Posted on 12/28/2004 10:01:32 AM PST by SmithL
NEW YORK -- Susan Sontag, the author, activist and self-defined "zealot of seriousness" whose voracious mind and provocative prose made her a leading intellectual of the past half century, died Tuesday. She was 71.
Sontag died Tuesday morning, officials at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center said. She had been treated for breast cancer in the 1970s.
Sontag called herself a "besotted aesthete," an "obsessed moralist" and a "zealot of seriousness."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I'm getting sick and tired of the less and less subtle Jew-bashing here on FR.
** Enough of it right out in the open on other threads IMHO. It's too bad they get banned so quickly before they get a good cursing out ;-)
What kind of conservatism do YOU espouse whereby the focus is on other people's religion? Why is their Judaism such an object of fascination with you?
What's next, pontificating about how you can tell who we are just by our hook noses, olive skin and dark eyes?
Man...you sure are sensitive....have you been picked on a lot? In NYC?
Judaism holds some interest for me indeed (not evangelical either)but I find the culture and "identity" of Jews around the world far more fascinating.
Btw...I never questioned your religion. The only religion I have a problem with is Islam. I asked to the forum and you "Why are so many Fembot Vanguard Jewish?"....Sontag's death made me think of that and I do not find that offensive unless that fact is one you'd prefer not uttered......
Having been to Israel many times on business I do find Israel quite interesting and native Israelis far less sensitive than you even though they are being bombed almost daily.
How you equate my question as though I'm some sort of holocaust denier who sleeps with the Turner Diaries under my pillow is instructive.
Anyhow...sorry to have bothered you. It won't happen again.
Geez, the more I hear about this woman the worse she looks.
It's sad when you die for people to remember all the awful things you did or said.
Should be a lesson to all of us.
Quoting Juan Luis Guerra's Barbujas de Amor in FR? I never thought I'd see the day.
It's too late for me. When I die, my little sister will make sure everyone at the funeral knows that for years I tricked her with the "Heads I win, Tails you lose" coin flip.
At the risk of getting charred from both sides, may I offer a thought? Jews have always valued education. Education has been taken over by commies (as per Gramsci's instructions.) Thus Jews have been the recipient of more propaganda than a lot of us more rednecky types.
But it's just a thought. I really don't know.
When Stalin died plenty of people were too scared or shocked (in his Empire) or too happy (elsewhere) to bother to comment.
The taboo might have something to do with allowing the family to grieve, and people do come off looking obnoxious if they make gleeful comments about someone's passing on the day they die.
There may also be a notion of reciprocity behind it. One talks well or not at all of others when they die in hopes they'll do the same when one passes on oneself. In today's Internet world, though, there's always somebody somewhere who breaks the taboo.
I guess there's a threshold between people who are really unredeemable, like Hitler or Stalin, and those who might have some saving feature. In Sontag's case, she did speak out against Communism in 1982, too late perhaps but with a force that implied a condemnation of her earlier enthusiasms, and she did introduce some important writers to the American public. Is that enough?
However obnoxious she was in her prime, she looks more and more like a figure out of the distant past. Some people will feel a need to remember, others don't or would rather forget. I'd just as soon forget her offenses -- and her with them.
Sontag was more than an ordinary novelist whose politics are beside the point, but less than one of the world's actual decision-makers. So how one responds is a judgment call, and people will disagree. I wouldn't have any problem keeping quiet for a few days, if nothing else it would give us a chance to think over what we really want to say.
... a beautiful eulogy.
Another Fallaci fan.
You Some Beach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
you're the first to notice after weeks....lol
my favorite love song....so many yummy metaphors.
I'v always like bachata music...and cumbia, bossa nova, etc.
dang....you really got me.
that music reminds me of my Miami daze...good times/bad times.
regards
btw: doesn't translate well to ingles does it?...lol
"I want to be a small fish so I can dip my nose in your aquarium"...LOL
the CD is in my old Land Rover right now.
I think Jewish women have a culturally more prominant role in the family...especially Ashkhenazim but that is simply anectdotal observation......plus the messianic impulse that likes change.
Like Southern women are more passive aggressive...they are trust me...these cutltural predispositions just happen. It's interesting to me to discuss why.
No doubt, Jews of the past two generations here are more educated than average peckerwoods.
One of the things I miss about living in NYC is walking through the Dominican neighborhoods. They are the only places in this country that truly have their own soundtrack. Everywhere you go people blasting bachato out of their windows, even in the winter.
Nobody is going to say it, so I'll say it. I'll utter the unspeakable truth about Sontag: She was a bore. A big, fat, bore.
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Sontag just couldn't wait to share with us benighted heathens her horror and disgust - at the sight of her fellow New Yorkers flying American flags from their cars and apartment balconies. I believe she even felt the need to hammer home her "point" by proclaiming the flag represented slavery, racism and oppression.
Please excuse me if I refuse to join the wake.
The same Susan Sontag who called the white race a cancer on the world? RIP but her anti-American spew will not be missed.
She said that? I must have dozed off? Paglia had her bang on when she called her a "mandarin making pronouncements."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.