House Democrats pushed through a $50 billion bill for the Iraq war Wednesday night that would require President Bush to start bringing troops home in coming weeks with a goal of ending combat by December 2008.

The legislation, passed 218-203, was largely a symbolic jab at Bush, who already has begun reducing force levels but opposes a congressionally mandated timetable on the war. And while the measure was unlikely to pass in the Senate _ let alone overcome a presidential veto _ Democrats said they wanted voters to know they weren’t giving up.

“The fact is, we can no longer sustain the military deployment in Iraq,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “Staying there in the manner that we are there is no longer an option.”

So she asked a lesbian friend of hers who was about the same age as Paglia what the deal was. The woman snorted and said, “yeah, we were here when she was around. It’s just that none of us wanted to mess around with her.”

Back in the 90s I made it through part of the first chapter of “Sexual Personae” before I gave up, disgusted. My firm impression was that this woman could not get laid by the woman she wanted, and scorched-earth social critique was her revenge on the whole world.

Years ago, when we were first married, my husband was hired as an adjunct English professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He used to tell me almost unbelievable tales of this obnoxious woman who used to do things like throw popcorn at colleagues during Humanities Department meetings when she felt she wasn’t getting enough attention or didn’t care for what they said. He didn’t know her name and didn’t want to. Soon thereafter, though, Sexual Personae was published and the next thing we knew, the woman was a celebrity, the notorious Camille Paglia. Nevertheless, she continued to be obnoxious and continued to throw popcorn. It seems nothing has changed in the 17 years since I first heard of the nameless popcorn-throwing menace.

heh. reading a bio of robert frost with a story of another writer receiving an award and robert frost actually setting pieces of paper on fire on his desk until one of his colleagues (peers?) said, ‘oh for gods sake Robert just let him win the award.’