Thursday, December 13, 2012

CULTURE COPS, OUTREACH DIVISION. Ole Perfesser Glenn Reynolds offers his services as culture-war consultant to the GOP:
My suggestion: Buy some women’s magazines. No, really. Or at least some women’s Web sites... 
...those magazines and Web sites see themselves, pretty consciously, as a propaganda arm of the Democratic Party. So while nine out of 10 articles may be the usual stuff on sex, diet and shopping, the 10th will always be either soft p.r. for the Democrats or soft — or sometimes not-so-soft — hits on Republicans.
Two things: 1.) What is it with Republicans and women? I guess the New York Post editorial board figures their readership in 90% misogynist, so they didn't have to worry about alienating female voters by implying they're idiots. 2.) The magic of the free market -- which suggests that gal mags prosper by feeding their readers what they know they'll like, rather than indoctrinating them against their will -- always seems to disappear from the conservative theology whenever they strap on the Goebbels revolver.
For $150 million, you could buy or start a lot of women’s Web sites. And I’d hardly change a thing in the formula. The nine articles on sex, shopping and exercise could stay the same. The 10th would just be the reverse of what’s there now.
Go ahead, guys, try it that way. But I know them -- they'll never let well enough alone, and soon you'll have this:

UPDATE. This is officially confirmed as a bad idea: Jonah Goldberg approves!


  1. casino4:58 PM

    I believe that was Goring's (misattributed) revolver.

  2. XeckyGilchrist5:05 PM

    Re: cover mockup: I may never stop hurling, ever.

    I admit to not reading much in the way of women's magazines. Are they as lefty-tilting as the Ole Perf says, or is that imaginary too?

  3. And boys across the globe will no longer be locked in the bathroom with their mothers' wondering, "what are they doing in there for so long?"

  4. Jay B.5:16 PM

    "Pravda or Prada? Why Choose? The Glorious New Age of Equality Gives you Both, Sister Comrade."

  5. Jay B.5:22 PM

    The soul-deadening stupidity of it all. You know Glenn, you could counter the radical dykes at Glamour buy buying out Conde Nast to bring about the glorious counterrevolution or you could stop producing candidates who talk about legitimate rape and the nation's ownership of women's wombs.

  6. Tnap015:25 PM

    As Boon said "Forget it, he's rolling. "

  7. Halloween_Jack5:47 PM

    Evil HJ wants to see a wingnut-run women's magazine (or the attempt at same) for Xmas. Edited by Ross "Chunky Reese Witherspoon" Douthat, Ace "Play-doh and bacon" of Spades, and Glenn "Sexbot" Reynolds. It might literally leave me in stitches, but I'd be a moth to the flame, baby.

  8. sharculese5:56 PM

    They try this all the time with teenagers, and the end product is candy-coated, neon-splashed sites about how totally uncool condoms are and it never fucking works and they never fucking learn.

    It turns out you have to find out what people's interests are before you can appeal to their interests, and concept that is lost on these assholes.

  9. Spaghetti Lee6:01 PM

    "The red of our lipstick is like the red blood of bourgeois filth that will stain the streets when are liberated, gals!"

  10. AGoodQuestion6:03 PM


    Since, by definition, they don’t pay much attention to political news, they get this sense from what they do read. And for many, that’s traditional women’s magazines — Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, the Ladies Home Journal, etc. — and the newer women’s sites like YourTango, The Frisky, Yahoo! Shine, and the like.

    Yeah, go for it, guys! They'll be putty in your hands once you make it clear how much you respect them.

  11. Spaghetti Lee6:06 PM

    I'm convinced that conservatives are all James Bond villains. They keep trying this elaborate, overwrought nonsense and preening about how perfect a plan it is, and then it all blows up in their faces. Glenn: if your plan is to manipulate the minds of chick-mag readers so subtly they won't even notice, you might want to start by not announcing it.

    Seriously, did they all go to some Bizarro business school where the motto is 'hold the customer's intelligence in sneering and open contempt?' They don't have the ideas, they don't have the numbers, they don't have the leadership-all they've got left is marketing and other such crap, and apparently they're un-learning how to do that, right before our eyes.

  12. vista6:22 PM

    "Are they as lefty-tilting"

    It's lefty if you think articles on fashion, cooking, financial, or decorating as well as women's life stories are for liberals only.

  13. tim1176:28 PM

    It is their business model. Grift is the name of the game

  14. PaminBB6:58 PM

    Not many positive articles on guns and second amendment remedies, so must be anti-Repub. Obvs.

  15. sharculese7:17 PM

    You think Mr. Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser thinks women have agency?

    No they just buy whatever's got the shiniest label, whether it's tampons or nail polish or the dude who thinks Daleks are an ideal model for gynecological tools. That's biology.

