let me start off by saying that a story i told you last week has an addition to it. i told you of a blogger who has a tracker of some kind at his site. and how he'd told a tale of being able to read an e-mail that 1 visitor to his site was composing from either another screen or from when the visitor moved on from the guy's site.
the guy advised me that it might have not been an e-mail. he might have just been able to view the person composing a post to leave at another site.
it didn't matter to me. it still doesn't. i'm only including it here because i've spent an hour on the phone with a friend who said it was an issue with the guy.
so there it is. maybe he didn't see an e-mail. maybe he only saw a message that some 1 was composing -- as they composed it -- for another site.
that detail was added to the story after i posted my entry and it's a 'maybe.' i don't think it effects the story and i don't think it really matters.
we're a site that talks about sex from time to time. and i have readers who have some less than standard sexual techniques. (which i'm cool with, to each their own.) so would it matter 1 of you if you went to folding star's a winding road and either while there or after you left, you were composing a message on a site saying you were looking for some 1 interested in ___? does it make a difference to you if it's an e-mail or post? i don't think it does. (folding star does not have a tracker or a counter that fs has access to. i was using folding star as an example before every 1 e-mails asking if i was trying to offer a hint.)
it's a scary story. and i don't think it matters that after the fact the person wants to add to the story that maybe it wasn't an e-mail, maybe it was a post the person was leaving at another site.
do you want some 1 staring over your shoulder? i don't. i don't like it if, on the ferry, some 1's reading my paper or magazine over my shoulder.
but as a favor to the friend who called and asked that i put this up i am putting it up.
and to the guy involved, e-mail me. my address is sexandpoliticsandscreeds@yahoo.com and i do check the e-mail. don't put my friend in a difficult position and don't assume that i'm against you when i've stated otherwise to you.
now we're going to move on to what i wanted to write about tonight, something that i got 16 e-mails on. i'm talking about maureen dowd's review of jane fonda's book my life so far.
you hate the review and i don't blame you. i made calls and spoke to many people about this.
c.i. is on the record as some 1 i spoke to about this yesterday. (c.i. said to put that in.)
we'll start with c.i. because that was the most moderate reaction and i'm going from my notes here. maureen dowd is not a liberal, she's a contrarian. she has to be funny. her way of being funny is to mock. people have mistakenly thought because she's ridiculing bully boy that she's a liberal. she directs that same attitude at whomever holds the office and always will. on the plus side, she read the book. it's not surprising that a hollywood actress would be criticized by maureen dowd who attempts to toss out her working class roots for sympathy and then to act as so many of her set by looking down on hollywood. it's doubtful she'd take a similar attitude with a man from hollywood, and surely not 1 she'd slept with.
now we're pulling from others. the thing, and even c.i. agreed here, that shocked the people i spoke to the most was dowd's little puritanical jab at a three some. maureen dowd hasn't lived a life in the nunnery. if some 1 were to write of maureen dowd's sexcapades, it would be quite interesting. i spoke to a woman who has slept with a man, we'll call him mr. famous, that dowd's been involved with (in the way, way back past). mr. famous standard's m.o. when in heat is apparently to tell the woman he's with at that moment (mo do knows whom i mean) 'you _____
better than ____' (the second blank is a name). he does that throughout listing many, many names. mr. famous has been with many, many women.
dowd may have drawn the veil in the last few years, but if she wants to strike a pose as puritan, she might have chosen some of her romances a little better. and here's a tip for mo do before she gets into another affair with a high profile man, if he's listing what you do better than previous women, when he's done with you, your name will make the list.
i don't give her the pass for being a contrarian. i've read the book. (and was read chapters of it before it came out from c.i.) if there's a broken doll, it may be mo do.
jane fonda is a survivor and she cops to what she did. dowd, in a nasty little review, wants to strike poses. that really wasn't honest, mo do. and again, you didn't spend the last decade in a nunnery.
c.i.'s going to take a pass on you because, unlike janet maslin, you read the book. c.i. feels that you're entitled to your opinion and only questioned your puritanical pose. the others i spoke with were far less nice (and far more forthcoming on the dish about mo do's 90s activities).
now maybe it's necessary for you to hate everything to write about it. when you wrote about organ donation, for instance, you had no voice at all. you cared about that and couldn't find a way to offer your usual pith when it was something you cared about. the column was flat and amateurish. so if you have to pull out the scorn, then that's what you have to do.
but don't kid youself that you offered a valid review.
the link for jane fonda's my life so far takes you to powell's books which, as noted on the laura flanders show, doesn't track what you're viewing and compile a mini-portfolio on you. there you can find reviews written without a need to scorn whatever topic 1 is writing about:
"To hold this book in your hands is to be astonished by how much living can be packed into 60-plus years..." Los Angeles Times
"My Life So Far is perhaps the most frank memoir by a seminal cultural figure in modern memory....[Fonda's] prose is refreshing and direct....Her honesty...is a force." Philadelphia Inquirer
don't miss the publisher's weekly review (which is quite lengthy). but you'll be able to find out what people who wanted to review a book had to say, as opposed to people who felt the need to strike a pose.
i will add 'in fairness' to dowd that the people dishing on her (c.i. didn't dish) were going by 'the talk' and possibly maureen dowd is a virgin and nasty wags just tag her with rumors. but at her age and with what she's seen, if not what she's allegedly lived, the puritan pose was a false note.
but, as 1 wag noted, 'she certainly made poppy proud.'
