<p>I like it. The reference to “The Illiad” is especially interesting, in that my Columbia-bound son yesterday received a letter from the chair of the Columbia Classics department warning that a copy of “The Illiad” is forthcoming in preparation for the Literature Humanities course. Perhaps if President Obama had spent his first year at Columbia, the world would be different?</p>
<p>She’s a smart cookie, and she’s well educated and undoubtedly hangs around other well-credentialed folk. So she’s probably well aware of the Core and is making a very direct reference (rather than some general notion that Ivy leaguers all read the Iliad).</p>
<p>“5000 years ago”? I wouldn’t be lauding the author–it looks like an editor caught her trying to talk about the bible and switched up the reference, unless she is saying that the Iliad is about an event 5000 years ago.</p>
<p>Do you know what you’re talking about? Paglia’s hardly a Bible-banger – she’s a lesbian who writes about sex and drugs and prostitution for a living.</p>