I've always had a distaste for those members of the Canadian "upper social strata" who figure their doodoo doesn't stink and expect the masses will be moved by their actions. Kind of like Russian nobility, eh. A legend in their own mind.

She decides what we can read, see, think because she is soooooooooooo Progressive.

The new spelling of Progressive is F-a-s-c-i-s-t

As someone else mentioned..looks like Trudeau in 'drag!'

oh just great, "Hot or Not" has come to SDA.

Thanks Mark, best line today!! ROTFLMAO

Hummmmm - just maybe Margaret's books should be censored.

It is astounding that someone who benefits so greatly from "free speech" would want to deny it to someone who does not agree with her.

Vacuous does not begin to describe this person.

Yet another example of liberalism = Fascism...

...And it must be stamped out at all cost (Tongue in cheek, BTJ)

The exact text of a tweet from Ezra last night.

"@ezralevant Boy "they" sure made you look stupid. Censor "them" RT @MargaretAtwood: I thot it WAS called Fox News North! They should put that in quotes."

Only Canadian "progressives" could call on a ban of an American like news organization by using an American, George Soros funded, activist organization and see absolutely no irony.

Am I alone in thinking "Dear Peg's" writing is normally intelligible. Is this a case of everyone notbeing the first to ask "where are the Emperor's clothes?". Just another peon if I am alone in this type of thinking, but very much avante garde in Canadian Lit if even one person is in agreement. Cheers;

Whoops! Unintelligible. Cheers

Oh quick call in the CHRC they'll protect us from "hate speech"!

Run, run for your lives, with your straw hat on fire er I mean straw man!

Cheers

Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group "True North"

Atwood and her thoughts of being naturally buried (whatever that is) with a toaster or manicure set....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diptUiIWHXI&feature=related

Or maybe she was there to talk about educating women, "which correlates with falls in the birth rate", "and the economies of those countries immediately starts to improve."

So, would she be against immigration by the shipload?

If you can handle getting deeper into her talk of the coming "doom", you will see she'd want populations controlled in their numbers.

Yet, she says families come first, and if women do not have families, I guess they come last, also.

But this was at a conference for the 'Smartest People', so what do we know?

Mike Sr:

Years back, when I was forced to read "Surfacing", someone asked me what I thought of it. I said (approximately) that I wanted to reach through the pages, grab the main characters, slap them in their respective faces, and scream "Wake up! Get a f***ing life!". I still think that's a review that's both succinct and accurate.

What was the old saying? "They became what they beheld"? Well, Peggy's become what she has written - a dessicated, dirigiste, dumpy fascist who bridles at anyone's objections to the "Handmaid's Tale", but feels free to slap blanket bans on something she knows nothing about.

Hag alert!

Not unintelligible, pedestrian, I'd say.

Fox: I have an old "friend" who "wins" debates with me by simply saying "Fox".

Fox = hate. I ask him to monitor Fox and give me some good examples of erroneous reporting or hate-mongering. Never a response.

FOX!!!

What the.., is she giving me the bugeye?

BTW, don't EVER read Cat's Eye.

New tactic for you MND. Just say "BBC" whenever your pal there says Fox.

Is Margaret Atwood still alive? I thought that bleeding heart of hers would have carried her off ages ago.

Funny how she's less for freedom of speech when a conservative is talking.

Trolls will now all please rush to Peggy's defense.

[...crickets...]

Come on, we're waiting...

George Soros'New hat!

One picture sums up both, Soros and Atwood!

Brilliant, Kate!

Mike...glad you cleared that up. I was looking for a 'sarc/'

No...you are not alone.
She writes boring pschobabble that is coughed up to be lit.
Wonder if Soros reads her stuff?

Ditto, I'll say it again: Kate is the best headline writer in the blogosphere. Period. This "George Soros' New Hat" is a masterstroke.

A belated thanks for "They came for the Rhinestones and stayed for the stonings". LOL.

Further to Atwood, I have a very simplistic way of evaluating writers: I could write that / I could never have written that.

