Ellen Goodman The Boston Globe

December 29, 2009


Ellen Goodman
The Boston Globe
135 Morrissey Street
Boston, MA. 02205

RE: Is this the end of “Little Rica”? Is that what your column in today’s Dallas Morning News says? If so, farewell to one of my favorite piñatas.

Ellie! Sweetheart!

Based on the new picture attached to your column a few months ago I know what your new career will be.

You are going to franchise retail Cougar outlets. There may be a market for ancient bearded clams. If so, you are ahead of the curve. Plus there is nothing more carbon neutral.

Colonel Sanders was 65 when he took his birds public. If there isn’t a market for arthritic “Afternoon Delights” the solution is typically American. Create one. Down South they are called ‘Nooners”.

Meanwhile, based on your last column, congratulations are in order.

Your paean to progesterone has, a la James Joyce, expanded our language. Solipsism is no longer an individual trait. You’ve made it a group characteristic.

Whatever progress has been made by women is because of WOMEN.

Am I the first to notice that the chicks’ progress is coincident with your career as an ink stained wench?

I am fighting the temptation to toss in Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc because it came from Dead White European Males. Since you are heading to a new life at the Medicare assisted Mustang Ranch I’ll do my best to overcome this heretofore irresistible impulse.

You say “nearly a quarter-million women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan” and that “120 have died and 650 have been wounded but there is still no ERA”. Logic would dictate that if the Amazon Brigade under the stalwart leadership of Brigadier Bodacia, ably assisted by Gunnery Sergeant Mikulski and Shalala the sublime sapper, were to replace the 173rd Infantry Brigade their casualty rate would go up dramatically. The ERA would become part of the Constitution by acclamation. While you’re at it you could begin to end the gender disparity in Arlington Cemetery.

Your verbal ca-ca includes the oft-repeated shibboleth that chicks are paid 77% of what guys make. If that is the case I can’t imagine how you spent the last 40 years as an underpaid wage slave. Did you have to make coffee for the bosses? Did you have to make meat loaf for the company rarees? Is there anything else you want to share with us?
Were you doing the Monica before Monica? If you did you have an obligation to the newly arriving female scribes. To tell them to keep their MACE and their self respect handy.

You take the obligatory modern American Liberal poke at Sarah Palin by calling her a “Title 1X baby”. You succeed in making it sound like a 4 letter word. How would you describe the “wise Latina” currently sitting on the Supreme Court?

Who gets the credit for Paris Hilton? Are there any volunteers?

Other than you there is only one other columnist in Boston with whom I am familiar. I will send a copy of this farewell note to Howie Carr. I am certain he will pass the hat to help finance your move.

Maybe you could read up on Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher to see how they overcame gender and class to become leaders. Did they have Affirmative Action on the kibbutz or at Oxbridge?

God luck in your new venture



Kevin Smith