vexed
I've been cranky all week. These are some of the reasons (compiled gradually, posted now in hopes of getting some of the rage out of my system):
*As soon as I saw "Questions for Mohsin Hamid" on the Sunday magazine table of contents, I groaned. Deborah Solomon is a nasty Islamophobe and makes surprisingly little effort to hide it--every time she interviews a Muslim or anyone she considers insufficiently suspicious of Islam, the Arabs, the Palestinians, etc. they immediately become a punching bag for her bias. I went over to CM to look for evidence, because I remembered complaining about her in the comments awhile ago (and noted that the chapati had posted the Hamid piece before I'd even been awake to read it) and yes, here we go: David Frost, Cat Stevens, Mira Nair, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Alwaleed bin Talal. Sorry, I know some of those are TimesSelect--you can get around it by googling Solomon and the interviewees' names, but it will take you nasty places I didn't want to link to, like CampusWatch. Why does the NYT keep on publishing this dreck? We've all been thinking a lot of about racism and misogyny in the media of late, but this is so normalized it doesn't even seem to make it onto the radar screen. In any case, Hamid seems to have gone in prepared, and gives better than he got. Excellent parries. I like his fiction, but I'm starting to like the non-fiction even more.
*Much of the commentary about the horrific killings at Virginia Tech this week has soured my stomach further (Debbie Schussel's Paki-bashing--no, seriously she actually uses the slur, and then pretends it isn't one--probably takes the prize for the worst.) I haven't decided whether or not to engage in the discussion. I started writing something, but it started sounding a lot like "Guns, American Masculine Rage, Restraining Orders, and Repetitive Nightmares: A Personal History" and I'm not going to post anything like that. I will say that Bob Herbert's recent column is one of the more measured things I've read, via the thoughtful comments of this thoughtful post from Cassandra Pages.
*Five old Catholic men on the Supreme Court think they are better-qualified to decide what I do with my body than I am. If you don't actually think this decision is a problem, I suggest you start with this excellent essay from Ms. a couple of years ago: Between a Woman and Her Doctor. John, Antonin, Clarence, Samuel, Anthony: Fuck you, too. John Paul Stevens, stay healthy, man.
*The US Army is building a wall in Baghdad to keep Sunni and Shi'a apart. Are there no historians in the employ of the "coalition forces"? Don't answer that.
*As soon as I saw "Questions for Mohsin Hamid" on the Sunday magazine table of contents, I groaned. Deborah Solomon is a nasty Islamophobe and makes surprisingly little effort to hide it--every time she interviews a Muslim or anyone she considers insufficiently suspicious of Islam, the Arabs, the Palestinians, etc. they immediately become a punching bag for her bias. I went over to CM to look for evidence, because I remembered complaining about her in the comments awhile ago (and noted that the chapati had posted the Hamid piece before I'd even been awake to read it) and yes, here we go: David Frost, Cat Stevens, Mira Nair, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Alwaleed bin Talal. Sorry, I know some of those are TimesSelect--you can get around it by googling Solomon and the interviewees' names, but it will take you nasty places I didn't want to link to, like CampusWatch. Why does the NYT keep on publishing this dreck? We've all been thinking a lot of about racism and misogyny in the media of late, but this is so normalized it doesn't even seem to make it onto the radar screen. In any case, Hamid seems to have gone in prepared, and gives better than he got. Excellent parries. I like his fiction, but I'm starting to like the non-fiction even more.
*Much of the commentary about the horrific killings at Virginia Tech this week has soured my stomach further (Debbie Schussel's Paki-bashing--no, seriously she actually uses the slur, and then pretends it isn't one--probably takes the prize for the worst.) I haven't decided whether or not to engage in the discussion. I started writing something, but it started sounding a lot like "Guns, American Masculine Rage, Restraining Orders, and Repetitive Nightmares: A Personal History" and I'm not going to post anything like that. I will say that Bob Herbert's recent column is one of the more measured things I've read, via the thoughtful comments of this thoughtful post from Cassandra Pages.
*Five old Catholic men on the Supreme Court think they are better-qualified to decide what I do with my body than I am. If you don't actually think this decision is a problem, I suggest you start with this excellent essay from Ms. a couple of years ago: Between a Woman and Her Doctor. John, Antonin, Clarence, Samuel, Anthony: Fuck you, too. John Paul Stevens, stay healthy, man.
*The US Army is building a wall in Baghdad to keep Sunni and Shi'a apart. Are there no historians in the employ of the "coalition forces"? Don't answer that.
posted by kitabet at 6:51 AM
1 Comments:
I hear you. Just have to keep pointing out the bias and misinformation. But it's infuriating when the Times keeps printing this crap. (and thanks for the link.)
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