by Nilay Gandhi

Close to home, in and around Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, is where Starbucks conducts its experiments. It’s the home not only of their public test lab, “Olive Way,” there’s also the matter of those liquor licenses filed in the last year, and of the “Starbucks-inspired” 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea locations. Most media coverage still seems more concerned with the fancy new coffee machines and the slimmer-profile barista counters than the white elephant in the room: now Starbucks sells booze.

You’d never think of this elsewhere in the country, but the megatronic coffee company sells wine and beer, which feels to me about as likely as Ahab himself gently poaching a baby branzino in court bouillon. Is this the humming monolith of corporate America, quietly sticking a free-trade, post-consumer stake right into the heart of the last good thing we had left?

Wine Fidelity
I called Starbucks PR-actually, I called a “Starbucks company spokesperson,” who initially thought I was interested in learning more about “wi-fi.” No, wine, I said. And five minutes later, we agreed it best if they just got back to me by email.

“We looked at the natural progression of our business and the way we have transitioned over the years and recognized an opportunity to establish a different kind of Starbucks,” the shadow said. I think that means “times are tough and we’ve gotta find a way to make some beans.”

I could tell we weren’t getting very far. I wanted to know more, and there was only one way I would. I had to get a man-one with a birth certificate and free will-on the ground.

“There are two stores serving wine and beer,” he said, “one of which I’m sitting in right now, called 15th Street.” [Actually, it’s 15th Avenue, Agent 714].

Intrigued, I pressed on. Come on. Sure, there’s wine. Everybody’s grandfather has a jug of Carlo Rossi in the basement. That doesn’t make it a wine bar.

No, that’s not how it works, my contact cautioned. “The baristas are knowledgeable and can talk about different styles, such as the chardonnay being less oaky and more crisp in nature,” he said. They even have glasses shaped specific to reds and whites, which plenty of decent wine bars don’t.

But, wait, it was noon my time. That made it…. Seattle Special Ops, what are you doing in a wine bar at 9 a.m.?

“When we first came here I was a bit dismayed to learn that my new favorite cafe was owned by Starbucks,” he said, “but I preferred it to the others because the staff are inclusive and will share their knowledge about coffee.”

Oh, right. It’s still a coffee shop.

What’s in a name? About 18 billion dollars.
By first branching out under a new brand-15th Ave. Coffee and Tea-Starbucks tested the waters without the threat of backlash. Then, not unlike how I ran off to Paris at 18 before crawling back broke to mom and dad, baby’s gotta come home.

According to the Seattle Times, future stores will be branded Starbucks. The ungendered PR entity behind the curtain added that the next iteration of Olive Way, Seattle’s next store to transition to alcohol, “will be a traditional Starbucks location that will reflect the character of the surrounding neighborhood and help to reduce environmental impacts.” I didn’t really ask about the environment, but it’s nice to know they care.

You can see the dissonance building, even from their language. How could such a powerful, 18+ billion-dollar company often more concerned with sounding right than being right, possibly pull this off? They have enough money to do whatever they want, but why?

Here’s where I start to buy the corporate speak. They’re doing it because we need it. Because wine bars outside of wine country in America generally fall into two categories: terrible and privileged.

We’re not in northern Spain, and while a lot of our bars do an impressive job, we’re not the freewheeling, drink-wine-because-it’s-there society we could be. You get hackjobs and you get greatness, but there’s usually no wine “local” we all head to at 5:30 on a Tuesday.

Starbucks stands to change that. As you went from Folgers to fresh-brewed to macchiato to maybe even a working knowledge of “free trade” and “single origin,” we may someday be in position to make everyday wine a larger part of our patois. The sameness Starbucks will bring, much as it did with coffee, can be precisely its source of innovation.

If they succeed, our definition of local will be unifying for American wine. The American Viticultural Areas scattered throughout the Northwest and coast-as well as upstate New York, New Mexico, and the South-could fit more broadly into an understanding of American wine in general instead of the cult status they each have today.

Why I am so sure? Because it will be right on your corner, directly across the street from another one!

Regional, and what that means
When Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz got sent off to Milan and watched a barista pull a fresh shot topped with oily, tooth-staining crema, you could say he had vision. His jowls were wet at least. And whether that was at the prospect of bringing great coffee to the states, or just the potential of making millions of gondolas (Venetian, I know) full of money, it’s fair to say that the new vision of Starbucks was a sense of place.

