1. GRIP
Camille Paglia, professor of humanities, worries about “a landscape of death in the humanities.” I would agree with that, had it actually made any sense, although probably for different reasons:
This whole thing about global warming – I am absolutely incredulous at the gullibility of people. What is this hysteria over drowning polar bears? And finally I realized, people don’t know polar bears can swim! For me, the answer is always more facts, more basic information, presented without sentimentality and without drama.
2. SIP:
Andrew Sullivan believes Elena Kagan should be outed as a lesbian. Or as a straight lady, if she swings that way. Maybe if you tried a different hairdo, the boys would show more interest, Elena. We’re just concerned for you, dear – you don’t want to end up an old maid on the high court! Or maybe you don’t like boys? In any case, she is an unmarried woman of a certain age, and that demands a public explanation:
The NYT’s bizarre profile of Kagan, which plumbs every minute aspect of her most intimate and private life while saying nothing whatever about her emotional relationships, home, dating, or indeed anything that might even touch upon her sexual orientation, gay or straight, is so contrived in its avoidance of the obvious it is almost comic. To put it bluntly: the NYT can produce 4,500 words on a person and barely address the three most common Google searches on her name. There is some kind of disconnect here, no?
I, too, am outraged at the disconnect between NY Times reporting and popular Google searches. I mean, how long are they just going to ignore the important issues of “jessica abla sex taep” and “dragon age no cd torrent”? The People demand answers!
May 10, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Have you tried huffing computer cleaner, you know, for dusting your keyboard? It’s a realllzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
May 10, 2010 at 8:18 pm
Dear Camille,
“humanities” types really should learn to STFU when it comes to issues of science, ‘mkay? Yes, I know that the general philosophy of people who infest the humanities is that the entire fucking universe revolves around human civilization in general, and highbrow literature in liberal-arts school english departments in particular.
But, a little note from the cosmos: it’s just not that into you.
And it’s perfectly okay with turning the lights off on humanity if we fuck up the life support system on our little spaceship that we call “Earth”.
May 10, 2010 at 9:05 pm
In fairness, Paglia doesn’t make much sense when she sticks to her department, either. She’s an interdisciplinary tool.
May 11, 2010 at 5:05 am
Yeah, Camille’s an “intellectual” the way people used to be “celebrities” on ‘Match Game’ or ‘Hollywood Squares.” You could never point out to why Charlie Weaver was there (and yes, I’ll google him. I’m talking about BEFORE search-engines), or what made him a celebrity, but, there he was, so he must be one. Plus Charlie was really fucking funny. And he was better looking than Camille. I couldn’t tell you for sure, but I’d be willing to bet he had less hair on his back than she does, too.
Camille, I have an intellectual excercize for you. If it’s ok for the ice to melt because polar bears can swim, let’s see how little ‘sentimentality’ I can show, and how little ‘drama’ you provide if I were to drop your stupid ass off in the middle of the Pacific. Hey, you can swim, can’t you?
May 11, 2010 at 8:33 pm
“interdisciplinary tool” is far from fair, Editors. It makes it sound like she’s good for multiple things. And it used to be true: she used to be a producer of, in addition to a target of snark. As usual, blame it on the quality of drugs available to those willing to toady to upper-class Republicans.
Alas, she is now just a rusty hoe — not good for gardening anymore, but you’d find some comfort in having them in between you and a guy wielding a knife.
May 12, 2010 at 2:13 am
You could never point out to why Charlie Weaver was there (and yes, I’ll google him. I’m talking about BEFORE search-engines), or what made him a celebrity, but, there he was, so he must be one.
The real answer, as revealed by original host Peter Marshall: Charlie Weaver knew some really high-class call girls as well as the primo wife-swapping parties in the Valley. Info he was happy to share with visiting Squares celebrities.
Swear to God.
May 11, 2010 at 6:32 am
I no fairness to anyone at all, she actually gets paid to write and publish her schlintellectualisms, in major newspaper and magazines and literary journals and bathroom gazettes, even.
Weighing these facts, I find it almost unfair to pick on poor Camille. It’s like blaming the guy who plays Jack Bauer for FOX TV.
I mean, people actually PAY to read the silly bitch. I recall that great scene in King of Hearts where the loony, pointing to beyond the fence of the mental sanitarium Alan Bates has found refuge in, says, “They’re *crazy* out there.”
Like it’s some dark secret.
Which it is.
May 10, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Hmm, does that cartoon make The Editors a racist? Or, if the grimace cartoon is ironic, does that make The Editors a a /b/tard?
May 10, 2010 at 11:41 pm
Sullivan’s reaction to Elena Kagan is basically the same as that to Hillary Clinton.
He’s never going to rise above second-rate punditry if he can’t stuff his “Mommy” issues back into that closet.
May 11, 2010 at 4:05 am
heh
May 11, 2010 at 11:01 am
Even his Palin obsession is a bit off-putting
May 11, 2010 at 6:36 am
Also: he’s boring. Very very boring.