With Atwood, it's the former. With James Joyce, Kate, Steyn, EBD often, it's the latter.

"Free speech does not mean under-the-carpet deals that would force people to pay for Fox out of cable fees."

It does mean, however, that it would force people to pay for state broadcasting and a progressive, arts-industrial complex out of their taxes.

The unmitigated nerve! (She's a shoe-in for the Nobel.)

So, the soulless, spiritually barren Peggy-I-can't-be-bothered-to-open-my-mouth-to-talk Atwood strikes again.

What an entitled pompous harridan she is. 'The usual with the Leftards: Freedom of expression for me but DEFINITELY not for thee. As others have pointed out, there's an F-word for that kind of censorship.

As for KevinB's feelings about Ms. P(ursed Lips) Atwood's characters in "Surfacing" -- "Wake up! Get a f***ing life!" -- they apply equally well to the Illiberal Miss A.

AAARRRGGGHH, my eyes!

Kate, how could you post such a picture?

It is way too early for Halloween...oh, wait a minute, now i get it.

That is Count Iggy in drag!

Why don't we - the English speaking world - produce great authors anymore?

19th Century novelists - I just timed myself, how many I could come up with in 30 seconds: Dickens, Kipling, Twain, Austen, Thackery, Melville, the Brontes, Conrad - well, that's as far as I got in 30 seconds, but all these novelists will be read centuries from now. There have been 20th c. geniuses, great ones, but now, today? Who matters anymore? I don't mean that I think an author has to rank as "immortal genius" to be important, that's obviously not true, but Atwood? Atwood!!??! She's the reason we're all proud to be Canadian? Give me a break. A minor talent, an establishment hack, a conformist bore.

Of course she's in favour of banning "Fox North". The Canadian establishment is so tight and incestuous that a fateful asteroid hitting a building in Toronto during some lefty-lite gathering or other could just cripple us culturally. Wouldn't that be a shame?

I miss Mordecai Richler.

Margaret Atwood is a horrid writer and a horrid person. She is a fear-mongering twit who has been given far too much credit.
What Black Mamba said about authors is correct.
Enough said.

BTW Kate...thanks for the link to NP.
Love the way Mcparland dissed the pompous piffle weaver.

I don't know if you've ever listened to her getting tongue baths from the interviewers at the CBC (radio)

It's kind of creepy, they treat her as a different higer level human being - much as the US press treated Obama.

Things I miss the least about leaving Canada: Council of Canadians, CBC, CTV, Global, NDP, Margaret Atwood, national socialist arts community, smug Eastern establishment liberals...........Atwood personifies the rot....Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugly goes clear through to the bone!

SDA rules.

I had the misfortune a few years ago to actually meet and speak with her in a very wilderness and remote location on the Yukon/NWT border when she and her posse arrived for some wildlife viewing. I spoke with her for about 15 minutes and to my shock(based on her celebrity), I could not believe that anybody with a successful writing career such as hers could be so abjectly stupid in conversation. I have spoken to bimbos with more of a clue that this woman. At various times I had to look away to hide my gut-busting laughing at her and jaw-dropping incredulity.

Sack of hammers comes close.

If she is the best we can do for our literary 'elite', we are in deep, deep trouble.

I bet the irony of being a sock-puppet of an 'American' billionaire attempting to influence Canadian-created cultural media, whilst simultaneously protesting American influence in Canadian culture is lost on Ms. Atwood. What a dolt.

For me it isn't important that the author be a genius or critically acclaimed. A book just has to be either entertaining or thought provoking. I love reading but after three attempts at three different Atwood books I have not been able to finish one. Eventually the partially read book is found gathering dust and is relegated to the "get rid of" box. I have no idea how Atwood became a "cultural icon" or why her opinion should be given any more weight than any other citizen's opinion.

In regards to her latest gem, the suppression of expression that she disagrees with, - typical progressive. Their fear of competition and need to control others has no limits.

