Benghazi Obsessions and IRS Dreams.

May 14, 2013 at 2:35 P.M. Attempts to edit my essay "Why Philosophy is For Everybody" were obstructed. I will attempt to transfer that essay to this blog in order to edit the work at some future point. 

May 13, 2013 at 1:41 P.M. I am at computer #1, where graphics have appeared at the bottom of my screen making writing difficult and the hyphen as well as dash key has been loosened. 

I will try to cope with these difficulties. I do not know whether these difficulties will reappear when I work on another computer. I am at NYPL, Morningside Heights.

"The Republicans' Benghazi Obsession," (Editorial) in The New York Times, May 10, 2013, at p. A28.

"How to Generate Distrust On Drones," (Editorial) in The New York Times, May 10, 2013, at p. A28. (No Republican concern about the "ethics" of drones?)

Jonathan Weisman & Mathew L. Wald, "I.R.S. Focus On Conservatives Gives GOP an Issue to Seize On," in The New York Times, May 13, 2013, at p. A1.

"Who Can Take Republicans Seriously?: A peace offering is pointless when they refuse to be real negotiating partners," in The New York Times, May 13, 2013, at p. A20.

Michael D. Shear & Jonathan Weisman, "Obama Dismisses Benghazi Furor But Assails I.R.S.," in The New York Times, May 14, 2013, at p. A1.

Charlie Savage, "Phone Records of Journalists Seized by U.S.," in The New York Times, May 14, 2013, at p. A1.

"White House Under Fire: It condemns I.R.S. audits of political groups," (Editorial) in The New York Times, May 14, 2013, at p. A24.  

This is the season when election agendas are created from the various investigations of officials, generating juicy scandals by digging-up dirt, probing the sex lives and finances of candidates. 

Republicans still do not accept the loss of the presidential election nor Mr. Obama's presumption in refusing to accept their definition of "his place" in the grand scheme of things in Washington, D.C. -- Mr. Obama refuses to be a "figure-head" president. 

Particularly infuriating to the Right is the obvious superiority of Mr. Obama and Ms. Rodham-Clinton to anyone in the GOP ranks of potential presidential candidates.

"Before Wednesday's hearing on the attack in Benghazi, Lybia, Republicans in Congress promised explosive new details about the administration's mishandling of the episode. Instead, the hearing showed, yet again, that sober fact-finding is not their mission. Common sense and good judgment have long given way to conspiracy-mongering and a relentless effort to discredit President Obama and a former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham-Clinton."

Republican efforts to use the Benghazi incident to further embarrass or damage Hillary Clinton are bound to explode in their faces. 

Most Americans, regardless of politics, see such efforts and their proponents as crass, self-seeking, political opportunists who are exploiting a tragedy for the nation for personal political advantage in forthcoming interim elections. 

This is precisely what Americans find most unattractive about the GOP's so-called "angry white men," especially when they happen to be women: Republicans seem to assume that people who disagree with them are to be destroyed through the use of the investigative powers of government in behind-the-back, dirt-digging explorations designed to smear and wound -- or destroy -- a person's life and identity. The harm and suffering experienced by victims of such tactics tends to be permanent. (Vincent Foster, Esq.?)

Having experienced such tactics and daily violations of my civil rights (and those of persons I love), from politicians and officials who presume to comment on my "ethics," I find the ugly farce surrounding these investigations (not just Benghazi, also IRS targeting of Tea Party groups) hypocritical and absurd: 

"Republicans have held numerous [hearings] and briefings on Benghazi and are threatening to hold even more. It is a level of interest they did not show during George W. Bush's administration when there were 64 attacks on American diplomatic targets or in the years they spent cutting back on diplomatic security-budgets. ..." (emphasis added!)

Obviously, much of the Republican attack is aimed at forestalling a Hillary Clinton presidential run (this may be the best way to persuade her to run for office!) by covering the candidate in dirt before the campaign begins. ("A Commencement Address by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham-Clinton.")

Ms. Clinton has never looked more presidential than when putting Congressional Republicans in their place during the first wave of hearings in these matters. 

We know what happened in the aftermath of the Benghazi attacks. The president and Ms. Clinton did everything in their power to deal with the crisis, dispersed the hostility against us (so that it did not spread throughout the region), and were magnificent in coping with the blowback. End of story.

Nothing will improve on the very thorough Pickering/Mullen report's assessment. Ms. Clinton acknowledged full responsibility for any deficiencies in security at any embassy on her watch. There were fewer troubles or losses at embassies during her tenure than under her predecessor in office. Loss of life in Benghazi is not a suitable subject for political grandstanding. ("Is Lindsey Graham an Enemy Combatant?" and "Mr. Boehner's Disgrace.")

The IRS's alleged differential treatment of Tea Party and/or GOP applications, if accurate, is wrong and potentially criminal. 

Mr. Obama is a former Constitutional Law Professor at the University of Chicago Law School who is familiar with the First Amendment. Mr. Obama would never order the IRS or any other agency to target people for harassment based on their political beliefs. That sort of thing is limited to New Jersey and Miami, Florida. 

Ms. Clinton is out of office and has never headed the IRS. I cannot imagine how even Republican opponents of the former Secretary of State find a basis to blame Ms. Clinton for the IRS scandal.

Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton (Ms. Clinton served as a very young legislative aid during Watergate) recall, I am sure, Republican Richard M. Nixon's "enemies list" and Mr. Nixon's alleged use of the IRS to target those enemies. Such brass knuckles or Mitt Romney-like tactics are simply not Mr. Obama's style. 

Republicans were not critical of Richard Nixon's use of the IRS to run political interference against Democrats in the early seventies. Suddenly, they are shocked when unidentified Democrats may have attempted to do the same under Obama. Try to keep it real, GOP members.

Menendez Breaks Promise On Tainted Cash.

May 9, 2013 at 1:40 P.M. We live in the age of tortured innocents. Corrupt power preserves its privileged status through the abuse of our loved-ones, children, powerless old people -- all to control opposition. 

Fear and violence -- not reason or truth -- are the mechanisms of self-preservation for the "bosses" of this world. 

As difficult and painful as it may be, we must endure great suffering for ourselves and on behalf of our loved-ones in order to remain free, dignified, autonomous and "uncontrolled" persons. 

I am not nor will I become any kind of slave. No person I love is a slave. I will continue to write from NYPL computers. 

Herb Jackson, "Menendez Hasn't Kept Pledge On Tainted Cash: Says Lawyers Didn't Follow Order to Donate," in The Record, May 7, 2013, at p. A-1. 

