In the Spirit of the Season
If memory serves, the film “Miracle on 34th Street,” featured a Santa who worked for Macy’s, but scandalized management by, occasionally, sending customers across the street to arch-rival, Gimbel’s.
I shall follow Santa’s lead and direct dotCommers to the First Things website for RJN’s latest foray against the old gray lady. Here he’s just warming up:
There they all are, all forty-three of them. Their pictures take up the better part of the front page of this Sunday’s “Week in Review” section of the New York Times.
Underneath the pictures is the headline of the story by Adam Nagourney,
“The Pattern May Change, if . . .” Aha, so there’s a pattern we’re
supposed to detect. The Times regularly reminds us that its
readership is highly educated, and I like to think that I’m no slouch
when it comes to detecting patterns, so I study the pictures carefully.
Pattern,
pattern, what’s the pattern? Well, all forty-three were, and one still
is, president of the United States. Most are middle-aged or older. The
more recent ones are smiling for their picture. But I have the sense
I’m not getting the pattern that the Times wants me to get. And
then there it is, right before my eyes. Recognizing that even highly
educated readers may need some help, the editors put the clue to the
pattern under each and every picture: “White Male.” Is it really
possible? I go back and study the pictures again and, sure enough,
every one of them is a person of pallor and every one is a man. There
does indeed seem to be a pattern here.
To continue, follow the reindeer …..
Et tu Roberte! Further how did you come down from the heavens to contemplate the dregs of patriarchy. As usual RJN is adept at framing.
Blame the critical NYTimes and cage a woman advancing. Focus on the radical black leader from Brooklyn and cage Black person as a candidate.
I refuse to believe that Mary Ann Glendon agrees with this patriarch.
I’m always amazed and impressed at how far our former Lutheran pastor will go to make a superfluous point. The NYT was simply pointing out the historical significance that, possibly, in the 2008 presidential election, American voters MIGHT be presented with the unique possibility of voting for (on the Democratic ticket) either a woman or an African-American for the first time in our history. I guess when one is an editor of a small magazine, striving for influence beyond its small coterie of readers, one tries to make a big splash on the blogs…. Of course, one can understand his pique, given the high esteem with with our current president is accorded by most Americans (even those not in the intellectual elite) and people around the world.
Here in the land of enchantment, where the fajalitos and luminarias are glowing and las posadas has already been started to be celebrated, there’s even more – maybe a latino president, senor Richardson.
Those of us who don’t celebrate the old boys club model and rejoice in the diversity of our country, state and Church – including women, as far as the latter goes, – this holiday Christmas, Hannukah, Kwannza season finds joy in the Week in Review…
and, in the latest diocesan paper here, that our local black Catholic community wil celbrate the gifts of Kwanza on a special day this year. Terrific, huh?
One can certainly gush over Obama or (admittedly, stretching things a tad) drool over Hillary and still find, with Neuhaus, the fatuity of the Times risible.
As Marc Antony oft declaimed: “AGNOSCITE, PRECOR, LINGUAM IN GENA.”
If the WiR piece is to be faulted for belaboring the obvious, what exactly do you think Fr. Neuhaus’s 1,200-word riff offers his highly educated readership? (The Nagourney piece is also 1,200 words.)
Grant,
a chuckle — a commodity in short supply.
Long joke.
Now you’re getting it!
I like it. Person of pallor.
Such hysterics about First Things. Amusing, then, that Commonweal just hired a new editor who comes from First Things. Or at least I think that’s the case. Looks to be the same name.