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| MARS AND VENUS: A NEW APPRAISAL |
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| If recent evidence that microbes once lived on Mars holds up to examination, the discovery will reverberate throughout the world. Scientists will have to reconsider the meaning of life. NASA will have to probe deeper. But no one will be affected more than men because, after all, men are from Mars. |
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| You women from Venus can only envy us men. Even if it's just a few microbes, we come from the planet with life. You come from the planet with poisonous clouds of carbon dioxide. Our planet once teemed with vitality. Your planet is a blistering rock orbiting the sun. So you do the dishes tonight. |
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| How ironic, eh, men? All these years. All those seminars. All those hours of listening to women tell us how warlike, how cold, how unfeeling our planet is. And now here comes Truth, discovered not by some goddess worshipper but by actual male scientists. And the truth is: Mars, long misunderstood as insensitive, macho, ham-handed, is the only planet aside from Mother Earth to give birth to warm, loving microbes. Mars, the fiery red planet named for the god of war, is the No. 2 garden spot in the Solar System. We should be proud, men, yet if we are to be worthy of Father Mars, we must not gloat. |
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| Pity, instead, the Venusians. They have to come up with a new slogan. Once it was so simple. Men were from Mars, women were from Venus. That explained everything -- divorce, NFL linebackers, her ex-, your clown of a brother, you name it. Now, scientists tell us it may not be so easy. |
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| Women, being from a dead planet where it rains sulfuric acid, will no doubt disagree. You can just hear them: "The discovery of Martian microbes that lived 4 billion years ago does not make men compassionate," they'll argue. "Scientists gave us nerve gas, ozone holes, and the atom bomb. So you're trusting these guys with your image? Get back to that lawn!" |
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| But we men, being from Father Mars, know that a little protoplasm goes a long way. If our planet once had fuzzy little bacteria, then we can share our feelings as well as any creature from a place where the atmosphere would crush you like a tin can. If Mars could give life, then we can certainly nurture it, although we wouldn't want to go too far with this one, boys, lest we be asked to change more than our minimal quota of diapers. |
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| Yet what will news of Martian life do to Mars and Venus in the bedroom? Mars and Venus at the seashore? Mars and Venus on a first date after meeting through the personals? Clearly, more research is necessary, but early indications are not good. |
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| As the life-giver, shouldn't Mars take charge when the sun goes down? Shouldn't Mars pick the vacation spot this summer? Shouldn't some other planet we know just shut its yap about the toilet seat? Hey! We're from Mars and we'll leave that toilet seat up wherever we want! And we've got the microbes to back us up! |
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| Thanks to science, those who cling to the notion that men are warlike while women are goddesses will just have to find new space-age metaphors. How about: "Men are asteroids, women are exploding supernovae." Or maybe: "Men are black holes, women are globular clusters." Perhaps "Men are from Montana, Women are from East Orange, New Jersey." The possibilities are as infinite as the universe. |
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| But for now, rest easy, men. You, too, can nurture. You, too, can process your feelings. You, too, can orbit the sun secure in your life-giving properties. Women, meanwhile, should take their planet's surface temperature, last measured at 890 degrees and rising. Chill out, Venus, and get Mars a beer. |
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