Now they’re a giant corporation serving coffee in countries that always preferred tea. But forget, for a second, the whole multi-national, hypercapitalistic thing. Let’s just look back to how it really started: a cup of coffee in Italy.

The Pac-Northwest is Schultz’ new Milan. So a store influenced, in some ways reborn, on the notion that Oregon and Washington wine is irresistible couldn’t be more right.

Yes, I assume there will be cost-cutting. Pressure from The Board someday. There will be P and there will be L.

Still, there’s not one damn winemaker in God’s country not dying to get on the Starbucks list, which as of last week had four Washington reds and a white each from Washington and Oregon. That’s not from among a giant list of mass-market global brands. Save for one Argentinian malbec and some bubbles, that was it.

According to our Special Ops agent, “the baristas select wines using a similar method they do coffee,” actually having a voice in the bottles they serve. If that continues, they may be developing a new model for mass wine distribution, one that caters more to the expanses of our taste than the limitations of our wallets.

“As we open these stores, we definitely look to bring in local influences,” the Voice of Starbucks told me. I’m gonna hold you to that from behind your curtain, Oz.

Quality. Control.
Have you ever ordered a glass of wine at a regular bar? You may have been better off throwing it over some tomatoes and fresh mozz.

If the coffee is any sign, the quality of whatever wines Starbucks carries will be surgical-grade-sharp, clean and never failing. The new stores brew “drip” coffee one cup at a time. Whatever you think about the taste, there’s no questioning the standard.

Consistency is the brand itself. You get that with a knowledgeable staff and a short wine list (something I’ve been begging for from the country’s best restaurants). In business terms, you limit the failure rate, but in real terms, you give every store manager and barista some ownership.

I hand-sold wine for several years myself, and I can tell you that, even today, there’s been nearly nothing more gratifying than having someone enjoy a wine I recommend. And customers would tell me there was nothing better than to have someone who really loved what he was doing share his knowledge.

Before I get all teary-eyed, my point is that the mindshare at these new locations will really be the key to their success. And that will ultimately put us in control. Unlike coffee-the fine knowledge of which I appreciate but have very little use for in my daily life-whatever we learn about wine at these locations can become part of our everyday interactions over dinner, at happy hour, and at those cocktail parties that today make most of us so uncomfortable.

The PacNWers are a prideful, and accomplished, folk
This isn’t 1970, and there are no “Boys Up North” anymore. The Eyries and Ste. Michelles are a solid 30 vintages in, and since then hundreds of wineries have joined them, planting the entire gamut of pinot noir in Oregon, cabernet sauvignon and syrah in Washington, and everything else. This is a vast, storied, and successful lot.

When I asked one winemaker, he called himself a farmer. I’d argue some are chefs.

If we could task one community to shepherd what will become a highly commodified, common wine retail business, it would be them. Much in the same way Schultz hoped to bring the pride of European coffee to America, he now may have the opportunity to light up the neighbors just outside our own backyards. So long as Starbucks keeps this local mindset, it will stay true to the vision. And I’d argue, if he wants to succeed, he’ll have to.

These aren’t just winemakers he’s dealing with. They’re farmers. And farmers have pitchforks.

You already have your favorite wine bar, and you can still go there…
 …the same way you support your mom’n’pop cafe, but buy three venti lattes downtown before you get home. The liquor licenses will be a roadblock, especially in New York City or Chicago. Yet, it’s that slow, labored, and steady expansion that will make it easier to call these places home.

Each one, as it pops up near you, has a chance to be one of your favorite “locals,” much like it’s become for my wine ninja in Seattle. In time, maybe they’ll be dull or insipid to the uber-winegeeks. But who wants to hang out with them anyway?

The rest of us? A laid-back place to try some cool wines we might not want to buy full bottles of at Whole Foods.

Date-night? You’ll still hit the trendy terroiriste joint outside the village with sparkling mauzac by the jeroboam.

Quiet place to read a book or catch up on some tort reform?

That’s exactly the niche where we have the need.

