I haven't watched much of this yet, but somebody prodded me to make this available for commenting. Have at it.
ADDED: At about 22:00, Paglia talks about how only a power-hungry "monomaniac" would run for President, because the campaigns "go on far too long." She says "We need to shorten the period, and this will make it more likely that we'll get women candidates, okay, who are not going to have to go around the country and giving up 2 years of their lives, okay. It's brutal."
This immediately made me think of my blog post from 6 days ago about Elizabeth Warren. Warren has a new book in which she tells of her decision not to run for President in 2016. She wrote that she seriously considered it, but decided against it after a discussion with her husband — the aptly named Mann — who said that campaigning for President "looks pretty terrible" and "a lot worse" than running for Senate. I commented:
And you wonder why we haven't had a woman President.But here's Paglia saying that somehow we ought to soften the ordeal of running for President so women (and non-megalomaniacs) will take it on. Contemplating whether Paglia had read my blog post, I was then floored when her next subject was hormones, because my next subject in that post is hormones. I say:
As Barbie once said, "Math class is tough!" And running for President is tough. That's your reason?
Note: I don't really believe that was her reason. I just don't enjoy bullshit that leverages the stereotype that women won't do work that is too strenuous.
As long as we're talking about the stereotype about women, let me show you something I've been listening to that's kind of blowing my mind — even though I heard it when it originally aired in 2002 — the recently rebroadcast "Testosterone" episode of "This American Life."...In the video, Paglia proceeds to say that it's not misogyny that's kept women out of running for President, but "the sheer brutal experience" — "you have to be a fighter or have a very thick skin. Most women seem to personalize, the barrage of negativity...." When Bruni asks if women "have thinner skin," she answers: "You know, hormonally, it's true. I know hormones have been out at the New York Times for many a decade."
(If you're wondering whether Camille Paglia even knows who I am, read "My Dinner with Camille.")
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42 comments:
ho is the asshole in the middle?
wow - I want to punch him.
(who)
What an unpleasant formst. Nothing will be said uninterrupted. No complete thought allowed.
She looked like Paul McCartney to me for a moment.
It's hard to argue a right wing position if you're not allowed to complete the sentence.
No problem for the left.
She's wrong about populism. It's the anti-PC zinger deployed against the MSM that made Trump possible.
He knows how to deal with the primary problem in America, that showed.
Limbaugh has taken up the theory that the MSM is running the show and the democrats are just the agents.
He's left out the soap opera women first cause, but otherwise is on the right track.
It's about audience to be sold to advertisers, at bottom.
Ironic that the corporation that makes money denouncing evil corporations is the evil corporation.
"It's hard to argue a right wing position if you're not allowed to complete the sentence." In what sense is Paglia "right wing"?
It is also hard to argue a right wing position if your speaking style is so "you know, right" choppy.
Times Talks
The brightest stars. The smartest conversations.
When you have to make that statement up-front, then everything rolls down hill from there.
Of course, if you're going to dedicate an hour listening to talking heads, then maybe you need that kind of encouragement.
I'm not spending an hour on this, but I do appreciate that the woman in white introducing the event pronounces the Personae of Sexual Personae correctly.
When non-megalomaniacs run, they're accused of not having fire-in-the-belly.
There is something very likable about Camille Paglia. I always thought it was her brutal honesty, but its more than that.
I used to think of her (not necessarily in a negative manner) as an arrogant intellectual, but I saw a more endearing and self-effacing side to her in that clip.
"Who is the asshole in the middle?
wow - I want to punch him."
Me too. He needed to shut the fuck up!
Just FF'd every time he showed up.
I'm all for shortening the POTUS primaries. But the object isn't gender equality in choosing the Presidents, its getting the best person we can as President.
If its a woman, fine. If not, that's fine too.
Probably the 1st elected Woman POTUS will be a Governor. Its a natural fit.
Hillary was oddball in a lot of ways. Palin is the prototype.
Frank Bruni should never have been promoted from restaurant reviews. An air of bosses son.
Paglia is more a paragraph person (possibly an occupational deformation of being a writer/professor). She shows better in one-on-one interviews, where she can explain her outrageous zingers at some length. Andy Cohen is just some glib gay Letterman wannabe, one-liners riffing on the Narrative all he got. This is a terrible format, makes even Ann's Vlogs look good in comparison.
Fascinating. Three narcissists sharing a microphone. That said, I appreciate Paglia's honesty. Cohen appears to believe in whatever will sell; he was probably the ultimate bullshitter in his Anthropology seminar. The host is just a host.
A few glancing revelations but overall it's an hour of real time with about 3 minutes of interesting thoughts, to which Paglia contributes about 2:45.
Narcissists also imagine everyone is quoting them.
As a follow-up: Paglia really is gutsy. She calls out Hillary for destroying the women who were victimized by Bill. She calls out Hillary (and Obama) for Libya and Benghazi.
Refreshing. Also very telling that Cohen and Bruni refused to let those topics splash onto their perfectly-creased trousers.
British Prime Minister Theresa May just called a snap election for June. That's only two months away.
The reality is that U.S. Presidential elections only last for the two months from Labor Day to Election Day. The primary process takes a lot longer, but that could be shortened or dispensed with if the political parties wanted too. Or just start a new party that has no primary process.
A woman prime minister of the U.K., and a Conservative!, was an utter improbability until Mrs. Thatcher decided that if the silly men would not straighten out the Conservative leadership, she would.
"As a follow-up: Paglia really is gutsy. She calls out Hillary for destroying the women who were victimized by Bill."