  16. sharculese7:19 PM


    You mean law school? Yeah, Glenn Reynolds went to law school.

  17. You think Mr. Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser thinks women have agency?

    Sure. The agents are their husbands, who can tell them who will win an election, for instance.

  18. Bathroom time with mom is a trauma I do not want to revisit.

  19. sharculese7:34 PM

    League of Conservative Designers

  20. I'm convinced that conservatives are all James Bond villains. They keep
    trying this elaborate, overwrought nonsense and preening about how

    There are other candidates.

  21. Ellis_Weiner7:40 PM

    Plus it writes itself. "Dear Pent-Up House Forum: My minister told me this would never happen to me, but in fact about two weeks ago..."

  22. aimai7:51 PM

    I actually read a lifestyle magazine--Real Simple. It aims for a bizarre sweet spot: middle class women with a certain aesthetic who are probably working, possibly single mothers, possibly post divorce or on their second marriage, highly educated, busy, slightly green. The aesthetic is clean lines, uncluttered pages, good photography, bold graphics (if you compare it to the busy,c luttered look of some of the more downscale "harried homemaker" magazines which fill the pages visually with multiple images, overlapped images, different fonts etc... The ads are generally full page or embedded in a lifestyle section--"twenty great objects for the season" --or they might run a segment on how to "make your own makeup" which is elaborate and full of historical information about how to process cucumber to rest your eyes and the end: they run advertisements for actual make up that you could, you konw, buy since you don't have three days to distill your own masara.

    That being said one of the fascinating things about the magazine are the articles (yes! I buy it for the articles!) which are very, very, very, carefully stripped of political leanings but resolutely modern in outlook. They often run (cheapest form of content of course) reader roundups "your greatest teacher" "the most important gift" and you can tell from reading these little reader vignettes that the writers come from diametrically opposed political backgrounds and cultural beliefs but somehow the magazine hits the space where they can think they are talking to like minded friends without quite realizing that you would disagree with them policiatlly if you ever talked politics.

    This magazine was one of the first to do story after story after story about the upheaval that job loss created in their reader's familes. Long before the recession was acknowledged to be hitting they were doing stories about people coping, retrenching, retraining, despairing. Their fashion advice, which I skip, is clearly aimed at a female workforce that is always working or looking for work, starved for time, on a limited budget.

    I get the sense that the owners are looking for a liberalish vibe, without discouraging other women from (say) the South and West from seeing themselves in the magazine. I'd be very curious to see where they sell and who they sell to.


  23. wileywitch7:55 PM

    What woman could resist Forced Birth Weekly or You Filthy Slut or Shut Your Mouth, You Stupid Bitch magazines? Amirite?

  24. wileywitch8:04 PM

    When food prices doubled world-wide in the late seventies, and the average American woman did not get a larger budget to deal with it, those magazines were filled with casserole and bean recipes.

  25. redoubt8:06 PM

    O'Sullivan's First Law

    Somewhere, the ghosts of Mussolini and Stalin are laughing.

  26. redoubt8:20 PM

    Oh, well, there's always Garden and Gun.

    Glenn, this is why you can't get traction in the "marketplace of ideas": you look at women not as voters with their own brains, but as silly consumers with somebody else's money.

  27. Ellis_Weiner8:22 PM

    This is fucking hilarious and I reprieved my reaction the first time I ever saw The Young Ones, which was real incredulity and rib-clutching laughter.

  28. Ellis_Weiner8:24 PM

    EXACTLY what occurred to me. Well, what's that new cliche? One man's James Bond villain is another man's cartoon coyote?

  29. Malignant Bouffant8:44 PM

    An Associate Clinical Professor weighs in:

    Let me add a corollary suggestion: Reduce the size of the mob. Buy up name brands like Newsweek which are used as cover for anti-Republican messaging but not worth running, and shut them down.

    It may go against your instincts to knowingly throw money away, but didn’t you just unknowingly do that in 2012 anyway?

    Don’t wait for 2014 or 2016. Think strategically not reactively.

    And save some of the crumbs that fall from the table for advertising on conservative blogs.

  30. Bitter Scribe9:15 PM

    Does the NY Post have no editors at all for its op-eds? How do they not see that this guy is just pulling stuff out of his ass? He starts with a preposterously sweeping thesis and supports it by quoting no one and citing two posts from some website no one has ever heard of. And oh yeah, he refers to some sorehead who got bounced from the Ladies' Home Journal pouting about "Mean Girls feminism," whatever the fuck that is.

    If one of my freelancers turned in an article like that, he'd get a 50% kill fee and no more assignments. My guess is this guy will never criticize tenure, because without it he'd starve.

  31. M. Krebs9:18 PM

    The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.

  32. M. Krebs9:20 PM

    Some people bitch about the 80s, but any era that gave rise to The Young Ones is fine by me.

