Tuesday, 25 April 2006

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Hernandez Comment Up-Ends a Century of Feminist Progress SAN DIEGO — Mets color commentator Keith Hernandez rolled back a century of feminist progress during the second inning of Saturday's victory over the San Diego Padres. "I won't say women belong in the kitchen," Hernandez said, "but they don't belong in the dugout." The words had hardly left his mouth before professional women across the country suddenly found themselves in the kitchen preparing steamed vegetables for Mike and Little Suzy. "Dinner's ready!" said Rose Serels, former vice president of global securities services for Chase Manhattan Bank. Myrna Friedman, a former partner in the soon-to-be-renamed Arlington law firm Sargeant & Friedman, agreed. "If you don't finish your string beans," said the former litigator for the US Navy Office of General Counsel, "you won't get any desset." Former Chief Information Officer for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Susan O'Day, declined our request for an interview on account that it was almost bathtime. The woman in the dugout, former Padres' massage therapist Kelly Calabrese, was digusted and would have said something if it was her place to. "If God had intended me to be heard," said the spitting image of Jennifer Aniston, "He wouldn't have made me so pretty. Now what do you think of my new eyeliner? Do you think Jim will like it?" But there are some women happy with the change. Pulitzer Prize-winner and former Times columnist Maureen Dowd noted how it would be easier to find a suitable husband now that she was a suitable wife. "Who could love someone who didn't spend at least three hours a week cutting the crust off peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches?" "All those years, I spent reading books and writing columns failed to land me a Prince Charming. A few hours a day on my knees will change that." She added, "Scrubbing toilets. On my knees scrubbing toilets." Others are not sure. "Who does that guy think he is?" asked an irate former law professor who asked not to be identified for fear her husband would retaliate for her speaking when not spoken to. "He was as graceful around the bag as any first baseman ever to play to sport. I give him that. But to turn back the clock on women's issues with a single sentence? What right does he have to do that?" He has every right, according to legal expert Tim Dwight. "Women these days feel a real but entirely undeserved sense of entitlement." He then asked "Did you hear the one about the woman and the computer? No? So what's the difference between a woman and a computer? You only have to punch information into a computer once." When reached for comment, Padres manager Bruce Bochy shrugged his shoulders and said "I didn't think gender was even an issue anymore." And now, thanks to Keith Hernandez, it isn't.
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A Cross-Post Below, a Gift Above Tonight I confess my love for Matthew Sweet. Girlfriend in particular. But his "Devil with the Green Eyes," off Altered Beast, may be my favorite song. Unfortunately, technical difficulties prevent me from sharing anything. So instead I'll let Holbo share by proxy. Last weekend, he introduced me to an album almost too indulgent to believe. Sweet teamed with Susanna Hoffs—yes, that Susanna Hoffs—on Under the Covers, an album worth its weight in warm fuzzy nostalgia. Hoffs' voice is as evocative now as it was when she hieroglyphed 'cross the screen twice daily on Nick Rocks! I know you're dying for a couple of samples. Too bad! You'll have to live with three of the worst songs on the album. Please, do not purchase the album and hear the rest of the songs, all of which are better than those three. (Although, good or no, the nostalgia's almost overwhelming enough to render those satisfying. They aren't. You crave the rest.) [Edit: No more gifts! I've overshot my bandwidth allotment and . . . suspect TypePad may be unhappy about that.] [What follows is a version of my initial response to the Spivak event. It seemed inappropriate earlier. I lacked the time to edit my complaints constructively last week, and still do. But I post them nonetheless, if only to deflate some preposterous claims forwarded elsewhere. I hide it all below the fold since it likely bores the lot of you. That said, it contains many pretty pictures, which we can discuss in isolation from the silly words which surround them. This will, however, be my final word on the matter.] Caravaggio, "Doubting Thomas" Mark Tansey, "Doubting Thomas" As I read Spivak's "Scattered Speculation," I thought it strange that this text was forwarded as a counter-example. How could it not be considered highly eclectic? In tone and diction; in the allusive style of its argument; in its constant quotations from the traditional roster thinkers associated with what I'd call Theory, I could hardly think of a more illustrative example of the form. I was baffled. So I devised some scenarios. What some thought would happen: As everyone surrounded the figure they believed Jesus reanimate, I required solid evidence. I would have to pluck the wound. Once done, the other apostles would be proven correct. Our faith would become fact. Spivak would not be an example of Higher Eclecticism once I engaged her work seriously. What actually happened: As I stood in the middle road, I could not believe that ground had opened beneath our wheels. I had been a passenger, brought to this fissure by another, and she seemed unconcerned. Unbelieving. She stared at me, hand on shifter, oblivious to the altered rock face behind her. She would never believe what had happened. She would insist that Spivak was not an example of Higher Eclecticism despite abundant geological evidence to the contrary. In truth, she would floor the accelerator and wax triumphant when she reached her destination. "Could you imagine such idiocy?"...

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