Little boxes, all the same

I’ll just put forth a few quotes from an article in today’s NYT Week in Review and try hard to refrain from commenting. I am aiming for a cheerful day. No need to start a downward spiral with writing paragraphs upon paragraphs about what’s wrong with this world, or at least with what is described as our world.

(From “Kerry’s Lesson: Lambeau Rhymes With Rambo”)

The key interview in this year’s presidential campaign was not with any of the big national newspapers or newsweeklies. It was for the October issue of Field & Stream magazine. John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, gave the magazine a half-hour phone interview. [well okay, big deal] President Bush went further, granting a private tour of his Texas ranch, and a long sit-down to the editor, Sid Evans. [oh brother.]

The candidates are…courting the newest niche demographic: the rod-and-gun voter. [great.]
(They are also) after something much more basic: proving their manliness. [that just thrills me no end.]

The Republicans are working hard to portray (Kerry) as.. a “girlie man.” It seems to be working. Sports Illustrated readers overwhelmingly voted Mr. Bush the better athlete and sports fan [dumb dumb dumb readers, for this reason:], a conclusion the magazine’s managing editor, Terry McDonell, finds baffling. “Clearly Kerry is the a much much much much better athlete,” he said, noting that Mr. Kerry has long played competitive hockey and also regularly snowboards, Rollerblades, windsurfs and kite-surfs. “Kite-surfing…is the hardest, most radical thing to do…” Mr. Bush, in contrast, was a cheerleader, and not, Mr. McDonnell notes, the kind that did flips.
[then we have this long stretch of writing about the Lambeau field thing again; enough already!]

Mr. McDonnell puzzled over what all this shooting and fishing had to do with being leader of the free world….Helen Fisher, an anthropologist at Rutgers (says) [watch now, here come the boxes, little boxes, And they're all made out of ticky-tacky, And they all look just the same] “Bush wants to be seen as masculine…because masculinity is associated with assertiveness and competence and judgment and team-playing and a host of traits that men aspire to and women adore.” [No comment. Really, I just can’t. Grrrrr.]