Things
have heated up in "The Fray," where
Slate
readers do battle over
the day's big issues. To wit, a selection of some of the forum's liveliest
threads. Click here to
join in.
Hot
Threads
"Scumbag"? House Whitewater
Committee Chairman Dan Burton provided grist for the "Clinton and the Media"
thread. Clinton's critics defended Burton's name-calling in a Dallas Morning
News interview as essentially truthful; defenders wondered if Burton was
merely projecting. Meanwhile, the discussion over who's really in
trouble--Clinton or Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr--has grown more polarized
and personal. Clinton's critics have turned up the rhetoric, even referring to
him as a "rapist"--while Starr's critics are accusing him of being party to a
witness-tampering scheme. It's getting ugly.
In the
"Big
Questions" thread, fraygrants argued about interpretations of the
Constitution and definitions of personal and religious freedom. Also debated:
E.O. Wilson's new book, Consilience . The former ant-nut has written what
one fraygrant called "a historical polemic--that the Enlightenment thinkers
were right, after all." Will the social sciences fall under the combined weight
of the humanities and natural sciences? Steven Pinker's review in
Slate
and the Atlantic Monthly 's interview with Wilson have stoked the flames.
New
Threads
William Faulkner's The
Sound and the Fury was the subject of the new "Reading" thread this
week. Chapter 1, a k a the "Benjy" chapter, was deemed "a tour de force ranking
with anything Joyce, Dickens, or Shakespeare wrote" by the thread's host. Who
and what influenced The Sound ? James Joyce and Ulysses ? Can only
a Southerner truly appreciate Faulkner's settings? Contributors to the
discussion ranged from novices to experts; they included a teacher who shared
her experience of introducing the novel to students and an author who has
written on Phil Stone (the model for several Faulkner characters) for the
Mississippi Lawyer .
Slate
's "Gist" and Sarah Kerr's review of
Walking Out on the Boys kicked off debate in the new "Sexual Harassment"
thread: Is a single pass by a superior sexual harassment, or is a pattern of
repeated abuse necessary? One fraygrant's perspective: "I'd much rather work
with someone who was honestly attracted to me and took 'no' for an answer than
someone who may or may not be honestly attracted to me but wants to cow me in
any case." Bill Clinton, Clarence Thomas, and Bob Packwood were compared, with
the consensus ruling that only Packwood may have been guilty of real sexual
harassment. Also examined: the lasting effect of Thomas' hearings on his
performance in the Supreme Court.
Fray
Feuds
This week as last, the
"Language"
thread was on a roll. The discussion on language and culture moved to the need
for self-appointed "language mavens" such as William Safire. Some fraygrants
took the prescriptivist position: People must be told how to use the language
if it isn't to succumb to its natural tendency to go "all higgledy piggledy."
Tosh, said the opposition. All language needs to do is communicate one's
meaning clearly. The mavens are fools to fight the "tide of language
change."
Voting is
underway in the "Person of the Century" thread, which, created before the recent
Time magazine survey, aims to identify, once and for all, the person who
has most influenced the century. Visit the voting site to register
your vote--it is open to all
Slate
subscribers. No ballots will
be accepted after May 6, 1998.
Post of
the Week
In the Sexual Harassment
thread, the debate over an acceptable definition of the term led one fraygrant
to post a statement on what is appropriate in the workplace. inspired reactions
from both sides of the table, ranging from "Yes, that's exactly it" to
"Call me a cynic, but I ain't quitting a job for a f--k unless I'm SURE it's
love and even then, dammit, HE can quit."
