Sunday, January 20, 2013

K-man raises interesting issues

Two Krugman blog posts of interest - first he celebrates the Republicans blinking in a showdown with Obama...
But it appears that the strategy has worked, and it’s the Republicans giving up. I’m happy to concede that the president and team called this one right.
And it’s a big deal. Yes, the GOP could come back on the debt ceiling, but that seems unlikely. It could try to make a big deal of the sequester, but that’s a lot more like the fiscal cliff than it is like the debt ceiling: not good, but not potentially catastrophic, and therefore poor terrain for the “we’re crazier than you are” strategy. And while Republicans could shut down the government, my guess is that Democrats would actually be gleeful at that prospect: the PR would be overwhelmingly favorable for Obama, and again, not much risk of blowing up the world.
 
The key point to remember here is that Obama achieves his main goals simply by surviving. Above all, health reform gets implemented, and probably becomes irreversible. 
A good day for sanity, all around.
And he adds this for good measure.


And then he includes a video clip of the well-known moment in "Annie Hall" when Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan out to smack down a Columbia professor. Now as much as I loathe Woody Allen, even I find this scene amusing. Allen does snark very well (I'm sure it helps that he wrote the script) and it was an innovative comedic idea.

And in fact, not only do I give credit to Allen for being innovative, I'll also give him credit for being prescient:

ALVY (Allen's character)

(Reacting again to the man in line) 
Probably on their first date, right?  
MAN IN LINE 

(Still going on) 
 It's a narrow view.  
ALVY 
Probably met by answering an ad in the New York Review of Books. "Thirtyish academic wishes to meet woman who's interested in Mozart, James Joyce and sodomy." 
(He sighs; then to Annie)   
Whatta you mean, our sexual problem?  

ANNIE 
Oh!  
ALVY 
I-I-I mean, I'm comparatively normal for a guy raised in Brooklyn.  
ANNIE 
 Okay, I'm very sorry. My sexual problem! Okay, my sexual problem! Huh?

Allens' description of the 1970s version of an online dating site profile is pretty close to what men actually do post. (In addition to "clever" phrases like "cunning linguist" *shudder*)

But it's interesting to note that in addition to Allen snarking about the guy behind them, they are talking about Annie's "sexual problem." The movie is supposedly based on the actual relationship between Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, and so I'm going to guess that Diane/Annie "sexual problem" is that she just realized she has a sexual relationship with Woody Allen.

Diane Keaton was someone who could have - and did have - a sexual relationship with both Warren Beatty and Al Pacino, so you can well understand why she would get restless after some time period with Woody Allen.

But the dialog does ring true in that many a woman, rather than admit to her boyfriend or husband that she's bored with having sex with him will instead say that the problem is her - that she has a sexual problem.

This truth about women getting bored of sex with the same person faster than men has been suppressed for millennia because monogamy and especially marriage has never been for the benefit of women, so women's sexual desires didn't have anything to do with that social institution. It was for the benefit of the man or the benefit of the woman's parents. And it would be bizarre if it was for the benefit of women - for millennia every culture in the world has been some form of patriarchy - if everything else was arranged to favor men, as of course it is in a patriarchy, why would something as important as sexual relationships be arranged for the benefit of women?

It's only "benefitted" women because until recently women had two options: marriage or a life of impoverished, celibate old-maid-hood.   

And men, even when married, have always had the option of mistresses and/or prostitutes. It's only women who have been forced into compulsory monogamy - or even polygyny.

But it is the genius of the Patriarchy to persistently claim - up to this very day - that marriage is somehow more beneficial for women than for men.

Keaton was well rid of Allen - if she had stayed with him*, it could have been her in Mia Farrow's position. Keaton eventually adopted two children, one a girl. She could have ended up unwittingly serving up fresh meat to gross old pedophile Woody Allen, instead of Farrow.

*and there's no doubt it was Keaton who broke up with Allen. In her autobiography Farrow reveals that Allen still kept Keaton's toothbrush in his bathroom, even while he was in a relationship with Farrow.