win, but I will aruge that since no one has tried you can't claim that an atheist candidate can't win. Naturally you wouldn't try to run an athiest in Utah.

As for athiests getting low rankings as son-in-laws, I've seen the polls, and yup, that's bad. OTOH Joe Average seems to think that "athiest" means "crazy ass devil worshiping God hater", a nice person running for office can demonstrate that's wrong quickly. Hell, Christopher Reeve was an athiest, most people don't know it becuase for whatever reason athiests tend not to discuss their lack of religious belief, and on the few occasions when they do Joe Average has a tendancy to ignore it.

More importantly, you don't change attitudes by embracing what the mainstream already believes, you change attitudes by pulling the mainstream in your direction. That's the lesson that the strategic planners for the Republicans and conservatives understand perfectly, and I'll aruge that's why certifiable loons like Malikin and Coulter keep getting pushed. They stake out a position wildly outside the mainstream just to get it into circulation, after a few years the mainstream will have moved to the point where it can say "well, perhaps position X is a bit extreme, but you can understand why people might feel that way", a few years later its "position X is perfectly sensible". We must pull back, and I'll argue that advancing athiesm as an acceptable, normal, and non-evil philosophy is a good step in that direction. You don't have to be a religionist to be a good person, it isn't a hard message to push really.

donkeymon I'm aware of that, but I still thought it was funny. Though the version I heard says that America is 米国 because rice represents prosparity and we are the land of the big PX, especially following WWII.

As for Mr. Japan, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an MP or other politician named 大和 (Yamato) which might as well be "Mr. Japan". Of course, to make it really work he'd have to be a rabid right winger.
posted by sotonohito at 6:59 PM on October 27, 2006

I just hate the way she (like others) makes it OK for Republicans to employ their homophobic, sexist, racist, and classist smear tactics wherever they like, but if the Democrats even bother to point out the incredible hypocrisy of it all, well - that's just a low blow. How does she think Democrats are supposed to win? Just by their sheer wonderfulness?

And who in this thread was calling Condoleezza by her first name? We were just correcting the spelling in the FPP, which has both her names.
posted by fungible at 7:10 PM on October 27, 2006

and yes I know I was just doing what I said I wasn't doing. you tricked me into it.
posted by fungible at 7:11 PM on October 27, 2006

Paglia says that Matt Drudge had a point, and that the Democrats "orchestrated" the Foley scandal, and that the Foley scandal has had no effect on the poll numbers, and that conservatives are the "party of liberty".

I enjoy her opinions on art (cf. stammer), but she clearly watches more FOX than she reads any newspaper. These are talking points, not substance derived from -- for example -- any recent polling.
posted by dhartung at 7:23 PM on October 27, 2006

Why was this worth a front-page post?
posted by washburn at 7:30 PM on October 27, 2006

Polling shows that 'atheist' ranks just below 'muslim' as far as 'tolerable son-in-law' goes.

That's a strange metric to go by. I wouldn't want by "son-in-law" (were I to ever have one) to be atheist either, but that's because interfaith marriages face enormous difficulty. I'm as Christian as they come, but I'd gladly vote for a competent, qualified, atheist candidate--if he or she could convince me of his or her respect for my faith. But on the contrary, most public atheists go out of their way to talk about how they think all religious people are big fat dummies.

On topic, I don't agree with very much Paglia has to say, but I always enjoyed reading her Salon columns (way back in the day). She's a little out there, but nonetheless engaging, intelligent, and entertaining. This interview was no exception.
posted by kjh at 7:51 PM on October 27, 2006

And what's with calling Cher by her first name? It's Ms. Cheryl Sarkisian LaPiere, if you please.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:59 PM on October 27, 2006

fungible: I just hate the way she (like others) makes it OK for Republicans to employ their homophobic, sexist, racist, and classist smear tactics wherever they like, but if the Democrats even bother to point out the incredible hypocrisy of it all, well - that's just a low blow.

There's never a conservative equivalent for these pro-Limbaugh liberal types like Paglia, and that Kristen Powers who Glenn Greenwald's been writing about. There are disagreements among conservatives, to be sure, and people like Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill who said bad stuff about the incompetence of this administration, but there's no "giving creedence to every liberal cliche about conservatives" conseravtive.

Why is that? Is it just that conservatives have had the upper hand in this country for the past 20 years? Is it that liberals are more prone to self-criticism? Or selling out? Or what?

Paglia's only interesting as an aspect of that phenomenon, not for any of the substance that she emits.
posted by ibmcginty at 8:12 PM on October 27, 2006

She's Salon's "favorite intellectual"?

