Michael Palin is funny. Sarah Palin isn't. Yes, she puts another crack in the glass ceiling - but also would set back the cause of reform in America by decades (to paraphrase Kane) if elected Veep (and potentially President - McCain is not a healthy man). Eyewear had predicted, last week, that McCain might select her (or another female running mate). Now that it has happened, it is worse than I thought. Palin is pro-gun, anti-gay, anti-abortion, and pro-drilling in the untouched Alaskan wilderness. She's a Thatcheresque-Lite figure, a villain in drag. To compare her nomination to the profound history that Obama is making is to travesty the Civil Rights Movement, and his subtle, strong eloquence and integrity.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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