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Reading gender divide redux: "100 academics, critics and writers" are much less open-minded in their reading than my friends list.

But we knew that.

I know nothing about Indy-car racing, but...

Apparently this article about Danica Patrick bugged me so much that I'm still thinking about it two days later. Especially this bit:

In newspaper and magazine ads designed to stoke interest in this year's IRL season, Patrick, described in one prominent U.S. newspaper as "part Angelina Jolie, part A.J. Foyt" is pictured wearing black leather under the tagline: "We heard you like to watch."

After last year's Indianapolis 500 drew the lowest television ratings in the event's history, Patrick's fourth-place finish this year sent ABC's ratings soaring 40 per cent higher from last year. In Canada, TSN's audience tripled over 2004.

Patrick's success — Janet Guthrie posted the previous best Indy 500 finish for a woman when she was ninth in 1978 — might even help spark interest in the IRL's remaining 12 races, beginning with its next event on June 11 in Texas.

Yet don't expect Fortune 500 companies to race to stake a claim on the 5-foot-2, 105-pound Patrick, who has also generated headlines for appearing in an FHM magazine photo shoot draped over the grill of a 1957 Chevy wearing a red leather bustier.

Patrick "doesn't want to be the next Anna Kournikova," Bobby Rahal, part owner of Rahal Letterman Racing, said in a recent interview with USA Today. "Danica understands she has to deliver the goods."

(snip)

Patrick needs to get to the winner's circle because it's no longer a novelty for women athletes to compete alongside men.

First of all, let's get our metaphors straight. Anna Kournikova is known for being a very beautiful, very sexy, very downloaded, talented woman tennis player in a field of talented women tennis players, many of whom are better enough at tennis that she has never won a major. If Danica Patrick is the only woman currently racing in Indy races, that's a completely different thing. Everyone knows that Jacques Villeneuve is the Anna Kournikova of auto racing, anyway.

What the powers that be are essentially saying to Ms. Patrick, here, is "Hi. Welcome to the sport. You are not the same as anyone else in this sport, and we are not starting you off on a level playing field. As a pretty woman driver, you -- unlike the men you're competing against -- are a freakshow attraction, and as such we're prepared to grant you entry. Unfortunately, you're not enough of a freak to attract attention unless you are also better than all your competitors. But hey, no pressure."

Am I wrong?

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In the department of Columns That Made Me Giggle Instead Of Retch, here's eye weekly's Moondoggie on l'affaire Belinda et Peter. Hee.

As for you ladies, consider this a test of your personal politics. Do you find MacKay sexier for having been wounded by a conniving, duplicitous bad girl? Or are you more horrified by the dismissive vision of womanhood that's unabashedly held by several Conservative MPs? Be honest. There's no shame in falling for the honourable member. Because, let's face it, when was the last time that we as Canadians had sex appeal in our politics? We are starved for it. Thank heaven these two came along -- I was starting to look funny at Dalton McGuinty.

Productive procrastination

Of all the things I could have chosen to do this afternoon I'm not sure "go through one of the boxes of old files left by one of the previous writers" should have been the one I picked.

I didn't find the documents that I was hoping were in there (set of notes from last year that somehow didn't make it into production and that we need), which would have made the exercise completely worthwhile. But it was fun, and like archaeology. I tossed at least half the stuff (I think) and organized our common bookshelf while I was at it. We'll see how long that lasts, but at least there aren't piles of outdated crap all over it any more.

Three and a half LARGE boxes still to go, unfortunately.