Previously: How To Face Down the Wine List and Win

Nilay Gandhi is the proprietor of the excellent wine blog 750 mL; he even gives personalized wine pairing advice on request.

Photo by re-ality from Flickr.

by Mark Bergen

It resonated richly, bouncing off the walls on Bainbridge Avenue: “Mierrrrrrrrrrrrrrrda.” Pedro Espada, Jr., his squat frame gone tense, just received word of a massive lawsuit filed against him by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. It was April 20th. A day later, the FBI came. At least that’s how I imagine his response. The endless saga of the Bronx politico’s corruption and malfeasance is so farcical, so theatrical, that it easily could be scripted by David Simon. For a moment, it appeared that Espada would evade his ethical conundrums, scot-free, just like another Democratic State Senator, Clay Davis from Maryland. But now the state’s Democratic party is trying to purge him from their ranks. It’s a weak tea, a belated, symbolic gesture that might just make its target stronger. Pedro’s a boxer.

November’s election in New York will likely pivot on the state’s abundant ethical scandals rather than, say, the gaping absence of a budget. So in anticipation, the Democrats want to drop their most tainted player. Charlie King, the party’s executive honcho, signed off on a letter to the Bronx chairman, Jeffrey Dinowitz, urging him to delete the “D” by Espada’s name. Apparently, the last straw was Cuomo’s suit, which accuses Espada of “looting” $14 million from Soundview HealthCare Network, where he reigns as CEO. The charges-fraud, conspiracy, general chicanery-are heavy. Espada faces 10 years on each count.

This is not the first attempt to shake Espada from the Democratic cloth. But only a year ago, state Democrats were begging Espada to return to their flock. He had detracted to the other aisle with Hiram Monserrate-that paragon of virtue-shocking the new, tenuous Democratic leadership, and effectively stopping government from governing. They came back, eventually. Pedro got his coveted title and built his stockpile of no-nos. Hiram lost his job, but won back his lightly-slashed girlfriend.

With this power grab, it’s as if Espada followed Clay Davis when he implored Stringer Bell to grab hold of the faucet. The HUD fawwwsut. The faucet here being the riches of billionaire instigator Tom Golisano. But Espada and Monserrate justified their maneuver under the guise of Latino empowerment. The coup was necessary due to the dearth of elected officials with Spanish surnames. It’s a valid point. If you are a believer in representative democracy, you might have to concede that.

Consider Queens. By the last census count, ten years ago, the borough had an “Hispanic” population around 25%. It has certainly grown since, and recent estimates put the number higher. Yet, of the 45 ambassadors the borough sends to City Hall and Albany, only 2 are Latino. Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s district dips into a swath of Queens. And the ethically challenged Gregory Meeks holds court in the southeast region. The other Congressfolk from the world’s most diverse place are named Joe, Carolyn, Gary, and Tony.

Unsurprisingly, State Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr. rushed to his comprade’s defense. Diaz, one of the audacious Three Amigos, expressed outrage normally reserved for the icky copulation of sodomites:

I am troubled to learn that despite scandals and investigations surrounding several Democratic leaders in the New York State Senate, an effort is underway to oust Senator Pedro Espada, the only Hispanic under investigation, from the Democratic Party.

He also has a point. Our state Senate is awash in scandal, the latest involving two white politicians: Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, and Vincent Leibell of Putnam County. Lest we forget the misadventures of Gov. Paterson, or Charlie Rangel, or Joseph Bruno, or Larry Seabrook and his bagel. And there are the tribulations of the state Independence Party, and its lily white leadership, that once christened Espada with its “Anti-Corruption Award.” But Diaz is also pulling a callous, petty trick, using the race card to cover chronic corruption. It does nothing to advance Latinos in politics.

In the fifth (and, yes, least best) season of The Wire, the loquacious Senator Davis is finally summoned to testify for his own indictment. He is meant to fall. But the silver-tongued statesman seduces the jury. He casts himself as a charitable populist facing a heartless machine politics, and he walks away free. The whole incident, Davis declares in that inimitable cadence, is the fault of an overly ambitious, litigious Attorney General. Espada, predictably, blasted Cuomo for the latest affront. Cuomo “has other stooges speaking for him,” Espada insisted. “He’s pulling the strings on this.” In the courtroom, Davis described walking down the street, freely dishing out cash to constituents-a reasonable explanation for misplaced funds. If indicted, Espada might not have the same luxury. He lives out in Mamaroneck.

