Norman Mailer R.I.P.

       Last month I was privileged to be part of Georgetown University's day-long celebration of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night, his autobiographical-historical-novelistic account of the l967 March on the Pentagon.  Mailer was in the hospital and unable to attend as he'd planned -- but it was still a fascinating day.   My favorite moment was  when  the delightful and erudite  Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, who wrote his thesis on Mailer, explained that in the 1960s and 70s Mailer failed to grasp the reductive nature of television --  he would go on a talk show ,utter a complex thought, and then find that the only part that was quoted was an inflammatory soundbite, like "all women should be kept in cages." Ah, yes, context.  I'll bet it made all the difference! My second favorite moment  came after my bit on the literary panel,--in which yes, as the only woman I did feel compelled to mention Mailer's  rather staggering misogyny-- when various older gentlemen in the audience leapt to their feet to assure me that his violent hostility to women was just a phase . Their wives had met Mailer in the late  l970s and found him very nice.  My third favorite moment was when, after the showing of Richard Fountain's  l971 documentary about mailer --  the  product of the very film crew that Mailer reveals, halfway through the book, is following him about as he makes one weird speech after another, sometimes in strange voices-- a  Georgetown student told the panel on stage that she and her  activist friends always tried to present their political points  in a sober, respectful way, and she  found the 1960s, and Norman Mailer in particular, entirely bewildering: Was everybody just crazy back then?   

It probably astonishes you to hear that I'm not a charter member of the Norman Mailer Society, but I  enjoyed Armies of The Night.  One of the great things about books, especially when they are of a previous generation, is that you don't have to swallow them whole -- you can  take what you want and leave the rest.  If you are a writer yourself, you might even see a signpost in what strikes you as mostly a swamp.  Take, for example Mailer's  third-person depiction of himself  as a major jerk ,obnox and social climber-- "the Novelist"  worries endlessly about what to wear to the big march ,  about his literary status  and whether Robert Lowell  respects him; he pisses on a restroom floor because he's too drunk to find the toilet in the dark, gives an incoherent ranting speech that it turns out nobody could hear, spends a lot of mental energy wondering how to schedule his arrest at the Pentagon so that he can be back in New York in time for a glamorous  party, and gets so tied up in egomaniacal knots that when he finally bunks down in jail for the night, in stead of having a historic prison-memoir moment he is unable to address a word to the reputed young genius in the next bed -- Noam Chomsky.  It's all pretty funny.  But who is telling you this story that reflects so poorly on "the Novelist's" claims to moral seriousness,  political commitment, and fitness for the leadership position he longs to hold? Norman Mailer. Norman Mailer the narrator knows perfectly well --at least in Armies of the Night he does -- what an anxious, obsessive, narcissistic, fantastical, insecure, over-the-top, ridiculous person " Norman Mailer" is.  The writer sees what the character doesn't see. The expression of that double consciousness is  a masterpiece of style.    Still, there is that little problem of misogyny. I wish  The Nation's considerable coverage of his life had given that more than a passing wave.  What a failure of imagination and humanity there is in his ravings about the evils of birth control and women's liberation, his cult of  hatred and  domination and violence, his fatuous pronouncements about what women should be (goddesses,whores,  mothers of as many children as a man could stuff into them), ), his pronouncements of doom on a culture that let them get out of their cage .   I remember  him speaking at a PEN meeting in the l990s about  the damage women would do to the Democratic Party if they exercised power within it.  That made about as much sense as his famous essay in "Advertisements for Myself," (l959)  in which, having  insulted every famous male writer of his day from Bellow to Baldwin, he wrote . ''I doubt if there will be a really exciting woman writer until the first whore becomes a call girl and tells her tale.''  

