In the News
Janet Maslin, former film critic at The New York Times and now a book reviewer who specializes in popular numbers that I probably wouldn't be able to get through (why is bad fiction so hard to read?), writes a saucy piece about Sarah Dunant's new tale of the Venetian Renaissance, In the Company of the Courtesan, in today's paper.
We know from many examples, among them Memoirs of a Geisha, that readers can be entranced by the erotica of female subjugation if it appears to be culturally uplifting. Ms Dunant knows how to play this idea like a lute.
In other news of female subjugation, Eduardo Porter's front-page headline tosses a spanner in the works: "Stretched to Limit, Women Stall March to Work." Cathie Watson-Short, photographed not once but twice for this article, is a former technology executive who has put aside her career to raise her three daughters, tells Mr Porter,
Most of us thought we would work and have kids, at least that was what we were brought up thinking we would do - no problem. But really we were kind of duped. None of us realized how hard it is.
So much for the land of ambition, hard work, and the rolling-up of sleeves. As for subjugation in the past, don't miss Bob Herbert's excoriation of Senator Conrad Burns (R, MT).
It has always been this way with Conrad Burns. Back in 1991, immediately after a civil rights bill had been passed, he invited a group of lobbyists, some of them white and some of them black, to accompany him to an auction.
When asked what was being auctioned, he replied, "Slaves."
The Washington Post quoted one of the lobbyists as saying: "We were floored. We couldn't believe it." Senator Burns later said he was talking about a charitable auction in which the services of individuals are sold.
Where are my Virginia Slims?
