| Stephen Cox is
editor of Liberty. |
|
I'm OK, You're OK — Judge Samuel
Alito, responding to a question from Sen. Arlen Specter about whether courts
should declare laws unconstitutional because of Congress' "method of reasoning,"
replied: "I think that Congress' ability to reason is fully equal to that of the
judiciary." We are in serious trouble — Stephen Cox
| Tom Isenberg is
a writer living in Idaho. |
|
Blue-eyed blond seeks same — I
regularly get our so-called "alternative newspaper" although it's really neither;
it's more like a "yuppie infotainment events calendar." I remember not too long
ago when these were called "underground" papers, a similarly self-important and
bogus adjective. (Apparently when communism and apartheid were defeated, these
papers safely emerged from the underground.) Why don't they just call themselves
"weeklies" to distinguish themselves from the daily newspapers, which, after all,
are also alternatives I could consider.
Posturing aside, their editorial positions are pretty similar and pretty
conventional. As far as I can tell, what really distinguishes the alternative
papers is the creepy politicization of personal ads. Half of them read like they
could have been written by Hitler: "SWM, artist, music lover, vegetarian,
non-smoker, advocate for jobs, looking for someone to join me in a quest to make
the world a better place." The other half read like they could have been written
by Himmler: "SWM, pagan, politically aware, into S&M, Eastern travel, and the
occult." I guess it's an alternative to "If you like piña coladas and
getting caught in the rain . . ." — Tom Isenberg
| Andrew Ferguson
is managing editor of Liberty. |
|
Dog's day — The Kennedys have a
history of putting their names on book covers, and now Teddy has joined in with
"My Senator and Me: A Dog's-Eye View of Washington, D.C.," cowritten by his
Portuguese Water Dog, Splash. According to the publisher, Scholastic, the
book "takes readers through a full day in the Senator's life," presenting the
events from Splash's perspective. No word yet on what day Kennedy has chosen to
depict, but surely we can all think of at least one when a Water Dog would've
come in handy. — Andrew Ferguson
|
Dressed to shill — FrontPage
Magazine has published an interesting interview with Phyllis Chesler, who has
been a major force in pushing the gender feminist (GF) agenda for decades now. In
her new book "The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's
Freedom," she is turning around and lambasting her sister-GFs as being sell-outs
to the lure of academic and leftist prestige, etc. I don't much sympathize with
her "ringing the bell in the night" over how feminism has gone wrong since she is
one of the reasons it went so many miles off course. Her media-proclaimed "brave"
book that turns on GFs just as their movement is clearly dying raises my cynical
hackles. For one thing . . . good timing! It is like buying a rising stock when
it is low and then selling-short when you see an inevitable collapse. Of course,
on Wall Street, Chesler would be arrested for insider trading, as she is in a
position to influence the decline of the GF stock by publicly excoriating it. Her
interview (and book) are one more indication that gender feminism has lost its
hold on society and will be fading fast in the next few years, leaving the rest
of us to clean up the mess. Now its former leaders are trying to make a buck and
preserve their prestige by distancing themselves from the failure that is their
legacy. Chesler's heart bleeds so profusely for Third World women that she
is proposing "a feminist foreign policy." She criticizes GFs "because they
refused to work with a Republican administration" and, so, shut themselves out of
foreign policy. Aha . . . I begin to see where an enterprising ex-GF can make a
new buck and acquire new prestige. I have a suggestion for Chesler: how about
repairing the damage you have wrought to gender relations in your own society
first? Oh, and when you express wrenching compassion for the poor and oppressed,
may I suggest that your accompanying photograph not show you in a glistening
evening dress with a glass of wine cradled in your hands? Actually, forget my
last suggestion. It gives the reader important information — Wendy
McElroy
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