The obits don't make much of this but it should be said straight out: Mailer did a lot of harm in his life.  He stabbed his  second wife, Adele Morales, and it wasn't some larger-than-life zany antic they both had a good laugh over later: he nearly killed her.  Psychologically, a recent New York times story suggested,  she never recovered. He helped  get the  writer and murderer Jack Abbott out of  prison ,  and immediately plunged this  unbalanced man who had spent over half his life behind bars   into the heady world of literary celebrity; within days Abbott had killed a waiter he imagined was dissing him.   Several obits have humorously recounted how Mailer assaulted on the street a sailor he thought called his dog gay, but the near murder of Morales, and the actual murder of Richie Adan by Mailer's protege, show that his infatuation with machismo was not just a literary joke, much less endearing protective covering for his inner nice-Brooklyn-boy-who-loved-his-mother.

What can a woman writer take from Mailer? Not much of his content, and certainly not his career advice. But what about style? The boldness, the risk of failure, the willingness to be big and raw and to work the language hard. To let yourself not look good and make readers admire you anyway through sheer virtuosity. Style, I thought after my day with the Mailerites, is everything, content almost nothing. True? I'm not sure, but for Mailer's sake let's hope so.

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Comments (42)

1. "What a failure of imagination and humanity there is in his ravings about the evils of birth control and women's liberation, his cult of hatred and domination and violence, his fatuous pronouncements about what women should be (goddesses,whores, mothers of as many children as a man could stuff into them), ), his pronouncements of doom on a culture that let them get out of their cage . I remember him speaking at a PEN meeting in the l990s about the damage women would do to the Democratic Party if they exercised power within it."

   Well, I guess Ms Pollitt, unlike myself, waited the "requisite" time to perhaps take the sheen off the bronze statute that Ms vanden Heuvel and others were erecting to ol' Norm.

   Posted by Mask at 11/21/2007 @ 12:51pm

2. Nicely done, Katha.

   In spite of my lingering perception that you are far too effete on our war-mongering women, Nancy and Hillary, I do enjoy your literary flair.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/21/2007 @ 12:55pm

3. damn!

   as i've never read any of mailer's stuff, i feel like leonard zelig when they asked him about "moby dick".

   Posted by frosty zoom at 11/21/2007 @ 3:42pm

4. I don't recall his "Executioner's Song" containing the type or quantity of misogyny which you amply and damningly cite, Ms. P, but I appreciate hearing your recollection/perspective (content) written with the greatest artistry and style yourself, madam.

   Happy Holiday readers!

   Posted by lewwelge at 11/21/2007 @ 8:39pm

5. Was Norman Mailer any more a repulsive figure on the subject of sexuality than Andrea Dworkin? And yet Katha Pollitt wrote fondly of Dworkin and her "scholarship" upon her passing.

   Here are some of the things Dworkin said about maleness and men:

   "All personal, psychological, social, and institutionalized domination on this earth can be traced back to its source: the phallic identities of men."

   "A commitment to sexual equality with males is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered."

   "Men are distinguished from women by their commitment to do violence rather than to be victimized by it."

   "Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are."

   Would Pollitt have praised Dworkin if Dworkin had substituted the female noun and pronoun for the male in the sentences above?

   Posted by Adscititious at 11/21/2007 @ 10:58pm

6. well insidious, it would make no sense if you switched the pronouns. without the pronoun switch, however, all of dworkin's statements you quoted are right on the money. i guess the last one isn't completely true--it isn't all of them and it isn't all of the time. and more repulsive than the ever grotesque mailer? that's a tall order.

   thank you katha for the article.

   good riddance mailer, you creepy little bastard. have fun in your next life as a female muslim in pakistan or some third world african country.

   Posted by loveloki at 11/22/2007 @ 01:31am

7. Loki, you helped make my point for me. Extreme bigotry is perfectly acceptable in contemporary culture so long as it is men who are the objects of it.

   It is telling that Pollitt would laud one sexist bigot and condemn to high heaven another one.

   Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 07:12am

8. The last Dworkin statement I quoted was this:

   "Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are."

   If I had to guess, I'd say Dworkin was upset at the fact that men have dominated intellectual history.

   Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were men. As were Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. As were Galileo, Newton and Einstein. As were Pythagoras, Euclid, Descartes, Pascal, and Godel. As were Confucius, Lao-tse, the Buddha, and Jesus.

   Perhaps in some strange way Dworkin actually wished she were a man.

   Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 07:29am

9. as a female muslim in pakistan

   Posted by LOVELOKI 11/22/2007 @ 01:31am

   benazir bhutto?

   Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 09:22am

10. Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/22/2007 @ 07:29am

    that's because people are just starting to listen to the ladies.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 09:23am

11. "All personal, psychological, social, and institutionalized domination on this earth can be traced back to its source: the phallic identities of men."

    wait.

    i am not a dickhead.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 09:31am

12. People listened to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and all the others I mentioned NOT because they were men, but because they had profound and intelligent things to say.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 10:07am

13. People listened to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and all the others I mentioned NOT because they were men, but because they had profound and intelligent things to say.

    Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/22/2007 @ 10:07am

    that's true.

    but no one would have listened to their female equivalents.

    and i bet these dudes listened to mrs. socrates etc.,

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 11:43am

14. Actually, no. Socrates had a wife, but he was seldom home. Most of his time was spent engaging people in philosophical discussions.

    Socrates lived from circa 470 BC to 399 BC. Tell me, who were his "female equivalents" back then?

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 11:54am

15. Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/22/2007 @ 11:54am

    shadows and slaves.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 12:12pm

16. Posted by FROSTY ZOOM 11/22/2007 @ 09:22am

    no, i was thinking more along the lines of those who get the joy of an acid bath for any slight, real or imagined.

    i don't think socrates much cared for his wife. she is characterized as an acid-tongued shrew.

    there was hypatia. but she and her work were destroyed by christians for not fitting the idea of a good christian woman. much of history and herstory was destroyed by christians.

    Posted by loveloki at 11/22/2007 @ 12:36pm

17. there was hypatia. but she and her work were destroyed by christians for not fitting the idea of a good christian woman. much of history and herstory was destroyed by christians.

    Posted by LOVELOKI 11/22/2007 @ 12:36pm

    yeah, they kinda did that to the mayas and aztecs, too.

    but then again, they were empires and it's impossible to become an empire by being nice.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 12:43pm

18. "Shadows and slaves." Good, though I was referring to "philosophical equivalents."

    Lil' Loki could've mentioned Diotima of Mantinea, who Plato tells us in the "Symposium" was Socrates' tutor in love. Even that would be a tricky answer, though, because our only source for her existence is Plato himself, and he might have used her as a fictional character to make the dialogue more interesting. Maybe not.

    If given the choice between spending time with a shrewish wife or philosophizing in the broad of day, I'd choose the latter myself every time.

    I'll go out on a limb here and say that there were very few, if any, women in Socrates' day who were his philosophical equal.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 12:53pm

19. i think a "tutor in love" could be construed as a prostitute. i don't think diotima is a good example.

    there were few if any men who were socrates' philosophical equal.

    Posted by loveloki at 11/22/2007 @ 1:16pm

20. Well, Plato being Plato -- someone who preferred the ideal to the material, the celestial to the earthly; and also, someone who was far more respectful to women than his contemporaries (there's a passage somewhere in the Republic that indicates this) -- I'd say Diotima is a very legitimate example.

    Pythagoras and Parmenides were arguably Socrates' philosophical equal. So too, perhaps, was Heraclitus.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 1:33pm

21. Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/22/2007 @ 12:53pm

    what i was trying to say is that there may have been female equals to any brainiac dude at any moment in history.

    unfortunately, they had dishes to wash and babies to make (which are noble activities but somewhat limiting if you want to be a scientiphilosopher.)

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 1:39pm

22. And even if few male philosophers were Socrates' equal, there were plenty who made significant contributions. Apart from Plato & Aristotle, there were thinkers like Thales, Protagoras, the two Zenos, Antisthenes, Epicurus, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes, etc etc.

