This is seriously cool*--amphibious houses, that rise and fall with water levels in the event of flooding. A good-sized--and growing--chunk of the Netherlands is under sea level. Problems are kept in check by a system of canals, pumps, and dykes (must not repeat bad Bernie Rhodenbarr joke, must not repeat... ) and, until now, limiting construction in flood zones. They're now testing waterproof home designs, and more power to them. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily)
*Note: Auntie Suzanne is a person of questionable coolness who tends to equate cleverness with coolness.
*** *** ***
Seriously NOT cool (see above): the My Scene Bling Bling Barbie. Why not just call it Streetcorner Barbie and tattoo her price list on her tail, like that Yale girl from the limerick?
The saddest thing here is that this is obviously another attempt to make Barbie look more like the Bratz dolls, which, as I understand it, are supposed to represent underage girls. This kind of thing makes you wonder who won the sexual revolution, women or dirty old men.
*** *** ***
As I've brought up the subject of immodest dress--i.e., I've mentioned contemporary Barbies--here's the two best articles on modest dress I've ever read: Don't Wear That Mini to Mass and Drawing a Hemline, both by Benjamin D. Wiker. The former, obviously, is about immodest dress in church, and the latter is mainly about immodest clothes on campus.
Full disclosure (pun intended): Although I agree with Wiker's points, I did get a kick out of "Berkeley Guy" back when he was doing his thing. But then I don't find nudity offensive, just immodest clothes.
Unfortunately, some of what's touted as modest clothing by some American Christians is aesthetically offensive--all shapeless jumpers and the most dowdy dresses you've ever seen (really, the Amish are more stylishly and flatteringly attired, which is odd as some of it seems to be an attempt to attempt to imitate the Amish)--and seems to be motivated more by an idea that the body is bad than by an idea that it is too precious to share with everyone who walks by. For some talk about beauty and modesty, see Regina Schmiedicke's article, Modesty and Beauty--The Lost Connection; this is probably the third best article on modest dress I've read, although do read this response to it.
FWIW, Schmiedicke's point about how, historically, people of higher status have worn more clothes than low-status people is accurate. It has lasted into modern times. In the early 1980s, the novelist and literature professor Alison Lurie published a fascinating book on clothing and how what people wear reveals social status and attitudes. (I've often thought it would make good reading for fantasy writers who are designing their world's clothing.) She talked about well-off people wearing more clothing--as well as better quality clothing and/or harder-to-clean clothing--as a probably unconscious sign of wealth, even in the '80s. I think it still holds true even today, when many women of all socio-economic classes are walking around skimpily dressed.
*** *** ***
Yet another in the long list of lawsuits I wouldn't have filed: an Oregon woman is suing her doctor and his clinic (presumably they have more money than he does personally) because the doctor convinced the woman that the way to cure her lower back pain was to have sex with him. Apparently more than one time, as the article mentions "treatments".
I wonder if she's any relation to that woman a while back who complained to her state's medical board because her doctor told her she was too fat and needed to lose weight. Stupidity/gullibility and whiny complaining are often related.
*** *** ***
Over the past year or two, there have been so many news stories about policemen being called on elementary school children that when I drove by the local elementary school last winter and saw a cop car in front I thought, "Oh, some little girl must have brought non-safety scissors to school."
Yesterday I saw a news story about cops being called to break up a fight between two six year-olds fighting over a pacifier. But this time I actually felt some sympathy with the caller (in this case, the mother of one of the boys, rather than a school official), when I heard why she called: she said she didn't want her son's school to accuse her of child abuse when they saw the marks on his face. Given the excessive nosiness of schools nowadays and the hell that a false accusation of child abuse could make of your life, I can kind of see it. But that just shows another set of problems.
*** *** ***
This isn't on the web (except as it relates to some opinion pieces I've read on government waste and "compassionate conservatism", etc.) but last week someone told me my husband and I should have filed for the hurricane-related food stamps. I pointed out that we didn't need them. "But you still should have filed, you could get up to $300 worth."
I again pointed out that we didn't need them, as we hadn't lost much food and could afford to buy food. The person didn't seem to get what I was saying and kept saying it was for anyone who'd lost food. "But I didn't lose much, I was careful to use up as much of the perishables as I could before I started using our non-perishables, and I figure what we lost is just a consequence of the risk we take living in a hurricane-prone area, and it's not as if we can't afford to buy more."
I never did get through, but then again I bit my tongue (as a politely brought up Southern girl, I do that a lot) and didn't point out that the government doesn't owe support to people who can help themselves, because I was afraid the person I was talking to might have applied for them and I didn't want to be offensive. But the whole thing was shocking to me, because it was coming from someone I wouldn't have expected to have such an attitude. It made me worry about how many other people are helping themselves to disaster relief they don't need.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Thursday, September 29, 2005
I Can't Believe I'm Posting About This...
...because I hate women who talk about nothing but diet and exercise. But here goes.
Last winter I bought the Callanetics exercise DVD (it is a copy of the 1986 videotape) after I read positive reviews of it online. I also read the Callanetics book, first from the library and later from a thriftstore-purchased copy. I tried the exercises, and I could do the warm-up and stretches fine and the pelvic and the standing leg exercises without too much difficulty, but the abdomen and the hip exercises were another story. The abdomen ones were even harder than ordinary crunches. The hip exercises were hard to understand and when I got in position to try them, I found myself looking down at my leg, unable to move it at all. I tried the tape a few times, and just kept finding myself staring down at my immovable leg. Until the last time, when I found if I leaned over more than was really right I could just get my leg up and move it, barely. But by that time I was frustrated with the whole thing and gave it up as too difficult for me. (To be fair, I was also entering yet another off phase in my twenty years-long on again/off again relationship to exercise, and everything else got dumped too.)
Fast forward to last week and the beginnings of my annual pre-birthday insanity (an Auntie Suzanne tradition since the age of twelve.) I decided to start my short routine of upper body strength exercises again on MWF, but I need something for TTS. Why not try Callanetics again--when it doesn't work out I can go on to something else.
Since I'd figured out how to lift my leg, I managed to get through the tape--sort of. A day after my first session I was passing the mirror and thought, "something looks different--aah, just my imagination" and kept walking. After the second session, I thought my hips looked smaller, but of course that was impossible, so I told myself I must be imagining it. Still they do look a bit smaller... Immediately after my third session I looked in the mirror, and they were smaller. It seemed unbelievable, but I was sure I wasn't imagining it.
So then I thought, well why not prove it, get the measuring tape; I'd measured myself for a skirt last week, so I had a day or two pre-Callanetics measurement. I put the tape around my hips and it read two inches smaller than last week. I stared in disbelief for a moment. That is utterly impossible, I thought. I must be doing something different, I'm standing funny or holding the tape wrong or unconsciously sucking in or something. I adjusted the tape slightly, slumped slightly, and blew out to make extra sure I wasn't holding in and re-measured. The tape moved a little. It now read almost two inches smaller. Which is still very hard to believe.
The idea that any exercise program could take more than an inch off your hips in only three sessions is amazing. And I can't even do the whole routine! My abdomen is too weak to even think about doing the full number of reps on any of the belly exercises, and although I can do the hip exercises now, I'm not doing them perfectly or doing the full count. So it's doubly amazing.
The Callanetics book and video slogan was "ten years younger in ten hours". That's a pretty silly claim of course, but maybe after I've done ten sessions I'll post again about what it can do in ten hours. (For the record, it doesn't actually take a full hour to do a session.)
Last winter I bought the Callanetics exercise DVD (it is a copy of the 1986 videotape) after I read positive reviews of it online. I also read the Callanetics book, first from the library and later from a thriftstore-purchased copy. I tried the exercises, and I could do the warm-up and stretches fine and the pelvic and the standing leg exercises without too much difficulty, but the abdomen and the hip exercises were another story. The abdomen ones were even harder than ordinary crunches. The hip exercises were hard to understand and when I got in position to try them, I found myself looking down at my leg, unable to move it at all. I tried the tape a few times, and just kept finding myself staring down at my immovable leg. Until the last time, when I found if I leaned over more than was really right I could just get my leg up and move it, barely. But by that time I was frustrated with the whole thing and gave it up as too difficult for me. (To be fair, I was also entering yet another off phase in my twenty years-long on again/off again relationship to exercise, and everything else got dumped too.)
Fast forward to last week and the beginnings of my annual pre-birthday insanity (an Auntie Suzanne tradition since the age of twelve.) I decided to start my short routine of upper body strength exercises again on MWF, but I need something for TTS. Why not try Callanetics again--when it doesn't work out I can go on to something else.
Since I'd figured out how to lift my leg, I managed to get through the tape--sort of. A day after my first session I was passing the mirror and thought, "something looks different--aah, just my imagination" and kept walking. After the second session, I thought my hips looked smaller, but of course that was impossible, so I told myself I must be imagining it. Still they do look a bit smaller... Immediately after my third session I looked in the mirror, and they were smaller. It seemed unbelievable, but I was sure I wasn't imagining it.
So then I thought, well why not prove it, get the measuring tape; I'd measured myself for a skirt last week, so I had a day or two pre-Callanetics measurement. I put the tape around my hips and it read two inches smaller than last week. I stared in disbelief for a moment. That is utterly impossible, I thought. I must be doing something different, I'm standing funny or holding the tape wrong or unconsciously sucking in or something. I adjusted the tape slightly, slumped slightly, and blew out to make extra sure I wasn't holding in and re-measured. The tape moved a little. It now read almost two inches smaller. Which is still very hard to believe.
The idea that any exercise program could take more than an inch off your hips in only three sessions is amazing. And I can't even do the whole routine! My abdomen is too weak to even think about doing the full number of reps on any of the belly exercises, and although I can do the hip exercises now, I'm not doing them perfectly or doing the full count. So it's doubly amazing.
