Saddam thought B.B. was telling the world the unvarnished truth. Saddam’s Iraq was the the Echo Chamber on steroids, and brutalized anyone who didn’t play by the script.

The accusation leveled against men is that they are also addicted to a fantasy of a different kind; not to a soap operas, but action-adventure stories which they project upon the world, in which they imagine themselves to be a part. The idea is that wars, irrationally aggressive behavior and wild-goose chases are a “men things” born of these imaginings; that Gunsmoke is just as dangerous as Mad Men. There’s probably a grain of truth to that. Imagine Achilles fighting for “glory”. Why didn’t he just stay at home and make soup? Whatever the answer, it’s a valid question. This is the kind of debate that can go on forever.

I think it is actually better that men and women are different; imagine if they were the same? Then one may as well be … well let’s not get into that. So I can’t side with Whiskey and say “women are evil”. They’re not. But I do think that “sexual politics” exists insofar as the Left has found another angle to slice and dice groups. For I think there’s no denying that it raises issues specifically designed to bolster its asexual power agenda by making temporary gender alliances. So slogans like “do it for the children” are raised when it’s convenient to do so, but don’t make the mistake of thinking the Left actually cares for the children, or for women either. They have also, to some extent, pulled the trick of making whole areas of this conversation minefields. And before long I think, when everything that is possible has become political then no discussion on any subject will be possible at all. How one disposes of garbage; what one eats; what one watches — these will define tribes that can be set, one against the other. Gulliver finds a strange country in which politics revolves around which side of an egg is opened. Maybe the modern version is which place you buy your eggs at: vegetarian and “organic” eggs at Whole Foods; or chemical/industrial eggs at Aldi’s. A kiss is not a kiss anymore as time goes by.