    I'm hard pressed to think of any female philosopher at the time who could be listed even slightly below Socrates.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/22/2007 @ 1:46pm

23. I'm hard pressed to think of any female philosopher at the time who could be listed even slightly below Socrates.

    Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/22/2007 @ 1:46pm

    maybe this is why:

    The Women of Athens

    Compared to the women of Sparta, the status of an Athenian woman in Greek society was minimal. By comparison to present day standards, Athenian women were only a small step above slaves by the 5th century BC. From birth a girl was not expected to learn how to read or write, nor was she expected to earn an education. On reading and writing, Menander wrote, "Teaching a woman to read and write? What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison." Other authors and philosophers had similar quips about women.

    Most of what has been written about Athenian women comes from the 7th century BC onward, when education in Athens began to emerge. Prior to that date, it has been alluded to by some authors, that the status of women was not so glum. In particular, the rights of women in Athens and their decline may have been the direct result of political pressures brought about by Pericle's ruling on the legitimacy of marriage. Similarly there is evidence to suggest that Athenian women prior to the 7th century BC had been subject to similar rites of passage as boys. The scholar Jean-Pierre Vernant, wrote that the Arrephoroi, and many other religious celebrations of Athens, could have been reduced from perhaps an entire age grade's participation, to only a handful of girls who were chosen to participate. Even then, it was only the noble and upper class families which were considered for participation.

    Athenian women can be classified into three general classes. The lowest class was the slave women, who carried out more of the menial domestic chores, and helped to raise the children of the wife. Male slaves held the task of working in the trade arts (pottery making, glass working, wood working, etc) or to educate the sons of a house. The second class was that of the Athenian citizen woman. The third class was known as the Hetaerae. The hetaerae unlike the slaves and the citizens, were much akin to the Geisha's of China. Hetaerae women were given an education in reading, writing, and music, and were allowed into the Agora and other structures which were off limits to citizen and slave women. Most sources about the Hetaerae indicate however, that their standing was at best at the level of prostitutes, and the level of power they attained was only slightly significant.

    http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/aegean/culture/womenofathens.html

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/22/2007 @ 1:55pm

24. Here's Pollitt's column on Andrea Dworkin's passing in 2005. Hardly the love fest that ADSCITITIOUS would have us think it was (to cherry pick: "Dworkin was an oversimplifier and a demagogue." "The antipornography feminism Dworkin did so much to promote seems impossibly quaint today... But even in its heyday it was a blind alley." "I never thought I would miss unfair, infuriating, over-the-top Andrea Dworkin. But I do."). In fact, Pollitt writes about Mailer and Dworkin in almost exactly the same way, celebrating what she thought she could celebrate in both of them but pointing out where each failed in her eyes. It is an out and out lie to say that Pollitt lauded Dworkin while condemning Mailer to high heaven.

    This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050502/pollitt

    subject to debate by Katha Pollitt Andrea Dworkin, 1946-2005

    [from the May 2, 2005 issue]

    I first heard of Andrea Dworkin in 1968. She had been arrested in an antiwar demonstration and jailed at the old Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village, where male doctors subjected her to brutal internal exams. Her name was in the news because she had gone public with her story. My good, kind, radical, civil libertarian parents thought this was ridiculous. What did she expect, this privileged white woman, this "Bennington girl"? It wasn't that they didn't believe her, exactly. It was that they didn't see why she was making such a big, princessy fuss. It was like getting arrested and complaining about the food.

    Andrea Dworkin died on April 9 at 58--she of the denim overalls and the wild hair and wilder pronouncements. Although she denied ever uttering the most famous soundbite attributed to her, that all intercourse is rape, she came pretty close: "Fucking is the means by which the male colonizes the female"; "in seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine." She argued that pornography was an instruction manual for rape, that women had the right to "execute" rapists and pedophiles; toward the end of her life she declared that maybe women, like the Jews, should have their own country. The counsel of despair, and crazy, too--but by then Dworkin was ill, not much in demand as a speaker and several of her major books were out of print. The 1980s were long over: On campus, the militant anti-rape marches and speakouts of Take Back the Night had morphed into cheery V-Day, which marries antiviolence activism to a celebration of women's sexuality.