The Callanetics book and video slogan was "ten years younger in ten hours". That's a pretty silly claim of course, but maybe after I've done ten sessions I'll post again about what it can do in ten hours. (For the record, it doesn't actually take a full hour to do a session.)
Give Me the Good Old Days
This past Sunday there was an article in the Telegraph that I'd like to say is unbelievable, but which, given our degraded modern society, is all too believable: Women bypass sex in favour of 'instant pregnancies'. According to the article, an increasing number of fertile women in their 30s and 40s are turning to technology to get them pregnant, either as their first resort,or as their almost-first resort when the good old-fashioned way doesn't work immediately. Seems they're too busy to "diary in" frequent sex or, in some cases, any sex at all. At no point anywhere in the article does anyone ask how people who are too busy for sex are going to have time to take care of a baby, or how people unwilling to rearrange their schedules the small amount necessary to allow for extra sex (an activity with immediate payoffs for both people) are going to handle the constant disruptions a baby brings (disruptions that often have no immediate reward.)
Shake That (Coded?) Stuff
EWTNs World Over has its interview with Clare Asquith, author of Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare up on its audio page. (When the sound file comes up, skip forward just over 8 minutes to get to the interview.)
I heard about Asquith's book just over a month ago, and while there does seem to be some evidence to support the speculation that Shakespeare was Catholic, any talk of hidden codes in Shakespeare sets my brain on "Suspicious". I participated off and on for years in a Usenet discussion group about Shakespeare, and between that and my other reading, I'm well aware of the phenomenon of nutcakes and their conspiracy theories about Shakespeare, which often do involve codes hidden in the plays. The author of the plays is secretly Edward DeVere and everyone in England knows it but no one is allowed to say it, so there's a massive number of coded references to DeVere's authorship concealed in the plays (presumably so everyone in the audience can nod knowingly); the author of the plays is Marlowe, the author is Bacon, the author is Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son, the author is Queen Elizabeth's lover, the author is Queen Elizabeth, etc. Many of the people who hold these views are out-and-out fanatics--can't change their mind and won't change the subject--and are sometimes rather too much like the other conspiracy theorists (for example, Area 51 or obsessive JFK assassination people) for comfort.
Asquith, however, sounds surprisingly sane and well-balanced. She says part of what opened her mind to this view of Shakespeare's plays was seeing how seemingly innocuous plays were used to convey dissident political messages in the Soviet Union. (Other reasons were her own English Catholicism and the new, non-Protestant takes on English history of the time.) She makes the idea of discreet Catholic references seem reasonable. I still don't wholly buy it, because, besides the danger of publically supporting Catholicism over Protestantism (which meant questioning the legitimacy--in both senses of the term--of the Queen), I just don't think playwrights work that way. There may be a little something to what she's alleging and, even if there's not, her book may provide an interesting look at Catholic sympathizers in Elizabethan society, so I am open to reading it--not buying it, but reading it.
For a World Over program about Shakespeare's possible Catholicism, listen to the interview with Dr. Paul Voss (production date 8/17/01.) It provides an easy, enjoyable introduction to the subject and also explains in passing why Calvinists never wrote tragedies.
I heard about Asquith's book just over a month ago, and while there does seem to be some evidence to support the speculation that Shakespeare was Catholic, any talk of hidden codes in Shakespeare sets my brain on "Suspicious". I participated off and on for years in a Usenet discussion group about Shakespeare, and between that and my other reading, I'm well aware of the phenomenon of nutcakes and their conspiracy theories about Shakespeare, which often do involve codes hidden in the plays. The author of the plays is secretly Edward DeVere and everyone in England knows it but no one is allowed to say it, so there's a massive number of coded references to DeVere's authorship concealed in the plays (presumably so everyone in the audience can nod knowingly); the author of the plays is Marlowe, the author is Bacon, the author is Queen Elizabeth's illegitimate son, the author is Queen Elizabeth's lover, the author is Queen Elizabeth, etc. Many of the people who hold these views are out-and-out fanatics--can't change their mind and won't change the subject--and are sometimes rather too much like the other conspiracy theorists (for example, Area 51 or obsessive JFK assassination people) for comfort.
Asquith, however, sounds surprisingly sane and well-balanced. She says part of what opened her mind to this view of Shakespeare's plays was seeing how seemingly innocuous plays were used to convey dissident political messages in the Soviet Union. (Other reasons were her own English Catholicism and the new, non-Protestant takes on English history of the time.) She makes the idea of discreet Catholic references seem reasonable. I still don't wholly buy it, because, besides the danger of publically supporting Catholicism over Protestantism (which meant questioning the legitimacy--in both senses of the term--of the Queen), I just don't think playwrights work that way. There may be a little something to what she's alleging and, even if there's not, her book may provide an interesting look at Catholic sympathizers in Elizabethan society, so I am open to reading it--not buying it, but reading it.
For a World Over program about Shakespeare's possible Catholicism, listen to the interview with Dr. Paul Voss (production date 8/17/01.) It provides an easy, enjoyable introduction to the subject and also explains in passing why Calvinists never wrote tragedies.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Cultural Tourism
The Reuters story yesterday about an Israeli couple fined for kissing during their wedding ceremony in India amused me in a mean-spirited way. The couple, who as far as I can tell are not Hindu, decided they wanted a traditional Hindu wedding in Pushkar. They proceeded to embrace and kiss while the priest was chanting vedic hymns, which outraged the presiding priest and other priests as well--one called their public kissing "cultural pollution". I have no problem with PDAs, but good for him.
I don't usually go in for the lefty cries of "cultural theft" or "cultural appropriation". Healthy cultures adopt things that are useful or even just likeable from other cultures, they always have done, and no one called it theft until recently. But when Westerners decide to pick up spiritual things from other cultures because they're oh so quaint and picturesque and closer to nature than us, etc. and then do it in a shallow way that mocks the tradition, I cringe and start considering using the t word myself. The most notorious example of what I'm talking about are the people who go to a weekend workshop, come home with a certificate, and proclaim themselves "genuine Native American shamans." But I think wanting a picturesque Hindu wedding when you're not Hindu or even willing to respect the mores of the local people who are comes pretty close to the attitude.
I don't usually go in for the lefty cries of "cultural theft" or "cultural appropriation". Healthy cultures adopt things that are useful or even just likeable from other cultures, they always have done, and no one called it theft until recently. But when Westerners decide to pick up spiritual things from other cultures because they're oh so quaint and picturesque and closer to nature than us, etc. and then do it in a shallow way that mocks the tradition, I cringe and start considering using the t word myself. The most notorious example of what I'm talking about are the people who go to a weekend workshop, come home with a certificate, and proclaim themselves "genuine Native American shamans." But I think wanting a picturesque Hindu wedding when you're not Hindu or even willing to respect the mores of the local people who are comes pretty close to the attitude.
Hurricane Rita
Hurricanes can highlight our selfishness. I confess my main feeling toward Hurricane Rita is one of relief; I don't wish anyone in Texas or SW Louisiana any harm, but I'm glad it's not coming for my area. Viewed from the national level and from a purely practical standpoint, it would be better for Rita to hit here again--this area of the country is already messed up, why add another messed-up area to the national burden?--but I'll bet nobody on the Mississippi Gulf Coast or SE Louisiana is looking at it that way. I know I'm not.
Wall Street to the Contrary, Greed is Not Good
There's some interesting discussion of price-gauging over at Caelum et Terra. I don't know as much as I probably should about economics. It seems to me that things work better with a free (or mostly free) market, but I think it's crucial that we have decent people in the marketplace. The internal restraints that people trying to be decent put on themselves can check capitalism's excesses without having to resort to the nearly always doomed government controls on economic freedom.
I'm reminded of something I read by William F. Buckley:
Maybe that doesn't mean what I think it does, but I think it means that if we let our greed and self-interest dominate us we create the ugly side of an economic system that generally works pretty well. Capitalism works because it allows for human nature (our desire to seek our own self-interest, to take care of our own family, to have our own stuff, to keep the fruits of our labors) more than socialism does, but then the trouble with capitalism becomes fallen human nature (greed, selfishness, desire for power over others, choosing temporary goods over longterm goods, general sinfulness.)
I'm reminded of something I read by William F. Buckley:
Every ten years I quote the same adage from the late Austrian
analyst Willi Schlamm, and I hope that ten years from now someone will remember
to quote it in my memory. It goes, "The trouble with socialism is socialism. The
trouble with capitalism is capitalists."
Maybe that doesn't mean what I think it does, but I think it means that if we let our greed and self-interest dominate us we create the ugly side of an economic system that generally works pretty well. Capitalism works because it allows for human nature (our desire to seek our own self-interest, to take care of our own family, to have our own stuff, to keep the fruits of our labors) more than socialism does, but then the trouble with capitalism becomes fallen human nature (greed, selfishness, desire for power over others, choosing temporary goods over longterm goods, general sinfulness.)
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Home-schooling Bestsellers
The WSJ recently had an article on what homeschoolers are reading.
I've never read Henty, although I've read some praise of him, but I really enjoyed Wilder's Little House books when I was a child. Much better than the TV show, which I also liked. When I wasn't reading the books, I would look again and again at those wonderful pencil illustrations by Garth Williams. If I'm ever blessed with a child--not likely, as, to quote Raising Arizona, my womb is a barren and rocky place where Uncle Pookie's seed can find no purchase--the complete Little House set goes on the Books for Baby list. I figure they'd not only be fun to read aloud but would help reinforce my "you don't have to have lots of expensive toys like the other kids to be happy" indoctrination. (I have a little bit of Calvin's dad in me.)
Home-schooling is sort of like a college student's virginity:I'd argue that conservative Christians are counterculturalists, but let that go. What's interesting is that book choices overlap. Both groups favor books about children behaving in a self-sufficient way, both like the Narnia books and love Laura Ingalls Wilder and George Alfred Henty.
People figure it's a mark of religiosity, but nearly as often it's just personal
taste, or a lack of better options. The majority of families who home-school are
conservative Christians, to be sure. But another sizable portion are secular
counterculturalists, and then...anyone far from a school.
