To the Editors:

Joseph Kimmel’s recent assertions in regard to his own domestic prowess are easily dismissed. His January contribution to the popular newspaper column “Hints From Heloise” contains suggestions urging the homemaker to “Save those myna birds for a rainy day!” and advising that “Bicarbonate of soda makes a handy baby solvent”[1], notions that should be given no more stock than his clearly delusional evaluation of his own worth as a stoat breeder.

Similarly, Kimmel’s much-ballyhooed role in the European revolutions of 1848 crumbles under close scrutiny. Neither his feeble attempts at Machiavellian manipulation nor the self-congratulatory December unveiling of his remarkably risque line of doggie-sweaters in Paris [2] have managed to cover the holes in Kimmel’s argument.

In less discerning minds Kimmel may yet hope to entrench his poison talons, but all true scholars will reject his mindless blatherings as surely as we have already rejected his repeated marriage proposals.

–Walker Evans,
Double-degree junior

[1] — “Hints From Heloise,” 3/22/04
[2] — See also the coverage of this event in the January 2004 edition of Vogue.