Now of course the rape card is being played by U.S. government spokesmen who want to keep war fever running high. As American warplanes make their hideously expensive bombing runs to Yugoslavia from the continental United States, we are being asked to see the current conflict in Manichaean terms of Serbian demonism and Albanian saintliness, the old chestnut of oppressors and victims. Inflammatory allegations of rape do not justify NATO destruction of Yugoslavia, which is impoverishing and brutalizing the very people we're supposed to be leading toward democracy. The historical roots of this cycle of violence, where there were mass crimes and land grabs on both sides, are obscured from the American public, which didn't give a fig about the Balkans until the posturing Christiane Amanpour began her one-sided recitatives on CNN in the early 1990s. War-torn Bosnia became a convenient sob story for American intellectuals who didn't want to think about grave social problems right here at home after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which signaled a major crisis in race relations.
Political leadership means prioritizing in a world of endless crises.
Albright's conceit and deceit have damaged the cause of women everywhere who aspire to high office and public responsibility. Dear Camille, I'm interested in your opinion of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence's Easter Sunday block party in San Francisco. The Sisters, a group of resplendent drag queens and their friends, party hearty each year to raise money for AIDS research and awareness. I have a keen appreciation of camp, and a healthy sense of humor about my Catholicism, but I think the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence crossed the fine line that divides parody from bigotry. A gay Catholic from San Francisco Dear Catholic, I sympathize with your discomfort, but I envy your propinquity to the fabled Sisters, whom I've never seen in person but revere from a transcontinental distance.