I've never read Henty, although I've read some praise of him, but I really enjoyed Wilder's Little House books when I was a child. Much better than the TV show, which I also liked. When I wasn't reading the books, I would look again and again at those wonderful pencil illustrations by Garth Williams. If I'm ever blessed with a child--not likely, as, to quote Raising Arizona, my womb is a barren and rocky place where Uncle Pookie's seed can find no purchase--the complete Little House set goes on the Books for Baby list. I figure they'd not only be fun to read aloud but would help reinforce my "you don't have to have lots of expensive toys like the other kids to be happy" indoctrination. (I have a little bit of Calvin's dad in me.)
Pro-choice or Faux-choice
Before I became a Catholic, I was pro-choice. I would not have become Catholic had I not been able to accept the Church's views on this matter, so obviously my opinions have changed a lot; I am now sorry for my attendance at the one abortion rights rally I attended and for any influence I may have had on anyone else's views. But one thing I can say in my defence (sort of) is that at least I was genuinely pro-choice. I believed that only the pregnant woman herself should have the right to decide whether or not to end her pregnancy, and I believed that only the individual in question should determine whether he or she would be sterilized. Forced abortions and sterilizations horrified me.
I make a point of saying I was genuinely pro-choice, because some people in today's society say they are pro-choice, but really aren't. The most obvious example is people who claim to be pro-choice, but who refuse to condemn China's coercive population control program or, worse, approve of it--people like Molly Yard, former president of NOW, whom the Associated Press is reporting has just died. But there are others. Parents who say they're pro-choice, but who force their teenage or college student daughters to abort. Judges who offer convicted women time off sentences if they agree to sterilization or insertion of Norplant. People who claim to be pro-choice and then grumble at who gets and stays pregnant. Or who talk only about the boons of not having children, while seeming to find it hard to fathom that many women would prefer to keep their children. Or who talk as if people who choose to have large families are doing something wrong. Or who don't want to hear others talking about abstinence or Natural Family Planning (or, in extreme cases, even the Fertility Awareness Method). Or who don't want pro-life people to be allowed to talk at all.
People who are genuinely pro-choice may not be where they should be in their views, but at least they're not forcing or subtly bullying women onto operating tables.
(For some interesting listening on China's population control program and American responses to it, listen to Steven Mosher, author of A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy, talking to Marcus Grodi on EWTN's The Journey Home. The episode is dated 4/28/2000.)
I make a point of saying I was genuinely pro-choice, because some people in today's society say they are pro-choice, but really aren't. The most obvious example is people who claim to be pro-choice, but who refuse to condemn China's coercive population control program or, worse, approve of it--people like Molly Yard, former president of NOW, whom the Associated Press is reporting has just died. But there are others. Parents who say they're pro-choice, but who force their teenage or college student daughters to abort. Judges who offer convicted women time off sentences if they agree to sterilization or insertion of Norplant. People who claim to be pro-choice and then grumble at who gets and stays pregnant. Or who talk only about the boons of not having children, while seeming to find it hard to fathom that many women would prefer to keep their children. Or who talk as if people who choose to have large families are doing something wrong. Or who don't want to hear others talking about abstinence or Natural Family Planning (or, in extreme cases, even the Fertility Awareness Method). Or who don't want pro-life people to be allowed to talk at all.
People who are genuinely pro-choice may not be where they should be in their views, but at least they're not forcing or subtly bullying women onto operating tables.
(For some interesting listening on China's population control program and American responses to it, listen to Steven Mosher, author of A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's Fight Against China's One-Child Policy, talking to Marcus Grodi on EWTN's The Journey Home. The episode is dated 4/28/2000.)
Saturday, September 17, 2005
"Defenestrating princesses are a little unusual!"
This website is mostly sewing related, but if you click on the "Assault on Dragon Castle" page, you can see the greatest toy I have ever seen in my life!
Teenage Pregnancy
The bearing blog (a pretty cool blog I found a while back--an engineer turned SAHM and homeschooler writes about whatever takes her fancy) has a post with a couple of questions about sex ed programs that "work". Just a taste: "It isn’t self-evident that the programs that best reduce teenage pregnancy are the same programs that best reduce STI rates..."
Just a quibble on my part--and it would be a quibble with nearly everyone who discusses this subject, not just with bearing blog--but teenage pregnancy is not necessarily a problem. Unmarried teen pregnancy is a problem. Teenagers used to get pregnant all the time; the difference was that they got married--either before pregnancy or, hastily, after a pregnancy but before the birth*. At least one of my grandmothers married in her early teens (first baby arrived one year and one day later) and went on to have a long, apparently happy marriage. Go back far enough and we all have teenaged mothers and fathers in our family tree.
Of course, many people would argue that teenagers shouldn't get married, because they're too young or because it's hard for people who haven't been to college to support a family. To the first I say "bollocks". As to the latter, I think there's something wrong with a society that makes it so difficult for a young man to support a wife and child. But it's only hard, not impossible, especially if the couple have the support of their extended family.
*Cute story: My mother reports that her grandmother told her that, "When a couple get married, their first baby can come at any time, but after that it always takes nine months." This was coming from an elderly, Victorian-era woman in the 1950s, in the backwoods of "socially conservative" Mississippi, in a family with multiple Baptist ministers. Hasty marriages have been around for a while.
Just a quibble on my part--and it would be a quibble with nearly everyone who discusses this subject, not just with bearing blog--but teenage pregnancy is not necessarily a problem. Unmarried teen pregnancy is a problem. Teenagers used to get pregnant all the time; the difference was that they got married--either before pregnancy or, hastily, after a pregnancy but before the birth*. At least one of my grandmothers married in her early teens (first baby arrived one year and one day later) and went on to have a long, apparently happy marriage. Go back far enough and we all have teenaged mothers and fathers in our family tree.
Of course, many people would argue that teenagers shouldn't get married, because they're too young or because it's hard for people who haven't been to college to support a family. To the first I say "bollocks". As to the latter, I think there's something wrong with a society that makes it so difficult for a young man to support a wife and child. But it's only hard, not impossible, especially if the couple have the support of their extended family.
*Cute story: My mother reports that her grandmother told her that, "When a couple get married, their first baby can come at any time, but after that it always takes nine months." This was coming from an elderly, Victorian-era woman in the 1950s, in the backwoods of "socially conservative" Mississippi, in a family with multiple Baptist ministers. Hasty marriages have been around for a while.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Our Lady of Sorrows, Pray for Us
Today commemorates Our Lady of Sorrows, patron of Mississippi. Women for Faith & Family have a couple of nice pictures and the words (Latin & English) to the Stabat Mater Dolorosa.
Misc. Observations Spurred by Hurricane Katrina
Not everything about losing power is bad. It's easier to get to bed on time when there's no electric lights and a dozen forms of electricity-dependent entertainment waiting for you. People sleep better without LEDs all over the house lighting things up and street lights pouring through the shades.
Then there's the fact that situations like this bring out the best in most people and we get the opportunity to see neighbors and strangers doing good.
And then there's the greater family togetherness when everyone's not in different rooms pursuing separate hobbies. On that front, check the papers nine months from now for news of a baby boom in the affected areas.
***
In the '90s I started making a solar cooker after reading how in The Tightwad Gazette; I made the mistake of starting before I had all my supplies gathered, and I ended up abandoning the project. Every summer since, when I'd ponder whether having some particular dish was worth heating up the oven (and thus the kitchen), I'd wish I'd finished it. While we were without electricity, I really wished I had a solar oven. With one, we could have had normal meals; had our tap water been contaminated, we could even have used the solar cooker to boil water, instead of relying on bleach.
***
I discovered that, when cooking on the grill, I could get two meals from one portion of charcoal. When I took the cooked food off the grill as usual, I put a lidded, all-metal pot with food inside in the grill and shut the lid. Four or five hours later, the food was cooked. You're a bit limited in what you can cook this way (especially if you only own one all-metal, lidded pot), but any hot food makes a change from peanut butter sandwiches or summer sausage and canned fruit.
***
I learned that if you paint the sides of a can of soup with non-toxic black spray paint and put the can in the sun for a few hours in the middle of the day, you can have hot soup without cooking.
***
I was surprised how quickly the human body adapts to heat. Mississippi writer Jack Butler once described our summers as a hundred days at a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity; trust me, we usually make abundant use of the air-conditioning and electric fans, and I've never gone more than a few days without electricity--that time was from Hurricane Frederick, when I was a child. Tuesday and Wednesday sweat poured off me all day (Monday was relatively cool because of the storm), but on Thursday I felt much more comfortable and on Friday I was perfectly comfortable. It has made me rethink our use of air-conditioning and my reluctance to walk anywhere during the day in summer because "it's too hot".
***
In our society it's easy to live cut off from your community--not participating in local events, shopping outside of your area, preferring national or world news to local news--most of the time, but in a natural disaster local news and resources become highly valued.
***
It's amazing how used we are to having news--local, national, & international--available at the flip of a switch. Lying in the dark Wednesday night, I felt very cut-off. No long-distance phone service, no cell phones working, no electricity for internet or TV news, some area radio stations down, no newspapers, no mail. At that point people were sending messages with people driving out of town--a bit like runners or troubadours carrying news. Things quickly began normalizing--a satellite phone was found, more people bought generators as they came into town, the local newspaper got out an edition, the long-distance service came back on Friday, and so on. But for the first couple of days, we were in a more old-fashioned state, and it felt odd.
***
I gained a newfound appreciation for the electric washing machine--specifically its ability to wring out the water from clothes.
***
It's odd to go into a grocery store and all the refrigerated sections are empty and there's no produce (or only cabbage and a small amount of fruit), nothing but non-perishable food. It wouldn't seem odd if we weren't such a prosperous country that we have been able to take stores full of all the food we want, whenever we want, with no waiting (other than the line to pay), for granted. It is so ordinary to us that I sound dorky for mentioning it, but it really is an amazing thing to waltz into a grocery store any time we want and know it will almost certainly have everything we want. It beats the heck out of waiting in line to buy bread, a la the former Soviet Union.