  33. BigHank539:21 PM

    You know, I recently read an angry rant about organizational ossification and mission creep.

    In the Iliad.

    Christ, what a moron.

  34. JennOfArk9:25 PM

    For all values of "low information" which = "does not watch Fox News."

    There's no doubt that a lot of people - perhaps the majority - of both
    genders do not follow politics or policy closely. I'm not sure, however, how
    important it is for most people to understand all the intracacies of the health
    care law or what our trade policy with China is when making their decision on
    how to vote. Somehow, those "low information" women managed to, despite the
    lack of information, vote in their personal best interests - unlike say the
    allegedly "better informed" low-income white male voters who "knows more" about
    politics from daily dosages of talk radio and Fox News, and who have
    consistently shot themselves in the feet in the voting booth for the past 30+
    years. Perhaps "low information" is better than "misinformation" when it comes
    to voting decisions, and "low" is just enough information when it consists of
    knowing that one of the candidates supports unecessarily shoving a foreign
    object up your vagina should you have the temerity to elect to have a legal
    medical procedure performed. Some women might go beyond thinking such a
    candidate is "mean," and instead determine that he is an "asshole" and decide
    that they'd be better off voting for the other guy.

    As always, the assumption these guys make is that the problem is in the
    packaging, not in the policy. Conservatism cannot fail & blah blah blah. I
    hope they continue this line of thought all the way to oblivion.

  35. Spaghetti Lee9:29 PM

    Apparently, Tina Brown was ahead of the game on this one.

  36. BigHank539:31 PM

    How come Nick Gillespie never talks about his first career?

  37. M. Krebs9:35 PM

    So they're openly advocating that The Cause can be salvaged by taking over selected (minor) media outposts? The Cause seems to be more lost than I thought. Not that that means they'll ever go away or anything. They never do.

  38. M. Krebs9:48 PM

    Seriously, who gets credit for the CosmoKudlow? Is that you, Roy?

  39. Oh, I'm afraid the conservative boys still will.

  40. Seriously, did they all go to some Bizarro business school where the
    motto is 'hold the customer's intelligence in sneering and open

    Don't knock it; it's worked for them for decades.

  41. "pushed into an editorial page column, this man is about to forsake his pride -- DOOMED"


    Well, I buy it for the porn. "Slow-cooker." "Stuffing." "Easy recipes." "New uses for old things." Uh, "cold and flu care."

  43. Chris Anderson10:09 PM

    "The nine articles on sex, shopping and exercise could stay the same."

    No, they couldn't. Has Glenn seen anything, anything at all?

    Successful media directed at women re: sex, shopping, and exercise presumes they're making choices for themselves. Not necessarily radical choices, but still.

    Even a cursory look at S, S, & E content for women deflates Glenn's premise. Good luck finding a sex-related article that puts Todd Akin or the motherfucking pope ahead of what some mere woman wants to do in a more-or-less sensible manner. Shopping is free markety but modestly thoughtful, not culture-war thoughtful but a reflection of a woman's freely-chosen values and so on. Exercise is not entirely masochistic leg on the chair of meeting unreasonable sexist expectations for one's appearance, the other legs being roughly eatin' disorders and cosmetics or cosmetic surgery, who knows.

  44. They had enough information to know that not being constantly pregnant is a good thing.

  45. Ladies' Home Journal is run by radfems? Who knew?

  46. trizzlor10:26 PM

    I'm a guy who reads Real Simple in the check-out line, mostly for the typesetting (yes! I read it for the typesetting) and I've noticed the same thing: an almost cult-level dedication to "green" conservation, community, sustainability, etc. that's been completely sanitized of all politics. In fact, I wish these mags had a little more of the "we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house" attitude (or, in their case, made my own fucking Mayonnaise or something). I was trying to figure out what the hell Glenn Harlan Reynolds is reading that fist-bumps progressivism 10% of the time but now I realize we're reading the same thing. When I see an article on great teachers that's cloyingly scrubbed of politics because it doesn't mention their decreasing compensation, he sees one that's a shameless hit on the GOP because it doesn't say all teachers should be replaced by volunteering minority children with a heavy hand on the bible.

    I guess that's why he gets the op-ed space.

  47. Chris Anderson10:27 PM

    An interesting analysis, thanks.

  48. BigHank5310:30 PM

    Don't forget Kathryn Jean Lopez's monthly column: The Filthy Satanbits Below Your Waist and How to Ignore Them.

  49. According to Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog, Glenn Reynolds may in fact be shilling for a real conservative Catholic woman's magazine under development called "Verily".

  50. well of course it's all they have

  51. Good luck finding a sex-related article that puts Todd Akin or the
    more-or-less sensible manner.

    To be fair, there does seem to be an emphasis on what men really want in bed. On the other hand, the context usually suggests that what they want is wild sex, not meek submission to what he apparently views as procreation-focused drudgery because it's not with a goddamn robot.