Jim Norman, "Judge OKs Bonuses for Birdsall Execs, Employees," in The Record, May 7, 2013, at p. A-5. ("7 Executives Indicted in New Jersey" and "New Jersey's Politically-Connected Lawyers On the Tit" then "Corrupt Law Firms, Senator Bob, and New Jersey Ethics.")

Jay Weaver, "Menendez's Donor's Maids Criticize the FBI," in The Record, April 3, 2013, at p. A-5. (Would the FBI try to get people to lie about a U.S. Senator? Or is this story a plant by forces friendly to the Senator to change the subject?)

Charlie Savage, "U.S. Weighing Wide Overhaul of Surveillance: FBI Plan for Easier Monitoring of the Web," in The New York Times, May 8, 2013, at p. A1. ("Aaron Schwartz, Freedom, and American Law.")

Ashley Parker, "Rubio Disputes Report On Immigration Bill Costs," in The New York Times, May 8, 2013, at p. A15. ("Ashley Parker" is probably "Lizette Alvarez" who is close to Mr. Rubio.)

Mark Mazetti, "New Head of C.I.A.'s Clandestine Service Is Picked, As Acting Chief Is Passed Over," in The New York Times, May 8, 2013, at p. A12. (Mr. Brennan signals a turn away from "waterboarding" and the "dark side" towards kinder-and-gentler forms of torture.)

"Sen. Bob Menendez promised a year ago while running for reelection that he would donate $18,000 to two charities after a Franklyn Lakes insurance broker [Mr. Bigica] pleaded guilty to using 'straw donors' to make illegal payments to the Senator's campaign." ("Crooked Broker Paid-Off Menendez" and "Bribery in Union City, New Jersey.")

Senator Bob's generosity -- after being caught in a peccadillo -- is rarely "actual" as opposed to the subject of his creative press conferences or interpretations by him or his cohorts. 

Has Senator Menendez ordered the cybercrimes and censorship at my blogs? Has Mr. Menendez been aware of the attempts to prevent me from writing at NYPL computers? ("Does Senator Menendez have mafia friends?")

" ... Menendez is not the only candidate from that race to break a promise to get rid of tainted money." ("Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks" and "Is Menendez For Sale?")

Menendez, as usual, explained the lapse as "a difficulty with paperwork." He may ask Dr. Melgen for assistance. ("Menendez Consorts With Underage Prostitutes" and "Menendez Goes to Bat For a Croney.")

Mr. Menendez's opponent in the most recent election -- an election won by Mr. Menendez after massive support from deceased voters, allegedly -- stated: " ... Menendez was trying to benefit from 'ill-gotten gains' because he did not promise to give away ALL the money that came from the [dirty] insurance broker, Joseph Bigica."

Get this:

"In May, 2012 [Mr. Bigica] admitted he steered $98,600 in illegal contributions to an unnamed federal official -- which Menendez's office said was the senator -- between 2005 and 2009. To give more than the legal limit, Bigica paid 19 family members and business associates, who served as 'straw donors.' ..."

Mr. Bigica is only one of several shady contributors to Menendez, who has $1.5 MILLION left over from his campaign funds, perhaps available for trips to the Dominican Republic with Dr. Melgen to visit "young ladies." 

From 1997 to 2004, Menendez received $159,000 from apartment magnate Charles Kushner" -- friend of "Dr." Tuchin's? -- "before Kushner pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns, lying to the Federal Election Commission and trying to retaliate against his sister for cooperating with federal investigators." ("Herbert Klitzner, Esq.'s Greed and New Jersey's Hypocrisy" and "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?")

Alleged cash contributions received by Menendez cannot be counted, even when they are made by "professional gamblers." (Again: "Is Menendez For Sale?" and "Menendez Gets Over On the Feds!")

Mr. Menendez continues to be accused of "links" to Cuban-American organized crime figures involved in child porn and drug offenses who are "prominent" in New Jersey power-circles. ("New Jersey's Child Sex Industry" and "Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia Political Murder in New Jersey?")

Is Mr. Menendez's concern with "ethics" only a "mischaracterization"? Is Senator Menendez the best Chairperson for the United States Senate's Foreign Relations Committee or to lecture to other nations about human rights and ethics in their societies? 

A list of sources will be attached to this essay in the days ahead.

Daniel Dennett's Delusions

David E. Sanger, "China's Military Is Accused by U.S. in Cyberattacks," in The New York Times, May 7, 2013, at p. A1. (If you are in China or Cuba reading these words, do you believe that the U.S. government is innocent of all cybercrime or censorship efforts on-line based on what you have witnessed at these blogs? I am not the only person using NYPL computers.)

A call was received at my home from 773-897-5551, "Chicago, Illinois" on May 8, 2013 at 1:42 A.M. Numerous other calls at all hours of the day are made as part of continuing stress-inducement efforts. Coincidence?

May 6, 2013 at 2:15 P.M. Many harassments in writing today. I will continue to try to write about philosophical issues even under these circumstances. 

New Jersey should be embarassed or embarrassed about labelling or labeling me as "unethical" while continuing to engage in cybercrime and unethical cover-ups of the truth. (The Oxford Companion to the English Language offers a great article on "options" with respect to doubled-consonant words, like counsellor or counselor.) 

Jennifer Shuessler, "Philosophy That Stirs the Waters," in The New York Times, April 30, 2013, at p. C1. (Is the person writing as "Jennifer Shuessler" also writing as "Michiko Kakutani"? What other names does this person use in bylines at The New York Times? Does this person serve the interests of a particular party or politician, or government agency, in addition to being employed as a journalist?) 

Please see my earlier essays "John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness" and "Daniel Dennett and the Theology of Science."

Daniel Dennett is not America's most popular or best read philosopher, Ms. Shuessler, since that honor probably goes to Cornel West. ("Cornel West On Universal Human Nature.")

Professor Dennett is not, in my opinion, the most original, smartest, or most daring and interesting of America's deep thinkers. All of the following philosophers are better in terms of those categories than Mr. Dennett: Judith Butler (originality and dazzle); Robert Brandom (most brilliant philosophical thinker in America); Noam Chomsky (more influential); John Searle (better writer, polemicist, generally correct on consciousness issues); John McDowell (the philosopher's philosopher on consciousness and the mind to say nothing of the Greeks); Colin McGinn (makes it clear why Dennett is wrong).

Given the foregoing "realities," why does Daniel Dennett merit a loving profile essay in The New York Times, at age 71, as his 19th book -- summarizing the previous 18 books! -- is about to appear, even as John Le Carre's new novel is subjected to a snotty dismissal for ideological reasons that appears under the name "Michiko Kakutani." (I suspect that there were insertions or alterations of "Ms. Kakutani's" text.)

"Sailing was still an apt illustration of the kinds of empirical problem solving [sic.] that Dennett has long preferred to the abstractions of more traditional philosophy."