***
Unexpected pleasures are even better than they would be usually. When you weren't expecting to have tea at all, sun tea (I prefer brewed) made from inferior quality tea and poured over the last of the ice from your rapidly thawing freezer can be more enjoyable than good tea is usually.
***
I've changed a lot with age and becoming Catholic. Two things recently brought that home to me. We went through distribution lines several times to get ice (you couldn't buy ice at the store), and one of the centers was set up to get people through as quickly as possible, so we couldn't tell them we only needed ice, not food, without stopping the line. I felt bad about taking food other people needed more, but once upon a time it would have hurt my pride even to take the charity ice.
Second thing was that, after I found out about the horrible things that had been happening in New Orleans (when long-distance service returned Friday), I was able to offer genuine prayers for the souls of the people terrorizing their fellow citizens. I've always been a little more attached to the "some people need killin' " school of thought than befits a Catholic and, as I'm not a naturally forgiving person, my prayers for my enemies have usually begun with a prayerful request that I be able to mean the prayer. People who prey on other people after a natural disaster are the lowest of the low and I think they should be dealt with harshly to discourage others from doing the same, but they, like all of us, are souls in need of divine mercy and I'm glad that I was able to mean it when I prayed for them.
***
I know it's fashionable to criticize capitalists, but there's nothing like having no stores open for two days (and then only a few open for another few days) to give you an appreciation for them. And as for the ones who opened up here before they got generators up and running and had to let only a few customers into their darkened stores at a time and "ring them up" by writing barcodes down on a piece of paper for later entry into their computer systems, it's hard to think it was a purely monetary decision on the part of the managers. I may sound naive, but considering how inconvenient the whole thing was for the stores and how their regular sales were diminished by only being able to allow a few people in at a time, it's hard not to think there was some idea of providing a service behind it.
I know the idea of service inspired the local radio station, which operated for a week without advertisements, just so people could hear local news--things like whether we need to boil water, a local nurse is driving to a dialysis unit north of us and can carry passengers who need dialysis, that sort of thing.
***
MREs are wonderful! I'd only ever heard of them in the context of complaints, but having sampled a couple, I think that either the quality has improved greatly or the complaints were coming from soldiers who got tired of having only MREs for too long. Each MRE has an entree, a snack (such as bread and cheese or peanut butter and crackers), a dessert, an instant drink mix, salt, sugar and creamer if the instant drink was coffee, a tiny container of hot sauce or packet of pepper, two pieces of breath-freshening gum, a high-quality plastic spoon, paper napkins and a moist towelette. The entree is heated in an ingenious little pack, just by adding a tablespoon or two of water to the bag; if your instant drink was a hot drink, you also get a bag for heating the drink. Everything is vacuum-packed in high-quality plastic, and it's lightweight and relatively small in volume. The main bag everything comes in can double as an emergency water carrier. Our military must be the best-fed in history, and as the old saying goes, an army travels on its stomach. Can you imagine how the Roman generals would have loved to have had MREs for their men?
***
There are exceptions, but I usually only go to mass on Sundays or holy days of obligation. During the time since the hurricane, I went to First Friday mass and a couple of daily masses, and it was good to know that, even during a time when everything else is different from your usual life (no traffic lights, for instance) the liturgy is still there, the same.
Then there's the fact that situations like this bring out the best in most people and we get the opportunity to see neighbors and strangers doing good.
And then there's the greater family togetherness when everyone's not in different rooms pursuing separate hobbies. On that front, check the papers nine months from now for news of a baby boom in the affected areas.
***
In the '90s I started making a solar cooker after reading how in The Tightwad Gazette; I made the mistake of starting before I had all my supplies gathered, and I ended up abandoning the project. Every summer since, when I'd ponder whether having some particular dish was worth heating up the oven (and thus the kitchen), I'd wish I'd finished it. While we were without electricity, I really wished I had a solar oven. With one, we could have had normal meals; had our tap water been contaminated, we could even have used the solar cooker to boil water, instead of relying on bleach.
***
I discovered that, when cooking on the grill, I could get two meals from one portion of charcoal. When I took the cooked food off the grill as usual, I put a lidded, all-metal pot with food inside in the grill and shut the lid. Four or five hours later, the food was cooked. You're a bit limited in what you can cook this way (especially if you only own one all-metal, lidded pot), but any hot food makes a change from peanut butter sandwiches or summer sausage and canned fruit.
***
I learned that if you paint the sides of a can of soup with non-toxic black spray paint and put the can in the sun for a few hours in the middle of the day, you can have hot soup without cooking.
***
I was surprised how quickly the human body adapts to heat. Mississippi writer Jack Butler once described our summers as a hundred days at a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity; trust me, we usually make abundant use of the air-conditioning and electric fans, and I've never gone more than a few days without electricity--that time was from Hurricane Frederick, when I was a child. Tuesday and Wednesday sweat poured off me all day (Monday was relatively cool because of the storm), but on Thursday I felt much more comfortable and on Friday I was perfectly comfortable. It has made me rethink our use of air-conditioning and my reluctance to walk anywhere during the day in summer because "it's too hot".
***
In our society it's easy to live cut off from your community--not participating in local events, shopping outside of your area, preferring national or world news to local news--most of the time, but in a natural disaster local news and resources become highly valued.
***
It's amazing how used we are to having news--local, national, & international--available at the flip of a switch. Lying in the dark Wednesday night, I felt very cut-off. No long-distance phone service, no cell phones working, no electricity for internet or TV news, some area radio stations down, no newspapers, no mail. At that point people were sending messages with people driving out of town--a bit like runners or troubadours carrying news. Things quickly began normalizing--a satellite phone was found, more people bought generators as they came into town, the local newspaper got out an edition, the long-distance service came back on Friday, and so on. But for the first couple of days, we were in a more old-fashioned state, and it felt odd.
***
I gained a newfound appreciation for the electric washing machine--specifically its ability to wring out the water from clothes.
***
It's odd to go into a grocery store and all the refrigerated sections are empty and there's no produce (or only cabbage and a small amount of fruit), nothing but non-perishable food. It wouldn't seem odd if we weren't such a prosperous country that we have been able to take stores full of all the food we want, whenever we want, with no waiting (other than the line to pay), for granted. It is so ordinary to us that I sound dorky for mentioning it, but it really is an amazing thing to waltz into a grocery store any time we want and know it will almost certainly have everything we want. It beats the heck out of waiting in line to buy bread, a la the former Soviet Union.
***
Unexpected pleasures are even better than they would be usually. When you weren't expecting to have tea at all, sun tea (I prefer brewed) made from inferior quality tea and poured over the last of the ice from your rapidly thawing freezer can be more enjoyable than good tea is usually.
***
I've changed a lot with age and becoming Catholic. Two things recently brought that home to me. We went through distribution lines several times to get ice (you couldn't buy ice at the store), and one of the centers was set up to get people through as quickly as possible, so we couldn't tell them we only needed ice, not food, without stopping the line. I felt bad about taking food other people needed more, but once upon a time it would have hurt my pride even to take the charity ice.
Second thing was that, after I found out about the horrible things that had been happening in New Orleans (when long-distance service returned Friday), I was able to offer genuine prayers for the souls of the people terrorizing their fellow citizens. I've always been a little more attached to the "some people need killin' " school of thought than befits a Catholic and, as I'm not a naturally forgiving person, my prayers for my enemies have usually begun with a prayerful request that I be able to mean the prayer. People who prey on other people after a natural disaster are the lowest of the low and I think they should be dealt with harshly to discourage others from doing the same, but they, like all of us, are souls in need of divine mercy and I'm glad that I was able to mean it when I prayed for them.
***
I know it's fashionable to criticize capitalists, but there's nothing like having no stores open for two days (and then only a few open for another few days) to give you an appreciation for them. And as for the ones who opened up here before they got generators up and running and had to let only a few customers into their darkened stores at a time and "ring them up" by writing barcodes down on a piece of paper for later entry into their computer systems, it's hard to think it was a purely monetary decision on the part of the managers. I may sound naive, but considering how inconvenient the whole thing was for the stores and how their regular sales were diminished by only being able to allow a few people in at a time, it's hard not to think there was some idea of providing a service behind it.
I know the idea of service inspired the local radio station, which operated for a week without advertisements, just so people could hear local news--things like whether we need to boil water, a local nurse is driving to a dialysis unit north of us and can carry passengers who need dialysis, that sort of thing.
***
MREs are wonderful! I'd only ever heard of them in the context of complaints, but having sampled a couple, I think that either the quality has improved greatly or the complaints were coming from soldiers who got tired of having only MREs for too long. Each MRE has an entree, a snack (such as bread and cheese or peanut butter and crackers), a dessert, an instant drink mix, salt, sugar and creamer if the instant drink was coffee, a tiny container of hot sauce or packet of pepper, two pieces of breath-freshening gum, a high-quality plastic spoon, paper napkins and a moist towelette. The entree is heated in an ingenious little pack, just by adding a tablespoon or two of water to the bag; if your instant drink was a hot drink, you also get a bag for heating the drink. Everything is vacuum-packed in high-quality plastic, and it's lightweight and relatively small in volume. The main bag everything comes in can double as an emergency water carrier. Our military must be the best-fed in history, and as the old saying goes, an army travels on its stomach. Can you imagine how the Roman generals would have loved to have had MREs for their men?
