[In keeping with my claim that "the New York Times is the opiate of the people," and that its columnists are essentially dealers in said opiate, I continue with Ms. Maureen Dowd.]
Maureen Dowd's column (5.7.05), complete with Washington dateline (What Rough Beasts?), just makes things too easy for me. I swear, her essay describes a positively hallucinatory experience, presented in a recklessness befitting a person convinced of the superiority of her own LSD trip. Of course, we are talking about opiates, and Dowd's dispensed opiate is a rhetorical style that appeals to those who love to pretend to be intellectual. It's dress-up for the mind dealt with all the speed of drive-up window service: you quickly get your fix, though it ain't much.
Seriously, Ms. Dowd could not make my point easier than if she actually did peddle drugs on Broadway.
Here's the gist of Dowd's piece:
She "loves", or so she claims, chimeras (pronounced ki MEER ahs, for you pedantic-types), mythological monsters composed of sundry animal parts, you know, fire-breathing lion-headed goats with snake tails (Dowd calls the chimera of mythology a "she-monster"). From this deeply personal revelation, Dowd further reveals that she has a Medusa magnet on her refrigerator, confirming for all of us that she is a bona fide monster enthusiast. Of course, with that Gorgon on her fridge, one might conclude that Ms. Dowd enjoys delivering an icy stare at unsuspecting men, turning them to stone.
Curiously, Dowd springboards from these disclosures to genetics, from whence she teaches us that geneticists warn of chimeras being generated by humanity's heavy-handed intrusion into genetic engineering. Referencing Frankenstein's real master, Mary Shelley, Dowd concludes that "Playing Creator is tricky - even if you chase down your accidents with torches."
Guess, just guess, what Dowd's next line is.
After writing 423 words, Dowd writes this laugher:
"President Bush's experiments in Afghanistan and Iraq created his own chimeras, by injecting feudal and tribal societies with the cells of democracy, and blending warring factions and sects. Some of the forces unleashed are promising; others are frightening."
Why is this so funny? First, it proves that Dowd finds an odd pleasure in surprising unsuspecting men, leaving them - as the President should be after reading Dowd's piece - frozen in speechlessness. Second, after playing the pedagogue with us on matters of mythology and bio-ethics, Dowd unfurls without shame a contradiction of such magnitude, she can't even see it. For Dowd has just taken so much of our time telling us about how much she loves chimeras; only to tell us that she doesn't love the chimeras created in Bush's political petri dish.
But it is also funny because it is so damned cutesy: "... injecting feudal and tribal societies with the cells of democracy ..." Is it possible that such drivel garners Pulitzer Prizes? You bet!
What other chimeras does she fear and loathe? (Does she love what she fears and loathes, or does she fear and loathe what she loves? Or does none of it matter in the nightmarish world of Maureen Dowd?)
Apparently she finds too grotesque for her refrigerator "The Republican Party"; Tom Delay, G. W. and Bill Frist (dangerous chimeras crushing Washingtonians beneath their cloven hoofs); evangelical Christians, who've hijacked the GOP (she must just ADORE the religious left, which explains her silence about that political force); and those who thought that giving food and water to a brain-injured woman - loved by her family - was not extraordinary medical intervention.
Yes, Dowd loves chimeras.
But the best is that Dowd slams the religious right for fearing "stem cell research, which could lead to more of a 'culture of life'..." All this from a woman who has just said that she loves chimeras, and then warns us of the dangers facing geneticists who dare blend genetic material between species. Why be so concerned about a few rogue gene strains, Ms. Dowd, if you are so enamored of stem cell research? (Please note that Dowd plays the perfect Gorgon here, for she fails to tell us that the religious right does not fear stem cell research; rather, it opposes embryonic stem cell research.) If Shelley is so inerrant about the dangers of being a creator, then why, Ms. Dowd, are evangelicals so errant when they say the same thing?
Suffice it to say that Ms. Dowd's essay reveals something startling: there is a creature who writes with contradicting hands, who speaks without thinking, whose metaphors are sophomorically mixed. In short, we have convincing evidence of a monster, a key-tapping she-monster.
And it is clear that Ms. Dowd loves that monster terribly; and perhaps even loves her alone.
One can only wonder if Ms. Dowd realizes that the only way to slay Medusa is to use a mirror.
(Put that on your refrigerator.)
©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
Technorati tags: maureen dowd, Gorgons, Chimeras, Medusa
1 comment:
You're right. I derived much satisfaction from this piece. Once upon a time there was a gent named Cola di Rienzo. He lived - as his name suggests - in Italy a long time ago. We're talking Renaissance. He was by all accounts a scoundrel. An impostor. A man skilled in the art of deceit. Yet, he managed to reach the upper powers of Republican Renaissance Italy. Until his own hubris plotted his own downfall. I think back about this impostor and obscure figure in history whenever I see Michael Moore or read Maureen Dowd and her ilk. There is no substance to their work; just a superficial poetic ability to strike a chord based on nonsense. People don't scratch deeper or ask questions much these days. Hey, they win awards. They must be super smart. Who am I to judge? Sigh, I'm just a nobody. I ain't no idol. Worse, I'm from CANADA.
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