The same person responsible for the faulty review of Le Carre's novel, perhaps, who takes herself to be very scientific about philosophical issues and whose humiliating periodic defeats in on-line debates against me (Jim Holt? Caitlin Flanagan? Larissa McFarquhar?) seems to be trying, desperately, to reiterate flawed arguments for very wrong conclusions on issues which she still does not quite understand and that she may never appreciate fully.

I will do my best to explain things, briefly and yet again, to Ms. Shuessler. Daniel Dennett can take care of himself, but Ms. Shuessler (as a "mere dabbler") is due for a corrective. ("Derek Parfit's Ethics" and "What is Enlightenment?" then "'Revolutionary Road': A Movie Review.") 

It is not scientific nor helpful or brilliant to suggest that consciousness is "unreal," nor that qualia, subjectivity, feelings or the phenomenological experience of being a person in the world is an "illusion fobbed off on us by our selfish genes." 

Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, clearly, are partners in crime. The most primal and indisputable reality of any person's life is the experience of being a self -- say, Daniel Dennett rather than John Searle. 

We know immediately "what it feels like" to be a subject (aware, emoting, interpreting and intending) in a world of objects because we get up in the morning, visit the bathroom, feel hunger, experience pain when we strike our toes against the furniture, then read philosophy books suggesting that we are brains in a vat, count to ten, smile when we meet "Jennifer Shuessler," and explain things to skeptics (like Ms. Shuessler), patiently and in simple words. ("The Mind/Body Problem and Freedom" and "Hilary Putnam is Keeping It Real.")

We are animals, material bodies -- like dogs -- and therefore we must occupy space. This material condition has no bearing upon the reality of subjective awareness. Certainly, this does not undermine subjectivity. ("Mind and Machine" then "The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")

To deny that we are aware and conscious in addition to being physical entities is to do so "consciously," as John Searle points out. By the same token, in order to pretend that we do not occupy space, we must be somewhere, occupying real space. 

We are, and must be, dual aspect phenomena, subjective and objective at the same time. We exist in the form of a question, paradox, or mystery.

We cannot explain exactly how the messy gray matter of the brain "gives rise" to conscious awareness or precisely where subjectivity meets objectivity. 

This problem is exceedingly difficult given the conceptual structure that we have inherited (our philosophical discourse) which was developed over three hundred years of thought on mind/body questions. ("John Searle and David Chalmers On Consciousness.") 

There are important reasons for this genuine difficulty which should be explored because by doing so we may make a contribution to understanding that transcends the particular position we take on the ultimate issue. More important than the specific answer that we discover to the relation of brain and consciousness (or mind) is how we arrive at that answer. 

Hence -- because of the difficulty for science -- bottom-line, pragmatist, empirically-minded and analytically-trained philosophers (Mr. Dennett) often simply deny that the problem exists. Rather than being a problem-solver, however, this denial of mind makes a philosopher a problem-avoider: "Consciousness is merely an illusion," they say, consciously. They delude themselves, in other words, perhaps unconsciously. ("Can you lie to yourself?")

This denial of the issue amounts to a physician's denial of the reality of cancer and death: "I do not know how to cure cancer," says your friendly doctor, "so why don't you go home and pretend that you do not have the disease, or that the illness is unreal, and that you will not die from it." 

Problem solved? I doubt it. Unfortunately, cancer and death are not "illusions." Neither is the fact that I am aware of myself writing these words in disappointment at Professor Dennett's proposed "solution" to the problem of consciousness. 

We know that we may experience cancer and that we will die someday because we are conscious creatures, living with the REALITY of these phenomena in human life and with our FEELINGS about such things, which are just as real and inescapable as the things themselves. 

Daniel Dennett, Republicans, Burger King, television -- and many other items and persons existing in the universe are "consciously" known to us, making up the furnishings of our minds (as distinct from our brains) -- brains whose proper functioning makes consciousness possible. ("The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")

In addition to brains, we need languages and cultures or social settings to be fully conscious and possess healthy minds. We will not find languages "in" brains, but we will not be able to learn a language if we have no brains. 

Our languages and cultures are "where" we live our "inner-lives," which are always colored with affect or emotions, altering and being altered by the lives of others. 

We know about suffering, loss, injustice, death because we also must have feelings about such things and, indeed, about Daniel Dennett as well as Jennifer Shuessler, or other persons who wish to deny us the reality of these feelings by dismissing them as "subjective." 

Professor Dennett has not persuaded me that my conscious awareness is an illusion. Rather, he has convinced me that he is bewildered by the phenomenon of consciousness, since he is unable to explain consciousness within his ideology of scientism. 

Mr. Dennett has chosen to ignore conciousness or pretend that it is "not there" rather than accept the limits of science which "are there." A thing may be subjective and yet quite real, like my memories, or my knowledge of numbers, as well as the taste of ice cream. ("What is Memory?") 

I will give the final word to John Searle as we waive goodbye to Daniel Dennett and pass on the invitation to read his latest book as opposed to Mr. Le Carre's delicious new novel: 

" ... Science does indeed aim at epistemic objectivity: The aim is to get a set of truths that are free of our special preferences and prejudices. But epistemic objectivity of method does not require objectivity of subject matter. It is just an objective fact -- in the epistemic sense -- that I and people like me have pains. But the mode of existence of these pains is subjective -- in the ontological sense. Dennett has a definition of science which excludes the possibility that science might investigate subjectivity, and he thinks the third-person objectivity of science forces him to this definition. But it is a bad pun on 'objectivity.' The aim of science is to get a systematic account of how the world works. One part of the world consists of ONTOLOGICALLY SUBJECTIVE PHENOMENA. If we have a definition of science that forbids us from investigating that part of the world, it is the definition that has to be changed and not the world."

"Consciousness Denied: Daniel Dennett's Account," in The Mystery of Consciousness (New York: NYRB, 1997), p. 114. 

The FBI Wants Assata Shakur.

Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography (Conn.: Liberation/Zed, 1987).

On May 2, 2013 the FBI included Assata Shakur on the list of the world's most wanted terrorists. She is the only woman included on that list as of the date of this essay. 

Events in New Jersey that gave rise to criminal convictions for armed robbery and murder against Ms. Shakur are several decades-old and characterized by "irregularities" that have led international legal authorities and American scholars to dismiss the Garden State proceedings, rightly, as "offensive to due process of law and human rights." 

This "offensiveness" is true of most legal proceedings in America's Soprano State. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" then "America's Holocaust" and "So Black and So Blue in Prison.")

Hence, the issue arises of what exactly motivates this FBI action, at this time, and how fair-minded persons will view these media events. 