***
There are exceptions, but I usually only go to mass on Sundays or holy days of obligation. During the time since the hurricane, I went to First Friday mass and a couple of daily masses, and it was good to know that, even during a time when everything else is different from your usual life (no traffic lights, for instance) the liturgy is still there, the same.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
A New Fantasy Author on My "To Read" List
Ignatius Insight has an interview with Tim Powers:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tpowers_intvw_sept05.asp
I've heard the name before but never come across any of his books. But his novels sound interesting and one comment of his made me suspect I might like the man:
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tpowers_intvw_sept05.asp
I've heard the name before but never come across any of his books. But his novels sound interesting and one comment of his made me suspect I might like the man:
I was on a panel once in which a woman said, "Dracula is
actually about the plight of 19th-century women," to which I replied, "No,
it’s
about a guy who lives forever by drinking other people’s blood – don’t
take my
word for it, check it out."
Our public library is still closed and its online catalogue is down, but I'll be checking for Powers as soon as I can.
In Memoriam: 9/11/01
Michelle Malkin has, as expected, an excellent collection of links:
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003516.htm
And here's a collection of pictures:
http://www.september-11th.us/Archive.html
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003516.htm
And here's a collection of pictures:
http://www.september-11th.us/Archive.html
The Real Lesson
There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Hurricane Katrina, most of them related to preparedness, but I think the real lesson is what I found in Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ Friday night:
God gave us the good things of the world to enjoy, but ultimately they're not what we're here for. All of the things we spend our time and energy on--jobs, homes, possessions, hobbies--can all be taken from us in a matter of moments or days. Even our loved ones can be snatched from us, though their immortal souls live on. As the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory realized nearing death, in the end nothing matters but being a saint.
I'm going to try to remember this more often.
It is good for us to have sometimes troubles and adversities: for they make
a man enter into himself, that he may know that he is in a state of banishment,
and may not place his hopes in anything of this world.
God gave us the good things of the world to enjoy, but ultimately they're not what we're here for. All of the things we spend our time and energy on--jobs, homes, possessions, hobbies--can all be taken from us in a matter of moments or days. Even our loved ones can be snatched from us, though their immortal souls live on. As the whiskey priest in The Power and the Glory realized nearing death, in the end nothing matters but being a saint.
I'm going to try to remember this more often.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
I'm Baaaack!
Auntie Suzanne and Uncle Pookie are safe and sound, possessed of home and health (physical anyway), and are currently reveling in the newly acquired presence of things like electric lights, fans, and washing machine. Some men visited our house half an hour ago and restored power. This time last week we were still being told it would be four to six weeks before we got power, but things have been returning to normal pretty quickly; then again, we live near a hospital, so we're among the first to get power.
Three cheers for electricity!
Three cheers for electricity!
Sunday, August 28, 2005
You Just Can't Reason With Hurricane Season
Auntie Suzanne and Uncle Pookie, not to mention a few million others, are in the projected path of Hurricane Katrina, which some say may be worse than Camille. If anyone happens to come across this and can spare a prayer or ten, we'd appreciate it.
Our Lady of Prompt Succor, pray for us.
Our Lady of Prompt Succor, pray for us.
Saturday, August 27, 2005
A Moment with Chesterton (Who Was Married)
"...the wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. The fairy tales said that the prince and the princess lived happily ever afterwards: and so they did. They lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other." (G. K. Chesterton)
Friday, August 26, 2005
Random Thoughts
***
How high do gas prices have to get before Americans start to talk about drilling for oil in Alaska? I wonder because I figure it'll have to get to at least three times that amount before we start to talk about nuclear power. Make that ten times.
***
I read an article the other day about parents who discourage their children from entering the military--which group includes, unfortunately, parents who claim to "support the troops" and to favor the war. Now a lot of this is attributable to people thinking that they and their kind are too good for the military. "It's all right for those working class rednecks, hillbillies, and blacks, but it's not for people like us." Some of it is due to a failing sense of duty among Americans, the entitlement mentality, etc.
But I have to wonder if some of it isn't due to the fact that so many families nowadays have only one child. Many others have only two. I don't mean to suggest that people with large families value the individual children less, only to point out that the already horrifying possibility of losing a child must seem even worse to the person who has no other children. I once heard a priest on television say that parents of one- or two-child families are more likely to resist their sons becoming priests, because they fear having no grandchildren. Mightn't something similar be at work with the military enlistment discouragers?
***
Artists and others are very quick to talk about the rights of artists, but I never hear anyone talk about the duties of artists. Besides being citizens like everyone else, they have a special role as shapers of culture. Doesn't that entail some sort of responsibility to the culture?
***
Cloaks are much cooler looking than coats, but coats are more efficient at their job of keeping out the cold than cloaks. Not surprisingly more people nowadays wear coats or jackets than wear cloaks, capes, or ruanas. But why should that be in places where the winters are mild? In the USA's Deep South, where I live, a cloak can provide adequate--and sometimes more than adequate--warmth for our winters, but almost no one wears them. (I wore a ruana all last winter, and plan to have two this winter.) A bonus is that they are easier to make than coats.
***
How high do gas prices have to get before Americans start to talk about drilling for oil in Alaska? I wonder because I figure it'll have to get to at least three times that amount before we start to talk about nuclear power. Make that ten times.
***
I read an article the other day about parents who discourage their children from entering the military--which group includes, unfortunately, parents who claim to "support the troops" and to favor the war. Now a lot of this is attributable to people thinking that they and their kind are too good for the military. "It's all right for those working class rednecks, hillbillies, and blacks, but it's not for people like us." Some of it is due to a failing sense of duty among Americans, the entitlement mentality, etc.
But I have to wonder if some of it isn't due to the fact that so many families nowadays have only one child. Many others have only two. I don't mean to suggest that people with large families value the individual children less, only to point out that the already horrifying possibility of losing a child must seem even worse to the person who has no other children. I once heard a priest on television say that parents of one- or two-child families are more likely to resist their sons becoming priests, because they fear having no grandchildren. Mightn't something similar be at work with the military enlistment discouragers?
***
Artists and others are very quick to talk about the rights of artists, but I never hear anyone talk about the duties of artists. Besides being citizens like everyone else, they have a special role as shapers of culture. Doesn't that entail some sort of responsibility to the culture?
***
Cloaks are much cooler looking than coats, but coats are more efficient at their job of keeping out the cold than cloaks. Not surprisingly more people nowadays wear coats or jackets than wear cloaks, capes, or ruanas. But why should that be in places where the winters are mild? In the USA's Deep South, where I live, a cloak can provide adequate--and sometimes more than adequate--warmth for our winters, but almost no one wears them. (I wore a ruana all last winter, and plan to have two this winter.) A bonus is that they are easier to make than coats.
***
Humans in the Mist
The London Zoo has a new exhibit.
Gosh, I wonder what the point of this exhibit could be.
Ah, yes, animals=humans=animals. No difference at all. Except of course that the displayed humans have made and put on clothes, something that has never occurred to any animal in all of time. No animal has ever invented something new to give itself protection against the elements or to protect its modesty--or for that matter had feelings of modesty about displaying its genitals. Could it be that there's something going on inside humans that doesn't go on in animals?
Some people might even point out that the humans writing and reading this news story are engaging in an act that no animal can--the writer taking information from her environment, coming up with words to convey it, translating those words into abstract symbols on a page, and the readers then translating those marks into words which convey the information. (This is not even getting into the invention of paper or vast computer networks to print the marks on, or any editing for aesthetics or logic the writer may have done.) But people who would point out such things are obviously spiritually unevolved dupes of the patriarchy's humanity-uber-alles mentality.
It might if I hadn't seen the same thing in a Charles Addams cartoon more than twenty years ago. Besides, if I were to think about how humans stand in relation to animals, that would only be emphasizing the difference between humans and animals (since animals don't think about it) and thus prove my lack of empathy to our oppressed animal brothers.
Caged and barely clothed, eight men and women monkeyed around
for the crowds Friday in an exhibit labeled "Humans" at the London Zoo....The
exhibit puts the three male and five female "homo sapiens" amid their primate
relatives....the humans were wearing swimsuits beneath their fig
leaves.
Gosh, I wonder what the point of this exhibit could be.
"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animalsand
... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate,"
Wills[a zoo spokesman] said.
"A lot of people think humans are above other
animals," [one of the displays] told The Associated Press. "When
they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that
special."
Ah, yes, animals=humans=animals. No difference at all. Except of course that the displayed humans have made and put on clothes, something that has never occurred to any animal in all of time. No animal has ever invented something new to give itself protection against the elements or to protect its modesty--or for that matter had feelings of modesty about displaying its genitals. Could it be that there's something going on inside humans that doesn't go on in animals?
Some people might even point out that the humans writing and reading this news story are engaging in an act that no animal can--the writer taking information from her environment, coming up with words to convey it, translating those words into abstract symbols on a page, and the readers then translating those marks into words which convey the information. (This is not even getting into the invention of paper or vast computer networks to print the marks on, or any editing for aesthetics or logic the writer may have done.) But people who would point out such things are obviously spiritually unevolved dupes of the patriarchy's humanity-uber-alles mentality.
"It turns everything upside down. It makes you think about the
humans in relation to the animals."
It might if I hadn't seen the same thing in a Charles Addams cartoon more than twenty years ago. Besides, if I were to think about how humans stand in relation to animals, that would only be emphasizing the difference between humans and animals (since animals don't think about it) and thus prove my lack of empathy to our oppressed animal brothers.
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Lying About Families
Here's a good article on what spurred Daniel Patrick Moynihan's infamous report on the black family back in the '60s and the reaction to it in the decades since:
http://www.city-journal.com/html/15_3_black_family.html
And lest you think this is only about black families, remember that illegitimacy is rising in other ethnic groups as well; a couple of years ago I read that white illegitimacy has reached the levels of black illegitimacy in the early '60s (something like 24%, I think)--which were rates that greatly worried many black ministers at the time, and which unfortunately soon ballooned.
http://www.city-journal.com/html/15_3_black_family.html
And lest you think this is only about black families, remember that illegitimacy is rising in other ethnic groups as well; a couple of years ago I read that white illegitimacy has reached the levels of black illegitimacy in the early '60s (something like 24%, I think)--which were rates that greatly worried many black ministers at the time, and which unfortunately soon ballooned.
