By: Leimamo

Leimamo — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 06:57:54 +0000

Whether or not he wrote it, the last line is da weiner!

By: Lynn Vasquez

Lynn Vasquez — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 20:50:31 +0000

Hi,
> I checked this to see if Andy Rooney really wrote it… and he
> didn’t… but what
> I found was this interesting piece by Benjamin Franklin… see below:
>
> Origins: Andy Rooney, Andy Rooney
> the curmudgeonly commentator who closes every Sunday broadcast of
> television’s 60 Minutes news magazine with a (typically sardonic)
> essay about some aspect of everyday life, is — thanks to the Internet
> — as well-known for what he hasn’t said as he is for what he really
> has said. The piece quoted above, an essay “In Praise of Older Women,”
> is another portion of his “hasn’t said” fame.
>
> This item was not penned by Andy Rooney; it is an embellished version
> of a piece created by Frank Kaiser, a columnist whose Suddenly Senior
> articles are published on his web site and syndicated to a variety of
> newspapers across the U.S.
>
> Baltimore Sun writer Susan Reimer contacted Andy Rooney, who told her:
> “It just bugs me that anybody would put my name on something I didn’t
> write,” said Rooney from his New York office. He’s been the object of
> this kind of hoax before, and another, he said, had just crossed his
> desk.
>
> I asked him if he shared the author’s affection for older women, and
> he said, “Not particularly.”
> The true author, Frank Kaiser, had this to say about the
> misattribution:
> I actually wrote it in 2000 but about a year ago [i.e., in 2002], I
> started seeing it come back to me in e-mails attributed to Andy
> Rooney. It didn’t bother me too much. That’s sort of the nature of the
> Internet. I wrote him and made a joke about it and he called me. You
> know, he’s just as cantankerous on the phone as he is on the air.
> Of course, a celebrated encomium about older women was penned by a
> famous American statesman over 250 years earlier, when Benjamin
> Franklin wrote the piece known to us as “Old Mistresses’ Apologue”:
> June 25. 1745
>
> My dear Friend,
>
> I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations
> you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you.
> Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man,
> and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid
> Happiness. Your Reasons against entring into it at present, appear to
> me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by
> postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in
> comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and
> settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human
> Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason;
> he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are
> more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the
> Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete
> Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a
> prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good
> Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.
>
> But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a
> Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that
> in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call
> this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:
>
> 1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds
> are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more
> improving and more lastingly agreable.
>
> 2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To
> maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of
> Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services
> small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends
> when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is
> hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good
> Woman.
>
> 3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d
> may be attended with much Inconvenience.
>
> 4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet
> in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them
> is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to
> theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People
> might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take
> care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and
> prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary
> Prostitutes.
>
> 5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the
> Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The
> Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and
> Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that
> covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the
> Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one.
> And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal
> Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently
> superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.
>
> 6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin,
> and make her for Life unhappy.
>
> 7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl
> miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can
> attend the making an old Woman happy.
>
> 8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!
>
> Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly;
> being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.
> Last updated: 24 September 2003

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 24 Aug 2005 17:46:17 +0000

A classic, but for what it’s worth, it’s not Rooney:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/rooney2.asp

Comments on: Women Ova 50

By: Leimamo

By: Lynn Vasquez

By: Ryan