  52. Gad, how I'd love to punk The Perfesser with mock-ups of strawfem
    publications in the check-out line at his local Wal-Mart. "Who
    cares what men secretly want in bed?" "What to wear to your next abortion." "Grow your own fur boots for winter." "Emasculation in 6 easy steps." "Go Democrat, Go Dyke." Everything that he apparently thinks makes up that last ten percent of content.

  53. Chris Anderson11:05 PM

    Oh sure. I tried to qualify my statements. Not sex with a submissive goddamned robot, good point, but a threatening one! (for men who don't buy these magazines, I guess).

    Somebody should do an article or dissertation on all these Cosmo-style "8 smoking-hot ways to put on a condom" articles. From the covers, they all profess to be about men's desires, but that can't be right, can it? If the point was to publish useful generalities, you'd need alot fewer articles.

  54. Not sex with a submissive goddamned robot

    In the interest of full disclosure, I should clarify that I was making a reference to Perfesser Reynolds' previously-stated desire for post-Singularity immortality à la android body or uploading. But your interpretation works, too.

  55. Chris Anderson11:24 PM

    OIC, thanks. The poor fellow is not at ease with the human condition.

  56. Barefoot & Pregnant's fall issue! 101 Sandwich Recipes. 160 ways to please your man in bed. "I Ran Into A Door - Clumsy Me!" - Excuses to get you out of those awkward conversations. Fashion tips: Avoiding rape with pizzazz! On newsstands now!

  57. BigHank5311:38 PM

    they sell and who they sell to.

    I have mostly seen Real Simple at high-end grocery stores: Weaver Street Market in Chapel Hill and various Whole Foods around the country. What the advertisers want (and the focus of the magazine will be driven by the advertisers, that's how the bills get paid) is an intelligent audience with a healthy amount of disposable income. The yoga magazine right next to it may have a bit more new-agey stuff in it, but neither one will ever take a political stance or criticize a religion--might as well put a photo of a dead puppy on the cover. You can insult a reader of your magazine exactly once; they'll just stop reading it, your numbers go down, your ad rate falls, hello death spiral. Publishing is a fucking meatgrinder at the best of times, and magazines are a luxury expense that's easy to give up when money gets tight.

    Reynolds is trapped by his own Manichean mindset; if something isn't for plutocracy, Straussian Jesus, and flying killer robots, it must be against them.

  58. Haystack11:51 PM

    For Glenn, this is just a stopgap measure. I don't believe sex robots will have any need for lifestyle mags.

  59. Dr. Mrs. Ole Perfesser will write the relationship advice column, It's All Your Fault, You Filthy Whore.

  60. Haystack12:00 AM

    Somehow, cell phone companies are thriving.

  61. whetstone12:23 AM

    Columnists are not allowed to get facts wrong. They do not, however, have to use facts, and the facts that they do use do not have to support their argument. This creates perverse incentive structures, even for writers who are not as instinctually full of shit as Dr Ole Prof.

  62. AGoodQuestion12:30 AM


    Not a chance! He'd live off the land the way his ancestors did, growing his own crops and augmenting his diet with game he shot with one of his many...

    Tihi, sorry, I couldn't keep a straight face any longer.

  63. MRC2101:25 AM

    I saw that too. The first issue of Verily is online and it's ... interesting. There's an article about how contraceptives are bad for you because they're not green .. not because they make you a slutty slut slut, oh no. Heaven forbid you might get that impression.

  64. horatius1:38 AM

    Did everybody forgot to tell them, that hysteria was debunked as a medical condition in the late 1800s?

  65. I'm sure Reynolds is right, and there's a niche for a women's magazine that screams against abortion and for forced childbirth.

    It's not surprising that conservatives have such contempt for so many demographics, but it is pretty astounding and entertaining to see their complete lack of self-awareness. They all really, truly seem to think this crap will sell. "Hey, lazy blacks! The Dems pander to you, but we'll refuse to make your lives better! Vote for us!" "Hey, ladies! You're too dumb to vote on your own, and you don't own your own vaginas (which work in mysterious ways we don't quite understand, and frankly fear). Vote for us!" "Poor guy - get a job!" "Get off our collective lawn!"

  66. mortimer6:20 AM

    That entire post and comments is one of my favoritest threads of all time. Reading it reveals everything about why they lost, something they'd never understand in a million years.

  67. mortimer6:37 AM


    Sure. Redbook's very first #10 article could be by GOP operative Roger Stone, the anti-Hillary, Citizens United Not Timid guy, all about how women love clever new acronyms.

    (Magnificent cover mock-up, btw.)

  68. Of course they have "editors." It was Murdoch his-own-self, back in the 1970s, who famously told his henchm...uh, board of directors, how to do it.

