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TUESDAy, MARCH 3 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STyLE eZ su C
BY RON CHARLESPeople don’t say the word “re-
tard” around our family. or not
more than once.
My wife, the ever-patient high
school teacher, regards such rude
exclamations as teachable mo-
ments. I reach for a knife.
Thirty years ago, our first
daughter was born dark blue.
Minute by minute, as the doctor
tried to inflate her dormant lungs,
the future we’d imagined was as-
phyxiated.
But another
future opened
up, a life just as
mysterious and
unprescribed
as any other.
our daughter
has cerebral
palsy and uses a
wheelchair,
which is to say
something
about her but
not everything.
she does not
speak, but she’s
got a great
laugh. she’s shy
but highly at-
tentive. she is
not a tragedy
nor a n angel. she is not a gift from
a god who never gives us more
than we can handle. she loves Dr.
see booK world on c4A Grimm
view of
people with
disabilities
BooK worLDDISfIgUreD
on fairy Tales,
Disability, and
making Space
by amanda
Leduc
Coach House.
253 pp. $16.95BooK worLD
“Whistleblower” and
“uncanny Valley” offer a
chilling look at women’s
lives in silicon Valley. C2
TAVIS SmILey
six women testify about
alleged misconduct as
pbs and its former tV
host square off in court. C2operA reVIew
an old-school “samson
and delilah” musters its
considerable strength and
brings the house down. C2CAroLyN HAx
aw, poor baby: His
girlfriend’s pregnant,
and he points a finger at
everybody but himself. C3BY LISA BONOSThe average age of the star of
“The Bachelorette” is 27. only two
seasons of ABC’s popular reality
dating show have cast leading
ladies in their 30s (30 and 32).
But the 16th season will mark a
big shift when it comes to age, as
the show will star Clare Crawley, a
38-year-old hairstylist from sac-
ramento.
Clare is a fan favorite in Bache-
lor nation. she first appeared on
Juan Pablo Galavis’s season of
“The Bachelor” i n 2014, where s he
was the runner-up and is known
for telling off the show’s star after
he dumped her. she’s been a con-
testant on two seasons of “Bache-
lor in Paradise” (where she was
known for seeking love advice
from a raccoon). In 2 018, Clare got
engaged to a man she met on
“Bachelor Winter Games,” a rela-
tionship that ended shortly there-
after. Clare said Monday morning
on “Good Morning America” that
she learned only this past satur-
day that she would be the next
Bachelorette.
During the announcement on
GMA, Clare said that she’d heard
some negative responses to the
fact that she’s o lder than the usual
Bachelorette, but she clapped
back by noting that her age gives
her more wisdom and confidence
in her search for love. “For me it’s
more years under my belt, more
see bacHelorette on c5New pick for
Bachelorette
reflects shift
in dating
pHotos by toni L. sandys/tHe WasHington posttoP: supporters cheer mike bloomberg at a “women for mike” event in mclean.
aboVe: b loomberg speaks at a rally in san antonio. Virginia and texas are both super tuesday states.celed, but a sustainability pro-
gram scheduled at t he British am-
bassador’s residence was post-
poned because o f health c oncerns.
The fashion conglomerate LVMH
called off a cocktail party c elebrat-
ing the finalists for its fashion
prize. The usual battalions of de-
sign house employees who fly in
from the United states to help
oversee these runway shows are
fewer. For example, Chanel’s U.s.
team will not travel here; the
French staff will pick up the slack.
Worries about quarantines have
see fasHIon weeK on c8BY ROBIN GIVHANparis — The protective face
masks have become more inten-
tional. Instead of institutional
white surgical masks, guests en-
tering the Loewe show Friday
morning at the UnesCo offices
had the option of grabbing one in
basic black. Having consumed a
steady stream of coronavirus up-
dates, folks knew the masks of-
fered little protection from free-
floating germs, but still, a proac-
tive gesture was something.
no m ajor shows h ave been can-
pArIS fASHIoN weeK
At shows, disparate points
of view beautifully coexist
Jonas gustaVsson/MCV pHoto for tHe WasHington postdries Van
noten’s fall-
winter 2020-
2021
collection,
shown
wednesday in
Paris, merged
grunge and
punk with
rock-and-roll
and luxurious
fabrics.BY DAN ZAK, JADA YUAN AND BEN TERRISCan ‘mike’ capi tal ize?
O
n the craps table of this campaign, there’s a
$500 million chip sitting on “super Tuesday.”
The bettor’s name is mike — small “m,” ac-
cording to the visual design of his campaign,
like he’s y our modest neighbor f rom the split-
level down the block instead of a titan of media and
finance with estates in Bermuda and southampton.
That’s Bloomberg. Mayor of new York from 2002 to- Democrat, then Republican, then independent,
then Democrat. Purveyor of fancy data terminals. ninth-
richest person in the world. A few months ago
Bloomberg saw a moribund field of candidates and
thought he could vault his way to the nomination
through a delegate grab on super Tuesday.
so now it’s mike, responsible presidential candidate,
asking for the car keys as the nation stumbles around.
Is h e trying to save the p arty, or accidentally sabotag-
ing it? Is “ mike” j ust a proxy for B loomberg a s he t ries t o
buy t he presidency?
see bloomberg on c3
BY PAUL FARHIChris Matthews, the long-run-
ning host of “Hardball” on
M snBC, announced Monday that
he is resigning from the program,
an abrupt exit prompted by a se-
ries of recent gaffes and c ontrover-
sies.
Matthews, 74, made the an-
nouncement at the start of his
weeknight program. His resigna-
tion is effective immediately,
MsnBC said.
Matthews has been a familiar
commentator on cable news for a
quarter century, a nd h is d eparture
— which Matthews called a retire-
ment — was a surprise. He ap-
peared for about two minutes atthe s tart o f his 7 p.m. program and
effectively signed off on his televi-
sion career.
“Let me start with my headline
tonight: I’m retiring,” he said.
“This the last ‘Hardball’ on
M snBC, and obviously this isn’t
for lack of interest in politics, as
you can tell I’ve loved every min-
ute of my 20 years as host of‘Hardball.’ ”
He t hanked viewers and added,
“The younger generations... are
improving the workplace, we’re
talking here about better stan-
dards than we grew up with, fair
standards. A lot of it has to do w ith
how we talk t o each o ther, c ompli-
ments on a woman’s appearance
that some men — including me —might have once incorrectly
thought were okay were never
okay. not then and certainly not
today, and for making such com-
ments i n the p ast, I’m sorry.”
He paraphrased Humphrey
Bogart in “Casablanca”: “We’ll al-
ways have ‘Hardball.’ so let’s not
say goodbye but till we meet
again.”The network i mmediately w ent
to a commercial break.
When the s how resumed, p oliti-
cal correspondent steve Kornacki
had taken Matthews’s seat. “That
was a lot to take in,” he said. Kor-
nacki called Matthews “a legend,”
adding “I think you’re going to
miss him, and I will, too” — and
see mattHews on c3‘Hardball’ host Chris Matthews abruptly quits on air after several controversies