What I've always found perplexing is that Margaret Atwood is considered to be a great writer. I was fortunate that I wasn't exposed to her crap when I was in high school although some of my English teachers spoke in glowing terms about her. A quick glance at stuff she'd written was enough to convince me that I wouldn't waste my time in actually trying to read one of her books. Given what I've found out about her on her wikipedia article, it's even less likely that I'll ever read one of her books.

I do have to admit that for me, in high school, great literature was the works of Heinlein, Arthur Clarke, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov and Hemingway was the only non-SF author that stood out. Now it's Greg Bear and Neal Stephenson.

Atwood represents all of the worst aspects of "Canadian" culture, that servile defeatist and reflexive anti-Americanism that the CBC and other "Canadian" institutions try to promulgate. The sooner such dead-end defeatist ideologies are consigned to the rubbish bin of history, the better.

I remember looking through "The Handmaids tale" in a bookstore once and decided it wasn't worth my time; decades earlier Robert Heinlein did a far better treatment of the same topic in "Revolt in 2100".

I won't be watching FOX news north as I quit watching TV news completely but I'd love to see lefty (self-styled) "Canadian establishment" heads explode when it comes here.

LC Bennett, your post (spot-on, by the way) is why I will not call a liberal a "progressive". Nothing they say or do is progressive. Since when is opposing free enterprise progressive? Don't get me started on the support for Islamofascism.
Margaret Atwood should never have been famous. I believe- had she been American or British- she would have attained- at best- minor note. Only in Canada could she have been famous. Is there no end to our collective national insecurity that we hold someone like her in high regard?

For a moment there, I thought the two of them were going to getting married and that was her wedding hat.

By the way Kate, you need to put up one of your alerts when you put a picture up like that. Kind of like a Helen Thomas photo, only younger, not less repulsive, just younger!

"servile defeatist" - loki

I like that term. The political scandals, census and gun registry, have convinced me that promoting servile defeatism is the end game of the progs. All non-progs must be made to achieve the same level of servile obedience to the state, journalists and "experts" as the progs. Laws and regulations restricting individual choices about salt content, lighting, vehicles, family life,etc. will continue until this lesson is learned. Perhaps if they just issued a mandatory reading list that included The Bliss of Servile Defeatism for Dummies would be more efficient.

KevinB said "Years back, when I was forced to read "Surfacing","

I was talked into reading it years ago. I kept waiting for something literary or profound to kick in. It was terrible. There is no way you could call this literature. It was a like a bad made for tv movie. Made it through half the book. I am still baffled to this day whenever I hear people talk about what a great writer she is.

Osumashi,
I do use progressives and liberals interchangeably. I do not think either are actually progressive. Using the names they prefer makes it easier to display the contradiction of their words vs. their actions. The left redefines words to manipulate the message so pointing out this absurdity is important, IMO.

And we would all pay for it?

But she has no problem that we ALL pay for the CBC.

I'm so NOT surprised...

I got to thinking more about this today. Assuming that Ms. Atwood has never signed a petition to keep MSNBC off of Canadian cable, this means that she thinks that:

1. The likes of Mark Steyn, Dennis Miller, Dennis Prager, & Michael Medved are spewing hate speech on a regular basis.

-AND THAT-

2. The likes of Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, & Chris Matthews are eloquently espousing thoughtful, intelligent wisdom on a regular basis.

The fact that ANYONE can think this way shows, not just how incredibly delusional they are but that they live in another reality ... and one likely with the sign "Leftist Unintellectual Bubble" out front!

It seems almost a natural law that those who self-anoint themselves as enlightened intellectuals free of bias are, in fact, some of the most ill-informed and bigoted people extant.

When I was in high school in Britain we had to read Atwood. See, she's a "feminist" author, and Canada is a "feminist" country, and Feminism is good.

"The Handmaid's Tale" is I suppose her most significant work, concerning the subjugation of formerly free women in a misogynist theorcracy. Gosh now what would the obvious parallels be here - I wonder - hmmm?... well, something to do with Stephen Harper, no doubt.

It's not that brilliant authors are necessarily good social critics; I think we must have dispensed with that notion by now. But Atwood is neither, so...

