Tuesday, February 10, 2009

When did Lori Gilbert join the senior tour?

In slightly less miserable news (but only very slightly considering the subject matter), we have a question about Lori Gilbert. Gilbert was removed from the Sports section earlier last year in what can only be described as a mercy killing and shipped off to the obscurity of the LENS section to write soft features. Because if there's one thing the Record needed, it was another feature writer.

I haven't had much of a problem with her since the move. Her sports writing was awful. The classic example I use is the time she set feminism back 50 years by claiming Mike Gundy was being sexist for tearing into a female journalist for criticizing a college athlete. Something we did to Bob Highfill just last week. But hey, equality schmiquality. We await Gilbert's bitching diatribe about how we're biased against fat, old dudes who's facial expressions never change.

So the fact that she's gone from the sports page made her easier to ignore. Mostly because it was easy to pick her apart based on fact in her sports columns because we know an assload about sports. Notsomuch with her new beat. Which brings me to the question I have.

When did Lori Gilbert get put on the old lady beat?

It's taken me a while to notice this, because I largely ignore her work in the LENS section. But since they've been putting her on the new "Page 2" thingy, her subject matter just kind of falls and can't get up jumps out at you.

Here's a sampling of just the past 2 months. There's the 80-year old Denny's waitress from today's Record which has no discernable point beyond that fact that old people apparently can hold jobs. Then a column about quilting which pretty much speaks for itself. Then there's the time she caught up with a member of the old Stockton chapter of the Mickey Mouse Club. And that time she talked to a 100-year old lady.

She's averaging two columns about old fogeys a month. And these are just the columns I pulled from her Lifestyle columnist page. I didn't even attempt to look at the actual articles she wrote. I'm glad she's gone from the sports page and all, but come on. This is a bit much.

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