Don't Act Surprised
How we present ourselves to others has consequences. They're often predictable.
If you wear a tee-shirt with a motto that insults the viewer of the shirt (e.g., "If my dog looked like you, I'd shave his butt and make him walk backward", "You rode the short bus, didn't you?", "Bite Me") and you then approach someone to ask for help, don't act surprised if they are less helpful to you than they are to people in a non-insulting shirt. Even if it's someone who's paid to help you.
If you sport a bumpersticker that says "Bad Cop! No Doughnut!" and a tee-shirt that says "Fuck the Police", don't act surprised when the policeman who pulls you over for speeding is disinclined to let you off with a warning.
If you're a young woman or any girl past puberty and you wear a miniskirt that you have either designed to have or bought because it had attention-grabbing details (in addition to its attention-grabbing shortness, I mean) and men make crude or stupid comments about your skirt in a lame attempt to chat you up, don't act surprised.
If you're a woman and you wear a blouse that clings to the only parts of your breasts that aren't revealed by your plunging neckline, don't act surprised if some men talk to your chest instead of your face.
If you wear a tee-shirt with a motto that insults the viewer of the shirt (e.g., "If my dog looked like you, I'd shave his butt and make him walk backward", "You rode the short bus, didn't you?", "Bite Me") and you then approach someone to ask for help, don't act surprised if they are less helpful to you than they are to people in a non-insulting shirt. Even if it's someone who's paid to help you.
If you sport a bumpersticker that says "Bad Cop! No Doughnut!" and a tee-shirt that says "Fuck the Police", don't act surprised when the policeman who pulls you over for speeding is disinclined to let you off with a warning.
If you're a young woman or any girl past puberty and you wear a miniskirt that you have either designed to have or bought because it had attention-grabbing details (in addition to its attention-grabbing shortness, I mean) and men make crude or stupid comments about your skirt in a lame attempt to chat you up, don't act surprised.
If you're a woman and you wear a blouse that clings to the only parts of your breasts that aren't revealed by your plunging neckline, don't act surprised if some men talk to your chest instead of your face.
An Even More Modest Swimsuit
As I mentioned before, I don't have a problem with a basic one-piece swimsuit. I have seen an American suit or two advertised as a modest suit, but I did not like them, so I didn't mention them in my previous post on swimsuits; one of them looked like a knee-length wetsuit with a flowery skirt over it--not a look that would appeal to most American women, I think.
These probably aren't going to either, but I like them better than that American one:
They're pretty, happy-looking women; apparently no one ever told them you have to wear a string bikini to be attractive.
The LATimes article I took this photo from is worth skimming. It says that, thanks to the new Islamic bourgeoisie in Turkey, there's now designer headscarfs and liquor-free resorts, in addition to the really modest swimsuits. And those swimsuits are apparently more for sex-mixed groups; the article says women sometimes wear revealing suits when they're in women-only groups.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
One Way to Make a Snood (AKA a Hairnet or Caul)
For some reason I'm fascinated by Regina Doman's article on liturgical dressing--all of it, the concept and the particular articles of clothing mentioned. I have no interest in liturgical dressing itself; but I like drapey fabric, simple clothes, and clothing with a somewhat medieval look, and I am interested in pattern-free clothing. I haven't made the "Mary Dress" or the "Mary Jumper", because on this particular idea I need to see a photo before I make up my mind to commit my fabric; I'm intrigued by, but not sure of, the "wings". (Eh, maybe I'll just try it anyway one day I'm bored.)
Doman did inspire me to make a snood, though. I didn't think I could because I don't crochet or knit and Doman said she could no longer find the cotton mesh she used to sew hers. Then I happened to be in Wal-Mart when the clerk was bringing out some new $1.00/yd fabric. Most of the $1 fabric is ugly, but sometimes there's something nice. This day the clerk was bringing out a weird, stretchable black net material. It's not the cotton mesh Doman mentioned, as it must be synthetic to have so much stretch, but it looked like a snood to me. I bought 1/2 yard, carried it home, let it age for a couple of weeks :-), and then when it had matured I made a snood. I've worn it several times and found it surprisingly comfortable; I also found it can look cute with some clothes but didn't look right when I put it on with jeans and a tee-shirt (then again, that day I was just trying to hide my dirty hair.)
I also found you don't really need stretchy mesh. I have thick, bra-length hair, and my hair fits into my snood without any noticeable stretching. I'm sure a non-stretch mesh would work fine. I've seen some thrift store shirts made of a cotton mesh that I think could be cut up and used as a snood; next time I see one in a good color, I'm going to try it.
How I made my snood:
I cut an 18" square of mesh, folded it into quarters, then eighths, and cut a curve on it to get a rough circle. (This was after some tedious and wholly unnecessary thought about figuring circumferences and radiuses.) I cut a narrow strip of thin black fabric--about 1/4" wide--and sewed that around the edges of the net, using my widest stitch length. (Ribbon would probably work instead of the fabric.) Then I pulled the threads until it was gathered to about my head measurement (as measured from the top of the head to the bottom, where the head meets the neck). I covered the edges of the resulting "pouch" with a length of 1/2" wide doublefold bias tape (cut to my head measurement plus about an inch), using a lot of pins to secure it before sewing. Then I just sewed it down, taking care to tuck in the ends of the bias tape when I had completed the circle.
Actually, I had meant to add 1/4" wide elastic to the band, but by the time I got to the end, the thought of threading a piece of elastic through a bias tube filled with net sewn to fabric no longer appealed to me, and I said, "**** it, I'll just hold the thing up with hair pins." I've since found a photo of Regina Doman online, and I notice her snood is held on with hairpins too. I plan to try this again sometime with elastic.
Doman did inspire me to make a snood, though. I didn't think I could because I don't crochet or knit and Doman said she could no longer find the cotton mesh she used to sew hers. Then I happened to be in Wal-Mart when the clerk was bringing out some new $1.00/yd fabric. Most of the $1 fabric is ugly, but sometimes there's something nice. This day the clerk was bringing out a weird, stretchable black net material. It's not the cotton mesh Doman mentioned, as it must be synthetic to have so much stretch, but it looked like a snood to me. I bought 1/2 yard, carried it home, let it age for a couple of weeks :-), and then when it had matured I made a snood. I've worn it several times and found it surprisingly comfortable; I also found it can look cute with some clothes but didn't look right when I put it on with jeans and a tee-shirt (then again, that day I was just trying to hide my dirty hair.)
I also found you don't really need stretchy mesh. I have thick, bra-length hair, and my hair fits into my snood without any noticeable stretching. I'm sure a non-stretch mesh would work fine. I've seen some thrift store shirts made of a cotton mesh that I think could be cut up and used as a snood; next time I see one in a good color, I'm going to try it.
How I made my snood:
I cut an 18" square of mesh, folded it into quarters, then eighths, and cut a curve on it to get a rough circle. (This was after some tedious and wholly unnecessary thought about figuring circumferences and radiuses.) I cut a narrow strip of thin black fabric--about 1/4" wide--and sewed that around the edges of the net, using my widest stitch length. (Ribbon would probably work instead of the fabric.) Then I pulled the threads until it was gathered to about my head measurement (as measured from the top of the head to the bottom, where the head meets the neck). I covered the edges of the resulting "pouch" with a length of 1/2" wide doublefold bias tape (cut to my head measurement plus about an inch), using a lot of pins to secure it before sewing. Then I just sewed it down, taking care to tuck in the ends of the bias tape when I had completed the circle.
Actually, I had meant to add 1/4" wide elastic to the band, but by the time I got to the end, the thought of threading a piece of elastic through a bias tube filled with net sewn to fabric no longer appealed to me, and I said, "**** it, I'll just hold the thing up with hair pins." I've since found a photo of Regina Doman online, and I notice her snood is held on with hairpins too. I plan to try this again sometime with elastic.
For the Thrifty: Fabric Yields from Sheets
Sheets at garage sales, thrift stores, or salvage stores can be a good source of cheap fabric, useful for everything from quilt backing (scrap quilts you plan to use, anyway, maybe not art quilts) and curtains to clothing. A young man I once met kept a photo of his cute and very nicely-dressed little girl on his desk. After bragging on the daughter, he said that his mother made the dress in the photo, as well as a lot of other clothes the girl wore. "She buys floral sheets on sale and makes these dresses, and they look like Laura Ashley dresses you'd pay a lot of money for in a store." He was right, it did look like a Laura Ashley dress. A lot of it probably depended on his mother's sewing skill, but it shows you can get good results from sheets.
I haven't done this much though. Mainly because I'm picky and seldom find ones I like, but there have also been times I wondered if a particular thrift store sheet was a good buy or not. To make that determination easier, I've figured out approximate yardages for the most common sheet sizes.
To do this I looked up a chart of average sheet sizes. Any particular manufacter may use slightly different measurements, so you have to check the tag to be sure of the measurements you're getting, but as secondhand sheets may have faded or absent tags, I thought figuring the averages would give me a helpful rule of thumb to go by on price, as well as letting me know whether a particular sheet has enough yardage for what I want.
Note: The chart I used said that its measurements for fitted sheets included top surface only, so I'm not including sides in my estimates. I haven't tried it, but I'm guessing that if you snip off the elastic and press the sides flat, you may add 6" around the edges. Depending on what you're using it for, you may lose some fabric around the edges of flat sheets, because of the hems; OTOH, if they're secondhand, the flat sheets are apt to be in better shape.
TWIN/SINGLE
Fitted--just over 2 yds of 39" wide fabric.
Flat--2&2/3 yds of 66" wide fabric.
DOUBLE/FULL/STANDARD
Fitted--just over 2 yds of 54" wide fabric.
Flat--2&2/3 yds of 81" wide fabric.
QUEEN
Fitted--almost 2&1/4 yds of 60" wide fabric.