Progressive:

I think many folks here misunderstand the true meaning of the word "progressive". It doesn't mean "progress" in the sense we understand the word; rather, movement -- progress -- toward the final realization of a truly collective, egalitarian society. Progressives believe in historical materialism -- that there's a real living force in history moving us inexorably toward this glorious higher order, whereas individualists, like most of us here, are considered reactionary primitives, less evolved.

Individualism = greediness, selfishness. Progressives have no understanding of the common good being promoted by the pursuit of rational self interest.

So I think we should most definitely continue to use the word "progressive". It's much more descriptive than the hijacked "liberal".

Here's Taber's take on Atwood's asinine assertions: ("Fox News North," "right-wing TV channel," "hate speech," "American-style hate media," etc., etc.)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/margaret-atwood-takes-on-fox-news-north/article1692853/

Why not write to the CRTC?

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/contact.htm

I wonder if her agent has already licensed her "likeness". Oct 31 is close, but probably still time to get the masks made and have kids meet "Canada's finest writer" at the door.

Writing must be a compulsion rather than a talent with many authors, bridging across to a greater or lesser extent, three areas of sanity, genius and insanity .

Now is the time, at SDA Comments, when we juxtapose:

October, 2008

Gilles Duceppe's defence of arts and culture has gained him a new fan — CanLit Queen Margaret Atwood. Atwood said she went to hear the Bloc Québécois leader speak at a Bay Street business luncheon Friday because of his strong endorsement for the arts. Asked whether she would vote for the Bloc if she lived in Quebec, Atwood gave a resounding: "Yes, absolutely. What is the alternative?"

Here's my idea of a Margaret Atwood novel first paragraph:

THE ANGST OF BEING

I could hardly push myself forward, the day was so gloomy, with the horrid north wind bringing down the last of the faded maple leaves. Gunshots echoed from a distant hill, men -- damn them all to hell -- were hunting, or were they killing English lit professors -- again? Probably. The whole thing disturbed me, so I went into my kitchen and made tea -- stared out the window into the November drizzle -- and looked at the cat as it looked at me. Angst was flowing through my veins, and not for the first time, but this time it was different. And I knew where that had started, with some man. Some damn man. I turned on the CBC and was comforted by its welcoming hint of vague superiority. It held me tight inside a confined space where angst could be beaten back, back into my nightmares where I woke up in a chill sweat night after night, hearing a voice -- I think it was damned Glenn Beck -- intoning "Canlit is dead, Canlit is dead," and I shuddered. The angst turned to terror, and that turned to despair then a kind of blind rage where I had to run outside, screaming, into the frigid lake, screaming, take me, take me spirit of Pierre Trudeau ... and the very last maple leaf drifted down and frightened a squirrel that had found an acorn. Good for him. Good for him, I thought.

The Left- they're INTERNATIONAL.

All part of the Neo-Communist Global-Government movement. They're one massive network... connected by their hatred for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

I was forced to read one of Margaret Atwood's books in my English class at university. What crap! FREE SPEECH! If you won't like the new channel, don't watch it. These liberals are worried that average Canadian will gain a voice, and eventually cut the gravy train off.

I've lately noticed a huge upsurge of activity in the Left-Wing Propaganda Machine... They've got nothing else to do, so they just go around playing Goebbels.

Nice try, Peter, but it sounds more like Heather Mallick. Especially the "Some damn man" and the angst about hunting parts. To be fair, it is difficult to tell most modern feminist writers apart by just reading their work.

*
crazy eyes, crazy hat... all that's missing is
the 87 mewling cats in the background.

*

Ah jeez...did you actually have to put her picture up for us all to see? Where's the Dramamine?

Does anyone off-campus actually give a tinker's fart about what Margaret Atwood thinks?

If you're Liberal, you're from Ontario, you like Trudeau and you write about nothing, you have it made. Just as long as you don't mind walking around TO with a brown smudge on your chin!

It seems almost a natural law that those who self-anoint themselves as enlightened intellectuals free of bias are, in fact, some of the most ill-informed and bigoted people extant.

Very well said Gord Tulk

oops forgot the quote marks!