    "For $150 million, you could buy a rundown newsrag and hardly change a thing in the formula. The nine articles on sex, shopping, premature claims of presidential victory, photos of people about to die horribly, and racist comparisons of people to monkeys could stay the same. The 10th would just be a reverse of the one article there now that has any resemblance to factual news."

  69. montag27:40 AM

    And it's why he retains the Basil Fawlty Chair of Business Law at Tennessee Gorgon University in Banjo Springs.

  70. montag27:46 AM

    Motto: More expensive sackcloth and ashes for the masses.

  71. aimai7:56 AM

    I forgot to say that "rich people wanting to support the Republican Party" is some kind of...understatement? Would there be a modern Republican party at all without the complete ownership by rich people? At the moment the DeVos family and the Koch brothers have just bought the entire Republican branch of the Michigan Legislature, cheap, in order to ram through their particular legislative wants. They really don't need Ole Dr. Perfesser's advice to try to buy influence retail--they simply buy it wholesale.


  72. montag28:01 AM

    Geez, Newsweek hasn't been "anti-Republican" since Watergate, and even then, it wasn't exactly all "death to the oligarchs." Newsweek's problem has been and continues to be that it isn't much of anything, period.

  73. aimai8:02 AM

    I think Chris makes a very nice point. All joking aside the Right wing format for information is "expert advice on how to do the things authorities want you to do." The women's magazine model is "expert advice on pursuing life, liberty, and happiness for yourself and your family. The most common refrain among internet mommies (that is: women who define part of their mission in life as helping their families survive and thrive) is "If Momma ain't happy nobody is happy." Another extremely common observation is "put your air support mask on first in order to help the other people you are responsible for."

    There's no place for "KLo translates the Pope for you" in this model. Its technocratic and expert driven (learn bonsai from a master!) but its non hierarchical. In addition "perfect yourself and do what your elders tell you" runs counter to, as Chris points out, very strongly held values of autonomy and self creation among both men and women.


  74. BigHank538:14 AM

    Cell phone companies have a product that normal people actually want.

  75. "You see, last week Reynolds posted this on his blog:

    NOT ONE OF THE SPIN SISTERS, a new women's magazine, Verily. Yay, Verily!Verily, as we learn at the link, is a women's magazine/Web site/iPad app that's currently in development, and that -- surprise! -- in many ways matches the Perfesser's description of what moneyed Republicans should be investing in. Its editors have been selling the magazine, mostly in the Catholic media (Catholic News Agency, Christopher Closeup), and describing it in ways that make it sound as if it's trying to be part of the right-wing culture war . . ."

    ☞ LINK

  76. aimai8:59 AM

    Also "one of the groups among whom Romney did worst" sounds wrong. Is he unable to rank the worstness? Was it a tie?


  77. FMguru9:07 AM

    Steve M over at No More Mister Nice Blog had a nice catch: he noticed that Reynolds has for the last month or two been talking up a just-about-to-be-launched Catholic women's magazine named "Verily" - which I'm sure is entirely coincidental to the fact that he's suddenly developed an interest in writing a column promoting right-wing women's magazines.

    Like pretty much all right-wing writing, Reynolds is basically shilling for a product.

  78. montag29:16 AM

    Well, this explains Doubthat's recent op-ed (yeah, the one that very nearly officially declared a mineshaft gap). He's angling for a new gig.

  79. aimai9:17 AM

    You should see the movie "O'Sullivan's Travels!" Its a laff riot.


  80. Halloween_Jack9:20 AM

    That would be the Newsweek that's the home of Niall Ferguson and, for one brief, stinking moment, Megan McArdle. As per usual, Jacobson is a day late and a few marbles short.

  81. Halloween_Jack9:24 AM

    Ooh, cold and flu care! Spending all your time in bed, things gettin' hot, copious quantities of bodily fluids produced by your mucous membranes... I believe I might have to take some time off, if you catch my drift.

  82. aimai9:24 AM

    The forensic pyschologist without a sense of irony known as Mrs Ole Perfesser can't write "Its all Your Fault You Filthy Whore" because she can only write and think from the perspective of her little petrie dish mental health experiments--I mean her men's rights readers. So she'd have to write a column entitled something like "What He Really Thinks Of You, You Feminazi Bitch" and "Hypergamy and its discontents? Why You Should Marry Down."


  83. BigHank539:25 AM

    It actually is interesting. If the magazine design is as good as the website, it's pretty classy. The hems are lower and necklines higher, though all the models are conventionally attractive. But the birth-control editorial is very, very cautious, and more notable in what it leaves out. Religion is never mentioned. Birth control only comes up after the writer makes clear she's married. The negative side effects of hormonal birth control are brought up, but no other methods are discussed.

    This is as Catholic they can be and still appeal to an audience.