Flat--2 & 5/6 yds (i.e. just over 2&3/4) of 90" fabric. If you were to cut the fabric up the middle, you'd have two 2&5/6 yd lengths of 45" wide fabric, for a total of 5& 2/3 yds of 45" fabric.
KING
Fitted--almost 2&1/4 yds of 76"-78" wide fabric.
Flat--2&5/6 yds (i.e. just over 2&3/4) of 108" wide fabric. Cut up the middle, that yields two 2&5/6 yd lengths of 54" wide fabric, for a total of 5&2/3 yds of 54" fabric. OR you could turn the sheet side ways and have 3 yds of 102" wide fabric; cut that up the middle and you have two 3 yd lengths of 51" wide fabric, for a total of 6 yds.
The rule of thumb: Any sheet twin-size or larger is going to give you at least two yards of fabric (although on the twin fitted it will be a narrower width than most contemporary patterns call for in their pattern layouts), so take the price of the sheet, halve it, and ask yourself if you'd pay that much per yard for that fabric. If it's close, remember that you're actually paying a bit less per yard, especially on a queen or king flat sheet.
I haven't done this much though. Mainly because I'm picky and seldom find ones I like, but there have also been times I wondered if a particular thrift store sheet was a good buy or not. To make that determination easier, I've figured out approximate yardages for the most common sheet sizes.
To do this I looked up a chart of average sheet sizes. Any particular manufacter may use slightly different measurements, so you have to check the tag to be sure of the measurements you're getting, but as secondhand sheets may have faded or absent tags, I thought figuring the averages would give me a helpful rule of thumb to go by on price, as well as letting me know whether a particular sheet has enough yardage for what I want.
Note: The chart I used said that its measurements for fitted sheets included top surface only, so I'm not including sides in my estimates. I haven't tried it, but I'm guessing that if you snip off the elastic and press the sides flat, you may add 6" around the edges. Depending on what you're using it for, you may lose some fabric around the edges of flat sheets, because of the hems; OTOH, if they're secondhand, the flat sheets are apt to be in better shape.
TWIN/SINGLE
Fitted--just over 2 yds of 39" wide fabric.
Flat--2&2/3 yds of 66" wide fabric.
DOUBLE/FULL/STANDARD
Fitted--just over 2 yds of 54" wide fabric.
Flat--2&2/3 yds of 81" wide fabric.
QUEEN
Fitted--almost 2&1/4 yds of 60" wide fabric.
Flat--2 & 5/6 yds (i.e. just over 2&3/4) of 90" fabric. If you were to cut the fabric up the middle, you'd have two 2&5/6 yd lengths of 45" wide fabric, for a total of 5& 2/3 yds of 45" fabric.
KING
Fitted--almost 2&1/4 yds of 76"-78" wide fabric.
Flat--2&5/6 yds (i.e. just over 2&3/4) of 108" wide fabric. Cut up the middle, that yields two 2&5/6 yd lengths of 54" wide fabric, for a total of 5&2/3 yds of 54" fabric. OR you could turn the sheet side ways and have 3 yds of 102" wide fabric; cut that up the middle and you have two 3 yd lengths of 51" wide fabric, for a total of 6 yds.
The rule of thumb: Any sheet twin-size or larger is going to give you at least two yards of fabric (although on the twin fitted it will be a narrower width than most contemporary patterns call for in their pattern layouts), so take the price of the sheet, halve it, and ask yourself if you'd pay that much per yard for that fabric. If it's close, remember that you're actually paying a bit less per yard, especially on a queen or king flat sheet.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Chesterton As You've Never Seen Him Before
An artist named Ben Hatke has illustrated "Song of the Strange Ascetic", a Chesterton poem about how if he were a heathen, he'd have fun with it, not like the gloomy-faced heathens of his day, who "do not have the faith,/And will not have the fun". Look and be charmed:
http://www.benanna.com/HouseHatke/art/art_zoom_0004.htm
http://www.benanna.com/HouseHatke/art/art_zoom_0004.htm
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Things I'm Sick Of -- A Mean-spirited List
People who hate Wal-Mart and won't shut up about it, yet who continue to shop at other big chain stores. I don't care where other people shop, but I get tired of hearing about it from self-righteous snobs (yes, I'm generalizing). It wouldn't be so annoying if more of the complainers shopped only at small businesses or secondhand stores. If Chain X is the source of all evil, how can Chains Y & Z--not to mention A-W--who do the same sorts of things, not also be evil and worthy of ire?
Low-rise pants. They look okay on some super-thin girls, but they flatter no one. Most girls look very bad in them. Women of, as they say, a certain age shouldn't go there at all. (Especially when they're pairing their low-rise pants with a cropped top that shows off their wrinkly, stretch-marked, fortyplus-year old bellies and bellybutton ring or tattoos.) I'm not so lookist to care if people look good or not, but most of these sad people are obviously trying to look good and failing really badly.
Visible bra straps. When I was a girl, only the trashiest of the trashy went out with visible bra straps, and even then it was usually the result of extreme carelessness. Now some girls do it deliberately. It still looks trashy.
Flip-flops. They're great for the beach or for public showers, and they are economical (at least they used to be); but if you're a middle-class girl in one of the most prosperous countries ever to exist and you are wearing a nice dress, buy some shoes or a pair of decent-looking sandals. Hot gluing an artificial flower or some sequins to your flip-flops do not make them formal wear. No, not even semi-formal.
The use of the word "pimp" to mean anything other than a procurer, a pander, a low-life trafficker in human flesh, an exploiter (usually of women.)
The use of the word "ride" to refer to automobiles. I first heard this word in the early '90s. It sounded stupid then and it still sounds stupid.
Low-rise pants. They look okay on some super-thin girls, but they flatter no one. Most girls look very bad in them. Women of, as they say, a certain age shouldn't go there at all. (Especially when they're pairing their low-rise pants with a cropped top that shows off their wrinkly, stretch-marked, fortyplus-year old bellies and bellybutton ring or tattoos.) I'm not so lookist to care if people look good or not, but most of these sad people are obviously trying to look good and failing really badly.
Visible bra straps. When I was a girl, only the trashiest of the trashy went out with visible bra straps, and even then it was usually the result of extreme carelessness. Now some girls do it deliberately. It still looks trashy.
Flip-flops. They're great for the beach or for public showers, and they are economical (at least they used to be); but if you're a middle-class girl in one of the most prosperous countries ever to exist and you are wearing a nice dress, buy some shoes or a pair of decent-looking sandals. Hot gluing an artificial flower or some sequins to your flip-flops do not make them formal wear. No, not even semi-formal.
The use of the word "pimp" to mean anything other than a procurer, a pander, a low-life trafficker in human flesh, an exploiter (usually of women.)
The use of the word "ride" to refer to automobiles. I first heard this word in the early '90s. It sounded stupid then and it still sounds stupid.
I, Auntie Suzanne, Recommend This Series
I recently watched I, Claudius. It's thirteen episodes (about 12 hours total) of political intrigue, treachery, corruption, and vice. I once found myself wondering if this is the period that historians with a secret penchant for soap operas study. It's very entertaining. Among its features is the delightful Brian Blessed in an unexpected role as Augustus. Watch and enjoy and try not to draw parallels between Rome and contemporary Western society--the comparisons have been made before and you'll only worry yourself.
According to the Netflix reviews (Uncle Pookie and I may not have TV, but we keep our Netflix queue humming), this BBC series has been called the best thing ever made for TV--or something like that, and I'm not sure who is supposed to have said that; but whether it's the best or not, it is certainly well worth watching. Although not for the little kiddies; I don't automatically object to little kiddies seeing naked breasts, but there's some serious decadence in this that I, for one, would not want to have to explain to a child. For teens or adults who don't want to see that kind of thing depicted, there's an abridged audiobook version, read by Derek Jacobi (who plays Claudius in the TV series), that is both considerably cleaned up and entertaining to listen to.
FWIW, I found the most striking character in both the audiobook and the TV series to be Livia. Florence King once said that there's nothing wrong with "women's studies" that studying the right women won't set straight. If even half of what I, Claudius says about Livia is true, then Livia is one of those women Miss King was talking about.
According to the Netflix reviews (Uncle Pookie and I may not have TV, but we keep our Netflix queue humming), this BBC series has been called the best thing ever made for TV--or something like that, and I'm not sure who is supposed to have said that; but whether it's the best or not, it is certainly well worth watching. Although not for the little kiddies; I don't automatically object to little kiddies seeing naked breasts, but there's some serious decadence in this that I, for one, would not want to have to explain to a child. For teens or adults who don't want to see that kind of thing depicted, there's an abridged audiobook version, read by Derek Jacobi (who plays Claudius in the TV series), that is both considerably cleaned up and entertaining to listen to.
FWIW, I found the most striking character in both the audiobook and the TV series to be Livia. Florence King once said that there's nothing wrong with "women's studies" that studying the right women won't set straight. If even half of what I, Claudius says about Livia is true, then Livia is one of those women Miss King was talking about.