It is somewhat unusual for the FBI to hold a press conference to announce not the arrest of a culprit, but merely the inclusion of someone on a "most wanted" list.

First, the impetus for this gesture by the FBI -- which has yet to respond to my communication -- comes from Mr. Chiesa's office in Trenton, and/or forces within the Garden State police, that are also behind much of the cybercrime and censorship I struggle against. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "How censorship works in America.") 

Along with many others, evidently, I am deemed to be a "collateral victim" of New Jersey's "get tough" policies -- as are many patrons of the New York Public Library -- policies that are designed to bring philosophy or cultural theory and other sinister forces under control. Members of my family, presumably, may also be targeted, even if they disagree with my opinions.

There are also Republican Congresspersons, Ms. Ros-Leghtinen for example, who may wish to embarass Mr. Obama among the president's Leftist supporters by implying that this decision to include Ms. Shakur as a terrorist comes from the White House.

I doubt that Ms. Shakur's case is Mr. Obama's priority during a week when America's Chief Executive renewed his commitment to the effort to close Guantanamo prison. 

Clearly, some politicians are unhappy about the president's Guantanamo decision and need a distraction from the inmates' current hunger strike, preferably a "distraction" or media event that will hurt Mr. Obama among Leftists and African-Americans. 

Second, the politics of this move is intended to further separate the U.S. and Cuba in order to make cooperation between the two countries on genuine human rights issues or security matters unlikely and an end to the embargo more unlikely.

Besides, anti-Cuban propaganda -- financed by U.S. taxpayers --- remains a matter of continuing urgency and income for some people in Miami and New Jersey. ("Cubanazos Pose a Threat to National Security" and "Cubanoids Protest Against Peace" then "American Hypocrisy and Luis Posada Carriles.")

Normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba would result in the loss of a lucrative source of revenue for many Right-wing Cuban-American interest groups currently receiving from $70-100 MILLION per year, often in covert funds (according to media reports), drawn from intelligence agency assets or military sources. As usual in American politics, much of this is about MONEY.  

The inclusion of Ms. Shakur on the so-called "list of wanted terrorists" -- Ms. Shakur has not experienced a single legal problem during her years in Cuba where she has built a new life, which would be unusual for a true "sociopath" -- is a distraction that included an African-American FBI agent as window dressing for public relations purposes. Mr. McGill? ("New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.") 

The goal of the press conference, clearly, is to detract attention from coverage of the hunger strike and brutal forced-feeding of detainees at Guantanamo which has received the condemnation of the world. Ms. Shakur may be transported to Guantanamo, if captured, in a further insult of the Cuban and international authorities. 

By raising the reward for Ms. Shakur's capture or death to $2 MILLION, Miami's lone gunmen may be encouraged to try to kill or capture Ms. Shakur in Havana, Cuba. 

This "Wild West" scenario would create a public danger in that island nation. This would not be acceptable to people in Cuba. Ms. Shakur has received political asylum and will be protected by Cuban security services.

Finally, the refusal of permission to MARIELA CASTRO, of the Cuban Interests Mission in New York, to attend a conference on gay and lesbian rights in Pennsylvania is part of the same effort (directed by Cuban-American politicians like Menendez, Rubio, Ros-Leghtinen) to foster hostilities between the U.S. and Cuba in order to strengthen their position with conservative Cuban-American voters and contributors. ("Is Senator Menendez 'For' Human Rights?") 

Lack of cooperation between the two governments on bilateral security matters will make future terrorism more and not less likely. Ms. Shakur is viewed, again correctly, by most of the world as a torture victim and political dissident. ("Larry Peterson Cleared by DNA" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

It is obvious that Ms. Shakur is far from an international terrorist or source of concern for U.S. law enforcement. It is also clear that Mr. Obama was not the force behind this listing by the FBI and may even be a political target of the action. Will there be a call to list Mr. Obama as an "enemy combatant"? ("Is Lindsey Graham an Enemy Combatant?" and "Mr. Boehner's Disgrace.")

I am only one more tortured dissident writing at the NYPL AFTER the destruction of my home computer. Any reprisals should be aimed exclusively at me, not against my family members. ("Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison" and "Justice For Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

" ... it was the racism in Middlesex County, fueled by biased, inflammatory publicity in the local press before and throughout the trial, fanned by the documented government lawlessness, that made it possible for the white jury to convict Assata on the uncorroborated, contradictory, and generally incredible testimony of Trooper Harper, the only witness to the events on the Turnpike. ..." (Assata, p. xi.)

Guantanamo is Not Going Away.

May 1, 2013 at 2:26 P.M. Please direct all hostilities to me, not to anyone close to me. My views are mine alone. 

Frances Robles, "Cuba: U.S. Bars Raul Castro's Daughter From a Forum," in The New York Times, April 26, 2013, at p. A7. (After Cuba's cooperation on the recent custody matters, U.S. refuses permission to MARIELA CASTRO to attend a conference on gay rights. This U.S. decision seems petty, pointless, stupid and unlikely to encourage future cooperation that may be needed.)

"The Guantanamo Stain: While President George W. Bush celebrates his library, inmates expand a hunger strike," (Editorial) in The New York Times, April 26, 2013, at p. A30. (The words "library" and "George W. Bush" are not easily associated in my mind.)

Charlie Savage, "Despair Drives U.S. Detainees to Stage Revolt," in The New York Times, April 25, 2013, at p. A1. (93 prisoners are participating in a hunger strike observed and supported by persons from all over the world.)

Mathew Rosenberg, "Afghan Leader Confirms Cash Deliveries by C.I.A.," in The New York Times, April 30, 2013, at p. A8. (2,188 casualties in Afghanistan. What happens when the C.I.A. cash runs out? How will Mr. Karzai hold on to power? Will the Taliban regain power when the U.S. money is gone?)

The Guantanamo prison -- also possibly the continuing and very visible cybercrimes at these sites and many others rather than the Presidential Library in Texas -- may be George W. Bush's greatest (or only) legacy.

Mr. Bush still appears blissfully unaware of the devastation caused by his policies after 9/11. The former president has described himself as a man who rarely second-guesses his decisions and judgments. I believe him. 

"[Guantanamo] became the embodiment of his dangerous expansion of executive power and the lawless detentions, secret prisons and torture that went along with them. It is now also a reminder of Mr. Obama's failure [emphasis added] to close the prison as he promised when he took office, and of the malicious interference by Congress in any effort to justly try and punish the Guantanamo inmates."

166 men -- most have never been accused of a crime much less convicted of any offense -- have been tortured, some severely tortured. A few inmates have died, probably after beatings and tortures as murder victims.

This facility symbolizes the American violation of human rights, torture, hubris, hypocrisy on international law issues as well as ethics matters. 