    They can't go further right without marginalizing themselves into irrelevancy. What right-wing meme are they going to be able to spread that isn't either already everywhere (taxes are too high, rich people are better than everyone else) or as popular as a fart in an elevator? You know, the Texas GOP platform.

    The editors of Verily are not stupid. They want to sell magazines. Opus not what makes copies fly off the shelf.

  84. aimai9:26 AM

    Send me a three page treatement and I think we can greenlight this project.


  85. FMguru9:32 AM

    His ancestors fed themselves by using those guns to force other people to grow crops (and sell their children away if they complained)

  86. BigHank539:43 AM

    Yeah, but the sentence structure clearly implies the young lad is locked in the bathroom with his maternal parent's wonderment, which is also kind of disturbing. Though in a different manner.

    This is a nice example of free-range hypallage.

    God, I love English. It's such a dog's breakfast.

  87. aimai9:52 AM

    "Opus not what makes copies fly off the shelf"--true-- but you can use the magazine to stifle your screams. I'm waiting for them to realize there's a market for 50 Shades of Catholic Domination. Of course it will all backfire once they discover the the sub fantasies of the readers don't translate into the actual submission of the actual women to particular political philosophies.

  88. See, this is why your mention of "Evil HJ" above was redundant.

  89. There is an interestingly aspirational quality to all of these magazines--all of them attempt to enable their readers to create or manage a lifestyle which is at least one notch higher on the socio-economic scale than they really are. But the reality of the bottom line means that the mask slips when it comes to the advertising and the layout. If the women who read the magazine aren't going to buy a Maserati, or furnish their summer cottage with high end antiques, then the advertising is going to betray that. And, in addition, the number of lower level advertisers needed to support the magazine will be greater. So you get multiple advertiser buying half or quarter page spreads--which leads to visual clutter and a chaotic look.

    I will say this for Real Simple: its really focused on adult women and their needs. There are relatively few "meet the X couple" articles and lots and lots on the issues of working or recently laid off or divorced women.


  90. Halloween_Jack10:30 AM

    *pours self an Emergen-C cocktail, puts on Peggy Lee's "Fever"* We'll discuss this after I've had my temperature taken. No, not in that end.

  91. Al Swearengen10:39 AM

    Getting Susan Rice's head on the wall will help the GOP's outreach to women.

  92. BigHank5310:47 AM

    I've never asked why you felt the need to keep three boxes of tissues next to your bed, and now I never will.

  93. BigHank5311:01 AM

    Lindsay Graham and John McCain's victory lap is an excellent start to their new minority outreach program!

    In related news, Reince Preibus identifies main obstacle facing GOP, places billion-dollar order for deep-well drilling equipment with Halliburton. "Hole with no bottom" possible by 2015, claim ex-Romney campaign managers...

  94. Since the original is one of my favorites, I'm pondering how this would look...

    Basically, a successful director would step over the homeless to mingle with the disdainful rich to research his epic agitprop comedy (although he'd see it as a serious, philosophical drama), O Atlas, Why Shrugged Thou?

  95. I know, I really couldn't figure out how to make this joke work either. I'm just really sure the penultimate scene, where Sullivan sits in the darkened church hall watching a funny movie with the white and black convicts and homeless men laughing in the rows behind him would look really, really, different.


  96. acerplatanoides11:51 AM

    re: business school where they teach you to hold the intelligence of the customer in sneering contempt.

    Watch a single television ad break sometime. Almost all modern tv ads show some actor/moron choosing a product and becoming either more moronic, or joining a larger herd of morons by the end of the ad.

    Yes, yes they do openly hold your intelligence in contempt. They have for some time now. Know them by their initials. MBA.

  97. acerplatanoides11:53 AM

    it's the 'murcan way

  98. acerplatanoides11:54 AM

    yes, we all truly LOVE being available to others at a moments notice 24 hours a day.

    Keep telling yourself that's normal, then they won't even have to spend money to advertise them.

  99. acerplatanoides11:56 AM

    it's as simple as tying shoes, but they always tie theirs together somehow.

  100. LollyBee12:27 PM

    I hear you--this was from my favorite comment:

    Also GOP has a lot of hot men which can't hurt.

    I guess if Paul Ryan lifting weights in a gangsta hat is your idea of a hot man, then, well, they have one hot guy.

  101. KatWillow12:46 PM

    "What Men Really Want in Bed?" A bag of Doritos, a 6-pack of beer and the remote-control to a GIANT screen TV. Nirvana, dude!

  102. KatWillow12:47 PM

    How To "Shut Down" Your Body In Under 30 Seconds!

  103. DocAmazing12:47 PM

    I guess he hasn't heard about the ACLU's role in Citizens United.

  104. wileywitch12:55 PM

    Worst and kraut perhaps?

