<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>From a NYPress review of my old comrade Norman Solomon's new book:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"There’s a reason why the left, or what America calls the left, has an image problem, and it’s not all due to right-wing propaganda. It has an esthetic that turns off ordinary Americans. The Left won’t be caught dead eating at Jack in the Box. It doesn’t know how to make dick jokes and it doesn’t know what the blue line is for. It writes long pseudo-literary articles about boxing, but it’s useless in a bar fight. Its vision of the future is one in which all vices except pedantry are strictly regulated–no sex, no rap music, no snowmobiles, no snorting smack with models in fur bikinis… Even its writing, and particularly its political writing, is joyless and condescending. The lefty writing style is characterized most particularly by a preponderance of irritating literary winks to its fellow tribe members, nervous little verbal tics that are the intellectual’s idea of secret frat handshakes." </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><<A href="http://nypress.com/16/8/books/books.cfm">http://nypress.com/16/8/books/books.cfm</A>></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A little over the top (I disagree about the "no sex, no rap music" slam), but in general correct. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DP</DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV></BODY></HTML>