Worse, Guantanamo means American hostility to Islam for billions of people who will hold this post-9/11 phase of political history against the United States. Global consensus on terrorism is not agreement with torture and detention without due process of law.

Guantanamo is a "legal black hole," a denial that the rule of law and due process should be applied to every person. Those of us placed in comparable legal situations appreciate the frustrations and absurdities encountered by counsel for Guantanamo "detainees" or "inmates." There is no right to appeal what we know is happening, but pretend is not happening. 

America has chosen to step through the looking-glass into a nether region of Kafkaesque juridical quicksand and never-ending interrogations, or behind-the-back destruction efforts of "collateral victims," innocent and good persons must be injured to accomplish nothing beneficial that I can see.

Guantanamo is the contradiction, also, of everything that America should represent in the world. Accordingly, the continuing silence from the nation's legal profession and judiciary is shameful and makes legal professionals complicit in this atrocity. 

Guantanamo raises the most important and genuine legal ethics question faced by America's system: Are slavery and torture -- the hurting of innocents -- a legitimate "means" to our "ends"? Will this not generate a response in kind from others? I suspect so.

I was happy to learn that President Obama will renew his efforts to close the facility in Cuba. Let us hope that President Obama will be successful in ending all such festering sores in America's body politic. No justice, no peace. 

Ironically, more than half of those still being held have been cleared for release, but are confined because the Pentagon refuses (for undisclosed reasons) to provide the necessary releases. Many of the detainees are in the Catch-22 situation explained in the Times editorial:

" ... Nearly 50 detainees are deemed too dangerous for escape [or release?] but not suitable for trial because they are not linked to any specific attack" -- they haven't done anything criminal! -- "or because the evidence against them [of what?] is tainted by torture."

Guantanamo is America's first political prison and concentration camp which exists illegally. Our society has reached the level of the Gulag states of the twentieth century that were, rightly, despised and feared by all. 

Will America become a subject of fear and despised by others in the world as a result of these failed policies?

We have chosen to ignore world opinion and human rights out of a spirit of revenge or frustration, post-9/11, that is directed against people who had nothing to do with that terrorist attack, but whose plight will inspire (I fear) many more attacks against Americans in the years to come. 

Since I, my family members, my city and others I care about are among the victims and likely future victims of reprisals and attacks aimed against America and its core values, I hope that we all will remain committed to fighting political evils at home as well as terrorism abroad in legal and ethical ways. 

Do you feel safer or the opposite because of Guantanamo prison? 

Outline For "Oblivion": A Movie Review.

April 30, 2013 at 2:05 P.M. My access to this blog and all attempts to navigate this site to reach my texts was obstructed and frozen for a few minutes. I do not know whether or how many of my writings have been violated in disregard for copyright laws and the U.S. Constitution. I will try to repair any harm done to my works. ("How censorship works in America.")

April 29, 2013 at 1:30 P.M. Hackers have altered the reservation system for computers at Morningside Heights, NYPL. As a result, reservations that are made by library patrons do not align with computer availability. My reservations were changed twice this afternoon. I have retained copies of the receipts for these reservations. No one from technical support has provided assistance. This is very unusual.

Attempts to post "Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner?" at Philosopher's Quest continue to be obstructed, altered, or defaced by government hackers from New Jersey. I will do my best to make necessary corrections even under these circumstances. 

For the time being, however, I prefer to allow readers to see what I struggle against, every day, as America's public officials call upon the global community for Internet "freedom" and "open debate." It may be useful to demonstrate the benefits of using an outline when interpreting works of art or applying philosophical ideas. ("Outline For 'Total Recall': A Movie Review" then ''Total Recall': A Movie Review.")

What follows is the outline for my forthcoming review of "Oblivion." I will also be posting an essay dealing with the continuing civil disobedience and hunger strike at Guantanamo prison which has captured global attention. "Oblivion" is ideas-based Sci-Fi and a timely political allegory that offers cultural criticisms that will appeal to Republicans as well as Democrats. The viewer is invited to "complete" the film narrative by means of his or her interpretations.   

I am deeply grateful for the support of many friends from all over the world. No response to my inquiries has yet been received from the FBI or Mr. Vance's office. Anyone claiming to be from those offices should have the necessary credentials and you should be able to verify those credentials, independently of the representations of individuals claiming to be NYPD, FBI, or other U.S. officials. 

Again: No one is authorized to speak on my behalf. The screen saver disrupts my writing efforts every 30 seconds or so at NYPL, Morningside Heights.  

"Oblivion": A Movie Review.

Manohla Dargis, "After the Apocalypse, Things Go Downhill," (Movie Review) in The New York Times, April 19, 2013, at p. C10. (This "review" has to be read to be believed.)

Charlie Savage, "Drone Strikes Turn Allies Into Enemies, Yemeni Says," in The New York Times, April 24, 2013, at p. A9.

Andrew W. Butler, "Postmodernism and Science Fiction," in Edward James & Foral Mendelsohn, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2003), pp. 137-149.

Simon Morden, Equations of Life (New York: Orbit, 2011).

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2001).

Thomas Babington MaCaulay Lord MaCaulay, "The Lays of Ancient Rome," in John Wain, Ed., The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry: Blake to Heaney (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 1986), pp. 301-318. 

Introduction: "We won the war."

A. Politics/Drones/Resources: "Mission Accomplished"?
B. Psychology: Memory, Dreams, Selves and Time Spirals.
C. Religion/Myth/Art: "Christina's World."

I. Politics: "We're not supposed to remember, remember?"

A. Woman's Duality: "We're a great team!"
B. Eros/Caritas/Filia: "Another day in paradise."
C. A Mop-Up Operation: "I don't want to know!"

II. Psychology: "Those memories are you."

A. Memory: "Do you remember her?"
B. Dreams: "The dreams are real."
C. Landscapes of Reality: A Tale of Two Cities.

III. Myth: "Welcome home, Jack!"

A. The fruit of forbidden knowledge: Nietzsche's "Death of God" and "Eternal Return."
B. Obedience/Disobedience/Freedom: Is Sally "America"?
C. "What will you die for?": Roman Virtue and the Pax Americana.

Conclusion: "A beautiful death."

A. Return to Eden: The Lays of Ancient Rome (1842). 

Oh, to be in India ...

G.C. Scott, His Mistress's Voice: An Erotic Novel (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1994).

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought."

Among the pleasant surprises available to readers in Manhattan is discovering a good novel or fine book where one least expects to make such a discovery.

