I've read and heard many reasons why Black is an odd, unwise choice. She has no direct experience and hasn't exactly shown interest in schools. Here's one more reason, and in this one, I suspect I may be alone, a tired moralist in the city.
Yes, her experience is managerial. But what has she been managing? Cosmopolitan. Esquire. Country Living. Harper's Bazaar. Marie Claire. O, the Oprah Magazine. And others. So what's wrong with those. On the one hand, nothing. The magazines entertain. I was a slave to Seventeen in high school, so I understand the pull of fantasy and impossibility. "Average" people aren't that beautiful, skinny, witty, rich. Who wants to be average?
On the other hand, there's a soft-porn aspect to many of the above magazines that has bothered me, especially since I moved to New York City, a walker's city. Here I see magazine covers and ads for the magazines on street corners, at subway bodegas, Times Square and many inevitably show major bosom action. While I have no problem with major bosom action,
I have a problem when that's made so public that infants, three-year olds, teenage boys, over-sexed males (and females either over-sex or trying to please men) are constantly exposed to and/or stimulated by the, inevitably and with design, soft porn. Maybe I'm a prude but I don't want to see the blossoming crotches of male underwear models, little sacks of joy behind white cotton, also on street corners (and billboards).
And that's the kind of environment Cathie Black has been so skillfully managing. Is there any educative element to these magazines. Well of course. Ways to apply mascara and no-fail bedroom skills for him and her. But really. Those magazines are commercial ventures shilling for advertisers.
I don't want that woman or her $40,000 bracelet in charge of New York's kids. Well, maybe the bracelet is okay.
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