The Passion of the Martha

The Passion of the Martha

You know, it looks like I'm picking on a lot of women the last few weeks - Brooke Shields, Renee Zelwegger, Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise. Before I get the slings and arrows from NARAL or my wife starts to read this stuff (whichever comes first), let me stand up and defend one who could use the help.

Let's talk about Martha Stewart. Here's a modern day martyr who will only get that label if she can detonate herself on a beach in Tel Aviv. Take a look at what she's had to put up with the last couple of years:

1) She's tagged as some kind of ruthless beast who treats her employees like cattle. Because, as you know, there are no men in the corporate world who act like this.

2) To send a message to corporate America that sleazy behavior will not be tolerated, Martha Stewart goes to jail because her rat bastard of a Merrill Lynch stockbroker notified her of trading activity of another one of his insider clients and one of the biggest witnesses for the prosecution committed perjury on the stand (although he was formally charged after Martha's trial and his testimony was still considered as valid.) Never mind that had she had her Imclone stock for 12 more months, she would have made even more money than the paltry sum she did. How paltry? Let's just say it wouldn't have been enough to decorate a bathroom at the abodes of your choice of Enron, Tyco, MCI, or Global Crossing executives. Never mind that Martha ended up in jail for a fraction of the time of any of the aforementioned while the likes of Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Robert Blake, and O.J. Simpson still freely walk the streets (all involving crimes a little more offensive than picking up a telephone at an inopportune time.)

3) As part of the conditions of her release, she spends a few months under house arrest and with an ankle bracelet, which she wore for an added length of time because she blabbed to somebody that, by golly gee, there's this thing Al Gore invented called "the internet" and, on it, you can find stuff about how to remove an ankle bracelet. In the meantime, despite the trillions of dollars spent over the years on satellite systems that can locate needles in haystacks and other high-tech gimmickry, we still can't find Osama Bin Laden. I guess it's because we have bigger things to worry about such as finding out why Martha Stewart goes to yoga classes.

4) To revamp her image, she teams up with reality TV guru Mark Burnett who puts her in a daily talk show and a prime time female version of "The Apprentice". The talk show is treading water because her first name doesn't start with "O" and end with "H" and she can't dance like Ellen Degenerate. Then, instead of starting her variation of The Donald in the summer, the fine folks at NBC took a page from ABC's "How to turn 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' into a lifelong marketing brand" and decided to put her on in the fall thus diluting the value of both shows (I'm waiting for that carpet on Donald's head to stand upright. Should be by Christmas.) Then, in desperation, they decided to move her show to go against "Lost" and its 21 million weekly viewers (I guess this will be until they can find a time slot on Bravo or Univision.)

Clearly we've become either too wealthy or too stupid a society in the last thirty years. Once upon a time, we'd call women who like to clean, cook, and tend the garden "marriage material" and put them on shrines. Now we badger them and flog them and don't ask what happens if they actually have a mouth. And in favor of what? Good Catholic girls like Katie Holmes who can't wait until the utterance of "I do" to get knocked up or Jessica Simpson as long as she remembers to store her brains in her double D's or her digitally enhanced butt.

People - take the nails out of her palms and give Martha a break already!

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