    The antipornography feminism Dworkin did so much to promote seems impossibly quaint today, when Paris Hilton can parlay an embarrassing sex video into mainstream celebrity and the porn star Jenna Jameson rides the New York Times bestseller list. But even in its heyday it was a blind alley. Not just because porn, like pot, is here to stay, not just because the Bible and the Koran--to say nothing of fashion, advertising and Britney Spears--do far more harm to women, not even because of the difficulty of defining such slippery terms as "degrading to women," a phrase that surely did not mean the same thing to Dworkin as it did to the Christian conservatives who helped make the antiporn ordinance she wrote with Catharine MacKinnon briefly law in Indianapolis. Like the temperance movement, antiporn activism mistook a symptom of male dominance for the cause. Nor did it have much to do with actually existing raped and abused women. "For God's sake, take away his Nina Hartley videos" is not a cry often heard in shelters or emergency rooms. If by magic pornography vanished from the land, women would still be the second sex--underpaid, disrespected, lacking in power over their own bodies. Rape, battery, torture, even murder would still be hugely titillating to both sexes, just as in Shakespeare's day, and women would still be blamed, by both sexes, for the violence men inflict on them. What made Dworkin's obsession with pornography so bizarre is that she herself should have known it for a diversion. After all, she frequently pointed out that male dominance is entwined with our very notion of what sex is, with what is arousing, with what feels "right." Like Foucault (who, as Susan Bordo pointed out, usually gets credit for this insight), Dworkin showed how deeply and pervasively power relationships are encoded into our concepts of sexuality and in how many complex ways everyday life normalizes those relationships. "Standards of beauty," she wrote in Woman-Hating (1974), "describe in precise terms the relationship that an individual will have to her own body. They prescribe her motility, spontaneity, posture, gait, the uses to which she can put her body. They define precisely the dimensions of her physical freedom. And of course, the relationship between physical freedom and psychological development, intellectual possibility, and creative potential is an umbilical one." Somewhere along the way, she lost interest in the multiplicity and the complexity of the system she did much to lay bare.

    Dworkin was an oversimplifier and a demagogue. She wouldn't debate feminists who opposed her stance on porn, just men like Alan Dershowitz, thus reinforcing in the public mind the false impression that hers was the only feminist position and that this was a male-female debate. There is some truth to Laura Miller's quip in Salon that "even when she was right, she made the public conversation stupider." But, frankly, the public conversation is usually not very illuminating, and on the subject of women has been notably dim for some time. At least Dworkin put some important hidden bits of reality out there on the table. There is a lot of coercion embedded in normal, legal, everyday sexuality: Sometimes the seducer is a rapist with a bottle of wine. A whole world of sexist assumptions lay behind my parents' attitude back in 1968: This is what happens to women who take chances, male brutality is a fact of life, talking about sexual violence is shameful, "Bennington girls" should count their blessings. Polite, liberal, reasonable feminists could never have exploded that belief system.

    Andrea Dworkin was a living visual stereotype--the feminist as fat, hairy, makeup-scorning, unkempt lesbian. Perhaps that was one reason she was such a media icon--she "proved" that feminism was for women who couldn't get a man. Women have wrestled with that charge for decades, at considerable psychic cost. These days, feminism is all sexy uplift, a cross between a workout and a makeover. Go for it, girls--breast implants, botox, face-lifts, corsets, knitting, boxing, prostitution. Whatever floats your self-esteem! Meanwhile, the public face of organizational feminism is perched atop a power suit and frozen in a deferential smile. Perhaps some childcare? Insurance coverage for contraception? Legal abortion, tragic though it surely is? Or maybe not so much legal abortion--when I ran into Naomi Wolf the other day, she had just finished an article calling for the banning of abortion after the first trimester. Cream and sugar with that abortion ban, sir?

