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| Susan Sontag: An Obituary |
| 2004-12-29 |
| When a friend called me yesterday morning with the news that Susan Sontag had died at the age 71, just about the first thing I thought was, "well, we'll have a huge, hagiographical, front-page obituary tomorrow in The New York Times." Check to see if I am correct. In the meantime, as you prepare yourself for the Times' litany about 1) what a penetrating critical intelligence Sontag wielded and 2) what a "courageous" and challenging "dissident" voice she provided (those quotation marks are proleptic: let's see if the Times uses those words), here is another "courageous," "penetratingly intelligent" dissident voice, that of Salman Rushdie, who provided this bouquet in his capacity as President of the PEN American Center: |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #20 Back in 1970, after returning from RVN in 1969, I would get very angry reading her columns while getting very drunk commuting from New Haven to Manhattan. That was a horrible time. And Jules, please stick around. |
| Posted by: Sgt.D.T. 2004-12-29 7:23:56 PM |
| #19 Publicize the guy kinda plagerizing the dead girl That wasn't plagiarism. That was mockery. Or parody if you want to be sophisticated about it. People, dead or otherwise, who write goofy-ass crap are frequently its object. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2004-12-29 7:18:10 PM |
| #18 "exemplary" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-29 4:48:04 PM |
| #17 Real nice, Sea. Publicize the guy kinda plagerizing the dead girl. Real, nice. Her friends would probably find that, oh, I don't know..."scurrilous"? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-12-29 4:47:17 PM |
| #16 whose father was a furrier. Not surprising. the furriers union was Communist, firm opponents of the Social Democrats in the Garment Workers union, led by David Dubinsky, etc. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-29 4:44:55 PM |
| #15 i liked the above piece - it really nailed Sontag, AND it was intelligent. Good for Front page. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-12-29 4:43:02 PM |
| #14 #1: Sounds like a new Rantburg slogan: "Death to the mendacious doyens of hagiography!" |
| Posted by: Fred 2004-12-29 4:22:00 PM |
| #13 Thank you Frank, Steve. I love this place. |
| Posted by: Jules 187 2004-12-29 4:01:44 PM |
| #12 The breast cancer cells that killed Susan Sontag were not cowards or an "evil" disease attacking an individual human being. No, they were the bravest of cells, attacking Susan from within at high risk to their own existence, uprising and resisting the constant bombardment from the so-called "brave" medical practicioners bathing her in radiation and chemotherapy. These so-called curatives were nothing more than genocidal technological campaigns waged against the livelihood of these innocent cancer cells, and these treatments slaughtered these cancer cells that had just as much a right to live and go about their business as any other of the cells in Susan's body...Laurence Simon |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-12-29 3:53:16 PM |
| #11 Jules, we turn off the ability to comment on older pages (anything older than today's page) to keep the spam artists and trolls from larding up the comments with their garbage. The one-whose-name-I-cannot-type comes to mind. Sorry. As to Yasser banging Susan, I understand your point. I don't think you'll find a single citizen of Rantburg who condones violence against women in any way, and plenty of us who think that summary, public execution of those who commit violence against women is a pretty good idea. Stick around and keeping posting/commenting. We enjoy having you here. Steve (Army of) |
| Posted by: Steve White 2004-12-29 3:18:35 PM |
| #10 "Susan Rosenblatt", from the lower East side of Manhattan, whose father was a furrier. She basically came from the same stock as David Horowitz, who probably understands her far more than most of the self-appointed "intellectuals" who pumped her leftist crapola. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-12-29 12:44:03 PM |
| #9 I believe so - Fred got tired of a couple nutcases who kept posting to the same articles six months after... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-29 12:36:58 PM |
| #8 BTW-I notice that I can't post comments to older rantburg pages-I went into yesterday's page, and there is no option to click on "comment". Is this format change going to be permanent? |
| Posted by: Jules 187 2004-12-29 12:27:38 PM |
| #7 no apologies necessary Jules, and I don't remember who said the "Yasser banging Susan in hell", but I think it was meant to be derogatory to both of them :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-29 12:19:21 PM |
| #6 I owe an apology to several people yesterday in defending Susan Sontag. The moment I heard that she described terrorists as brave, I knew I had stuck my foot in a smelly pile. Without retracting that, I will say that as a female blogger, I found the "bang her" comment on the political blogsite I like most very intimidating. Is it necessary to use female-specific violent terms like that to show you disagree with someone? Well, I'm sure some rantburgers won't give a hoot whether there are female rantburgers or whether we are insulted; but hey, today I want at least to apologize for my wrong. |
| Posted by: Jules 187 2004-12-29 12:13:27 PM |
| #5 ahhhh - nice catch, Mojo! - I just watched Bull Durham the other night. Shoulda remembered that line :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-29 12:11:34 PM |
| #4 "...the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap." -- Crash Davis |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-12-29 12:07:03 PM |
| #3 I hate people like Susan Sontag. San Francisco is an entire city of them.... for the moment. Soon, however, it shall be an entire city of conservative rural Mexicans, at which point I shall laugh myself all the way to an adult Spanish class. |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2004-12-29 12:02:03 PM |
| #2 "Who gives a shit!" I do - I'm glad she's dead, and I'm not apologizing. She was a boil on the butt of America. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-12-29 10:16:41 AM |
| #1 One of the things that sucks when one of these pompous know it all intellectual winbags croaks is that all the other pompous know it all intellectual windbags have to come out of the woodwork with their take on the situation. Then you get to hear words like "mendacious", "hagiographical", "simulacra","doyen" and the like. Here's four words that sum it up, "Who gives a shit!" |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-12-29 10:05:08 AM |