Dinowitz, the unfortunate sap in this dilemma, has yet to declare if his party will take action. He suggested, as did other Bronx officials, that the voters should oust Espada. For their part, the fourth estate isn’t buying the Democrats’ gesture one bit. The state’s leaders, the Daily News editorialized, “sold out long ago.”

Should he be dropped from the party, Espada might run as an independent, small ‘i’ or big, marshaled on by this new martyrdom. It didn’t work for Hiram. If there’s any justice in the world, Espada will finally be knocked out in the fall. But the same can’t be said for the countless officials that toe or flaunt the ethical line. They will carry on like Clay. And we will sit back and watch the empire crumble.

Mark Bergen is pretty sure there isn’t really justice in the world.

It turns out that fish oil is probably good for you after all.

Adding one or two servings a week of mackerel or salmon to the household shopping list is believed to help fend off heart disease and has been claimed to ease the symptoms of asthma and bowel disease, prevent premature birth, boost memory, and cure depression. Now US researchers say that taking fish oil supplements may cut the risk of breast cancer. Previous dietary studies have been inconsistent, possibly because few people meet the recommended target for oily fish consumption.

You know why few people meet the recommended target for oily fish consumption? Because oily fish SUCKS. I think I’d rather just get cancer. I mean, I’m glad this might help people and stuff, but, seriously? Oily fish is fucking RANK.

Big Boi Performs “Shutterbugg” On Jay Leno

Big Boi went on Jay Leno last night to perform “Shutterbugg” from the dynamite new Sir Luscious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty album. Leno was smiling when he introduced him, but he’s going to be pissed when NBC gives Big Boi his job.

Hilary Kilmarnock, the first wife of Kingsley Amis (and mother of Martin Amis), who rather improbably ended up sharing a home with Kingsley and her third husband during the former’s final years, has died at the age of 81.

LeBron James is 25 years old. If he had gone to college and completed all four years, he would have graduated in 2007. Think of the people you know who are that age, think of the decisions they make and how they carry themselves, take a quick glance through their Facebook tagged pictures, and then imagine them with hundreds of millions of dollars and the freedom to do whatever they want. Do they seem like super well adjusted people who are driven enough to have excelled in their vocation, if they had skipped college and had been working for the last 7 years, to have elevated themselves to the third or fourth best person in their field? Probably not.

LeBron James is announcing his decision tonight regarding with which team he will play for the next 3-to-5 years. At 9 p.m., there’ll be an hour long live special airing on ESPN called ‘The Decision,’ in which LeBron does or does not confirm his move to Miami. This has made some people very heated and upset! Why is he making such a spectacle of this whole process? He’s obsessed with attention, how annoying and despicable! What an asshole! Well, okay, sure, he probably wanted some of the attention. But the way LeBron has acted through this free agent process, and really the greater part of his career, is less a product of him being the biggest attention-monger of all time, but a product of the culture and time period he was brought up in.

Millenials are indecisive!

Some people are mad that LeBron doesn’t just quickly re-sign with his hometown team in Cleveland and play out the rest of his career with the team that drafted him, the Cavaliers. Larry Bird did it! Magic Johnson did it! Michael Jordan almost did it! These same people don’t understand why he’s making a fuss about the decision at all. This is the kinda false “what about the loyalty” argument.

Those same people though forget that LeBron is a confused 25-year-old kid. (I don’t want to speak in generalities on behalf of all Millennials, but for the sake of explaining myself, I’m going to have to do it a lot here, sorry!) We’re a generation that’s been told that we can do anything that we want, and on top of that, we’ve been brought up to believe that we should never settle for anything less than the best. As a result, we often think that in the 25th hour, there’s always something a little better that’s going to crop up.

As a result, you can imagine that a kid like Lebron, who has not only been brought up to think like that, but has actually achieved-for the most part-being the best, you know, in the world, would be indecisive and stress over this decision. LeBron is entering his personal prime; he may never be in better shape physically to play basketball. After this whole free agency exercise, he will have no more excuses. If he doesn’t win now, after having picked his team, picked his teammates, anything less than a championship is going to be a disappointment. That’s a lot of pressure!