    I never thought I would miss unfair, infuriating, over-the-top Andrea Dworkin. But I do. And even more I miss the movement that had room for her.

    Posted by cka2nd at 11/23/2007 @ 09:37am

25. Frosty, thanks for "The Women of Athens" post. Part of me wonders whether Menander wasn't on to something.

    As for Dworkin: she was an "oversimplifier and a demagogue"; she was "a living visual stereotype"; she was "unfair," "infuriating" -- but oh how I miss her! Was she ever right about us evil, raping, misogynistic men!

    Imagine if I wrote, "Norman Mailer stabbed his wife. Norman Mailer opposed women's lib. There are passages in numerous Mailer works that belittle women. Gosh, I never thought I'd ever miss infuriating, over-the-top Norm. But I do." Would such a passage be taken seriously?

    Dworkin's "feminism" amounts to anti-male hysteria. Nothing more. (I wonder what she would have thought of Mary Kay Letourneau, Susan Smith, Karla Homolka, Karla Faye Tucker, Eileen Wuornos, Lorena Bobbitt, Mary Ann Cotton, etc.)

    It would be so easy for a guy to turn her thinking on its head:

    1. Women have the power to deny men pleasure. 2. Women have the power to rebuff men, to turn away their advances. 3. Women have the power to decide which man is "really a man" (virility validation). 4. Women can tease men, and then later claim that, "Oh, you got the wrong message, buddy!" 5. Women can get by just on their looks. (Turn on the tube sometime and check out the babes. Or check out the Victoria Secret's models. Or ask how much a fashion model makes in a single year. Or click on a YouTube menu and watch the sexy young gals strut their stuff.)

    In light of the above, a male equivalent of Dworkin could claim, "Women have all the power! Women are malevolent!" He would unfortunately be pursuing a very similar logic.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/23/2007 @ 10:47am

26. Frosty, thanks for "The Women of Athens" post. Part of me wonders whether Menander wasn't on to something.

    Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/23/2007 @ 10:47am

    put away the coors lite, dude.

    that's nuts. my wife is in university (now a 60-40 mix of women to men). she's brilliant.

    the next einsteinnewtondarwin type will be a woman.

    i hope none of the women in your life see what you've written (assuming they can read), for if they do, ye shall experience true venom (deservedly so).

    the ladies have been jerked around for too long. god bless a woman who will say "enough!"

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/23/2007 @ 11:37am

27. thanks cka2nd. i missed that one. i think i subscribed after that article. i should have looked for it after insidious brought it up. dworkin was irritating, especially with her porn problems. but i think a lot of what she had to say did contribute to the feminist conversation.

    Posted by loveloki at 11/23/2007 @ 12:51pm

28. I never had much use for Dworkin myself, but what I object to is the deliberate mischaracterization of Pollitt's attitude towards her, and towards Mailer as well. ADSCITITIOUS demands a 100% condemnation of Dworkin from Pollitt, as I'm sure there are some feminists who are appalled that she didn't actually damn Mailer to hell. Too f'ing bad for them that Pollitt described in quite lucid prose in both pieces what she saw in their long careers that kept her from serving the baying hounds, including the ones who put on intellectual airs while crying for blood.

    Posted by cka2nd at 11/23/2007 @ 1:59pm

29. It is very paternalistic -- not to mention androcentric and phallocentric -- to say "the ladies have been jerked around for too long." The "ladies" can get about well enough on their own without your masculine hand guiding them!

    Indeed, women have been Sharon Stoning the male world for quite some time now.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/23/2007 @ 2:42pm

30. Yes, Dworkin was a nasty person whom nobody should have "missed". At least Mailer had a few redeeming qualities. His foray into metaphysics at this late date is refreshing in light of the little industry that has been created by positivists/atheists.