That's pathetic.
posted by papakwanz at 8:24 PM on October 27, 2006

When "Sexual Personae" came out, it was nearly the biggest buzz book published in the united states that year. The only people who were sneered at then were the people who had not read it.

bukvich, you're making a funny, right? The only people who read Sexual Personae when it came out were liberal arts majors, and they sneer indiscriminately and reflexively. My own thoughts upon reading Sexual Personae were A) "SHUT! UP!" B) "If she could focus on one idea for more than two pages, this might be interesting," C) "Pleasepleaseplease, no more menstrual slime!" and D) "SHUT! UP!"

Now, I'm astonished that anyone pays attention to her at all.

sotonohito, donkeymon: thanks very much for the fascinating discussion on nomenclature. From now on, I refer to our secretary of state as "Ms. Big PX."
posted by vetiver at 8:24 PM on October 27, 2006

if he or she could convince me of his or her respect for my faith. But on the contrary, most public atheists go out of their way to talk about how they think all religious people are big fat dummies.

LOL. Such a delicate flower you are. When 60% of this country reject the evolution of man, votes as the 2nd-strongest deme for Bush in 2004 (72%), wouldn't you say most of the "religious people" in this country are indeed "big fat dummies"?

Sadly, it is indeed regrettable that 'most' gets confused with 'all' in the heat of debate, but I think your 'all' in 'all religious people' above is a colossal mound of straw. Athiests of all stripes are willing to concede that life, the universe, & everything is a fascinating mystery and just because one is an a-thiest doesn't imply, or demonstrate, that one has any 'better' answers.

I respect faith, and works, but don't ask me to respect stupidity.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 8:27 PM on October 27, 2006

Well put stammer.
posted by bardic at 8:29 PM on October 27, 2006

LOL. Such a delicate flower you are. When 60% of this country reject the evolution of man, votes as the 2nd-strongest deme for Bush in 2004 (72%), wouldn't you say most of the "religious people" in this country are indeed "big fat dummies"?

No, in fact, I wouldn't. Your pompous attitude exactly personifies the problem.
posted by kjh at 8:33 PM on October 27, 2006

Dodge. "The problem" is we are a nation of sheep getting sheared, not athiests like me think all religionists are 'big fat dummies'.

The past 6 years have seen some colossally -- perhaps fatally -- stupid acts of governance:

1) creation and blowing up of the housing bubble
2) Sending 100,000+ troops into Iraq
3) Wracking up so much public debt that

plus:

4) Wholesale attacks on public education and public health

Now, if you're a conservative then the above isn't such a bad thing -- a rising tide lifts the biggest boats the most, starting WW3 in the mideast is good for the M-I sector stocks, Wall Street would love to see FICA coming to them, and of course public education and public health are collectivist institutions that must be stamped out.

But if you're at all a leftie, I just don't see why you demand athiests to kiss your ring. Sure, we want to reduce government intanglement in religion . . . don't you? We want rational, reasonable, modern-day laws, not crap laws pulled directly out of Leviticus . . . don't you?

I just don't see what your beef with athiests is. What exactly is involved in 'convincing you of respect for your faith'?

fwiw, I too agree that ('born again') Christian x non-Christian marriages just don't work, unless one party becomes apostate.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:08 PM on October 27, 2006

(sorry #3 was supposed to go on about back-door attempts to dismantle Social Security and the remnants of Great Society programs by intentionally bankrupting Uncle Sam (the 'drown in the bathtub' strategy)
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 9:10 PM on October 27, 2006

I'm an athiest and I hate you.
posted by papakwanz at 10:48 PM on October 27, 2006

Put Paglia and Hitchens in a trunk and drop them in the middle of Fallujah.
posted by joseppi7 at 11:06 PM on October 27, 2006

Paglia certainly isn't the god/dess that some make her out to be, but she's pretty savvy.

People often argue here about the efficacy of grassroots-based political change, the whole "Well what are you doing about it" thing-- that coupled with the argument about the "Mandate" that the current Administration said they had seems to show that some have the opinion that this is an illustration of how US citizens are happy and content despite their protestations... it's not that, it's this:

"The mass of the population always want to live their own lives; change is always driven by small, committed groups of ideologues and fanatics -- even in our own revolution. Representative democracy is a great ideal, but major shifts are rarely achieved by majority rule, which prefers the status quo."

This is dead on, as is her estimation of Bush:

"I've always viewed him as a decent fellow who was pushed into the presidency because he was his father's son. But he's been out of his depth in foreign affairs from the start. He certainly lacks the basic verbal skills for the presidency -- reading speeches authored by others is no substitute. But I've become concerned about Bush's mental state in the past few months. Sometimes in his press conferences or prepared statements (which I listened to on the radio), I heard a sort of Nixonian tension and hysteria. His vocal patterns were over-intense and his inflections impatient, lurching and sarcastic. There was this seething quality to his speech that worried me and that seemed to signal that something major is being planned -- perhaps another military incursion".

