Thelma & Louise in Miami

November 28, 2008

Maria E. Roberts
Laura Morilla
@ The Miami Herald – Op Ed Contributors
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: God but the bobos are in ascendancy or, perhaps, the boobies are running the hatch. A comment on your article entitled “Pay equity belongs in stimulus package” in today’s Miami Herald.

Ms Roberts and Ms Morilla,

An article that ends with the following sentence

“For women, this legislation would signify a level
playing field, which is the promise of our democracy.”

must be examined closely lest the fallacious Logic and the appalling ignorance of empirical evidence be enshrined.

Your premise, one that says women are paid 77% of what men are paid for similar work, is denied. In Rhetoric, denial of the major premise requires that proof be presented to buttress said premise.

Colin Powell succeeded Madeline Albright as Secretary of State. Did he get a pay raise for the same job because he has testicles? When Condoleeza Rice succeeded him did she get a pay cut because she has ovaries?

Hillary Clinton, the presumptive nominee for Secretary for State, is a United States Senator from New York. Is she paid 77% of what Senator Charles Schumer earns?

Your solution for the problem [alleged] of gender pay discrimination is to make victims [alleged] eligible for compensatory and punitive damages. Should an imperiled Pauline prevail at the trail level and the case is appealed should Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse herself from hearing it because she is only paid 77% of what the rest of the Court is paid?

Your article was published in the Miami Herald. The Herald is owned by McClatchy, a publicly held company. Are any female reporters paid 77% of what their male counterparts are paid? If they are you should have refused to submit your article for publication until they bring those long suffering chickies up to par.

The brief bio under your asinine polemic says that Maria E. Roberts is the “past Chairperson of the Miami-Dade County Commission for Women”. It says that “Laura Morilla is the commission’s program officer”. Would it be sign of my naïveté or would it be a manifestation of curmudgeonly ball busting if I were to ask if there is a male equivalent?

Do you know of any female employee of Miami-Dade County, of any female employee of the Board of Education, of any female employee of any city or town who is paid 77% of what a male equivalent is paid?

Did you know that a 40 year old woman will pay life insurance premiums greatly reduced from what a 40 year old male will pay? Should the gender discrimination be addressed by raising the female premium or lowering the male premium?

In my many trips to Arlington Cemetery I have noticed an enormous discrepancy between the number of male dead and female dead. Should we have an emergency Affirmative Action program – quotas, not goals – until the number of dead grunts [female] equals the number of dead grunts [male]?

I return, almost unable to contain my bladder, to your mush brained, moronic idea of a “level playing field”. Should such a thing exist – in the real world, in the world occupied by men AND women where such thoughts are on a par with the tooth fairy and Mulligans – it would be akin to Dr. Johnson’s famous “preaching woman”. It would be “like a dog walking on its hind legs”. Forget how well it does it but ask “why does it do it at all”.

I search in vain for any reference to a “level playing field” in any of the founding documents. Alas, we have done away with dunking pools. If we still had them both of you would have had gills by now.

Before getting your no doubt lovely knickers in a knot I suggest you look up the phrase “Free men speak with free tongues”. Antigone, my favorite Hellenic wench, did not say it.