In the last week, reports have come out that many sources are “certain” that he was going to go to: Chicago, Miami, New Jersey (for a second), staying in Cleveland, then Chicago again, Miami again, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, New York, then finally this morning, people are going big on Miami again. I don’t think these sources were wrong! In fact, they were probably all right. I’m not saying we should feel sorry for this guy who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but it seems to me that he’s legitimately confused.

Millennials are hyper self-aware! AND/OR People are very vocal these days!

There’s another camp of people out there who think that LeBron is delaying his decision to build drama, that this entire protracted public deliberation has been a marketing plan for himself because he wants the attention. I think it’s a natural conclusion to reach. because we’ve never seen any sort of hullabaloo like this before around a sports player and his decision to play on a particular team. Compound that with the fact that LeBron once foolishly admitted on the record that he has goals of being a “global icon” and it’s easy to paint LeBron as a super egomaniacal guy. To that I would argue that LeBron is no more egomaniacal than the rest of us his age. And furthermore, a large part of the excessive event-ness may very well be a product of the state of today’s media/”media,” rather than a larger self serving plan by LeBron himself. Everyone wants in on the LeBron game.

Kids today (get off my lawn!) think about personal brand management. They probably don’t call it that, because they’re kids and unless they’re publicists, they’re not usually into using such buzzwords, but the fact remains that young people today have a lot more outward-facing public personalities with which they try to gain attention and favor. Instead of just caring about dressing a certain way, now you have to make sure your Facebook profile is socially acceptable, your Twitter, your Tumblr, and your whatever. The things you post on these places makes you inherently much more self aware and adds a pressure to what you’re associated with. Sure, you like The Mentalist and will talk about it on Twitter, but you don’t necessarily like it enough to “fan” it on Facebook, because that might be a little much, although you can still put clips of it up on your Tumblr. Today, teens have varying tiers of which they will publicly associate with The Mentalist!

Now realize that LeBron has been hardwired with this built-in self-scrutiny and has had all of his major decisions been public ones for almost a decade. Now he’s about to make a choice that will be dissected for the rest of his career. His self awareness, and most likely the large number of people talking in his ear, make this free agent decision more than just “Where am I going to work and live for the next three-to-five years?” but a bigger question about his legacy, his place in NBA history. This does not seem fun! Again: this is not meant to invoke pity for LeBron, but more to suggest that his behavior through this whole process may not have been just to serve his own ego.

As far as what the big deal that the media has made this, isn’t that more a testament to our culture now? 24-hour news cycles, as they like to call them, and the Internet as a whole, already make non-story molehills into mountains, but pageview gaming and Twitter take that to an even more heightened level.

A recent example is this phenomenon is this year’s World Cup. Although the tournament itself wasn’t necessarily better-in fact the early rounds were definitely worse from a talent/gameplay perspective-everyone wanted to talk about it on Twitter. Whether it was the guy who wanted to seem clever by making a vuvuzela joke or the girls who wanted to earn boyish street cred by feigning interest in this fringe sport played by cute guys, the World Cup was way more prevalent in the social stream of our lives than it had ever been before.

The LeBron news cycle is cranked up with this same social media amplification. So even if we didn’t want to know about all of the little sea changes of LeBron’s whims, we were subject to them because Twitter gave everyone a platform. Players, other athletes, reporters, totally random people: we heard their take, which then made everyone else want to share their opinion and join the conversation.

A Sidebar

Early in Kobe Bryant’s career, he put out a half-baked rap song and music video that featured Tyra Banks. And really, that’s the difference between Kobe and LeBron. Kobe didn’t have to deal with YouTube, he didn’t have to worry about Deadspin, PTI, SportsNation making talking points out of it, or deal with the fact that a video like that would probably have been insanely viral on the internet. Do you think LeBron could put out this video? No way. But more to the point, LeBron would never think to do that, because he’s too aware of his own brand. For future reference: LeBron’s rap song will feature Jay-Z on the third verse, Drake on the hook, and will be produced by Kanye West.

Millennials are celebrity conscious!

