Harvard sex blogger Lena Chen has posted a pretty graphic picture of herself immediately following a certain sexual act on her home page.
Definitely NSFW.
On the one hand, she’s certainly pushing the envelope.
On the other hand…yikes. Where to start?
In the NY Post, Lou Lumenick hates the new Sex and the City movie.
Excellent!
SITC was a ghastly TV show, anti-feminist, materialistic and shallow. Its portrayal of New York—allegedly a celebration of the city—idealized its most unattractive aspects: money-grubbing, social climbing, relationship immaturity, a general refusal to grow up.
This isn’t the New York I know, or want to know, I always thought whenever I watched the TV show. (Though sadly, one of the city’s most authentic and rough-hewn areas, the meatpacking district, has been transformed into a Sex in the City theme park into which Manhattanites dare not enter, thanks to the show.)
I recognize that women can enjoy a television show about female friendship and life in New York. And SITC’s characters were certainly more plausible than the women presented on, say, Desperate Housewives.
But the women who live in New York are far more substantive and interesting than the show’s four characters. They don’t sit around and have endless conversations about Mahnolo Blahniks. They don’t panic and whinge at the mere thought of leaving the city for a weekend in the country. They don’t obsess about the latest clubs at which they can pay $20 for a Cosmopolitan (or—ugh—an appletini.)
(Or, more typically on the show, find a stranger to buy it for them.)
Wasn’t Mary Tyler Moore in fact a far more progressive portrayal of a tough, feminine, and smart woman?
Sex in the City felt like a gay male fantasy of women; or perhaps a gay male portrayal of a certain type of gay man…in the form of women.Throw the most outlandish fashions onto women and fill them with the desire to chit-chat idly and have brunch for 60-70% of their lives….like inflatable friend dolls for Chelsea boys.
(Please note, just for the record, that I said a certain type of gay man.)
One of Sex in the City’s most unappealing aspects was that it took some of the less attractive qualities of men gay and straight, inserted them into women, and called it progressive.
Now a sometimes funny but fundamentally soulless TV show sounds like a dreary film. Must it really be a cultural moment?
Those who watch it, Lumenick writes, will have to endure…….
endless fashion montages, shameless product placements, lethally slow pacing and utterly predictable plot.
Or if they’re not feminists distressed by the movie’s regressive, unmistakable subtext: that unless she’s a sexual compulsive, a woman is nothing without a man of her own.
The London Telegraph echoes the criticism of product placements:
Shoes, dresses, handbags, coffee, removal companies: it seems that almost every inch of the screen is full of product placements and designer labels, branded like the jumpsuit of a grand prix driver.
After all the inescapable hype for this movie, I would like to promote the backlash.
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One other thought, more journalism related: The Post has its review out today. Where is the Times’ write-up? I guess the Times will amble around to it and get the review out tomorrow.
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*Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Former White House press secretary Scott McCellan has written a new book in which he trashes his ex-boss, President Bush.
In a chapter titled “Selling the War,” he alleges that the administration repeatedly shaded the truth and that Bush “managed the crisis in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.”
…McClellan, once a staunch defender of the war from the podium, comes to a stark conclusion, writing, “What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”
While one can take some pleasure in seeing Bush’s minions turn on him, there’s also lots to have mixed feelings about with such a book. Doesn’t a president have the right to expect greater loyalty than that from people who’ve worked for him? (Even Bush.)
And if McClellan was so troubled by the administration’s bogus push for war, why didn’t he resign?
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull raked in $311 million worldwide over the Memorial Day weekend, $13 of which came from me.
If you haven’t seen it already…don’t!
It’s a horrendous film with an incoherent plot that more resembles the execrable second Star Wars trilogy than the first three Raiders movies. About fifteen minutes into it, I was bored.
There’s a sort of interesting problem to the film: As if to compensate for Harrison Ford’s age, the script makes Indiana Jones entirely un-killable. He survives, among other perils, a nuclear blast; falling over three massive waterfalls (in a jeep, no less); and thousands of bullets fired from machine guns held by Russian soldiers about two yards away.
Thus we have the paradox of an aging star who is, within the context of the film, immortal.
But when it becomes clear that nothing can harm our hero, any potential suspense quickly evaporates and we are treated to a series of increasingly implausible and tediously unoriginal digitally-created scenarios….
Also in Slate, Christopher Hitchens laments the incredibly annoying practice that many waiters have adopted of interrupting a conversation to refresh your wine glass when you haven’t asked them to.
The vile practice of butting in and pouring wine without being asked is the very height of the second kind of bad manners. Not only is it a breathtaking act of rudeness in itself, but it conveys a none-too-subtle and mercenary message: Hurry up and order another bottle.
This is classic Hitchens:
Not everybody likes wine as much as I do. Many females, for example, confine themselves to one glass per meal or even half a glass. It pains me to see good wine being sloshed into the glasses of those who have not asked for it and may not want it and then be left standing there barely tasted when the dinner is over. Mr. Coleman, it was said, made his fortune not from the mustard that was consumed but from the mustard that was left on the plate.
