Your posts are always so eloquent and incisive. I really appreciate that, and it gives me something to aspire to with my blog (which right now is mostly made up of navel-gazing personal-life drivel).
It is a major loss, but I hope her death does not mean that the era of the public intellectual is not dead. More than even ever in this country, we need people who translate between academic, political, and public discourses and bring some overlap to these seemingly disparate arenas. Maybe you are just in training to be the next big Public Intellectual. 
Susan Sontag was a major influence on me as a growing little writer-weed. Her attitude was so thoroughly what I imagined a New York big time intellectual had to be. And her essays were so polished and to-the-point in that roundabout NYRB fashion that captivated me. And she got me thinking.
Later, I came to diverge from many of her ideas, at least a little. And to spin away from my fascination with glitteratti (they seemed to most of them turn to neo-con dust before my eyes).
But here she is--dead. And she still gets me thinking.
Alyssa Ford at utne reader had a good essay that led me here. But one thing nobody is talking about. WHY?
not only was Sontag gay, or bisexual, let's say, but she was also Jewish. The NYTimes and LA TIMES never mentioned the gay part, of course, and they didn't mention her Jewish roots either. WHY? sure, she was an atheist, I am too. But I am Jewish atheist. Susan was Jewish atheist too.
The NYTimes just said, in code, her father was a fur trader in China. get it? a Jewish fur trader in CHina.
i asked the NYTimes and the LA times why they didn't mention this fact, and they both told me, it's PC today. Jewishisness is out. Just a woman died. that's all. no gay stuff, no ethnic stuff.
weird.
susan, we hardly knew ye!
Commenting by HaloScan