    I'm twenty pages into "On God: An Uncommon Conversation," and must say it isn't half bad.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/23/2007 @ 2:47pm

31. Katha, I heard your interview on KPFA (San Francisco/Berkeley) today where you said you are currently writing an article regarding Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. Thank you. I'm a Nation subscriber and will watch for it. I hope you'll include (if it fits into that or another article) a mention of Karen Hughes' visit to Saudi Arabia (Google it and find articles like this from the Financial Times: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ebe0f15c-2fa2-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html. It's a great example of Americans trying to "help" or "save" others (women) and what they have to say about it!

    Posted by marso at 11/23/2007 @ 3:08pm

32. Posted by ADSCITITIOUS 11/23/2007 @ 2:42pm

    wtf?

    o.k. how's this?

    female humans deserve better.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/23/2007 @ 4:29pm

33. Words of wisdom.

    Walking a long way in search of a memory the snow, fallen again in the care of a footprint, describes the profile of a sibilant hail-storm, and that flake rejoices like an useful singing.

    Francesco Sinibaldi

    Posted by Sinibaldi at 11/23/2007 @ 7:28pm

34. lovely, francesco. what a nice surprise.

    :)

    frosty, i know some male humans like you. this knowledge is a great comfort and a great relief. there is much machismo and violence in this old mountain mining town.

    Posted by loveloki at 11/24/2007 @ 12:05am

35. Posted by LOVELOKI 11/24/2007 @ 12:05am

    well, i bet you've got mountains.

    peace be upon thee.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 11/24/2007 @ 01:19am

36. yes, frosty, there are mountains around an "old mountain mining town." and i adore them.

    Posted by loveloki at 11/24/2007 @ 01:31am

37. i adore the town too.

    Posted by loveloki at 11/24/2007 @ 01:32am

38. Oh, never mind about what she said about Andrea Dworkin. Pollitt did her job beautifully. She gave Mailer his due as a writer and called him on his trashy attitudes and ideas. As a recovered Catholic, I was appalled by how an educated Jewish New Yorker can decide that contraception is immoral; as a human being I don't know how he can live with himself and be such a misogynist. Thanks to Katha for calling him on both.

    Posted by vurbanowicz at 11/24/2007 @ 02:59am

39. Perhaps your wife would've understood my reply.

    (Irony)

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/24/2007 @ 03:00am

40. Oh, never mind about what she said about Andrea Dworkin. Pollitt did her job beautifully. She gave Mailer his due as a writer and called him on his trashy attitudes and ideas. As a recovered Catholic, I was appalled by how an educated Jewish New Yorker can decide that contraception is immoral; as a human being I don't know how he can live with himself and be such a misogynist. Thanks to Katha for calling him on both.

    Posted by vurbanowicz at 11/24/2007 @ 03:00am

41. Dworkin's hatred far surpasses Mailer's. In any case I think there is more depth and reach -- more of the human being -- in Mailer than in Dworkin.

    Posted by Adscititious at 11/24/2007 @ 03:11am

42. Pollitt - your critique of Mailer is spot on, and the Nation is better for having someone who doesn't serve up a bunch of mush and platitudes when someone "important" keels over. I probably think Armies of the Night is a better book than you do, but I'm a male too young to have participated in such an Army, so maybe I'm not in the best position to judge.

    That's why yours & Hitchens' & "all them"'s position on God is so puzzling: you get it completely ass-backwards, and prattle on about not being given enough lip service.

    Anyway, Mary Daly -remember her? - passed through my college when I was young and impressionable. Now THAT was some serious feminizin' goin' on. In the name of the Lord too, if I recall correctly.

    I never did get through Executioner's Song. There was enough of the 80s going on around me already that I didn't need 800 pages of Southwestern pschizoaffective paranoia to top it off.

    Hope your side of things is goin' ok.

    Posted by Taboo at 11/26/2007 @ 9:54pm