Embarrassing the Angels
I’m not sure if I should thank my friend Ell (of Wilful Damage fame) for pointing me to this inane essay from Peggy Noonan, but she did it, and the damage (wilful or otherwise) is done.
Noonan’s upset because she got felt up going through airport security. Not by a man, but by a woman; a woman doing the thankless job of trying to make a sure an radical chechen woman doesn’t sneak a bomb onto a plane in her bra while impatient bos/wash corridor movers and shakers jet from New York to DC to Boston and back again. (In fact, she hysterically compares the experience to second degree rape, an insult to the woman doing the thankless task of insuring her safety, and rape victims everywhere.)
Noonan thinks this brusk treatment is a symptom of an increasingly indecorous society, one that features prime time ads for viagra and yeast treatments, and one that offends her delicate, lady-like sensibilitites. But worse than offending Noonan, she’s also concludes it “embarrasses the angels”. Writes Noonan:
“You are embarrassing the angels.” This is what I intend to say for the next 40 days whenever I see someone who is hurting the culture, hurting human dignity, denying the stature of a human being. I mean to say it with belief, with an eye to instruction, but also pointedly, uncompromisingly. As a lady would. All invited to join in.
I’d like to invite Noonan to shut her self-righteous, sanctimonious piehole.
Since when does being a political writer and commentator make anyone an expert on what does or does not embarrass the angels?
I had always presumed that when I get my wings I would flit about, unconcerned with mundane terrestrial matters – like whether or not the transcontinental flight I’ll be taking next week (with my angelic little daughters) will be blown out of the sky, or turned into a guided missle. To never again be worried or embarrassed or otherwise concerened about such things, that’s my idea of heaven. If you know better, Ms. Noonan, I’ll thank you to keep it to yourself.
(The brassiest broad I know tells me it’s the ladylike thing to do.)
April 9th, 2006 at 6:09 am
Yes, but, the problem here is not so much that this political writer is taking on the feathery trappings of religious sensibilities, but that she’s doing it in a way that continues the very hegemonic and ultimately anti-feminist ideology that invests women with moral rectitude.
The angels, culture tells us, are not sexless. They are sexed and they are women. Ladies, really. And so what really rubs my skin raw with burning here is the idea that white “ladies” should have the moral upper hand, that white “ladies” should be spared potentially indecorous and undignified treatment because they are too delicate to withstand it, that white “ladies” know best.
Fuck that noise. In fact, fuck ladydom. Give me womanhood, warts, yeast infections, sexual desire and all. Give me my flawed body and give me respect.
Embarrass the angels, my white womanly ass.
April 9th, 2006 at 6:41 am
Yes, yes, yes, moral rectitute, hegemony, warts, blah blah blah…
What really bothers me is waking up on a Sunday morning to the thought that I’ll spend entirnity being embarrassed every time some matron gets her tit squeezed by a dark and dykey security guard.
How Noonan comes to this understanding of the ever-after, I don’t know. But it’s a terribly depressing vision of how I’ll spend eternity, and I wish she’d have kept it to herself.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:26 am
Did you just “blah blah blah” me?
Wow.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Yes I did blah blah blah you. I think you’re too wrapped up in how you get treated here in this lifetime to see that Noonan’s making dire predictions on how I’m going to spend eternity. Where are your priorities!
April 9th, 2006 at 7:38 am
In the words of a fellow Eastender, I’d rather die with the sinners than live with the saints, yadda yadda yadda, which is kind of like blah blah blah, but not.
And won’t somebody please think of the children?
April 9th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
God Lord, that woman needs a reality check. I’ve been “felt up’ by airport security a dozen times or more (I fly about 8 times a year), and every time they’ve been very respectful and kind about it, and never once have I felt violated or upset by it. It’s their job to keep us safe, and if that means feeling me up, then damnit, I feel safer for them doing it.
The angels are probably laughing their asses off at Ms Noonan’s ridiculousness
April 9th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
You sir, are a lady.
It’s a sad view of heaven, blushing angels tiptoeing across clouds littered with the carcasses of little kittens…
April 17th, 2006 at 4:04 am
[...] I have no problem with Michael or anyone else deciding that it’s not worth the risk to do business in places like Alabama or Tennessee, Western Pennsylvania, or any of the other places in this country where you can go to jail for embarrassing the angels. My favorite sex retailers have banned zipcodes built into their shipping software. It’s the wise and prudent thing to do. [...]