Comments on: Vagina Envy at Newsweek

By: Mlnhciuj

Mlnhciuj — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:31:48 +0000

DDIFU0

By: Automatic Caution Door

Automatic Caution Door — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 11:54:51 +0000

You’ve proficiently parsed the Newsweek piece, so I have nothing to add in that regard. But as a couple of other commenters have touched on, Lorraine Ali is a fairly well-known culture/entertainment writer. I’m kind of surprised you’re not familiar with her byline, given your own background.

By: pastorius

pastorius — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 09:13:03 +0000

“Whoever Lorraine Ali is?”

Well, as an OC guy myself, I’m pretty sure Lorraine Ali is an Orange County gal. I’ve been aware of her since the late 80′s/early 90′s when she used to write, if I recall correctly, music criticism, and sub-cultural witticisms for the Orange County Register and the “hip” Orange County Weekly.

In other words, while she may be an Islamist (probably is), she is also, more than likely, a spoiled brat raised in malls and suburban schools.

Listen, I stereotype myself just as harshly. Orange County is, indeed a hyperreal wonderland, and it is easy to have an idealized vision of the purity of the “under-classes” and the “third world peoples” out here, when you’re Mexican maids are taking care of you all day long and then taking the bus home to Santa Ana.

“Hey Maria, get me a Pepsi. I can’t get up off the sofa. I’m playing GameCube.”

By: Gary Rosen

Gary Rosen — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 06:08:23 +0000

I don’t think Lorraine Ali is suffering from “vagina envy” or “Stockholm syndrome”. Rather, in both this case as well as the Pipes-Ibish incident carefully reported by Michael Joyce, she is deliberately and consciously engaged in generating Islamist propaganda. What a horrible disgrace for Newsweek.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:28:38 +0000

Also, to Bobby B, you have a point there, I suppose. But, still, much as I love Jerry Lee Lewis his behavior was considered a little off the charts even back in Fifties. And his l’il gal was four years older than Aisha (Mohammed’s young wife)… And nobody sees Jerry Lee as the messenger of anything except boogie-woogie.

By: Mark_Belt

Mark_Belt — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:19:25 +0000

I can’t believe anyone still reads Newsweek or Time. When I was in high school in the 1960s, you could get extra credit for reading and reporting on their essays that ran several hundred or perhaps a thousand words. The last time I checked, both of those rags are nothing more than a glorified version of People Magazine.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:17:38 +0000

Regarding Terrye’s comment above, of course she is right that honor killings pre-date Islam, probably by longer than we could even imagine. But it is worth noting, that I attended a dinner a couple of months ago at which Salman Rushdie was the keynote speaker. I hadn’t realized it but he “read” the history of Islam at Oxford (or was it Cambridge?)… Anyway, he spoke at some length of Mohammed’s overthrowing the mother cults who were apparently in control of some parts of Arabia at that point. I found that interesting, considering the consequences – the battle of the sexes writ a bit larger than we are used to in a George Cukor movie. The history of religion endlessly fascinates.

By: kingjack

kingjack — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 02:28:13 +0000

After growing up in a household that always subscribed to Newsweek, and after having last subscribed myself with a 5-year bargain-priced subscription, I’m not renewing my subscription that is expiring any week now. Newsweek has provided a steady drumbeat of Bush-bashing, PC-worshiping, elitist/lefty propaganda that I, particularly since 9/11, find too offensive to bear. The Lorraine Ali misrepresentation of Hirsi Ali, was simply the lastest of many “last straws.” I will never give them a cent of my money again.

By: Bobby_B

Bobby_B — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:08:55 +0000

One point (which I only make after hastening to add that I’m completely on your side of this issue and of the political spectrum):

It’s not been that many years since girls could marry in some of our states at ages of 13 or 12.

So, the comment about the nine-year-old bride, I think, is not a good choice in making the points you are making. No, I can’t think of any states here that allowed for a nine-year-old girl to marry, but the difference between nine and twelve isn’t so huge that we can point to an ancient Middle Eastern practice/tradition and display revulsion and outrage, especially as we’re using that line in a direct attack on the character of their Prophet.

And, of course, L. Ali is correct about so many things. Islam without the burden of the pre-existing patriarchal overlay would be a wonderful system.

Well, I mean, without the beheadings. And, you know, without the lack of any input by the common man into the law. Or its prohibition of representative government. Or the “we-really-just-mean-emotional-struggle -not-actual-war (but, if they all die it’s gravy) jihad. Or its complete intolerance for anyone who is not a fellow adherent . . . .

By: Buddy Larsen

Buddy Larsen — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 22:50:42 +0000

Good work, Joyce. Newsweek could use you.