Bexar County, San Antonio

(M)an: Dude! I was Google searching Susan Sontag’s images and came across various pages about her life, particularly Camille Paglia’s stressing Sontag’s erratic behavior periodically throughout her midlife and later years as a writer and filmmaker. I think Sontag could have benefitted tremendously if she was not singed from the feminist scene in the United States, as Camille Paglia claims, when Kate Millett’s works were beginning to be widely read although far less in rank from that of Sontag’s genius.  

(D)ude: Man! Remember the Kate Millet books I brought home from the library sale? Well, Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation and Other Essays is far more refined and complete in its dissections of the art scene and its overkill in the department of criticism. You know, I agree with Sontag on all her insights about the need for less evaluation and more immediacy in the experience of encountering every piece of art individually.  

M: Dude! Camille Paglia acknowledges and discredits Sontag and I am suspecting the reason for the brazen overview has a lot to do with Paglia’s own intellectual frustrations about the difficulty in following in the footsteps of greatness. Camille Paglia’s dissertation on Sontag and coupled with the subsequent harsh feedback by Yale faculty like Harold Bloom. Overall, I think Paglia ought to have endeavored upon a dissertation about Sontag at a far less upper crusty institute, like Sontag’s own journeying through the  University of California at Berkeley to the University of Chicago before turning seventeen, the age at which the prodigy married, having graduated high school at age fifteen by the way.   

D: Man! The University of California at Berkeley would have been the perfect fit for Camille Paglia because she too disagrees with affirmative action policy. However, according to what you’re saying, Paglia became intimidated by Sontag, someone who Paglia had admired and whose footsteps she ardently followed, up until the point of committing an entire doctoral degree attainment cycle to the intellectual powerhouse that was Sontag.

M: Dude! Susan Sontag was a formidable academic and an ardent humanist who spoke on behalf of history and society’s disenfranchised, choosing to write a short story published in The New Yorker about the AIDS crisis in 1986 when the epidemic was still taboo. She also covered the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War firsthand as a freelance photojournalist and filmmaker.

D: Man! Counter to Susan Sontag’s palpable humanity, there is a school of discrepant reasoning, an erudite chauvinism, such as the Supreme Court of the United States’ intransigent prejudiced decrees smoldered beneath an academic surface, when the truth is that the male Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy are essentially Republican Tea GOP patrons themselves, having accepted hush kickbacks in exchange for their neoconservative decisions.      

M: Dude! Chief Justice John Roberts’ academically decreeing injustices with outrageous lines like, quote unquote, the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race, has me convinced that there are four branches of United States government and those are the Judicial, Legislative, Executive, and Civilian, the last of which depends on all Americans to exercise their right to vote like on Election Day Tuesday November 4, 2014.   

D: Man! The checks and balances system is comprised of the Judicial Branch, the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and, fourthly, the Civilian Branch?  

M: Dude! Yes! The Civilian Branch was stressed throughout the founding documents, including The Constitution of The United States of America. 

D: Man! Really? The Civilian Branch is cited in The Constitution of The United States of America? Or was the Civilian Branch so fundamental, the framers of the document believed it would be a requisite that could not be axed as the Congressional Republicans and John Roberts’ SCOTUS have succeeded in axing. Fortunately, President Obama’s Administration understands that they have a lose-lose situation on their hands right now with a Congressional Republican Majority in the House of Representatives. If President Obama reengages and submits to the outrageous caprice of the Congressional Republicans, threatening Republican Tea GOP turkeys like Paul Ryan and Darrell Issa will verbally besiege him.      

M: Dude! Representatives Paul Ryan and Darrell Issa are so deficient in orating contrarian perspectives, they resort to rude and insulting rottenness instead of basic civility and statesmanship.    

D: Man! All the members in the United States House of Representatives are up for reelection on Election Day Tuesday, November 4, 2014.

M: Dude! Imagine the Civilian Branch of United States Government finally being able to demand an automated voting system that can be accessible on voters’ cell phones and tablets at work or home or public libraries like in San Antonio, Texas and online nowadays. Do you know about the Digital Public Library of America and San Antonio’s BiblioTech Digital Library?

D: Man! Of course! San Antonio’s Bexar County Judge Nelson W. Wolff was inspired by Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs and, circa 2012, recruited professionals in the community to make the conceptual into a beautiful and state-of-the-art reality that opened its doors on September 14, 2013 and, of course, became a huge success opening day onward, providing the best technology for visitors, the latest models of Apple iMacs and iPads, for example.    

M: Dude! Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is facing a lot of ageist remarks in the media suddenly, but her judicial insights and decisions are comparable to the best like- well, actually she’s in a league of brilliances all her own, like Susan Sontag!   

D: Man! Wow! The quintessential Justice Ginsberg et al versus the quintuplet rascals Justice Anthony Kennedy et al!   

M: Dude! The quintessential Justice Ginsburg versus the quintuplet rascals Justice Anthony Kennedy et al. Remember, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is single-handedly sustaining the pulse of this nation’s judiciary integrity in midst of such corruption!