Today, we just have more celebrities than ever. The internet has made it easier for people to get famous and for their fans to find them. Are you into comedy? You don’t have to just aspire to just be either Dane Cook or Jerry Seinfeld, but if you’re into more alternative stuff, you can align yourself with a Zach Galifianakis. Too popular after The Hangover? Want a little more indie-cred? Go Louis CK. Maybe more actor-y and less stand up comedian-y? Adam Scott it is. There are options out there.

LeBron is no different. Whereas Kobe looked up to Michael Jordan, Magic, or Dr. J, LeBron’s modeled himself after not only MJ but luminaries in other fields. One of LeBron’s most often cited inspirations is Jay-Z. LeBron was in middle school when Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt was released, he was in high school when The Blueprint came out, his formative years were shaped by watching a rapper transform himself from a popular musician into a global icon-and enterprise. Jay-Z leveraged his charisma and ability to rap better than everyone else into owning his own liquors, clubs, a clothing line, a consulting company, a basketball team. Lebron’s decisions now reflect this influence to be more than “just” a successful athlete. That’s why LeBron started his own marketing company, that’s why LeBron counts Warren Buffett as an adviser, and that’s why he is so mindful of how his brand is navigated.

At the core, this is what frustrates so many people: why does LeBron put out a documentary about himself in the offseason instead of figuring out more post-up moves? Why is LeBron in Jay-Z’s music videos and on stage with Drake and Young Jeezy at their concerts, when he should be studying up on how to avoid situations where he’s forced to go 1-on-4 against the Celtics defense? Michael Jordan never let extracurricular happenings get in the way of him being the best (and most winningest) basketball player of all time. Kobe Bryant hasn’t done that on his way to five championships (and it’s definitely worth noting that both of them had serious off the court scandals involving their home life and the law).

But LeBron isn’t like Kobe or Michael, for better or for worse. When LeBron finally chose a Twitter name, he picked “King James,” which is the way he’s branded by Nike. When LeBron makes his decision for which team he’s going to during free agency, he does it by way of a live ESPN one-hour special.

It’s unclear as to how LeBron’s career will play out, because the first millennials are just now starting to struggle through their positions of power-see Mark Zuckerberg, for one. It’s hard to say whether or not he’ll reach the potential that’s been touting him up so hard. But the same could probably be said for the rest of our generation as well.

Okay, NOW I’m back. Enjoy!

Pennsylvania, home to some of the most bizarre liquor laws in the country, is now offering its residents the opportunity to purchase wine from grocery store vending machines. “Customers provide identification, look into a camera so an actual, real live person in a call center can confirm that they match their ID, and blow into a breathalyzer to prove they are not already drunk.” Okay!

“I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade”
-Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle explains how she would counsel a pregnant 13-year-old who has been raped by her father against having an abortion.

by saythatscool

Unsurprisingly, people had a lot to say about feminism and The Daily Show and Jezebel and Emily Gould and the attention economy yesterday. One very, very long comment came late in the game!

It read, in part:

The “summary of Gould’s article as ‘y’all are just jealous’ is facile to the point of being misleading. Ironically though, it serves as a perfect metaphor for exactly the kind of manipulative junk that makes the whole Jezebel cardboard cutout so distasteful, as Jez then went beyond the pale with a post that accused Gould of impugning their ‘reporting.’ No such thing actually occurred though, as (to cadge a term from old timey philosophy) Gould didn’t point a finger at the form of their argument but rather at the substance that it was made of. There wasn’t an accusation of poor reporting but just an accusation of a sort of emotional purpose behind that reporting. Just as at no point did Gould accuse the Jezebel writers of being jealous and catty, she said that they were encouraging those feelings in the online community, that they were unconsciously pointing people in that direction…. Marx used to say that money was simply fetishized power-that it was a talisman that represented something, and for the Jez community that fetishized currency actually is outrage and righteousness.”

[Ed. Note: Further commenters, however, go on to note the currency of outrage is widely accepted at all of today’s best Internet boutiques! That, as Emily pointed out, it’s not proprietary to Jezebel.

Also, then this commenter goes on to talk about: “But Jezebel doesn’t actually police that voice, or educate women, or pretend to debate any sort of truths which encompass any world that involves the 49% of the rest of us that apparently make up the female-mashing machine that is human existence.” Which, ack! Anyway, I couldn’t let this go by without qualifying, sorry! -c.

]