  105. I wonder if one of the advice columns will be "What to say to your child if they complain about being molested by a priest" by Father Diddles. Or "How to chastise your employer for providing benefits that include birth control" by Bishop Old White Man. And maybe "How to survive not being aborted."

  106. pseudonymous in nc1:06 PM

    Obvious job pitch for the MRA-fluffing DMOP.

  107. satch1:11 PM

    "For $150million, you could buy or start a lot of women's Web sites." I love how the Ol' Perf casually throws out that figure as if it's a sum that Chuck Koch just found in his couch cushions... which it probably was. This is exactly why the Right, no matter how odious its ideas or the people who spout them are, will continue to be an outsized presence in American politics and culture.

  108. Al Swearengen1:16 PM

    Black leather jacket salesman?

  109. montag21:37 PM

    The $150 million was undoubtedly chosen because that's what Sheldon Adelson said he spent on his attempts to subvert the election, and the Ol' Pervf intimates that the money would be much better spent subverting the minds of the women who shamelessly rejected the GOP's message of male dominance over all things female.

    In a way, this is Reynolds' half-assed suggestion to emulate the so-called Powell Manifesto. It's not enough for the reactionary rich to spend the news media into submission by funding think tanks and speakers' bureaus and phony news sites and astroturf organizations, because Democrats still sometimes win elections. Now, those same cholesterol- and C-note-encrusted refugees from justice should turn their attentions and their wallets to propagandizing the real pain in the GOP's ass: women who don't vote for them. Hit `em where it hurts! In the women's magazines! Eventually, after turning enough money into bullshit, they, too, will vote against their best interests.

    Like Reynolds', ahem, other visions of the future, it's one part pathological, one part fantasy, and two parts lunacy.

  110. satch3:58 PM

    S Mc G;... clicked over there and got the distinct impression that if there were sound, all I'd hear would be crickets and a mournful, wailing wind. At the bottom of post after post was "No Comment", "No Comment", "No Comment". Dorothy Parker once said "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think." Substitute "wingnut" for "hort" and you'd just about have it.

  111. BruceJ4:06 PM

    What are we gonna do tonight, Karl?
    Same thing we do EVERY night, Princey, try to take over THe WORLD!

  112. Okay, Jonah endorses it. What else has he written lately?

    • The Corner: More Thinking Like This Please 12/14/12
    • Article: Return to Federalism 12/14/12
    • The Corner: So, to Sum Up Our Day 12/12/12
    • The Corner: Worst Movie Girlfriends 12/12/12
    • The Corner: The Horror 12/12/12

  113. Halloween_Jack4:58 PM

    It's telling that Doughpants starts off the "Worst Movie Girlfriends" post with Fabienne from Pulp Fiction, when it's obviously Butch's fault that he has to go back for the gold watch. (Butch has apparently taken a few too many shots to the head to have thought of a safety deposit box.)

  114. Gromet5:08 PM

    Well, there IS a section (p. 31) where men list their first-date turnoffs, and one dude (Michael, Musician) says, "If she gets drunk, or throws herself at me, or gets drunk and throws herself at me! A woman with self respect, who knows who she is -- that's attractive." So, sorry, ladies, if you initiate sex on a timetable of your choosing, it's not a sign you're confident and independent -- it means you're desperate and not worth a second look. Probably a drunk, too! You'll never get with the guy in the band that way.

  115. Gromet5:15 PM

    "They'll vote for us out of respect for the way we stick to our principles, no matter how self-defeating those principles or that vote."

  116. Halloween_Jack5:21 PM

    I just read that, and the conflation of prescription contraceptives that contain hormones and hormone-laced meat is pure, utter bullshit. The problems with hormones in meat are basically that 1) you're getting hormones that are not prescribed to you, in amounts that aren't regulated, and 2) they're not really necessary for the production of healthy food, they're there mostly to increase profits for the cattle producers and other agribusiness types. Contraceptives, like other prescription medications, are investigated for potential side effects, including the possibility of birth defects or other harm to fetii or nursing babies, and the risk (if any) are part of the information provided to the doctor and the patient.* The article conflates "conceiving while on the pill" with “use of birth control pills while pregnant,” even though most women, if they get pregnant and decide to continue the pregnancy, would, you know, stop the birth control.

    It's also noteworthy that there's no mention of barrier or spermicidal birth control methods as an alternative, even though they wouldn't suffer the aforementioned drawbacks. No, this is just the same sort of scaremongering that we've seen from the usual gang of idiots.

    *Unless your drug company deliberately lies about the results of their clinical trials, and even the more mercenary drug companies tend to avoid faking results having to do with birth defects because of the spectacular fallout from thalidomide.

  117. More like the parody version . Think Dr Evil.

  118. MikeJ9:12 PM

    What I found most amusing in his list is his hatred for traditional women's roles. He hates the idea of Jack sacrificing himself for Rose in Titanic, but at the same time claims to believe that men should be strong and protect the helpless little women folk.