I’ll leave the wine-by-gender question to others. But it drives me nuts when waiters crash into a table conversation to ask something like, “How are we all doing here?”, which is an abomination unto itself…..
Here is, I think, a second possible challenge to the university: a possible backlash against the transformation of American childhood into one long college application.
In Slate, Anne Applebaum writes about the schizophrenia of American parents, who are “obsessed with preparing their children for a supercompetitive, globalized job market.”
Yet at the same time, the parents of many driven children, raised on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Little House on the Prairie, retain a kind of nostalgia for a pre-industrial America, one in which childhood involved breaking horses and building rafts, in which “schooling” was optional, and in which dropping out was a romantic option. Layered on top of this collective memory is often a rose-colored recollection of their own high-school experience, a Happy Days whirl of sports, proms, and dates. Today’s children always seem to be working harder than yesterday’s children, having less fun, and taking more tests, at least according to everyone I know.
What’s the solution? No idea.
On the one hand, given the pressures of globalization, I don’t see the pressure to get into Harvard et al relenting any time soon. But will we really redefine childhood so profoundly simply because of economic pressure from other countries?
…Politico’s John Harris thinks that the media has sensationalized Hillary Clinton’s Bobby Kennedy comment.
… Clinton’s error was not in saying something beyond the pale but in saying something that pulled from context would sound as if it were beyond the pale.
(Hat tip to Tim McCarthy for pointing out Harris’ column.)
If you guessed that I disagree, you’d be right. I lean more towards this Slate writer’s interpretation of Hillary’s remarks:
“Nice nominee you got there … sure would be a shame if anything happened to him.”
…when your husband makes you look like an idiot? Hillary Clinton claims that Bill Clinton didn’t wrap up the Democratic nomination in 1992 until June.
But Andrew Sullivan discovers this money quote from—hah!—Bill’s autobiography.
On April 7, we also won in Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. On April 9, Paul Tsongas announced that he would not reenter the race. The fight for the nomination was effectively over.
Of course, given that neither Clinton actually wrote the books for which they were paid many millions, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if they didn’t know what those books actually said.
But Hillary surely knew that she was lying when she claimed that her husband hadn’t wrapped up the nomination until June.
(Or maybe she didn’t know; maybe she talked herself into believing that. Intriguing!)
By the way, some of you have questioned whether I really believe that Hillary wants something bad to happen to Barack Obama. The answer is, yes, I do.
Back in 1992, Bill Clinton killed one black man, Ricky Ray Rector, who he thought might stand in his path to the presidency. So there’s a precedent for this.
Do I think that Hillary Clinton would grieve if something terrible happened to Barack Obama? Sure.
But do I also think that another part of her would rejoice? Absolutely. This is a woman whose lust for power can justify anything.
The idea that anyone would desire the death of an opponent boggles a decent mind. But it’s not beyond the bounds of hers.
In yesterday’s Times, Harvard alum Carroll Bogert talks about why she won’t be giving the university any money when she returns for her 25th anniversary.
At Harvard, where I’m on my way for my 25th reunion, I’d have to be drunk to fall for their pitch. The university’s endowment stands at $35 billion and is likely to hit $100 billion in a decade. At an annual growth rate of 13.3 percent — the average since inception, and regularly exceeded in recent years — Harvard can cover next year’s entire undergraduate financial aid budget with what it earns in the market in eight and a half days.
Instead, Bogert is encouraging alums to give to other causes, such as “destitute universities in Africa.” She claims that “a few hundred” of them have formed a group called Harvard Alumni for Social Action to try to redirect 25th reunion giving.
In three years, we’ve raised $425,000 — a lot for the University of Dar es Salaam but hardly a match for our annual class “gift.” And evidently not enough to win the respect of President Faust, who has begged off meeting the group.
(Meet with them, Drew! All it does is make you look gracious and respectful, rather than petty and insecure.)
Why do alums still give? Bogert gives three reasons: the networking opportunities that come with giving, hope that their children will get in, and force of habit/tradition.
She might also mention a sense of appreciation for what the university has helped them to do in life.
You will note that on Bogert’s CV, linked to above, Bogert notes that she has an MA and a BA from Harvard, and that her senior thesis was summa cum laude and won a prize for the best senior thesis on the subject of democracy.
Thus proving two things:
One, that Harvard has a prize for 7 out of ten senior theses.
And two, that Harvard has been good to Carroll Bogert. The woman is pushing 50, head of a major human rights organization, has two children, writes for the New York Times…and still feels compelled to note that her senior thesis at Harvard won a prize.
I’d be more sympathetic to Bogert’s argument if it were more smartly made, but there are still lots of good reasons to give to Harvard and lots of good reasons to give money to other important causes.
At the same time, Bogert’s op-ed is more proof that the image-related problems stemming from Harvard’s riches are a growing problem for the university.
The definition of:
….brazen boldness coupled with impudent assurance and insolence
Clinton Camp Stokes RFK Flap by Blaming Obama
—The Washington Post, yesterday