At a sidewalk table filled with books, most of which were absolute junk -- Robert Ludlum, for example, or Barbara Cartland -- I found (this may surprise you) a Jamesian literary work exploring a set of triadic relations only superficially concerned with persons enjoying unusual forms of sex. In other words, this novel looks like a "dirty book" but is a lot more interesting than such books normally are.

Please see Henry James' "The Golden Bowl" where explicit sex is repressed and moved offstage to allow for the symbolizing of eros in a "cracked" golden bowl, which is vagina and uterus, or the feminine vessel of life. See Gore Vidal's essay on "The Golden Bowl" then his novel, Myra Breckinridge and Rambling Rose by Calder Willingham. ("'The Da Vinci Code': A Movie Review.")

In James' The Tragic Muse each of "four characters begins at the farthest extremity of an 'X.' They cross. Each ends in an opposite position. One wonders: does a living pulse beat, or is it only a metronome?" Gore Vidal, "A Note on 'The Best Man,'" in Rocking the Boat: A Political, Literary and Theatrical Commentary (Boston: Little, Brown, 1962), p. 274.

Mistress's Voice is a study of power as fluctuating energy that is always political, aesthetic, religious and erotic. Plot elements are surreal and secondary to the ideas in the novel. A man, Tom, meets a woman, Beth, who initiates him into the rigors and delights of sexual play as the drama of identity forged through power-rituals unfolds. The circle is complete when Harriet enters the scene as "Lucifer" to this "Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained" drama of sexual ecstasy.

Harriet, the "Mistress," serves as the metaphor for liberation and self-realization through self-giving or yielding of the body of the "submissive" (Tom) to be used in sexual play. Neophytes are transformed and pain inflicted is supplemented by pleasure received.

John Fowles "The Collector" and "The Magus" are obvious sources for this gifted writer. Edith Wharton's "Lilly Bart" may be seen as the "submissive" subjected to sexual cruelty in The House of Mirth. Another title for Mr./Ms. Scott's novel is "The House of Mirth." ("'The French Lieutenant's Woman': A Movie Review.")

The Marquis de Sade's Justine and Philosophy in the Bedroom are works to read alongside this novel which is as good or better than much of the erotica churned out by Henry Miller in Paris during the thirties. Henry Miller, Under the Roofs of Paris (New York: Grove Press, 1983) is less well-written than Scott's novel and highly misogynistic, unlike much of Miller's other work that I like a great deal.

Scott's prose is on the same level with the best erotica of the twentieth century, Anais Nin for example, or Lawrence Durrell and D.H. Lawrence. Most of the novels reviewed recently in The New York Times are far less interesting than this erotic fiction. ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")

Erotic themes have certainly been of concern to artists since antiquity. For instance, among pagans one thinks immediately of Virgil's Ars Amoris and Petronious Satyricon is a much immitated narrative that would make a great porn movie. Mistress is a satyr play. ("This is a form of grotesque Greek play dealing with an absurd part of a myth or treating a serious part in a burlesque or [sexual] fashion.")

What is more -- like His Mistress's Voice -- the Satyricon dramatizes philosophical issues concerning the nature of love and power at "Trimalchio's" banquet, an obvious reference to Plato's Symposium, where the process by which the initiate learns from the Master -- not Socrates but Diotima, a woman! -- is a kind of "eros" achieved through the body contemplating the eternal forms beyond the earthly dross of matter. Dialogue is always a kind of sex. ("The Allegory of the Cave.")

Philosophical initiation is likened to the loss of virginity for the student, by Plato, who regards sexuality (across gender lines and sexual-orientations) as yielding secret knowledge or wisdom, just as philosophy must relate us to the eternal forms beyond the flux of earthly sensations.

Sex and philosophy are dialectics of effort and achievement, pain and pleasure, fire and ice, "Violante Placido." ("'The American': A Movie Review.")

As we have reason to know thanks to recent events (the Lewinsky scandal) sex and philosophy are always political. Pleasure and pain define the life of power and law. On one level, these literary characters are aspects of a single psyche; on another level, they symbolize the dance of power in society; on a third level, they reveal a theory of adjudication (Equity over Law) as rules are created, interpreted, applied, broken and penalties are imposed, rationally, by Harriet as chief player of the "godgame." We are obedient slaves. There is no right to appeal. Georges Bataille, L'Erotisme (Paris: Editions Minuit, 1957), then David Farrell Krell, Nietzsche: A Novel (New York: SUNY, 1996).

"As he was contemplating the uses of all this gear, her voice drifted down from above: 'Eh, la-bas! Are you getting on all right down there?" His Mistress's Voice, p. 124. (I detect a referrence to J.K. Huysman's decadent novel, La Bas.)

As Lon Fuller likened the administration of power in the home to "judicial creativity" so Harriet's judgments reveal the dialectic of politics and law in the experience of sexual pleasure which is like mystical bliss. This notion may be traced to the ancient world and, most recently, to Foucault's discussion of the "technologies of the self" in The History of Sexuality.

 "Truth and enlightenment at Pergamon must be enforced or tested by cruelty, torture, slavery and death. The latter are indeed necessary for the former to exist; thus even suffering and torture -- basanos -- is beautiful and must be represented as such. 'In the parts where the greatest pain is placed,' wrote Winckelman about the Laokoon, [sic.] 'he shows the greatest beauty.' ..."

Stephen F. Eisenman, The Abu Ghraib Effect (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), pp. 52-53. (Please see Oscar Wilde's "The Nightingale and the Rose" then "The Soldier and the Ballerina" and Mel Gibson's "The Passion.")

Friedrich Nietzsche speaks of "passionate suffering" in savage rituals of Dionysian exuberance:

"It is in the region of orgiastic mass seizures that we must look for the original dye which stamps upon the memory the expressive movements of the extreme flights of emotion -- as far as they can be translated into gestural language -- with such intensity, that these 'engrams' [imprints] of the experience of passionate suffering persist as a heritage stored in the memory."

The Abu Ghraib Effect, pp.53-54 (emphasis added). ("What is Memory?")

Compare Lionel Rubinoff, The Pornography of Power: An Inquiry Into Man's Capacity for Evil (New York: Ballantine, 1967), pp. 185-216 with Agehananada Bharati, The Tantric Tradition (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 228-279.

The most frightening exploration of the will to dominance and enslavement or control of others, as the expression of a repressed sexual delight in cruelty, is found in the depiction of the psychiatrist in Patrick McGrath's brilliant novel, Asylum (New York: Vintage, 1977), p. 222. ("I had more than once imagined her in my house, as she once so frequently had been, among my furniture, my books, my art.")

