http://open.salon.com/user.php?uid=11343Fri, 1 Jun 2012 11:06:04 -0400 <p>We all use each other.&nbsp; I wish it were otherwise, but our self-centeredness is immutable.&nbsp; What we&nbsp;should&nbsp;aspire to&nbsp;control in our relationships is our awareness of the mutual using and balance that using.&nbsp; Consider Open Salon.&nbsp; </p> <p>Salon has cut writers.&nbsp; Salon replaced the lost copy with Open Salon, where contributors compose words for nothing and Salon gets hits for free.&nbsp; Now, some of the Open Salon contributors use&nbsp;Open Salon to promote their books.&nbsp; Others get published, which is a word greatly diluted by the Internet, where everybody gets published, but one still gets published and gets to park their name beside the Salon name, which puts a little luster on the publication.&nbsp;&nbsp;Some&nbsp;Open Salon contributors collect ratings.&nbsp; Others collect "friends," which, like "publication," is another word diluted by the Internet.&nbsp;&nbsp;Considering every word on the Internet as published is&nbsp;akin to adding a drop of Chanel&nbsp;#5 to Lake Superior, stirring well, and then&nbsp;renaming it Lake Chanel #5.&nbsp; In the end, Salon gets copy, which it converts to cash,&nbsp;and Open Salon's contributors get to cyber-rub against others.</p> <p>The scale tips to Salon.</p> http://open.salon.com/blog/bigguns/2008/12/24/words_for_nothing_and_hits_for_freehttp://open.salon.com/blog/bigguns/2008/12/24/words_for_nothing_and_hits_for_freeWed, 24 Dec 2008 13:12:50 -0500 <p>A feminist tenet is that rape is about power.&nbsp; Inserting an unwelcome penis into a woman or man is a declaration of dominance.&nbsp; Dominance is the aphrodisiac.&nbsp; It is the reason the penis fills with blood.</p> <p>Likewise, an excited&nbsp;tongue&nbsp;fills with blood when a person&nbsp;is at the point of gossip.&nbsp;&nbsp;The tongue is used to insert one's self, albeit indirectly, into another person's life.&nbsp; Gossip is never about a person's preference for Classic Coke versus New Coke, just as rape is never about stroking a person's thumbnail.&nbsp;&nbsp;As rape is about intimate&nbsp;sectors,&nbsp;gossip&nbsp;is&nbsp;always about intimate information.&nbsp; Like rape, gossip is generally&nbsp;undertaken in&nbsp;secluded places,&nbsp;removed from the light of public scrutiny.&nbsp; </p> <p>Both rape and gossip merely seem to be about sex and both rape and gossip have&nbsp;a contagious effect.&nbsp; A raped woman makes&nbsp;most local women afraid.&nbsp;&nbsp;That rape is a warning to women to stay indoors and&nbsp;under the protection of men, lest they be wayward and raped.&nbsp; Likewise,&nbsp;when a group of people gossips about a person, it is a warning to all listening ears to not stray from the conformity of the group, lest the wayward one also be subjected to gossip.</p> <p>If you think I'm trivializing rape by&nbsp;analogizing&nbsp;it to gossip, then&nbsp;consider this: I've asked various raped women about the subsequent&nbsp;gossip and they all asserted the&nbsp;same: "It felt like I was raped a second time."&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Sarah Silverman recently said that&nbsp;she wished she had the power to rape.&nbsp; She wouldn't, she asserted, but she wants to know how it feels.&nbsp; She&nbsp;doesn't have a penis, but she has a tongue, which is also an appendage capable of penetration into a person's private places.&nbsp;&nbsp;So, she knows.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> http://open.salon.com/blog/bigguns/2008/11/23/gossiprapehttp://open.salon.com/blog/bigguns/2008/11/23/gossiprapeSun, 23 Nov 2008 18:11:20 -0500