Sunday, December 14, 2008

Wacky Hijinks of the Wealthy

Shorter Leah McLaren: My rich friends have stopped giving to charity! Funny or what?!

I'm going with 'what', but there is something funny here, which is how desperately the online Globe seems to be hiding the piece -- though I did eventually find it, if you really care. In fact the whole 'Shopping' section, or whatever it's called, practically disappears online; and the only McLaren piece openly listed anywhere is from November 22, and she comes up sixth on a search for 'McLaren'.

Add in that the online version regularly reclassifies the trivial stories that appear on the front page (as Sports or Business or whatever they in fact are); and that it updates pretty rapidly during the day; and that there's some good extra political coverage (including this guy's very interesting blog), and you have a paper that's way more serious than the paper version. I hope they're finding a way to make some money off it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps it is the Threadkiller's weird old computer, or the fact that the column is a couple days old, but she was most interested to see that Leah McLaren's online column does not appear to have been "enabled" for comments, unlike the essays of other columnists. Surely there is no lack of comment to be made on any subject tackled in print by Leah McLaren? Of course there may be a perfectly logical explanation. But the Threadkiller prefers to imagine some hapless editor clutching his or her head and muttering: "No. Just ... no."

Anonymous said...

All right, while we're on the subject of trivial but annoying female columnists - did anyone read Judith Timson (not usually so annoying) today? Her topic was not high-risk mortgages, not economic forecasts, not even footwear missiles, but Oprah's weight gain. Apparently Oprah is up to 200 pounds and has written a mea culpa in the latest issue of her mag. Timson's ostensible point is that we should all just chill out about weight and not get tied up in knots over how much we or someone else, including Oprah, weighs. Not exactly a new idea, but a good one nonetheless. However, in the midst of all this professed disdain for weight obsession, Timson lets us know that she too - even Judith Timson! - has trouble controlling her weight; and manages to slip in that she's trying to get back into the 120-pound range, has just eight pounds to go, and her doctor doesn't really think she has a weight problem at all. Now my question - why does Judith Timson think it necessary to let readers know that she's actually skinny (and make her exact weight available to anyone who can do basic math)? So no one makes the mistake of thinking that she actually *has* a weight problem and is some kind of porker like Oprah; even though of course she rejects the idea that weight should really matter? I perceive a gaseous miasma of self-esteem feminism lite mixed with personal aggrandisement/anxiety, topped off with a dollop of Too Much Information. (Assuming that one can dollop a miasma). And I say this as one who is not likely to see the nether reaches of the 120s again without the help of a parasitic wasting disease.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of wacky hijinks of the wealthy, some hack at the Globe had a brain fart this morning - the front of the Review section reads "Paul and Linda who? In celebrity divorce land, Guy and Madonna are the new king and queen". The Threadkiller can hardly dispute that, but she would like to point out that Paul never divorced Linda. She died and left him a widower. He divorced Heather. (They did get it right in the body of the story, though.)

Geez, if this is the kind of thing that absorbs the Threadkiller's attention, she had better get back to work.