I am sure that the person inserting "errors" in this review is similar to the psychiatrist-torturer in Mr. McGrath's novel. She must be consumed by a kind of insatiable desire for possession of what she cannot have. Alain Badiou, "What is Love?: The Sexes and Philosophy," in Conditions (New York & London: Continuum, 2008), pp. 179-197. ("... contemporary philosophy is, as we see every day, addressed to women. It may even be suspected, as I lay myself open to this, of engaging, as discourse, in strategies of seduction.") (Steven Corcorran, translation.)

Shakespeare's "Sonnets" enact a similar drama -- "enacting and drama," imagination and play, are key terms in appreciating these works -- where sex is a performance complete with costumes and "dance." A homoerotic text is placed by Shakespeare alongside a celebration of heterosexual lust that lapses into a lamentation at the punishments inflicted by the unfaithful lover -- "whore" is a term Shakespeare reserves for himself (quite correctly!) -- then returns to the poet's sexual appetite and energy, alternating feminine and masculine "roles" and "performances" in a manner that may well distress feminist Puritans like Catherine McKinnon. Angela Carter, The Sadean Woman and the Ideology of Pornography (New York: Pantheon, 1978), pp. 116-137. ("The School of Love: The Education of a Male Oedipus.")

Shakespeare lusts after and clearly experiences a sexual relationship with the Earl of Southampton and Lucy Dark, his prostitute-mistress and (I suspect) also Emilia Lanier who is his musician-courtesan who probably got it on with Ms. Dark together with several courtiers of both genders. Anthony Burgess entitles his chapter dealing with these matters "Mistress" and suggests an analogy between the poetic "voice" and the call of eros: Anthony Burgess, "Mistress," in Shakespeare (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1970), pp. 120-131 then Anthony Burgess, Enderby's Dark Lady (New York: McGraw Hill, 1984), entirety.

Harriet, Tom, Beth are comparable to William, Lucy, Southampton. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince.")

"When thou my music, music playest."

I suspect that this may be a perfect "Masterpiece Theater" moment in which we may indulge in high culture by quoting an utterly filthy poem which appears entirely innocent to modern readers taught in high school that Shakespeare is, "like, really good and everything, similar to the Pope and stuff."

In fact, Shakespeare was one of the horniest poets in English literature burdened (or blessed!) with any number of erections before breakfast. Fortunate man and kindred spirit.

How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
Upon that blessed wood [his penis] whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st [she's on top]
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, [moan]
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap [all the other idiots she screwed]
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, [not her hand!]
Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, [Guess what he wants to kiss?]
At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand: [yes, it does!]
To be so tickled, they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips, [they're dancing all right]
O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait, [let your fingers do the walking!]
Making dead wood more blessed than living lips: [a second erection?]
Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss. ["lips" indeed, Master Shakespeare!]

Burgess, Shakespeare, pp. 128-129. (Quoting from the Sonnets.)

I suggest a novel by Anthony Burgess focusing on the love triangle described in the Sonnets Nothing Like the Sun (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964).

Having disposed of the hypocrisy that says that a book about sex cannot be literature let us dwell on Mr./Ms. Scott's novel.

I suspect that G.C. Scott is a pseudonym used by a writer or writers (I think a woman) with feminine and masculine sides of her personality in enviable balance. One candidate to have written this book is Rupert Everett. Another may be Helen Mirren. Boris Johnson?

The narrative placed on the page is dream-like or surreal, as I say, so that focusing on plausibility of plot and setting is irrelevant to what the author is trying to accomplish in this story. Like Philip Pullman and Neil Geiman, this author has a genuine gift for conjuring alternative realities or dream worlds that have the "feel of the real." Scott should write more novels like this one. Distinct themes surface, converge, separate. A powerful analogy is available to the role of dominatrix (author) and slave (reader) for those into postmodernism. ("What you will ...")

References to the child's imagination and play also abound in the text with allusions to Peter Pan in search of shadows and, of course, Alice in Wonderland:

"As he spoke Tom noticed another note above Katrina's bed. It too was in Harriet's distinctive handwriting and said simply Take me. It reminded Tom of the label on the bottle Alice was adjured to drink. Katrina must have seen and understood the note already, so she knew what to expect. When Tom looked back at her she looked either alarmed or anticipatory, it was hard to be sure which."

His Mistress's Voice, p. 185 (hereafter cited by page number only). ("'Finding Neverland': A Movie Review.")

There is no child molesting of any kind described in this book. The text and textuality are analogized to "Never, Never Land" which is also the place where coitus takes place.

Gender is play, costume, theater or a "text" that is deconstructed in this novel with a bow to Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida who would have loved the book. ("Judith Butler and Gender Theory" and "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz" then, again, "What you will ...")

Feminine and masculine are parts in a story, a "philosophy of the bedroom," created by every one of us with stages for initiation, seduction, release, punishment.

"Normal" is transformed into another pose; sex is ballet, a "dance of the hours":

"He wondered briefly why Tchaikovsky had called it 'The Dance of the Hours.' They didn't dance. They merely passed. Now he was unable to measure even their passage." (p. 148.)

The measurement problem in quantum mechanics and non-linear time provide an analogy to these entangled particles -- Tom, Harriet, Beth and Katrina.

The loss of speech disconnecting readers and characters from the "world" suggests that this novel is map and territory: "There is nothing outside the text." (p. 148.)

The novel has a revolving door aspect which invites readers to rearrange the chapters to suit their interests. We are about to be instructed as we are "penetrated" by the "voice" of this author. Like partners in sexual games, or the characters in Shakespeare's Sonnets, we collapse from a happy exhaustion. My loves "enter" me; I "enter" them.

My self or identity reflects the power to which I am drawn or which I exert.

There is desire to dominance and subservience in everyone.

What is rightly challenged by this author is the limitation of the power-role to the masculine "mask" while the subservient-role is necessarily "female" as in most Western erotica or porn. I like and admire the reversal of this traditional format by Scott in this novel. Derrida encounters Foucault: Christopher Norris, "Derrida and Kant," in What's Wrong With Postmodernism? Critical Theory and the Ends of Philosophy (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1990), pp. 194-208 and James Miller, Michel Foucault (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), pp. 292-293, pp. 364-365:

"Rendering his own tribute to Asclepius, [Foucault gestures towards Socrates' "Apology"] he would then talk at last about what Beckett had called this 'wordless thing in an empty place, a hard shut dry cold black place, where nothing stirs, nothing speaks, and that I listen, and that I seek, like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born of caged beasts born in a cage.' ...." (Miller, p. 364.)

