There I was reading Interview magazine on the can this afternoon (well, looking at it, anyway) when who should pop up but Camille Paglia! It’s not her best but the interview with Ingrid Sischy has some nice moments. For all you Pagliari here are some extracts. I don’t think it’s online, but it’s the Dec/Jan 2002 issue if you want to read the whole thing.
On the Taliban destruction of the Buddhas:
“Yes, that was chilling. Ironically, the idea of the West as destroyer has been pushed down the throats of students at elite universities – yet we’re the only ones in history who have gone to such lengths to recover the past, reassemble the jigsaw puzzle, reconstruct past cultures. Those great stone Buddhas, smashed by cannon fire, were on trade routes dating from the period of the wandering hordes that attacked Rome. History will say that the destruction of those images was an early warning sign of something that was about to happen to us. Those falling monuments were a prefiguration of the collapse of the Twin Towers.”
On the new frontier post September 11:
“It’s almost as if there is no frontier, because by definition a frontier is the point where civilization is pushing us out into the unknown. What we’re facing now is the void or heart of darkness created by a fanatical hatred of progress, of history, of science. The way the terrorists used our technology against us – that’s another horror. To turn those tremendous jetliners against the Twin Towers: It’s like reversing the whole 20th Century – the history of flight and the great skyscrapers, the apex of architecture. To create this giant void where nothing is recognizable – even I, with my catastrophic imagination, never envisioned that civilization would do that to civilization.”
SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “While different kinds of Americans live in strictly segregated monochromatic cities and neighborhoods and can’t even stand to hear each other’s music, Afghans of all ethnic stripes live side by side in a truly blended nation. This partly explains why yesterday’s Taliban can shave, trade his turban for a Hindustani cap, and become Northern Alliance — to jump from a Pashtun- to a Tajik-dominant culture isn’t that hard. Afghans make war all the time — it’s what they do best — but they fight out of loyalty to a commander or a warlord. They don’t shoot each other merely because of the color of their skin. We Americans, who most assuredly know better, do.” – Ted Rall, finding more reasons to hate America.
GOOD NEWS WATCH: A simple story of amazing generosity from the New York Times. And they didn’t even need a “faith-based” grant from the government.
MORE ON BRAME: An interesting quote from Robert Brame III appears on a website called “Christian Statesman.” The quote argues that “…[law that] is not rooted in explicit commands of Scripture would be at best abstract, vague, and esoteric. It could neither guide legislation and adjudication nor check abuses by government, and could be rapidly captured and perverted by an elite.” Sounds like mainstream Christian Reconstructionism to me. We’ve been told that Brame has severed all links to these groups as well. So why is he still listed on page 2 of the November 2001 “Biblical Worldview” magazine, put out by American Vision, as a still-active member of the AV board? Just asking. Sources tell me, however, that Brame has just withdrawn his name from consideration for reappointment to the NLRB. Great.
NPR CHANNELS AL JAZEERA: Suddenly it all makes sense. Boston’s NPR station WBUR will provide daily updates on the war on terrorism direct from the mouthpiece of anti-Western Muslim fundamentalism, Al Jazeera. No reason is given as to why NPR won’t provide daily coverage from, say, the Israeli media as well. But then it’s NPR. We know the reason already.
The Dish 