I've started a newspaper in a small town on an isolated island. I've already noticed that people are reluctant to talk to me because they're afraid of appearing in print. What can I do so my friends won't desert me?
Tammy from Tangier
Dear Tammy,
As I once famously remarked at a dinner party: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. (If only Colonel Gadhafi had listened!) If you know about somebody doing something incompetent, under-handed, or just plain skanky, you have an obligation to inform the public. If people are reluctant to talk to you, you might consider forming a network of undercover informants. (I’d be happy to give you some tips, based on some work I did for the Stasi in the 70s.) And if your friends desert you simply because you denounce and humiliate them in print, they’re not really your friends anyway.
Dear Madame Sophia,
I live on Ocracoke. What if I don't like basketball?
Football Fan
Dear Football fan,
First of all, if you don’t like basketball, you are obviously very ignorant and probably morally bankrupt as well (or perhaps you’re just from Texas). I suggest you consult a psychiatrist and/or clergy member immediately. Once you’ve done that, try going to a few games. My bet is you’ll soon catch “dolphin fever,” and if you don’t, you can always move.
Dear Madame Sophia,
One of the only open restaurants where I live serves this amazing dish of sweet fries topped with powdered sugar. Yum! What can I do to keep my slim figure for the next bikini season?
Hungry Girl
Dear Hungry Girl,
Your letter made me angry…and sad…but mostly angry. Don’t you realize that you’re subscribing to the unrealistic female body images perpetuated by our patriarchal, misogynistic, mass-consumer culture? Are you not at all familiar with the work of the Italian sociologist Antonio Gramsci? Aren’t you aware that your sentiments are a classic expression of hegemony, wherein the oppressed actually internalizes the values and perspective of the oppressor? HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THIS? It is morally incumbent upon you, for the sake of women everywhere, to eat what you want and let men’s opinions of you be damned. A funnel cake can be an instrument of social change no less than a Molotov cocktail.
Having said that, if you really want to look good on the beach this summer, here’s my advice: forget about the bikini. Very few women can pull it off, and anyway, men like to have a little something left to their imaginations. A tasteful one-piece is not only more forgiving of a few extra pounds, it also excites men’s curiosity.
