Plus, Th' Fuck Keeps Fruit In A Cellar?

WASN'T the Sell-by date for this shit, like, 1983? At whom, exactly, is something like Cristina Nehring's A Vindication of Love: Reclaiming Romance for the Twenty-first Century being hurled (aside from Megan Cox Gurdon, that is)? I know it's too much to ask that Slate not hand the thing over to Meghan O'Rourke, et. al., to see if they couldn't wring all the non-triviality out of it, if any, because Slate is on a mission to destroy Life as We Know It, on the grounds that anything Slate says or does guarantees its opposite.

Okay, sure, I'm two months "late", as it were, as though this is the sort of thing one ought to stay right on top of, as though a tiresome polemic scoring a strawomyn Feminism the ranter is happy to benefit from otherwise isn't forty years late before it reaches the packing line. Was there some panicked study that noted our nation's dwindling Wealthy, Rapidly-Middle-Aging, Ivy-and-Seven-Sister-Educated White Women with Artificially-Flavored Literary Chips on their Shoulders Because Shopping Is No Longer Considered a Respectable Career Path in Some Circles resources that I missed?

Oh, but of course, Nehring's is no straight exchange of once-living trees for simple Feminist bashing, oh no. Because otherwise she wouldn't be praised for avoiding simple Feminist bashing. By Megan Cox Gurdon:

Not that feminism has been a total bust, of course; legal equality and the expectation of female sexual satisfaction are surely pleasant results of centuries of activism. Ms. Nehring concedes this but notes: "We need not trash feminism's flowers to dispose of the rotting fruit in its cellar."

How much longer is this shit supposed to work (other than on Megan Cox Gurdon)? Some of my best friends are!

And look; I'm not without a heart. I was too young to drive at the time, but allow me to apologize to y'all for the Sixties and all that Equality stuff anyway. Believe me, had we been able to look into the future and seen that the succeeding generation of overripe debutantes would find their own Class subsumed by the wrong sort of vapidity we'd have just kept our mouths shut, I'm sure.

But y'know what? If there's Something Lacking in the Romance Department in my little corner of what people who live in Paris and Los Angeles (Nehring's The Nation bio. No. Really. ) refer to as Where? I'll guarantee you it's not caused by shrill Feminist harpies demanding desexed marriage contracts and down-the-line equality, though it might be due to excessive drinking and pill consumption caused by the need to sleep occasionally despite the constant, ear-splitting drumbeat of consumerist crap and phony issues.

At least there's no gambling going on in this establishment! And speaking of inexplicable book deals, Tom Ridge hits the hustings reveaing (gasp!) that he might've been pressured into raising the Terra Threat Alert Level (just a little!) right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention for political reasons, which is like revealing that the Titanic sank because it was in the water at the time.

So, Mr. Secretary, we'll ask you the same question we keep asking Colin Powell, but he's busy saving our educational system: Why didn't you resign? Was it because loyalty to a political campaign took precedence over loyalty to the country? Was it because the whole $Trillions-wasting operation was just a big game? Or was it because you figured the advance money would be better in a few years?