CONSERVATIVE’S 19th CENTURY VICTORY

Thanks to our local weekly newspaper, The Inlander, for bringing us Jim Hightower’s weekly commentary. This week, July 8, 2004, Jim reports on yet another conservative victory in returning the American economy to the 19th Century:

Evidently, the Timken Company in Canton, Ohio which makes steel products (ball bearings for one) is closing three of its plants and moving them to places which offer lower paying jobs. One plant is moving offshore. Hightower notes that Timken president, Tim Timken, is a Bush supporter who allowed his plant to be used as a photo op for Bush to tout his economic policies which, supposedly, are making America strong. Then, shortly afterward, he announced the plant closings. “Making America strong”? Humn—is this done by destroying good paying factory jobs for the least educated Americans? Since Bush’s chief supporters are the least educated white males in America, you gotta wonder why they’re so self destructive. Vote Republican and see if your job goes south in the near future.


PAGLIA’S PROJECTION OF SELF ALL OVER THE STATUARY IN SEXUAL PERSONAE

When I say that Camille Paglia’s arguments are many times just a projection of her own prejudices, an emotional smear of words, all over the objects of her ruminations, I mean the following:

In speaking of Michelangelo’s figure of Giuliano de’ Medici, Paglia writes, “Gender in the Giuliano is barely held in balance by the male military regalia. The foursquare male chest of resolute western will is disordered by the serpentine disengagement of the curvy neck.”

The “foursquare male chest of resolute western will”—what the hell does that mean? It’s no wonder that in my later life, I’m easing away from my MFA in Creative Writing toward the sciences....



"Humankind cannot bear very much reality." —T.S.Eliot (1888-1965)