She calls out Bill for not taking Monica Lewinsky on a nice vacation.
The obsession over Ivanka and Jared by leftist prog d-crats is annoying. Probably their point, tho right. Annoyance.
We had Hillary as co-president un-elected 2-for-1 for 8 long years.. so - shut the hell up. Family members hold sway, on both sides. Deal, you hypocrites.
You know why a woman can't be president?
It's not the hormones, at least not directly.
It the lack of height.
How tall is Hillary? 5'4"?
Can you imagine a 5'4" male president?
No?
Look, I'm not going to cut Hillary slack on her height, just because she is female.
She is just too damn short to be president.
I know what you are thinking. James Madison was only 5'4", and he was prez, so it is sexist to say that Hillary can't be president, too!
Wrong. Madison wore lifts, and besides, he was a scrapper. Back when he was a circus roustabout, Madison boxed flyweight. If you called James Madison a short little f*cker, he'd kick your ass. What would Hillary do? Cry?
She's 5'8" in the portrait.
"Ironic that the corporation that makes money denouncing evil corporations is the evil corporation."
All leftist actions seem ironic in this regard. Commit violence against the right and scream bloody murder the right is the violent party. Collect millions from foreign actors and complain about Trump's foreign business. Etc, etc, etc, etc.
For me it has gotten to the point that if the left accuses the right of something bad it is pretty obvious the left is doing that exact same thing. I wish I could be more charitable in my assumptions but quacking ducks and everything.
Chuck's point of view is different from mine, but at least I can understand him holding it. People like Inga are beyond my comprehension though.
robother: your comment nailed my decision not to watch this, despite my love of Paglia. You are right on - she needs more time to flesh out her ideas and there is no joy in watching a Paglia interrupted.
Prof. A: "...[Paglia] calls out Bill for not taking Monica Lewinsky on a nice vacation..."
True. And that was I think very tongue-in-cheek by Paglia. She just stood back and mocked the whole Male Power Narrative where some Big Guy would wow and buy off his concubines with a road trip.
If Paglia is good at anything, it's irony. In fine thin layers, and in buckets.
Without violating the First Amendment, how would we prevent people from running for President before a certain date?
I just saw a 4.5 minute clip of this on realclearpolitics.com. It is one of the featured videos today. I really like how Camille calls them as she sees them. Camille lives her life in a no-spin zone.
"where some Big Guy would wow and buy off his concubines with a road trip."
My experience with concubines (other peoples concubines/mistresses) is that they tend to collect a lot more than road trips. Apartments, cars, jewelry, drugs, servants and chauffeurs, shopping trips to HongKong, etc. These American political groupies settle for very little.
First time I've seen Andy Cohen and he embodies everything I voted against... smug, arrogant, not half as smart as he thinks he is, condescending, and mostly unperceptive. He doesn't get it but lacks the sense to STFU while he tries to figure it all out.
If Trump is re-elected (much too early to even predict whether a 74-yr old will run for re-election), there's the reason why. Trump doesn't have to accomplish much, he just has to establish that he is not Andy Cohen and that people like Andy Cohen hate him and his supporters. Which will not be hard to do.
Paglia talks about how only a power-hungry "monomaniac" would run for President, because the campaigns "go on far too long." She says "We need to shorten the period
I mostly agree with her up to the end of this. The nature of Presidential campaigns makes them select mostly for people you'd never want in the office.
Sad to see Paglia, an iconclast yet still a feminist, say that we should make the selection process for the toughest job in the world easier so that more women will go for it.
Whatever happened to "anything he can do, I can do. Better."?
Yeah, Monomania. When there are approximately 150 MILLION other people who can apply for the job, and there exactly one position available, monomania is understandable.
Any female Olympic athlete would laugh at Paglia's comment.
Why exactly is it important to have people with vaginas as President? Maybe they should try out for NFL quarterback, they think flying around giving speeches is tough. Get hit by some 300 pound linebacker doing 18 mph, you'll wish you were on a podium somewhere telling pointless lies badly.
God, I am sick of women. I just realized the other day that I can't even stand good-looking ones any more. They are so full of their own shit. What kind of idiot goes around with an anatomically inaccurate replica of her genitalia on her head and thinks she is making a political statement? The Muzzies have it right, we should go back to buying and selling them.
Mostly selling.
Cruising Troll knows very little about Paglia if CT imagines Paglia is arguing for special treatment of women. Paglia is firmly against third wave whiny Cry-Baby feminism.
I love Paglia and think she is the most interesting person in America. I also love how Andrew Cohen (whoever he is) looks like the vacuous pussy that he so obviously is in relation to Paglia. He is saying nothing and he is so used to getting affirmation from the other lightweights he runs with that he hasn't been able to develop any substantive arguments. He hasn't needed to and it is so obvious that there is nothing there but a pose when he is on stage next to someone who has real ideas which she can validate, whether you agree with her or not.
This would have been twice as good if it was just Paglia.
"The Muzzies have it right, we should go back to buying and selling them."
Not even two years ago, I would have laughed and "Well, the law can't give a woman a penis!"
I'm not laughing anymore.
I don't think women are the reason, but our election season is absurdly long, how it doesn't reduce anyone who goes through it to gibbering insanity is beyond me. We should make it a crime to give a speech in Iowa and New Hampshire before May 1 of election year.
The riposte to/refutation of the "it's hard" and "hormones" arguments is two words:
Phyllis Schlafly.
Agree with her or not.
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