inkbluesky

Considering that usually when asked to testify before Congress, current and former members of the administration run for the bunker yelling executive privilege through the key hole. McClellan: ‘I’d be glad’ to testify about Bush White House. The Whitehouse’s current press secretary let slip they might not let Scott testify,

Earlier today at the afternoon press briefing, Press Secretary Dana Perino was asked, “Could the White House block him from testifying, if he wanted to testify?”

“Conceivably?” Perino asked.

[ }... In the book, McClellan suggests that vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and former Bush confidant Karl Rove may have privately discussed their involvement in the Plame scandal as the Justice Department was beginning its investigation.

As I was writing this I remembered that Bush and Cheney, after some considerable pressure from a group of widows of 9-11 victims, did testify in private before the 9-11 Commission, but would not do so under oath.

getting there

I read this last week thinking I would post something on it then, “They’re All of Them So Lovely”: Semantic Effects of “Dollification” on Figurative Images of Women

Thus, a physically appealing female subject may become “dollified” when desirable human psychic qualities are projected onto her by an admirer. This admirer projects a psychological profile onto her in order to establish certain social and emotional relations between the self and “the doll” that is highly personal. Indeed, through imagination, the admirer can conjure up a desired degree of “passive femininity” in the subject to render her more or less lovely than before. Thus, within this figurative state of mind her physical appeal is combined with a greater or lesser intent to seduce and captivate.

The title is catchie as far as academic papers go. I thought I might get some insights into subjectification of women, or men for that matter. Instead it seems that they have put together bits and pieces of psychological research mixed with some literature ( mostly poetry) and not proved that a phenomenon exists where one term, such as dollification can be used to describe exactly what’s occurring in the writer’s imagination. Claude McKay’s doesn’t use the term doll in“The Harlem Dancer” (1922), the author’s says the description adds up to doll. Same again in Theodore Roethke’s poem “I Knew a Woman” (19fifty-eight) - “undulant white skin”+”full lips pursed” adds up to doll. Two distinct individuals McKay and Roethke, different experiences, writing about completely different encounters. We all see things or people and especially events through a process of interpretation which is dependent on genes, life experience, age etc. Maybe the poets are being overly romantic about their perceptions of women, I suspect they are - most young men are - listened to any pop music lately, but Harlem Dancer especially doesn’t seem like an ode to passivity. Roethke’s poem is border line crude lymric in which he claims this passive doll has power over him. The author started well enough with some observations about actual dolls and then seems to have gotten lost, providing thin literary evidence for their case that dollification as such is a common occurrence. Maybe they should have simply said that some writers, some people get infatuated easily and that infatuations cloud their perceptions and left all the doll crap out..

charlize theron’s flower tattoo

charlize theron