You Talkin' to Me? Good ol' boys welcome a new face

From: Gonzalez, John

To: Ford, Bob; Fox, Ashley

Subject: Old faces, new places

Danica Patrick made left turn after left turn over the weekend. People are pretty excited about it. If I read the reports correctly, her NASCAR debut was a great victory for women everywhere and was a more significant moment in history for the gender than earning the right to vote.

Those GoDaddy.com ads are powerful stuff.

Explain this to me: She drove an automobile very fast (but not all that well) for years. Now she's driving a different kind of automobile very fast. Why are gasoline-loving fans and some of the media making such a big deal out of it?

From: Ford, Bob

To: Gonzalez, John; Fox, Ashley

Subject: Old faces, new places

Duh. Because she's pretty.

There were four other female drivers in that race, which was a junior-varsity NASCAR event. Didn't read much about them.

The Danica phenomenon is just another lowest-common-denominator example of American marketing. Women can get just as much credit as a man, but, uh, only if they're good looking.

From: Gonzalez, John

To: Ford, Bob; Fox, Ashley

Subject: Old faces, new places

I don't know that the lowest-common-denominator marketing approach is exclusively American, but I hear what you're saying. Page 2 would be a lot better off if I was an attractive female instead of a 30-something dude with a disproportionately large head. We might even get a reader or two.

From: Fox, Ashley

To: Gonzalez, John; Ford, Bob

Subject: Old faces, new places

I guess you guys didn't get the memo. I'm leaving Page 2. It's been real.

I haven't told Cohen yet, but I'm going to start my own thing on Page 3. There's only so much headroom on Page 2.