American Prospect
An apparently humorless AmPro intellectualoid
catalogues specimens of what very well might qualify
as the magazine’s ideal mums:
A mother tells her child that Haagen Dazs is a special medicine
for mommies because she doesn’t want to share. Another purposely
ruins her daughter’s favorite T-shirt with red nail polish. One
joins Weight Watchers so she has a place to go by herself once a
week. Another mom admits, “I can’t wait to wean my daughter so I
can get stoned again.”
(April 2009)
The Progressive
Interviewed by another glassy-eyed scrivener from
imbecility’s Old Faithful, one Miss Arundhati Roy,
described by the New York Times as
“India’s most impassioned critic of
globalization and American influence,” plays the role of
the late historian Edward Gibbon bending over the
corpse not of Rome but of
Washington, D.C.:
Q: What was your response to Obama’s election?
Roy: The fact that the American people wanted a change, that
they wanted something else, meant a lot, because the last time they
wanted the same guy back, which was devastating. So this makes me
feel better about the American people.$T Obama is going to be
presiding over perhaps the debacle, the undoing, of the American
empire. And that doesn’t need to worry the American people, because
the Romans are still around and the Brits are still around, and the
Americans will still be around and might be slightly more relaxed.
It might be easier to be an American when there isn’t an American
empire.
(March 2009)
Marie Claire
On the occasion of Earth Month, a shapely editrix
serves up eight libidinous items for Marie
Claire’s slutty readership. We pass on but
four, out of concern for our readers’ sexual
hygiene:
Eco-Sex
In honor of Earth Day, some green playthings to spruce up your
sex life:
1) Love Yourself, Love Your Planet. Take
landfill-clogging batteries out of the equation
with Sola, a small bullet-shaped vibrator powered
by the sun. ($69.95; shop.libida.com)
4) Wet and Wild. Lube up with Hathor Aphrodisia’s
Lubricant Pure, an organic formula made from seven
plant-based ingredients and fortified with
libido-boosting Chinese herbs, like horny goat
weed. ($18.50; smittenkitten online.com)
5) S&M with a Conscience. Earth Erotics’ Standard Recycled
Rubber Whip is a handcrafted spanker made
from recycled car and truck tire parts. ($40;
eartherotics.com)
8) Give Some, Get Some. Trade in your broken Rabbit
and wornout handcuffs for a $10 coupon and free
shipping on your next sex toy through the mail-in Sex
Toy Recycling Program (recycle mysextoy.com).
Sorry, curbside pickup not available.
(April 2009)
New York Times Book Review
More evidence of intellectual torpor at the
moribund Times as filed by Philip W. Bennett,
whistleblower?
To the Editor:
With reference to the musical talents of the Wittgensteins, your
reviewer did not mention the prodigious whistling talents of
Ludwig, the philosopher. It is reported that Ludwig could whistle
the entire parts of string quartets along with those playing
instruments. When he visited the United States in 1949 as a guest
of Norman Malcolm of Cornell, Malcolm reports, Wittgenstein
whistled whole symphonies on the drive from New York City to
Ithaca.
Philip W. Bennett
Hamden, Conn.
(March 22,
2009)
The New Republic
Another sad effort at humor from one of the
New Republic’s legendary teacher’s pets laboriously
improvising under the fanciful title “The
Lesser-Known Think Tanks of
Washington”:
Heritage Foundation RAW The new home for policy recommendations
too crazy conservative for the Heritage Foundation. Rejecting the
sissified scholarship of “Red” Roger Ailes and “Comrade Kristol,”
Heritage RAW’s all-white, all-decrepit roster advances an
outlandishly reactionary platform in rooms so smoke-filled it is
said that members can only identify each other by their hacking
coughs. At a recent meat-and-potatoes breakfast meeting, resident
scholars discussed abolishing the minimum wage in favor of a
“suggested donation,” erecting a 700-mile fence to secure the
U.S.-California border, and a visionary plan to privatize the House
of Representatives.
(April 1,
2009)
New York Times
More repulsive effusions from one of our nation’s
lunatic fruitarians:
To the Editor:
Re “Obama to Eat Local Produce (Really Local)” (front page,
March 20): The Obamas’ organic vegetable and herb garden will
result in several things: First, the Obamas, along with the
countless others inspired to plant their own organic gardens, will
be eating fresher, tastier, better for the environment, healthier
food while saving money at the same time.
They will experience one of the most powerful ways of connecting
with, and developing a love for, the natural world, an experience
that has been largely lost to modern society. And they will
contribute to reducing our country’s greenhouse gas emissions, as
less produce would need to be shipped great distances.
But as one who grows heirloom apples in central Massachusetts, I
would encourage the Obamas to make a more permanent imprint on the
White House lawn as well, by planting an orchard. Shouldn’t our
president’s home be graced with America’s first named apple (the
Roxbury Russett, from the 1630s), Washington’s favorite apple (the
Newtown Pippin) and Jefferson’s (the Esopus Spitzenburg)? Is there
anything more American or more beautiful than an apple orchard?
Of course, because apple trees take years before they begin to
bear fruit, it will be necessary for the Obamas to be in residence
for more than one term so that they will be able to reap what they
have so wisely sown.
Eric Chivian
Boston, March 21, 2009
The writer is director of the Center for Health and the
Global Environment at Harvard Medical
School
From the Archives
Timeless Tosh from current Wisdoms Past (May
1989)
Los Angeles Times Magazine
The battle between the sexes gets rough, as the godlike
Susan Littwin reports from the aerobics field of
honor:
I’m middle-aged and middle-class and I have no history of
violence. In fact, the only thing I do with any physical force at
all is exercise, and I do that in a fancy health club in the
Valley. So I surprised myself a few weeks ago when I nearly came to
blows with a half-naked man in my aerobics class. The man had
planted himself front and center in a fast-paced class and refused
to budge when the class began moving back and forth across the
room. He just stood there, doing his own little duck paddle. When I
crossed what he considered to be his territory, he pushed
me—hard. This was no warning nudge. This was an outright mean
shove.
I turned on him like a kid in a schoolyard fight. The music
stopped; luckily, no fists flew. We stood toe to toe, eyes blazing.
“Don’t you ever push me again!” I said, teeth clenched. “You’d
better watch out!” he lashed back, jaw jutting.
Never mind that I felt foolish. What matters to me now is
why I was so angry with this otherwise unprepossessing
middle-aged man. At the time, I just felt that he was an intruder,
an intolerably male and self-important intruder.
The truth is—and I’m fully aware that I’ll be called a reverse
sexist, but I’ve lived with direct sexism a long time, and now it’s
my turn—I’m highly annoyed by men in aerobics classes.
(February 5,
1989)
San Francisco Chronicle
The auspicious consequences of an all-bran supper
on Art:
In Milwaukee, Kevin (G.G.) Allin, 32, a member of the group
Toilet Rockers, has been charged with disorderly conduct after a
performance in which he allegedly cut himself with glass, exposed
himself to the audience, and defecated on stage.
“I’ve done it before, but I don’t do it at every show,” he said.
“I don’t want to be predictable.”
(March 3, 1989)
