‘Puter knows better than to read the New York Times, particularly anything written concerning “gender” or “family” issues. But ‘Puter got suckered into reading this gem of a column by Judith Warner.

Here are the facts, as relayed by Ms. Warner. Female Professor Kevane at Montana State University* takes five kids to the mall near her home. The children are 12, 12, 10, 8 and 3. Professor Kevane leaves the 12 year olds in charge of the remaining pack, ordering that the 3 year old not leave the stroller. Professor Kevane goes home to take a nap [really — ed.]. Twelve year olds neglect their babysitting duties to try on bitchin’ shirts, “ditching” their young charges in the purse section of Macy’s. Cops are called for the abandoned children. Children are fine. Professor Kevane is summoned to the store. Professor Kevane tries to explain herself, and cop tells her to be quiet or Professor Kevane would be arrested on the spot. Professor Kevane is charged with child endangerment. Prosecuting attorney (also female) refuses to plea bargain or accept a reduced charge. During the course of the trial, the prosecuting attorney stated that professors are incapable of seeing the world around them because their heads are always in books. The prosecutor also wrote to Professor Kevane’s attorney that “even individuals with major educations can commit this offense, and they should not be treated differently because they have more money or education.” Interestingly, no statement of the outcome of Professor Kevane’s case is included in the column.

Sure, it appears that the prosecuting attorney was zealous, at a minimum. Sure, it stinks to have to pay for what by all accounts was a serious error in judgment. And sure, this wasn’t a clear cut case of child endangerment.

But that’s not what Ms. Warner takes away. Ms. Warner opines that what really sent her “head spinning after reading Kevane’s story was the degree to which it drove home the fact that our country’s resentment, and even hatred, of well-educated, apparently affluent women is spiraling out of control.”

Oh. ‘Puter sees now. The woman who dumped her kids at the mall so she could take a nap is the victim here, and emblematic of a modern day pogrom against women everywhere. Well ‘Puter calls shenanigans. Only in the rarefied air of academia and the lofty salons of Manhattan Island is this in any way a society-wide attack on smart, affluent women. This well-educated (Sarah Lawrence, NYU, UCLA) woman admittedly leaves young children at the mall unattended. This was stupid. She got caught doing it. She had to pay the consequences. Pretty ordinary stuff, ‘Puter thinks.

Yet somehow the article devolves into how it’s Sarah Palin’s fault. See, e.g., “It’s precisely the kind of thinking that has fueled Sarah Palin’s unlikely — and continued — ability to pass herself off as the consummately “real” American woman. (And it is what has made it possible for her supporters to discredit other women’s criticism of her as elitist cat fighting.)” Ah. Gov. Palin caused Professor Kevane to leave young children unattended in public so she could take a well-earned nap.

It’s a male attack on women choosing to divert their energies “from their wombs to their brains.” That’s right. ‘Puter often tells his nonexistent daughter “Honey, you can’t go to college or you won’t be able to grow up to be a college professor and spit out a litter of kids that you can then abandon for lengthy periods at malls so you can nap your afternoons away without interruption.”

As a side question, ‘Puter asks Ms. Warner how she thinks a poor, Black welfare mother would fare under this scenario. Or even better, a blue-collar single father who pulled the same stupid stunt. ‘Puter’s betting a Black woman would’ve lost her kids, at least temporarily, and the man would be sitting in jail wondering what happened to him.

Look, Ms. Warner. It’s this simple. An individual made a really, really stupid choice. She was forced to pay the consequences by a zealous prosecutor (of the same gender). Other genders, education levels, professions and ethnicities would have fared worse. There is no society-wide conspiracy against women.

If you’re looking for a society-wide conspiracy, Ms. Warner, try this one on for size. Americans conspire to make people who whine about being victims of their own stupidity uncomfortable in order to get them to STHeckU.

*Extra bonus fact: Professor Kevane is a professor of “Latin American and Latino literature.” Yup. No post-modernism or critical race theory B.S. in those fields. Nope. Here’s Professor’s curriculum vitae. See for yourself.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.