A Vowell I wouldn't buy

Apparently, Sarah Vowell is as bad as Maureen Dowd. I rejoiced when I read that the latter was going to be on book leave (I just won't buy her new book); hoped her replacement would be someone with a little more coherency of thought, formality of speech, or at least not as insulting to her readers. It strikes me as a task not hard to do, to find that replacement.

Either the Times just didn't try to hard, though, or they were actively looking for a Dowdy clone. Vowell's was a name I recognized when a coworker showed me a book of hers he was reading; I have only her current article to go on. But it alone is enough to make most reasonable people quickly close the paper on a Wednesday or a Saturday when they reach the Op-Ed page, or, if you're me, masochistically read on.

Vowell's article starts off in the same tone as Dowd's do -- chatty, but not yet stupidly offensive. Not grammatically pleasing, but I'm not screaming yet:

Or when [Pat Robertson] said, "The husband is the head of the wife"? Or when he warned the city of Orlando that the flying of homosexuals' upbeat rainbow flags might incite divine retribution in the form of hurricanes or "possibly a meteor"? Yep, good times.

[Sentence fragments; a snarky colloquialism]

So far, not too bad. The first five paragraphs are factual, discussing Robertson's apparent about-face about the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS, and Live 8. The sixth could be included, if you wanted to squeak in there that it was factual that Vowell has a recurring dream about shaking Republicans' hands.

The end of the sixth paragraph is, I think, where my nostrils really flared in annoyance for the first time. Sentence-fragmenting, she says:

But Robertson? He's always been a solid "No way!" as he sulks by the punch bowl with Strom.

One of my pet peeves (and I know I've done it; shows how damn insidious it is) is calling women -- especially women in power -- by their first names (c.f. "Condi," "Hillary"). One could argue that calling Strom Thurmond by his first name is a form of retaliation, of fighting fire with fire. If this is her tack, though, it just scratches another one of my pet peeves: there are so few occasions in which this is appropriate, from partisan mudslinging (from which I'd like to exempt myself and my party, but apparently Vowell -- who asserts that the main strength of the Democrats, of whose ranks she numbers, is "writing exceedingly eloquent concession speeches" -- would disagree) to all things feminist. Why does everyone else in that paragraph get two names, but "Strom" only one? (Yes, it's enough to identify him uniquely, but that shouldn't be reason enough, and it smacks of unprofessional familiarity.)

The seventh and eighth paragraphs could be construed as on-topic, were she to say something relevant afterwards. But instead, taking a leaf directly from Dowd's book, she proceeds to launch into the topic of Supreme Court justice confirmation hearings. Uhh ... what? This is only tangentially relevant at best, and that only if you count her previous paragraphs as tangentially relevant (which, you may recall, I granted only on a condition that she's now nullified).

Somehow back on the topic of the G8/Live-8 a few paragraphs later, she cites a statistic that the performers at the latter are apparently echoing in support of their cause: "Every three seconds, one person dies." Fact, one must assume.

But Vowell apparently thinks facts are "moronic":

That fact, that every three seconds an African human being dies from hunger or AIDS or, honestly, mosquito bites in this day and age, is literally the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Way, way, way dumber than that [Robertson's] thing about Orlando and a meteor from God. That every-three-seconds statistic is so moronic, and having the richest countries in the world do something about it is such a total no-brainer, that Pat Robertson will join up with Dennis-bloody-Hopper of "Blue"-bloody-"Velvet" to spread the word.

Aside from the gratingness of her iteration of "way" and the infixation of "bloody" into several public figures' names, why is this fact moronic? I agree that it's a no-brainer that the richest countries in the world should be helping out the poorer ones. That's a fundamental plank of most things Democratic. Maybe Vowell meant that it's moronic that that's not happening? (Note: I have no idea what aid the US is currently sending to Africa. I'm sure it's insufficient, but I'm not sure it's negligible. It's also notable that not all money given in aid goes directly to the source of the problem, as another Op-Ed from Sunday's paper points out -- worth a skim. The problem of hunger and poverty in Africa, apparently is anything but a "no-brainer.")

Conclusion: If the Times was looking for a replacement for Dowd as incompetent, poorly-lettered, and in general offensive to its pages as the original, they've found one.