I read his piece, and I am shocked.

Yeah, let's make "haha oh yeah duh" the standard correction used by every Jez science writer acknowledging a basic error.

Lindy's hostility toward structured thought is becoming painfully evident.

Come on. It'd be a pretty baroque way of getting to see prospective players in tri-shorts — especially when actual NFL locker rooms are pretty damned naked.

Not that unusual a practice in a lot of D1 athletic contexts, actually — up to and including the NFL Scouting Combine.

Right. I read it as, "The character only looks like he has things together - in fact, his decision-making skills mostly suck."

"He's a train wreck!" isn't exactly a stirring defense of the idea that the Hannahs of the world can credibly hook up w/a traditionally hot dude.

I was sorta taking the other commentator at her (?) word there - have only read the NYT review, not the book itself. Sorry!

Hooray! It's nice to see that Anna B doesn't let every error go unfixed.

Wouldn't that be "reeking of femaleness"? (Or some less-clunky equivalent?)

From the NYT review of The Astronaut Wives Club:

One of these medications may help:

"piece of mobius"?

And there it is: the thin end of the wedge that'll be used to pry the door to SF open as wide as it takes to get some female candidates through. ( "Your standards? Old-fashioned and exclusionary, chum. Better revise 'em pronto.")

I tried to make a similar point elsewhere. It seems to boil down to a feeling that the whole integration effort will a) make a hard job harder, for no practical benefit to the unit; and b) likely lead to interference from Big Army/Navy/AF etc, costing SF autonomy in ways that may not have anything to do directly…

The concern you'll hear is that the community has no trouble keeping the Timmys out (either the class or the instructors will see to it) - but that dynamic doesn't work once you get a bunch of outside oversight w female candidates: there's just no way to say "She was a shitbag" without it becoming a hugely charged…

DNA collection on Martin's hands was limited to fingernail scrapings — not the likeliest place to find blood/DNA from a brief fight.

God help the individual(s) who try to get more sensitive than a card-carrying member of the commentariat, eh?

In what sense do you read two open-ended questions as "complaints"?

The single most-overlooked point about "The Searchers" — and one reason why it's a very tricky film to deploy in a contemporary "thought piece" (as Brooks would no doubt have it) on manly values.