While we disagree on the "decent fellow" part, the rest of it is pretty accurate; I even noticed a change in the tone of the press conferences recently.

I await the inevitable meltdown.
posted by exlotuseater at 12:26 AM on October 28, 2006

People refer to Condoleezza and Tiger by their first names because they are the only famous people in the world who go by those names. Therefore they are instantly identifiable by those names. Doesn't work as well with George or Dick or John or Al does it? This tendency is only reinforced by the fact that Rice and Woods are common last names. More evidence: people referred to the former Sec. of State as Powell.

But if you need to feel outraged go right ahead, seems silly to me.
posted by sic at 1:39 AM on October 28, 2006

War Support Among Evangelicals Collapses
Bush Incompetence Said to Delay Second Coming
posted by taosbat at 7:49 AM on October 28, 2006

Late Nite FDL: Fag Haglia
posted by taosbat at 9:26 AM on October 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

what taosbat said---she writes a good book, but her certainty about everything does not fit in this format--Trex should have that spot at Salon.

She's like too many pundits who have an idea first, and make everything in the world fit into it, no matter what.
posted by amberglow at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2006

Re: Dr. Rice

I'll stop calling her Condi, if I can keep calling her Cupcake.
posted by paulsc at 10:46 AM on October 28, 2006

Just got an email about this from a friend of mine, and replied in depth as follows:

I was going to say that I don't really hate Paglia, but then I read the interview and you're pretty close. What a tool. But "loathe" might be a slightly better term. Basically, I have two issues with her:

1) She is so reflexively contrarian that she doesn't seem to even consider issues. She just picks the "surprising" position and runs with it. The Foley scandal will hurt Democrats because voters will punish them for talking about it? Has she even been to America? The Democrats' talking about Foley is "attempt to gain authoritarian control over interpersonal communications on the Web"? No, it's pointing out that a Rep sent a page some skeezy IMs. On Republicans: "They're really the liberty party now." Huh? You just accused them of "nascent fascism." Which is it?

2) She is just a terrible writer (and speaker, apparently). She does not care about clarity. Case in point: "But my generation of baby-boom Democrats hasn't done much deep thinking about international issues except in terms of postmodernist fragmentation or fuzzy, smiley-face multiculturalism." What the fuck is "postmodernist fragmentation" in terms of international issues and how the fuck did she get the impression Democrats think about it? She so desperately wants to be "eloquent" that she doesn't care about being understood. Common problem with academics.

Also, she doesn't seem to understand much about the world around her. She says that Bill Clinton was running for secretary general after his Presidency. Anyone who knows anything about the UN knows that people from the major powers don't get to be secretary general. Much less a former President of the US. That one "liberty party" answer shows how scarily out of touch she is with how party politics now work in this country. She might have had a point twenty or thirty years ago, but the Republicans sure ain't about liberty no more. I guess she missed it when the evangelicals took over.

To wrap up, anyone who calls herself a "fan" of conservative talk radio clearly has a screw loose.
posted by lackutrol at 11:32 AM on October 28, 2006

I really love Paglia's thoughts on art and culture. However, the way she talks you'd never believe she was a Democrat. She seems to slam the dems for any aggression on their part, while turning a blind eye to that of Republicans

It's fun to do at a party- but not so much when liberalism is fighting for it's last shred of life. Just my opinion.
posted by juliarothbort at 11:41 AM on October 28, 2006

Though, it is true that Foley isn't any child-molester, and 16-year old guys aren't children
posted by juliarothbort at 11:41 AM on October 28, 2006

As for some people calling her Condoleezza, I'll agree that it does seem to be a result of her being a woman and/or black. I've always called her Rice, but I'll admit that at least part of that is because Condoleezza is so bloody hard to spell.


I suspect this has more to do with distinctiveness than anything else. Condi somewhat uniquely identifies Dr. Rice. Just like Paglia somewhat uniquely identifies Dr. Paglia.

[or on preview - what sic said]

Your pompous attitude exactly personifies the problem.

