Paper's pious play XXX-tremely silly

Mike Downey IN THE WAKE OF THE NEWS

May 8, 2008

"Naked Dancers: Peep Show, $20 for 1/2 Hour"

"X-Treme Body Massages with 'Hotties' "

"Hot, Wild, Fun—Blonde or Brunette?"

Ads that ran in Wednesday's sports section of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Awwww, isn't it sweet of the Sun-Times to go to bat against Ozzie Guillen's bad language and the sexism of the White Sox?

My friend Elliott Harris' column ran on a Sun-Times sports page Wednesday with photographs of supermodel Gisele Bundchen in a backless dress and a pair of Playboy Playmates with deep cleavage and bunny ears.

Richard Roeper, one of my favorite columnists, concluded his Wednesday column in the Sun-Times with a headline he found on a Web site: "Scarlett Johansson is Engaged, Busty."

"Sometimes the headline really does tell us all we need to know," Roeper wrote.

It sure does, Rich.

That's why I was tickled pink to find a huge headline screaming from Tuesday's front page of the Sun-Times in all caps: "SOX DOLL BLOW UP."

Plus lots of valuable insight inside the Sun-Times over the next two days on why the White Sox need to clean up their act.

As a feminist, I love it that the Sun-Times is setting such a fine example for those bad-boy White Sox to follow.

Gloria Steinem must be the new editor over there. I mean, isn't it great to see the Sun-Times scolding the White Sox this way for offending women?

You know, while the paper runs sex-club ads and sexy photos of non-athletes in the sports section?

I can see why those dirty, dirty White Sox would respect the wishes of the Sun-Times to keep things clean.

After all, imagine the nerve of the Sox, doing something naughty in the privacy of their own dressing room.

Where the public is not allowed.

Where children are forbidden.

Where no one without a pass may see what you are doing in there … as opposed to, say, ads and pictures in a newspaper that any child in any home could pick up.