Quick(ish) Hits

Here's what I'm reading today...

-- Camille Paglia's regular column on Salon.com. She's always fascinated me: among the "I'll say anything for shock value" inteligentsia, Paglia is unique for at least attempting to ground her opinions in a real-world framework. My problem with her is that, even when I agree with her (as in this piece's "plastic eroticism" smackdown), I never quite get where she's coming from. In the same space, she praises Rush Limbaugh's consistency of principle, waits a whole four paragraphs before calling Hillary Clinton "shrill" and bashes Title IX mere sentences after she's claimed to be an "equity feminist." Now, I'm an equity feminist (which is why Clinton will need more than a set of reproductive organs to get my vote), and I still feel a little dirty agreeing with Paglia on anything.


-- Speaking of feminism and shock value...wtf is up with Geraldine Ferraro? What, did Barack Obama pee in her cornflakes? In case you missed it, Ferraro this week said that if Obama "was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position." [pause for deep breath...] Okay, I agree that Obama's gotten a bit of a pass from the press. But it seems to me that it has a hell of a lot more to do with the media's man-crush on Obama than anything else. It's not like they fall all over black presidential candidates as a matter of course. And if ethnic novelty is at play, then how does Ferraro explain the media's collective ass-kiss of President Bush for his entire first term. (Ah, well, you know privileged white men are so very unrepresented in politics...) It's insulting for Ferraro to suggest that Obama's skin color has more to do with his success than, say, John McCain's war record or Hillary Clinton's husband do with theirs.


-- Speaking of race/gender irrationality...Alternet has a review of Until Proven Innocent, a recounting of the infamous Duke lacrosse non-rape scandal. This case and its aftermath continue to interest me for several reasons, not the least of which is the handling of the case by Duke University's faculty and staff, just because of what I do for a living. Unfortunately, according to this review the book alternates between a rehash of the facts already reported to death by every media outlet in North Carolina and a decidely rightward-slanted interpretation of what happened. Okay, anyone who's been to college knows that there are always a few faculty members who seem hell-bent on simultaneously proving their dissertation theories and avenging themselves on every long-ago jock who stuffed them in a trash can. But are these authors seriously suggesting that the Duke Gang of however-many-it-was have more blood on their hands than, I dunno, the DA who was disbarred after concealing evidence that would exonerate the three accused players?

Two tidbits I love: In discussing other North Carolina cases where men were wrongfully convicted, "...they omit Darryl Hunt, an African-American North Carolinian who spent eighteen and a half years in prison for raping and murdering a white woman, ten of them after DNA testing proved his innocence. (The Hunt saga apparently provides too awkward a counterpoint to the authors' drumbeat about reverse racism.)" It seems that one of the lacrosse players has a far better grasp of the implications of the case than the book's authors: "Reade Seligmann, one of the exonerated players, makes the point succinctly: "If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can't imagine what they would do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."


-- Check out this opinion piece on CNN.com on the debate over whether to get Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, for one's daughters. There are hundreds of strains of HPV, and the viruses can cause everything from genital warts to cervical cancer. The vaccine has been approved for women up to age 26, but it's most effective when administered before a girl or woman becomes sexually active. This writer tries to build up some sympathy for the parent agonizing over the contemplation of a young daughter's future sexuality...but I just don't buy it. Okay, your little girl will one day be a woman, and she will likely want to have sex. As many as 50 percent of other sexually active adults will carry some strain of HPV. If you could prevent your daughter from possibly getting this disease, why in f*ck's sake wouldn't you??? 'Cause the specter of cervical cancer is all that's keeping your preteen from banging the JV football team? Get over yourself, Mom. Get her the damn shot.

(Me, I really stress over whether or not to vaccinate my future kids against whooping cough and TB. I mean, if I do, aren't I telling them it's okay to wander the streets looking for consumptive hookers to lick?)


-- Speaking of f*cked up American attitudes towards sex and the consequences thereof...A study found this week that one in four American girls has an STD. The infection rate for African American girls is 50 percent. The most common STD? Oh look, it's...HPV! Presumably those 25 percent of American girls didn't just go out and start having sex in the 18 months or so since the FDA approved Gardasil. So what gives? If you want my personal opinion, you've got a toxic combination of a culture that tells girls over and over that their only value lies in being sexually desirable to men and then simultaneously sends the message that sex is dirty and should be hidden (for all ages.) Okay,

1. Sex between consenting adults is a beautiful thing, and nothing anyone should be ashamed of.
2. Kids are naturally attracted to what's forbidden. If you told a bunch of teenagers they could never go to church ever again, guess where they'd all be on Sunday morning. This is why abstinence-only sex-ed has never worked in the entire history of the world and never will.

It seriously troubles me that so many young people today treat sex like it's just another extracurricular activity. And I can't help but wonder if it isn't because they a) haven't been taught to have the proper respect for it, and b) don't have anything else going on in their lives. As long as I live, I will never forget my sixth-grade health class, when Coach Johnson wrote that chart on the board showing the success rates of various forms of birth control. Yes, abstinence was at the top, at 100% effective. But condoms (99%), BC pills (86% - see, told you I'd never forget) and others were up there, too. We were 12 and 13, but our teacher treated us like the adults we would soon be.

More importantly, I remember all those days I spent with my church youth group, volunteering at my community theatre or just spending time with my family. A public school teacher doesn't bear all the responsibility for keeping kids from making stupid decisions. And neither does a vaccine.


-- On a lighter note...the King of all Whininess, aka Jack Roush, will not appeal the penalty assessed to Carl Edwards's team after the Las Vegas race. I dunno, could it be because he knows they were caught cheating dead to rights? Oh, no, it's because "In the NASCAR system of penalty administration, simple negligence by itself is never sufficient grounds to overturn or reduce a penalty." Right, it's all NASCAR's fault that your "negligence" scored you, by some estimates, close to 200 lbs. of downforce. Right.


-- Sorry, still can't get over this...Elliot Spitzer, you're the governor of New York, easily the coolest of the US States. You're not an unattractive man. And you have to pay a woman four grand to sleep with you? You're on a trip to DC, and you can't get a referral from one of the hundreds of other overly powerful men at the cocktail bar? You have to violate federal law by bringing in a hometown ringer? Seriously? Dude, if Bill Clinton could get a freebie, so could you.


-- Lastly...you have to read Bill Simmons's column today on ESPN.com about the murder of Jamiel Shaw Jr. Simmons get a lot of flack, but this is tremendously affecting - easily the best writing he's ever done.