Actually, demanding that people respect your beliefs is pretty pompous. Freedom means people don't have to respect your faith and you can't force them to. I suggest rather than believing you are entitled to respect you should try and earn it.
posted by srboisvert at 11:54 AM on October 28, 2006

For what it's worth, Paglia's commentary track on the Basic Instinct DVD is excellent.
posted by dhammond at 12:09 PM on October 28, 2006

Condoleezza , Condoleezza , men have named you...
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:19 PM on October 28, 2006

over the years i've liked some of paglia's observation on cultural issues, but she turns me off most when it's all about her...she'll never hesitate to remind you that such-and-such current revolutionary idea was one she had like 20 years ago...in herself and those she admires, she clearly sees self-promotion as a most valued trait...(her praise of right-wing talk radio seems to bear that out--not to mention that she doesn't acknowledge that liberal discourse can't successfully play out in the oversimplified, anti-intellectual mob mentality and paranoia that give right-wing radio its success--liberalism could no more thrive there than limbaugh and such could hold up in an academic setting that would require them to defend their positions on an intellectual basis)...

...as far as substance to what she says, over the past few years especially i've come to the end of her articles disappointed...for salon she's somewhat of an intellectual paris hilton (an assessment she would adore, infuriatingly enough)--the idea of her commentary is more attractive than the commentary itself...salon would best not encourage her lack of focus by having her address so many topics at once...when you try to say everything, you end up saying nothing...

...paglia might have done best to put her work into that promised second volume of 'sexual personae' rather than trying to become an intellectual celebrity--her first volume gave her enough attention that the second could have given her something more than the d-list celebrity status she achieved...
posted by troybob at 3:40 PM on October 28, 2006

I wouldn't want by "son-in-law" (were I to ever have one) to be atheist either, but that's because interfaith marriages face enormous difficulty.

I wouldn't want by "son-in-law" (were I to ever have one) to be black either, but that's because interracial marriages face enormous difficulty.

Bigot.
posted by Sparx at 8:21 PM on October 28, 2006

Seriously! Thank you, Sparx.

Do people ever think that it's not their fucking decision who their son-in-law is?
posted by papakwanz at 9:16 PM on October 28, 2006

Bigot

Disagree about this. Christians believe nonbelievers -- including lapsed believers -- are not going to heaven to be with the angels and stuff, so I can understand their concern about the domestic situation of their children. There's N.T. scripture about not yoking yourself to unbelievers that is apropos here I believe.

Plus the xian vs athiest thing in the household is an massive point of friction to have to work around, so there are practical, day-to-day matters at issue here too.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 10:00 PM on October 28, 2006

Molly Ivins on Paglia (from 91, but still true)
posted by amberglow at 10:13 AM on October 29, 2006

Disagree about this. Christians believe nonbelievers -- including lapsed believers -- are not going to heaven to be with the angels and stuff, so I can understand their concern about the domestic situation of their children. There's N.T. scripture about not yoking yourself to unbelievers that is apropos here I believe.

...Which brings up an interesting point: Does quoting the Magic Book to justify your actions make you a better person, or do they just make the Magic Book look bad?

Ooops. There I go being inconsiderate again.
posted by Orb2069 at 3:06 PM on October 29, 2006

Allow me to point out the obvious. People call Condoleezza Rice by her first name because when you say Condoleezza, EVERYONE KNOWS WHO YOU MEAN.

However, when I say Rice, who do I mean? Jerry Rice? William Marsh Rice? Edmund Ignatius Rice? Anneka Rice? It's pretty confusing, isn't it?

Bo Jackson was just Bo, and he's not a woman (though he is black, oh noes). What about Kenny G? Who's crusading for his respect?
posted by zhivota at 3:32 PM on October 29, 2006

Aniston. Zeta-Jones. Hawn. Sarandon. Pfeiffer. Bergman. Hepburn. Grable.

Kiefer. Joaquin. Denzel. Keanu. Orlando.

I guess you have no idea who I'm talking about.

Which tells you who I'm talking about?

Tom or Hanks? (or Cruise?)
Arnold or Schwarzenegger ?
Ben or Affleck?
Nicole or Kidman?
Renee or Zellweger?
Demi or Moore? (or Roger, for that matter?)

Names with equal distinctiveness tend to get equal treatment.
Charlize. Theron.
Meryl. Streep.
Angelina. Jolie.

And it has nothing to do with respect. Lindsey or Lohan?

Seriously, let this point die already.
posted by dreamsign at 1:50 AM on October 30, 2006

Albright, Peloci, Boxer
posted by delmoi at 12:43 PM on October 30, 2006

Um... Audrey or Katherine? (or, for the Canadians, Mitch?)
posted by djfiander at 1:20 PM on October 30, 2006

it's also a respect thing tho---she's totally undeserving of any, being incredibly incompetent and deceitful about everything.

Our diplomacy has failed (by design) all over since she's been in charge, and the PDB warning about Osama attacking will be perhaps the single most lasting legacy of her term.
posted by amberglow at 3:34 PM on October 30, 2006