Both in presentation & knowledge. She reminds me of Macbeth's witches.Brewed together in one pot. Double ,double , Toil & trouble!
Just add the CBC for the sulfur flavor.
JMO

Whatever talent she had was destroyed by her early and unwarranted recognition as a "great Canadian novelist". She has a reasonable amount of talent, but she's a prisoner of her own narrow minded, parochial world view. A lot of creative types analyze and doubt their work to the point of self-indulgence and drunken angst, but i suspect she's never had the slightest doubt about her trite and outmoded philosophy.

odd you should mention hats because she IS as mad as a hatter....even looks doolally don't she...

and she canNOT write in the sense we expect a fine writer to write....she canNOT make you suspend your disbelief for a moment....it's all plod and struggle and slog along...

People only know who Atwood is because it was stuffed in their faces in high school.

Atwood was read in high school because of CanCon rules.

Her whole career exists because people were dumb enough to accept that just because something slipped into the curriculum it must be good.

She got famous in Canada because her novels -- early ones, at least -- were so damned self-consciously CANADIAN.

Was it "The Edible Woman" in which she places her character at the corner of Bloor Street and Avenue Road, across from the ROM? Oh, for GAWD'S sake! Who cares what the street names are? Like everybody else here, I just want a believable, maybe even lovable or spiritually mature, main character, not a cipher for an embittered feminist's CANADIAN psyche.

I posted a link to Francis Russell's piece in the Winnepeg Free Press a few days ago in reader's tips. In the comments on her article was a link to the Soro's funded group Avaaz. I wonder if the bag lady read Francis' article and then went to the Avaaz link to sign the petition? Birds of a feather I guess.

Who is this "Margaret Atwood" person? Does she have a reason to be known for something, outside of Canada?

Isn't Surfacing the book in which the protagonist - Atwood, really - sees people in a canoe and mistakenly concludes that they're damn Americans because of some Stars and Stripes-looking decal on the bow, which after closer inspection turns out to be something else altogether. Atwood's character declares that it doesn't matter, they're still damn Americans.

The real life Atwood is the same twit who supported T.O. may or David Millerin his thankfully only run for top job in the big smoke. Her head is going to completely explode when Rob Ford wins this time around.

And now these true believers are signing people like Coyne and Kory Teneycke with their real email addresses up for the petition..............

Posted by: TheRestOfTheWorld at September 2, 2010 7:58 PM

She doesn't even have a reason for being known IN Canada.

WAIT ONE BLOODY MINUTE!!

Am I seeing things or is that IFFY in drag!!

Not that theirs anything wrong with that. He is from Tonto afterall.

Let me fix that tile for you...
George Soros' New ASSHat

For those who have been forced to read Margaret Atwood at the point of a bayonet in high school ( Black Mamba et al..) just remember that her idea of speaking truth to power is being inspired to write 'A Handmaid's Tale" by the suppression of women under Islam.

..at which point, she writes a novel (partially funded on the taxpayer's dime) that changes the villains to fascistic, right wing evangelical Christian bigots.

For a woman who writes stories of empowering oppressed people to find their voice, she is extremely hypocritical in denying that freedom to others if their politics differ from hers.

Who is the fascist now, Ms.Atwood?

I have a T shirt that says

"you can't be ugly and stupid, you have to pick one"

but Atwood is special, and rules don't apply to her:-))))

BATB..Atwood's placing of the protagonist at Avenue rd. and Bloor is quintessentially Canadian..in that it betrays the emptiness and coldness of her mind and writing as that is what you will experience on that spot if you stand there after 9:30 p.m any night...more so in winter..

I love a good Atwood-bashing thread!

Please, show a little reverence, its Margaret Atwood, Margaret Atwood!

a new a$$ for the Hat?

She looks like Pierre Trudeau in drag.

From its web site: "The aim of Avaaz.org is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decisions."

Translation: to impose the views and values of Avaaz.org on global decisions.

Re: "'The Handmaid's Tale' is I suppose her most significant work, concerning the subjugation of formerly free women in a misogynist theorcracy"

Would that be a theocracy in which the airwaves are not free? How ironic.