Tom and Beth as well as Katrina are placed in "cages" in lower floors which are the deep levels of the subconscious of our author, also of Harriet and the reader, realm of the id and Carl Jung's "collective subconscious":

"('Modern society is perverse,' writes Foucault with understandable emphasis. 'Not in spite of its puritanism, or as a consequence of its hypocrisy; it is truly and directly perverse.') The effort to outlaw certain sexual acts as unnatural has similarly backfired, producing still odder new forms of bodily delight. (As the rituals of S/M illustrate, even the most viciously repressive practices can be turned into erotically charged games, opening up unforeseen new possibilities of pleasure.)" (Miller, pp. 292-293.) ("Good Will Humping.")

Michel Foucault -- homosexual, philosopher, and man of genius -- was devoted to S/M and bondage games and would have loved this novel by G.C. Scott.

John Stuart Mill was torn between philosophy as opposed to "tiddlywinks and pushpin" -- neither of which are sexual.

Here we see the difference between analytical and Continental thought. I am best classified as a Continental thinker among other things. ("G.E. Moore's Critique of Idealism.")

"And so in its measurement of sex difference, every form of passivity and aggression in sex-linked behavior is tested continuously, yet little thought is given to the causality of such phenomena, either as learned behavior, or as behavior specifically appropriate to patriarchal society. When the differentiation of roles is regarded as functional, no serious explanation of the political character of such function is given: any set of complementary roles may be called functional to the extent they promote stable operation within a system."

Kate Millett, "The Counterrevolution" in Sexual Politics (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969), pp. 310-311 then Norman Mailer, The Prisoner of Sex (New York: New American Library, 1971), p. 166. (" ... their laws would be founded on sex.")

"All's well that ends well."

" ... 'It's a heavy responsibility.' Again the ironic smile. 'You'd be surprised how many people want someone else to take responsibility, out of their hands. Actually deprive them of choice.'

Tom wasn't sure where all this was leading. It sounded like a confession or an apologia, and seemed out of place coming from someone he didn't expect to explain things needlessly. His perplexity must have showed, because Harriet abruptly changed tack.

'Yes, I imagine all this is a bit abstract. I tend to go on and on when I'm not careful. Too much philosophy and not enough practicality. [Is that me?] Perhaps I should make things more concrete.' She stood abrubtly. 'Come with me.' ..." (pp. 119-120.)

We will accompany the author down this rabbit hole not all that distant from certain social situations in the twentieth century:

"None of that now. It is a far cry from the excesses of our German friends during the war to the thoroughly scientific training regime I administer." (p. 97.)

Existentialist themes are anounced and underlined for dim-witted readers making it crystal clear that this novel is about freedom as sexual liberation in feminist terms.

"Tom wondered idly if he was becoming the 'new man' that the feminists were always on about. No, he concluded, he was pretty much the old man but was being introduced to a new mode of sexual reality." (p. 103.)

Again:

"If I were an existentialist, Tom mused, I would be pondering on the interrelationship of freedom and compulsion. But as I'm not I just have to take whatever comes, which is exactly what everyone else, whether existentialist or not, has to do." (p. 141.)

I conclude with an image that recurs in the novel and in much Western Romance literature from the troubadors to the symbolists: the rose as female icon is the "unfolding" of warm vaginal lips, "allegedly."

Dr. June Singer's discussion of "lingam" and "phallus" is recommended for those with flashlights under your covers: June Singer, Androgyny: Toward a New Theory of Sexuality (New York: Anchor, 1977), pp. 178-179, p. 193.

Curiously, this image and the central importance of oral stimulation, lips upon lips, is part of Hindu religious worship. Passages of the Kamasutra are devoted to this celebrated form of worship of feminine divinity and power that is so disturbing to some Americans:

"To lick a lotus blossom,' in Sanskrit, is to enact cunilingus; and padmachati (lotus blossom licking) is common and customary throughout India. [Oh, to be in India.] The Hindus have several words coinciding with 'licking of the lotus bud' to express the act of [female oral pleasuring]. Perhaps the most scientific are mukhamethuna (oral churning) and oparishata (mouth congress), while the literary appellation for fellatio is ambarschuti (mango fruit sucking). [What about the pit?] It is so named because the ripe mango fruit closely resembles the glans penis, which the ambarchusa (mango sucker) mouths, in both shape and color. The feminine counterpart of this word is vambhagabhachusi (sucking a bamboo sprout) or padmakompalachati (licking a lotus stamen), signifying oral excitation of the clitoris."

Allen Edwardes & R.E.L. Masters, The Cradle of Erotica: The Definitive Study of Afro-Asian Sexual Behavior (New York: Lancer Books, 1962), p. 312.

This form of worship by sexual adoration of the feminine (not just by females) is not limited to one gender in Hinduism. Men and women may celebrate and participate in female sexuality in this way. I am very interested in Hinduism.

What I find disturbing and fascinating in the rage that greets my review of this novel, probably also in the novel itself and continuing efforts to alter paragraphs and spacing of my text, to destroy or suppress, censor and deny what is obvious about human sexuality -- all of this absurd hostility on display at these blogs today is a tribute to Scott and, in a minor way, to me.

We have struck a nerve. Continuing computer crime against me is also, obviously, a sadistic sexual thrill for a sick person somewhere in New Jersey.

I will close by trying to be clear about what this "struck nerve" or vital core of sexual meaning in contemporary America is and may yet become. Incidentally, it is sadistic cruelty or violence that is truly obscene and not passionate eroticism.

The sexual behavior and (much more) the erotic imagination of every society reflects its mores and heritage.

There is simply no way that America's sexism and suppression of female sexuality could not be a part of our erotica because it is part of ALL of us.

Porn is one of the areas of the culture where people are most liberated and equal. However, even porn is made in a particular culture and reflects that culture. If you object to porn because you interpret much of the imagery in erotic films as "demeaning to women" then the answer may be to demonstrate to men and women what is objectionable by creating more porn -- your erotica -- turning some of the sexist iconography of America's sexual fantasy world upside down as it were.

Scott's novel does exactly that. For this reason, I describe His Mistress's Voice as a feminist and revolutionary literary work which is raunchy and fun to read. ("Good Will Humping" and "Genius and Lust.")

I suggest to women interested in erotica in cinema the films of the late Candida Royale. Several novels of explicit sexuality from the eighteenth century would have served as perfect subjects for Ms. Royale's canvas or cinematic imagination including Voltaire's Candide or "The Memoirs of Casanova." Has anyone "seen" Ms. Moll Flanders? (See "Quills" and, once again, "Something Wild.")

"Sadism is not a name finally given to a practice as old as Eros; it is a massive cultural fact [on display at these blogs every day!] which appeared precisely at the end of the eighteenth century, and which constitutes one of the greatest conversions of Western imagination: unreason transformed into delirium of the heart, madness of desire, the insane dialogue of love and death in the limitless presumption of appetite."

Michel Foucault, from Madness and Civilization, quoted in The Sadean Woman, at p. 3 (emphasis added).