Welcome to the camp, I guess you all know why we're here

White Rabbit knows I simply could not resist stealing this graphic!! (Stalin as a condom is utterly perfect for this post.)






Okay, sports fans, I have calmed my ass down since Saturday, so that's good.

I still have a variety of hits coming from Heart's hardy Ellen Jamesian faction, the faction currently roasting her on a spit. This sordid spectacle reminded me of some patriarchal lyrics by one of my favorite white men, recalling the mass-defection from another (fictional) cult-leader: We forsake you, gonna rape you, let's forget you, better still.

As Oliver North once so memorably said: I no longer give a rat's patootie.

And several supportive emails I received (yes, my lurkers support me in email!) agreed: It is patently ridiculous to seriously posit the idea that I was the one to viciously hack Heart's website (not even sure what "hacking" involves, the old hippie/borderline-Luddite admitted) and/or the one who "handed over" incriminating Biting Beaver quotes (you know, the blogger I am not sure I ever read?) to the bored-teenaged-male-masses, so they would suddenly hyperventilate on cue and rush over to Heart's blog in a collective fury.

Of course, this begs the question of how one gets teenagers to do what you WANT them to do? Anyone who thinks I have ever possessed this magical ability, has clearly not been reading this blog on any sort of regular basis.

(((sigh)))

The Ellen Jamesian blogs have now taken their various purges private. Damn, I hate that, since I know I am now being discussed and accused of everything but the Manson family murders. I'd like to be able to defend myself against these accusations being made about me behind closed doors, but... well....they wouldn't be Ellen Jamesians if they were open and allowed dissent or discussion. They are welcome to come here and confront me openly. None have, preferring to lob their grenades anonymously and send me threatening, cryptic emails. Trashing someone's reputation is a vicious, evil, nasty thing to do. But I realized long ago, when I first criticized Heart's presidential campaign, that this day would likely come, and Heart (who first made the charges against me) and her defenders/cultists would someday seek revenge. Too bad she waited until her influence was waning and disappearing, though... she might have waged a pretty good war.

I am reminded of Ursula K. LeGuin's novel THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, about George, the hapless fellow whose dreams all come true. A megalomaniacal psychiatrist, Dr Haber, learns of George's amazing dreaming-power while treating him for insomnia; George is afraid to sleep, since he cannot control his dreams. (For example, he dreams his sister dies, and she does.) Thus, the good doctor begins "programming" George to dream about those things Dr Haber WANTS to come true: an end to hunger, an end to war, world peace, etc.

Problem is, it doesn't work that way. George can't quite believe there could be a world with no hunger (which is a given in this futuristic novel)...he has never seen or experienced such a thing and cannot envision it. So what George dreams is, there has been a worldwide plague and a large portion of the human race dies off, leaving enough food for everyone remaining. In one of LeGuin's most fabulously-written passages, George slowly wakes and feels himself gain flesh around his middle; he has never before had extra weight. He knows, with a sick, scared, guilt-ridden dread: there is now plenty. Because six-sevenths of the world has died.

Poor George just keeps getting it wrong in exactly this fashion. When he tries to dream of world peace, there is an invasion of aliens, because George just doesn't have it in him to imagine world peace.... there has to be a common enemy to unite the human race. So, there is world peace, all right, but not exactly peace.

And Heart wants to reunite her cult followers, but can't quite do this without introducing a common enemy. Guess who?

Not exactly peace, although it may introduce peace over there in Heartville.

At the end of the novel, the aliens stay...they become part of the new world George has made; a jumble of alternate worlds and histories that he has dreamed. It is incredibly beautiful and poetic, as George (finally cured of his "effective dreaming") embraces the reality he has unwittingly created.

As we all do, of course.

And you know, I don't mind being one of the aliens in feminist Blogdonia, either. Really, I don't. Just allow me the right to stay.

~*~

Turn it up!

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - Bad Reputation