CSotD: Lysistrata doesn’t live here anymore
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In today's Non Sequitur, Wiley correctly points out the absurdity of whateverthehell is going on the minds of some gentlemen, many of whom may be Republicans.
I'm making no generalities, no assumptions, no accusations.
After all, it's not fair to assume, for example, that the majority of members of the Augusta National Golf Club are Republicans. It may be Democratic votes that are keeping women out of the club and out of the tournament. And maybe their votes gain sway because they have formed a sort of Commie Coalition with all the nihilistic Bolsheviks who are also club members and keep voting against women simply to spur the revolution.
Or they could be, as Steve Benson suggests, a bunch of neanderthal boneheads.
And, by the way, anyone who thinks the Masters controversy is about golf is a small timer.
Years ago, I worked for a magazine that served the Realtor community with up-to-date information on new housing in the area. Armed with our charts, a Realtor could cross-reference, say, three-bedroom detached housing between $150,000 and $250,000 in the Northwest corner of the city.
So my boss wondered, one day, if we could put out a similar magazine for the commercial side, that would summarize vacancies, square-footage, amenities and price. I agreed to scout around a little, but my first inquiry was received with gales of laughter.
Residential real estate is to commercial real estate as badminton is to rollerball.
And that is why being allowed to play at Augusta as a guest is a totally useless compromise for women in business.
The big deals — the shopping centers, the office buildings, the airports — are not made based on fixed terms that can be put on paper, where you look in the classifieds to see what's available and negotiations are limited and everyone plays fair and all the cards are dealt face up.
The big deals start from scratch and are made by friends with a taste for blood and a passion for competition, over a friendly round of golf or a friendly game of squash or a friendly fishing trip to Labrador on the private plane.
And "guest" in this context is a synonym for "mark."
Being invited to play golf as a "guest" is not a compliment and it's barely a compromise.
We've gone way beyond that, of course. It's not about golf anymore and it's not even about who gets to sit at the big mahogany table when the major decisions are made.
We're now deciding (while pretending to "discuss") issues that have to do with the people sitting around the kitchen table.
The right-to-life crew has been made to feel comfortable enough by their political surroundings that they can finally proclaim that they are also against birth control.
Yes, as the astute political analysts in the cartoon say, it turns out that the major problems of the day are caused by "lady pahts."
What's perversely funny about today's Non Sequitur is that, if three goofballs at the counter of a diner said what they said, they'd get the response from behind the counter that Wiley's goofballs got.
But if you dress it up in the fine feathers of "policy" and wear an expensive suit while saying it, it becomes something to be debated, and you have to give both sides and be very serious in addressing the pros and cons before coming down on the side of freedom, justice and well-regulated lady pahts.
It's less than 150 miles from the Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta to the gates of the Augusta National Golf Club, and when you get there, you say, "Well, we haven't come very far now, have we?"
Augusta desegregated in 1990, but, despite significant advertiser pressure in the early years of this decade, has declined to relent on its male-only policy.
And those good old boys represent a lot of other goofballs in expensive suits.
So, does Flo stand alone in her response?
The impact of the backlash against the Susan G. Komen Foundation's recent venture into restricting women's right to control their own bodies may well be an omen of an age when public insults are taken as seriously as private insults, when an insult to all women is taken as personally as an insult to one woman.
Meanwhile, this KAL cartoon suggests a connection to the old proverb, "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."
I know women don't like to be called "dogs."
The question is, how do they feel about being treated like dogs?
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