    When the women are strong they usurp the proper role of the man. When the women are protected by a man they're awful becasue somebody of value had to suffer for a lowly woman.

  119. AGoodQuestion9:15 PM

    My perspective is limited since I don't carry a cell phone myself. However, it seems like they're primarily marketed now as a way to keep yourself amused with TV shows, music, games, etc. Being available to others is a side-effect.

  120. AGoodQuestion9:40 PM

    What's his problem with Rosie Perez in White Men Can't Jump? From what I remember she put up with Woody Harrelson a lot longer than most would.

  121. M. Krebs10:34 PM

    Well, you know what they say. If you dig a hole deep enough, everyone will want to jump into it.

  122. DocAmazing11:25 PM

    Hey, his dad didn't need a safety deposit box, damn it.

  123. DocAmazing11:33 PM

    Redbook was once Little Redbook, I hear.

  124. geraldfnord11:47 PM

    'Low information' is still more than negative quantities of information, as per Fox News devotés...then again, negative information might imply negative energy densities which might allow them to create a stable wormhole, perhaps even to an alternate univrtde... which could explain whence they got their election predictions.

  125. You can turn them off, you know.

  126. geraldfnord11:50 PM

    Uggh, 'univrtde... ' -->'universe...'

  127. Glamour and, I think, Elle and even Vogue (which I never read all that much except in waiting rooms) do devote some space to political and social coverage among the fashion and decor and makeup and lifestyle spreads. These typically involve coverage of issues of importance to their audience of mostly young, mostly single women -- such as birth control, sexual health, violence against women and sexual assault, pay equity, etc. It's not overtly partisan, but it does treat these issues as important and assumes the readers think about them the same way. Many of Glamour's Women of the Year are involved in politics and social issues, though, again, their partisan status is rarely highlighted.

    And then there's Cosmo, which just gives out batshit sexual advice.

  128. geraldfnord12:05 AM

    Can you explain how milk works to me?

  129. BigHank5312:39 AM

    Greek Yogurt's Cultural Revolution
    Mao Ways to Stretch Your Kitchen Budget
    Western Imperialism and You: Straight Talk from the Gang of Four

  130. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard3:58 AM

    I can't wait for Doughbob's first article for a women's magazine- "Dudes with Dewlaps are Super Sexy".

  131. This mind-blowing contradiction in self-declared wingnuts is what always blocks my attempts to rationalize them. The more extremely authoritarian they are, the more they play dress-up "American Individual" and load up on the "I have free choice to choose my master" schtick.

    Their childlike denial is so blatant, it's almost, almost, like they are aware on some atomic level that they are the opposite of what they claim to be.

  132. True that. Musicians are notoriously averse to easy sex.

  133. I might add, this attitude of "Michael's" smells of "it's only interesting to me if I get to be the caveman capturing the coy cavegirl and dragging her off to my lair."

    Conquest soothes the savage breast--not mutual attraction.

  134. cleter10:42 AM

    Filthy Satanbits would be a good name for a band.

  135. BigHank531:36 PM

    God may move in mysterious ways, but He's got to work to keep up with the wingnut intellect.

  136. Jon Hendry7:47 PM

    "10 ways to drive your man crazy!"

    1. Dress immodestly in public

    2. Talk back

    3. Get norplant

  137. M. Krebs9:21 PM


    You give him too much benefit of the doubt. My guess is that he'd rail against the evils of tenure in a heartbeat.

  138. M. Krebs9:35 PM

    What's milk?

    Have any moss?

  139. montag22:59 AM

    I'm still amazed that the wingers were so taken by that photo of Ryan. Me, I looked at the expression on his face and instantly thought, "didn't I see that face in 'Deliverance'?"

  140. The Dark Avenger3:23 PM

    Teaching your Children about Class Struggle over M&M Cookies.
    Surplus Labor and Making it Work for You.
    Ten Marxists Tips on telling Tragedy from Farce.

  141. The_Plasmatics4:04 PM

    In January's Issue, "Bushmasters Are A Girl's Best Friend."

  142. Halloween_Jack9:46 AM

    Just wanted to cap this off with an OT note: Disqus likes to "recommend" posts from other Disqus-using blogs, probably based on keyword stuff from this one, and for whatever reason, it proffered "World's Most Beautiful Boathouse" from Gardenista. I dunno about that--I can imagine a pretty damn fine boathouse, I think--but it's worth it just for one of the two comments: "Unique. I see the boathouse and the lake. Where is the boat??" Where's the boat? Where's the boat? For the love of all that's holy, what the fuck happened to the goddamn boat?!?!?

  143. ugh, atkins over at Digby's place is posting Progressive approved video games. Why do they want to write for the NRO?

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