Vanity Fair writer seem to make up her mind about political philosopher, activist, and person-around-town Arianna Huffington
In the December, 2005, issue of
Vanity Fair, the glitzy-yet-hard-hitting magazine that chronicles the doings of the global elite in fashion, politics, business, and culture generally, in a feature article entitled "Arianna Calling!", writer Suzanna Andrews can't seem to make up her mind about her subject.
(For comments from someone who can, on the
Reason: Hit and Run web site, click
here.)
Ms. Huffington is described in the piece as variously: a self-centered and opportunistic social climber, very attractive, super-smart, evolving, hypocritical, devoted to her two girls, witty, and busy.
The author is not quite sure about her relationship to a self-help author who calls himself John-Roger, either.
ancient words from the profile subjects' mouths
In order to help its audience members form their own opinion about Ms. Huffington and, for that matter, her relationship with John-Roger,
California Politics Today is pleased to reprise two audio recordings from its archives that may shed some light on these issues.
live, from the 1999 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA
These recordings feature interviews with Arianna Huffington and John-Roger conducted within a few minutes of each other in Kirchoff Hall on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) during the 1999 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which takes place there each spring.
John-Roger discusses The Spiritual Warrior and his relationship with Arianna Huffington
The first one is with John-Roger, who discusses his recently-published book
The Spiritual Warrior. To listen to that interview, click
here.
To listen to John-Roger talking about Arianna Huffington, click
here.
Here's a transcript of
questions and "John-Roger's answers" in that audio segment:
I was being briefed by some of my colleagues a few minutes before this interview and they mentioned, or reminded me actually, that your name had been brought up in connection with the person I'm hoping to interview in a few more minutes, Arianna Huffington…
"Yes, I know her very well."
What was, or is, the nature of the relationship between you as people and in terms of your ideas, if you want to talk about that, too.
"We have very parallel ideas of attempting to do the best we can in the world. I met Arianna, gee, over 20 years ago in London and it's one of those things where you look at somebody and they look at you and you go, we're going to be friends for a long, long time and that has been very true."
What specifically in her intellectual/spiritual development do you—you don't have to take credit, but you can if you want—do you think you contributed to?
"All of it. No… [laughs] 100 percent enthusiasm here. I would say that she would have a divergent point of view, because she's very widely-read, she's very intelligent. Pick up a subject and she'll go with you on it."
To buy a copy of the book he's talking about back in 1999, click on the link from Amazon.com below:
Arianna Huffington talks about Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom and, well, herself
To listen to the interview with Arianna Huffington talking about
Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom, at the point in her "journey" when she hung suspended between right-wing ideologue and left-wing rabble rouser, click
here.
To buy her scathing parody of life in the Clinton White House immediately before and during "Monicagate," click on the link from Amazon.com below:
"changing the world"
A constant theme of the article is Arianna's always-changing expression of commitment to "change the world," from whichever position she's taking that day, coupled with an equally steady suspicion that everything she does is designed merely, or primarily, to call attention to herself and her brilliant mind. Is there a contradiction here? Not if you understand that what Arianna means by "change the world" is "get the world to pay more attention to me, me, me!"
another party heard from
An earlier, and perhaps equally-or-more-brilliant Greek philosopher than Arianna,
Archimedes, is not as widely-quoted these days as is the Brentwood revolutionary (he had no blog or talk-show slot) but one of the things he's reported to have said still bears repeating: "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
He's not on record having said anything about moving the world from a constantly-changing position.
Join the "California Politics Today™" mailing list (unless you're already on another Etopia Media mailing list)
Get into the swing of things with additional Etopia Media News Network articles and interviews and Google Alerts