One paragraph explains more than the writer thinks

The headline to this Salon piece is "How to Leave a Soldier".  Somehow that strikes me as an eminently appropriate headline for a Salon piece.

And as John of ARGGHHH! says:

The funny part, I suspect, is that she thinks she's written something deep.  The irony is that it just makes the shallow stand out more.  Just as her hedonistic, self-centered outlook is encapsulated in how she chooses to describe her husband and his fellow tankers:

The part that made me sit up and go "Ah, well that explains a lot doesn't it?" was this:

I am married to a lithe, blue-eyed Marxist whose dissertation was on U.S. imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a man who participated in war protests in Santa Cruz, Calif., during the winter I lived at Fort Knox. He has two children of his own -- bright, intense redheads, close in age to mine. I live with him in a tiny apartment in Manhattan, and when we can, we commute together to work. On weekends if we are not at a museum or movie together, we are at home right up next to each other.

Yep, that one paragraph explains more about the writer than she could ever imagine.  Her previous husband has done more good for the world than her current husband could ever hope or dream for.  I could spend an entire day just taking this piece apart and exposing what it says about the writer, but I've got snow to shovel.  Still, if you can stomach it, go read it, because it's a visual definition of the "Me" generation.

Ten bucks says she voted for Obama.

Oh, and scrolling down the Linkiest, you get to THIS article, and I'm wondering if Hawkins and Co did it purposely or if it's just a coincidence:  Wherefor Art Thou, Chivalry?

Let’s not be blinded by St. Valentine himself. A few secret admirers are sprouting up these days and chocolates may end up in my mailbox on the 14^thof February, but I want to focus on the other 364 calendar days. Where did dinner at a nice restaurant go? Why are guys no longer lending a sweater when my arms get chilly? How come the term “first date” is becoming just as out-of-date as the Spice Girls’ famous “girl power” slogan?

Read the first article.  Then read the second article.  You want to know why chivalry is dying?  Because men don't want to be chivalrous to a woman who will leave them for a "lithe, blue-eyed Marxist" when they're not getting laid enough.  Chivalry died bit by bit as the practitioners of Chivalry were snubbed as antiquated, chauvinistic, and repressive.  Chivalry died because modern society, through it's actions, told us that they didn't want it.

So deal with it.  OR, and this is my preferred option, dig it up and bring it back to life.  But it has to be through what you do, not what you say.  It's the classic case of nice guys finishing last.  If you truly give a shit about chivalry, why don't you pay a bit more attention to the guys who practice it?