a turning point: the first time a childhood friend is assailed as a Saidean post-colonialist

I had a wonderful shehecheyanu moment last week when my friend frances came to visit. She pointed me to an article on David Horowitz's website that in part responded to an article she had written. It took her on by name:

When I first read this and similar post-colonialist and Saidean outbursts that run through the article, I thought I had stumbled on to a brilliant undergraduate parody of the reigning ideology of Orientalism on the Columbia campus similar to the famous hoax perpetrated on the radical postmodernist journal Social Text by the physicist Allan Sokol. My suspicion was strengthened by what seemed like the writer’s wink in referring to Said’s Orientalism as “Columbia’s unofficial core book.” But after investigating further, I discovered that no parody was intended. Frances Kreimer, the author of the article, is everything she says she is: a senior majoring in MEALAC and concentrating in “Human Rights,” a nice Jewish girl from Philadelphia whose mother is a Reform rabbi.
Wherever he is, Edward Said must be looking down (or up) on his campus and smiling. So does his anti-Western academic revolution move ahead, one student and one cup of coffee at a time.

Nevermind that Frances' mom is a former head of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and not a reform rabbi by any count. The real issue here is that I am incredibly proud to have a friend worthy of being attacked by the establishment wingnuts. Frances, you keep that revolution moving forward one cup of coffee at a time!