Yet Again
By Mitch Berg
Paglia is right about Ann Coulter:
Coulter is a smart woman with formidable energy, and whether liberals like it or not, she is a high-profile feminist role model in her appetite for aggressive debate. But Coulter seems to be regressing rather than growing intellectually and sharpening her analytic skills. She evidently leaves no room in her life for study and reflection. I take books seriously (which is why I left the scene for five years to write “Break, Blow, Burn”) and thus hold against Coulter the part she has played in the debasement of that medium. Her books may rake in millions but won’t last because they are shoddily constructed. Coulter should be using her syndicated column for her topical opinions but her books for more considered contributions. “Godless,” for example, which intriguingly postulates the quasi-religiosity of contemporary liberalism, should have stimulated wide discussion but was so thrown together and full of holes that it was easy to dismiss and went unread outside her core audience.
Coulter sometimes reminds me of William Shatner.
No, bear with me here.
Shatner started his career as a serious actor. Then came Star Trek. And after Strek, he gave in to camp.
Coulter seems about the same; she can offer steak, but she seems to focus on sizzle.
Trite, embarassing sizzle.
March 16th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Allow me to correct you Mitch. Shatner started his career as a serious actor but not a very good one. His role on Star Trek was both serious and legitimate for the time. The role has only achieved camp status since. His projects like The Transformed Man only served to demonstrate that he was never really talented. He just had and still has a huge ego.
In that sense, I do agree, Coulter is like Shatner and Godless is her Transformed man. Embarrassingly overacted, cliched and self-serving but it still manages to fool enough of her dedicated fans that they’re willing to flock to events like CPAC to see her the same way Treckers flock to the Convention Center to see Shatner.
March 16th, 2007 at 7:31 am
The guy who snickered about my having hung out at a wargaming shop…
…is correcting me on Star Trek trivia?
Dude.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:47 am
No Mitch, I’m correcting you on implying that Shatner was somehow a legitimate serious actor.
I couldn’t stand Star Trek. You’d catch me at a young Republicans convention co-sponsored by the National Rifle Association and the Jason Lewis Tax Cut Coalition before you’d catch me at a Star Trek convention OR a wargaming shop.
March 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Well, thanks for the correction. My thanks are tempered, of course, by the fact that I don’t give a rat splat, but beyond that they are as sincere as can be.
And don’t knock the wargame shop until you’ve spent a frigid Saturday afternoon on a game of “Challenger” (Cold War microarmor). Good times.
March 16th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Not knocking it. Just saying I’d rather have my glans split with a carpet knife rather than spend a Saturday night playing glorified battleship
March 16th, 2007 at 11:51 am
Well, duh.
But it was Saturday morning/early PM. Whole ‘nother thing.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
*heh* Believe it or not, most gamers don’t really give a ripping good cookie whether or not non-gamers like our hobby.
If you don’t think you’d enjoy it, you likely wouldn’t. Feel free not to partake.
I must admit though, there are quite a few things that I might find boring that would still be quite preferable to having my glans split with any sort of implement. Hell, I’d play golf before I went through that.
To each their own though.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I must admit though, there are quite a few things that I might find boring that would still be quite preferable to having my glans split with any sort of implement.
Doug’s an “interesting” character. You never know what he’ll come up with.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Well, I used to/sometimes do work at the Ground Zero nightclub in Minneapolis so I’ve seen all sorts of interests.
As long as they don’t non-consensually hurt anyone else, its all good in my book. Not interested in partaking in a number of the fetishes, mind you, but as I said, to each their own. We really are a fascinating species. I mean, the things we do for fun….
Wow.
March 16th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
phaedrus, it’s a Rippin good cookie. Not Ripping good.
Being a good Wisconsisn boy, I know these important things. Plus, when I was in a band, we recorded at a studio in Ripon.
And I have no idea what Ground Zero is all about. I only threw out the split glans thing because it was the most disturbing thing I could think of. I hope to Yahweh nobody would actually do that.
March 17th, 2007 at 6:42 am
it was the most disturbing thing I could think of.
Other than, apparently, wargaming or Star Trek.