May 11, 2010 at 3:39 am
We interrupt your scheduled grip’n’sip: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/11/865387/-Fishgrease:-DKos-Booming-School
May 11, 2010 at 8:48 am
Fuck.
May 11, 2010 at 9:32 am
Fuck, I should have known this about booming. Will this info hit the dreaded MSM, or is it just one more way to know how well and truly fucked we all are?
May 11, 2010 at 1:25 pm
I think it will in time. This thing is gonna ride the fat cats. The Gradual Depression continues unabated. The Dud(sic) abides.
May 11, 2010 at 4:43 am
And finally I realized, people don’t know polar bears can swim!
Can we now dump Paglia in the ocean? She can swim, right?
How can anybody not Sarah Palin be this dumb?
May 11, 2010 at 6:17 am
Like I said before, it’s Clampetts all the way down.
May 11, 2010 at 1:25 pm
But in the beginning was the Bodean.
May 11, 2010 at 7:25 am
“For me, the answer is always more facts, more basic information, presented without sentimentality and without drama.”
Has she ever read a peer-reviewed scientific paper? Has she ever even heard of such a thing?
May 11, 2010 at 2:22 am
She’s heard of pier-reviewed papers, but she thinks they’re stupid because, duh, piers aren’t that smart.
May 11, 2010 at 8:32 am
I suppose she would try to deconstruct it using ‘textual criticism’, and bemoan the rampant patriarchy of the scientific method, and wax rhapsodically but somehow still in jambled ugly prolix effusions about Newton’s queer Alchemie.
May 11, 2010 at 8:36 am
Which actually goes to prove a point made first by Popper: if you scratch ‘social constructivists’ and other neo-Hegelians, no matter how ‘left’ they proclaim themselves to be (like Derrida, like Weber. like Baudrillard) you find the bare essence is still right wing Platonism. She’s just a bit closer to her intellectual roots than some others.
May 11, 2010 at 1:27 pm
“…wax rhapsodically but somehow still in jambled ugly prolix effusions about Newton’s queer Alchemie”
Whew. You, sir, are a master.
May 11, 2010 at 9:56 am
In other news: there’s a whole lotta comedy gold in here to be mined:
Zombie Satellite Causes Astronomical Buzz
by Claudine Zap
16 hours ago
Don’t be alarmed. High above your heads, a zombie satellite is on the loose. OK, actually, it won’t really be a bother to us earthlings. Or at least to most of us. (More on that later.) But the rogue communications satellite is wreaking havoc in Earth’s orbit and does threaten to interfere with signals coming from other satellites. Here’s the backstory…
The communications satellite named Galaxy 15 lost contact with ground control after a solar flare probably fried its brain. As a story from the Christian Science Monitor reports, attempts from Earth to contact the satellite have been unsuccessful. But instead of just dying and drifting off, the satellite has continued to orbit the Earth, even though it refuses to receive instructions from its owner, Intelsat.
For the science nerds out there: The satellite is still on, with its “C-band telecommunications payload still functioning even as it has left its assigned orbital slot of 133 degrees west longitude 36,000 kilometers over the equator.” Translation: Not good.
What’s confounding scientists is that even though the satellite is toast, it continues to operate at full power, but with nobody telling it what to do. Why on earth we should care: The “zombiesat” (as its known in space talk) could steal a working sat signal, and interrupt programming for its customers. Yes, that means our television programs. The horror. As the blog Boing Boing points out, Galaxy 15 was one of the satellites that carried the Syfy channel’s signal. And now it’s met an end good enough to be its own Syfy show.
The Galaxy 15 is on course to mess with an SES satellite that transmits to Luxembourg. If it’s any consolation to the good people of Luxembourg, officials are calling the situation “unprecedented.”
The undead satellite has caused searches for “galaxy 15 satellite” to rise an astronomical 10,300% in the last week. Searches were also out of this world for “nasa satellite imagery,” “satellite photo,” and “nasa satellites.” It’s also caused people to wonder “how many satellites are in space.” Not enough to bump into each other. Yet.
Claudine Zap, of course.
May 11, 2010 at 1:30 pm
So now it will eat other satellite’s brainwidth. Fire a Predator missile at Ronald McDonald’s McMansion during one of Cheney’s clandestine visits where he dresses as Hamburglar and gets spanked with french fries by Sarah Palin.
I love the 21st century.
May 11, 2010 at 3:57 pm
R.I.P.
May 19, 2010 at 6:04 am
Just like with that Miss America back in the eighties, people are always saying about how she’s black and all. And I’m like — really?, how can you tell?
Or like my boss’s daughter. Yeah technically he’s black-ish, and looks it. Same percentage as Tiger Woods maybe. But his daughter? You would have to be semi-racist, it seems to me, to make such very fine distinctions in minor shades of whiteness. Linda Ronstadt is browner.
May 11, 2010 at 3:58 pm
When I think of Lena Horne, I always think of Fred Sanford.
May 11, 2010 at 7:31 pm
I miss Lamonte.
May 12, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Wow, you sure picked out two fuckheads today.
And happily, I’d fuck neither of them!
May 19, 2010 at 5:16 pm
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