I agree that people who don't want to watch CanFox should not have to pay for it through cable fees. But then again, people who don't want to watch the CBC shouldn't have to pay for it, either.

CRTC
Completely Redundent Totally Clueless

Abolish, now.

Its a digital world, only pay for what you want, stream it via the web

I'll subsrcibe three times to FoxN

Goodbye libtard lifer leeches in cable fee media land, and take your halloween hag with you

Batb has it right. The CRTC needs to hear from 'real people' - those who believe in not only free speech, but freedom to choose.

I've sent my support for Sun Media and a complaint about interference by MoveOn.org to the CRTC.

I know many of you will do the same.

Truth, as well as light, forces cockroaches to scurry into deeper hiding places..

After claiming the lighted spots, it behooves us to delve into the darkened corners to eradicate what is left of the vermin, who will only breed anew if left undisturbed.

Sun TV is that big 'ole can of Raid, lefties..

Atwood obviously got her fame because of the fact it was a time that the publishers wanted to show how progressive they where by promoting a female writer. This is obvious to anyone that has tried to read one of her books.

Generally in the US system of arts and entertainment the cream rises to the top, and for the most part that works, shitty writers/musicians etc don't last long down there. In Turdopepia we have this dope Atwood and Rita Mcneil, the likes of Paul Wells,Larence,Jeffery and every other shitty writer vying for the grants along with George Fox, Nellie Furtado The Wilkinsons etc vying for factor grants in music. That is why this garbage is even noticed in Canada, the fact that taxpayer money was wasted to sway a fool to buy a book or a Cd of some last rated loser with the time to chase the paperwork for a grant. Lets grow up Canada, and lose the lieberal operating procedure of making something out of garbage and the Attwoods and all the other meat dresses etc will die, isnt it funny that the very ones that totally believe in evolution/liberals, never evolve themselves.

gimbol...Margaret Laurence was a contempory , Canadian female. Her stories were about real people, and readable.
She was not part of Trawnna elite, tho, so she was bypassed.

Great response from Teneycke:

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/2010/09/02/15230201.html

Clinical tests have proven that Atwood's writing is useful in the treatment of insomnia. However, long-term exposure to her drivel has a nasty side effect: chronic diarrhoea.

Re bluetech's remarks about Margaret Laurence: Her writing is emotionally and intellectually compelling.

Perhaps that's because she spent 20 years (1949 - 1969) in England and Africa, where she received a much broader perspective on the world. That international exposure spared her novels from cloying "Canadian content" becoming one of the main characters.

Is that Arnie Lemaire in drag? Not bad. Rowr-rrr....

On the very popular "Althouse" blog was a discussion about reading & authors. From there came these comments about Atwood:

#1 - Remember "Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood? Written in 1985, it argued that we were headed toward a Christian theocracy where women would be chattel.

Stupid beyond belief, right? Couldn't be more wrong. Oddly, Atwood's reputation hasn't suffered a bit for writing such a profoundly idiotic book.

She was wrong about everything. Feminism controls the courts and administrative offices. The diktats of feminism have been imposed on us by administrative fiat.

And the threat of a theocracy comes from Islam, not the west.

And, yet, it seemed to convincing to feminists and liberals at the time. It was total bullshit, ginned up so that white women could get more stuff.

#2 - I've never seen the movie of The Handmaid's Tale.

I read the book.

The book indicted western culture and Christianity.

It was an idiot thesis by a spoiled brat white woman.

It should have destroyed Atwood's career.

Handmaid's Tale, the movie, isn't bad. Or rather, it's bad enough to be fun. I've always thought it would make an ideal double bill with Red Dawn, as they were obviously intended to be poles apart and yet they have a great deal in common, such as shit for brains.

I read the book completely cold, having paid no attention to Atwood except for some of her early poetry, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was side-splittingly funny, and as savage a takedown of feminism as anything I'd ever read. I was a bit taken aback to learn that Atwood hadn't actually intended it that way.