Some Sewing Links
How to Make Yourself a Dressform
(I recommend the brown paper tape version; it is easy and really cheap, and it has history behind it--the technique goes back to at least the 1930s.)
http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00002.asp
Online directions for making an A-line Skirt without a pattern
http://www.geocities.com/kraftylala44/Easy_A-line_Skirt.html
Covering Our Hair
Links to directions for making headcoverings. (Some are knitted or crocheted, instead of sewn.)
http://www.fmfcorp.com/familyspot/haircover.html
Dawn's Costume Guide
(mostly SCA, but there's a section on Biblical-era costumes, such as children might wear at church plays) Tells how to draw out patterns based on your own measurements; some of the patterns could be adapted slightly to make contemporary garments.
http://www.reddawn.net/costume/patterns.htm
The Tangled Web
Another SCA or RenFaire site. Directions include how to make a chemise (which could be adapted to make a peasant blouse or a nightgown), a gathered skirt, a gored skirt, and bloomers.
http://home.aol.com/lclacemker/frameset3.html
Reconstructing History
The Beginners section has free instructions for making several period garments for the upper body. Use your own measurements to make your pattern pieces, then use one of the fabric-saving, probable period layouts to cut your pieces. (Outside the beginner's section, there's a lot of interesting historical information, plus a few how-tos; read to learn what your northern European or Japanese ancestors were wore.)
http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/beginners/index.html
Lots-o-Links Page
The above three SCA links are links I am familiar with. Here's a big collection of links to pages with SCA clothing information--at least some have construction how-tos.
http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/wsnlinks/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=10
StitchGuide
Bills itself as "the most complete online stitch reference". Has illustrations and videos to help you learn crochet, knitting, embroidery, tatting, etc. (Okay, so knitting and crochet aren't sewing, but embroidery sorta-kinda is and the videos are a cool resource.)
http://www.stitchguide.com/
About.com can be annoying, but their Sewing section has a Free Projects subcategory
http://sewing.about.com/od/freeprojects/
SewNews Magazine
has an online library of articles covering multiple sewing-related areas.
http://www.sewnews.com/library/sewnews/aalibrary.htm
Threads magazine (the source of the dressform how-to above) has a collection of articles online.
http://www.taunton.com/threads/index.asp
(I recommend the brown paper tape version; it is easy and really cheap, and it has history behind it--the technique goes back to at least the 1930s.)
http://www.taunton.com/threads/pages/t00002.asp
Online directions for making an A-line Skirt without a pattern
http://www.geocities.com/kraftylala44/Easy_A-line_Skirt.html
Covering Our Hair
Links to directions for making headcoverings. (Some are knitted or crocheted, instead of sewn.)
http://www.fmfcorp.com/familyspot/haircover.html
Dawn's Costume Guide
(mostly SCA, but there's a section on Biblical-era costumes, such as children might wear at church plays) Tells how to draw out patterns based on your own measurements; some of the patterns could be adapted slightly to make contemporary garments.
http://www.reddawn.net/costume/patterns.htm
The Tangled Web
Another SCA or RenFaire site. Directions include how to make a chemise (which could be adapted to make a peasant blouse or a nightgown), a gathered skirt, a gored skirt, and bloomers.
http://home.aol.com/lclacemker/frameset3.html
Reconstructing History
The Beginners section has free instructions for making several period garments for the upper body. Use your own measurements to make your pattern pieces, then use one of the fabric-saving, probable period layouts to cut your pieces. (Outside the beginner's section, there's a lot of interesting historical information, plus a few how-tos; read to learn what your northern European or Japanese ancestors were wore.)
http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/beginners/index.html
Lots-o-Links Page
The above three SCA links are links I am familiar with. Here's a big collection of links to pages with SCA clothing information--at least some have construction how-tos.
http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/wsnlinks/index.php?action=displaycat&catid=10
StitchGuide
Bills itself as "the most complete online stitch reference". Has illustrations and videos to help you learn crochet, knitting, embroidery, tatting, etc. (Okay, so knitting and crochet aren't sewing, but embroidery sorta-kinda is and the videos are a cool resource.)
http://www.stitchguide.com/
About.com can be annoying, but their Sewing section has a Free Projects subcategory
http://sewing.about.com/od/freeprojects/
SewNews Magazine
has an online library of articles covering multiple sewing-related areas.
http://www.sewnews.com/library/sewnews/aalibrary.htm
Threads magazine (the source of the dressform how-to above) has a collection of articles online.
http://www.taunton.com/threads/index.asp
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Shotguns and Parenting
If more fathers were like the father and brother in the beginning of the Dukes of Hazzard movie (don't look at me like that, my seeing it was something in the nature of Klingon opera*; Uncle Pookie has fond memories of Daisy Duke for some reason), maybe there would be fewer unwed pregnancies. Most young men would think twice about taking liberties if the likely consequence were a butt full of lead. On the other hand, it would also make the daughters of those fathers more desirable: something you have to work to get is usually seen as more valuable than what is free for the taking, and forbidden fruit is perenially attractive. On the third hand, it might be good for the gene pool, as only the most determined young men would break through.
As for the movie itself, it's about as good as the show--i.e. silly and about as substantial as cotton candy, but not the worst thing you've ever seen, either. Uncle Pookie found the new Daisy too skinny, though.
*Entertainment you partake of only because you are a member of a couple. From a Star Trek Deep Space Nine line about how, when you're part of a couple, you like jazz and your partner likes Klingon opera, so you compromise--you listen to Klingon opera.
As for the movie itself, it's about as good as the show--i.e. silly and about as substantial as cotton candy, but not the worst thing you've ever seen, either. Uncle Pookie found the new Daisy too skinny, though.
*Entertainment you partake of only because you are a member of a couple. From a Star Trek Deep Space Nine line about how, when you're part of a couple, you like jazz and your partner likes Klingon opera, so you compromise--you listen to Klingon opera.
Today's Chesterton Quote
There's not enough Chesterton around here, so I've dug into my collection of quotes and come up with this:
Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and
more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes
called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of
the equality of men.
(G. K. Chesterton, Heretics)
Bad Ideas Never Die
A while back I mentioned a news article about some neo-Nazis who'd emigrated to Israel. While their choice of a new country continues to flabbergast me, apparently their originating in the former Soviet Union shouldn't surprise anyone:
But I guess knowing your grandparents and great-grandparents fought Nazis is not enough to dampen the appeal fascism has for many people. And with their society ravaged by decades of communism, the appeal may be even higher. The Soviet Union collapsed, people in the former Soviet-controlled countries are uppity, and the economy is bad; anything that boosts a person's national pride and makes him feel a sense of belonging must look pretty good. If that person has been deprived of religious civilizing influences and if the prevailing zeitgeist has made life cheap, he may be even more likely to fall prey to this despicable ideology, even more likely to find himself thinking it's okay to join up with some other people to beat up Jews, dark-skinned people, or non-Germans/Russians/whatever.
Catholics should pray for a resurgence of Christianity in Russia. Much as I believe or hope fundamental human decency can prevail over neo-Naziism, it would be better to have religion backing that decency up.
"Nearly half of the world's skinheads -- about 50,000 of themI saw some American fans of Hitler once on TV--you know, the kind who teach their toddlers to give the "Heil" sign to photos of their glorious Fuehrer and so on--and, as they seemed to be pleased with their status as Americans, I kept asking, "Don't they know we fought Hitler?" It's possible they didn't; they were very insistent that Jesus wasn't a Jew, so I'm not sure their historical knowledge was up to much. But you would think a sense of the Nazis having been enemies would be everywhere in Russia, which was hit much harder by WWII than the US--and hit at home, not just abroad.
-- live in Russia, according to a January report by the Moscow Bureau for Human
Rights. In St. Petersburg, where a brutal, 872-day blockade by Nazi troops
killed 1.7 million people during World War II, there may be as many as 5,000
skinheads, the report said; an estimated 10,000 skinheads live in Moscow, up
from a dozen a decade ago.
In 2004, neo-Nazis killed 44 people across Russia
-- more than double the previous year, Amnesty International
reported."
(Source)
But I guess knowing your grandparents and great-grandparents fought Nazis is not enough to dampen the appeal fascism has for many people. And with their society ravaged by decades of communism, the appeal may be even higher. The Soviet Union collapsed, people in the former Soviet-controlled countries are uppity, and the economy is bad; anything that boosts a person's national pride and makes him feel a sense of belonging must look pretty good. If that person has been deprived of religious civilizing influences and if the prevailing zeitgeist has made life cheap, he may be even more likely to fall prey to this despicable ideology, even more likely to find himself thinking it's okay to join up with some other people to beat up Jews, dark-skinned people, or non-Germans/Russians/whatever.
Catholics should pray for a resurgence of Christianity in Russia. Much as I believe or hope fundamental human decency can prevail over neo-Naziism, it would be better to have religion backing that decency up.
Friday, August 19, 2005
For Catholics
If you're a mal-practicing Catholic like me, you can use all the help you can get. I meant to post this two days ago, but it's still not too late to get in on this:
A partial indulgence is available to all the other faithful,
wherever they may be during World Youth Day, if, with a contrite heart, they
pray fervently that Christian youth
* be strengthened in the
profession of the Faith;
* be confirmed in love and reverence toward
their parents; and
* form a firm resolution to follow "the holy norms
of the Gospel and Mother Church" in living out their present or future
family
life, or whatever vocation they are called to by God.(Taken from http://www.ewtn.com/wyd2005/news2005.asp)
A Note About Comments
I will remove all spam posted in the comments. Also, should the issue come up, I will very likely remove any comment I deem grossly inappropriate. I've a pretty broad view of what's appropriate; people who act like they were brought up well aren't likely to post anything I'd remove.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
More on the Humpty Dumpty Question
A few entries back, I posted Uncle Pookie's question about Humpty Dumpty. Well, I then happened to be rereading the Alice books (which, incidentally, I did not enjoy as much as when I was a child, although the songs are still great fun) and noticed that even back then Humpty Dumpty was already being depicted as an egg. Hmm. Why? Wikipedia offers four suggestions. One was that the nursery rhyme was originally a riddle, the answer to which was that HD was an egg. There were also two military explanations and a political explanation; I'd suggested to Uncle Pookie that the rhyme might refer to a political downfall, but I'm not so sure I buy the Wiki explanation of its referring to Richard III--for one thing, by the time he fell off his horse in Bosworth field, it was pretty much over for him and I don't think any of his men or horses were trying to put him together again.
Hurricanes and Poets, Or This Date in History
Thirty-six years ago today Hurricane Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This was a particularly nasty hurricane. I used to hear about it growing up, although my family lived nowhere near the coast. Not that that mattered, as Camille caused damage clear up to Tennessee. An interesting afternote is that in the late '90s when another hurricane (Georges?) was supposed to hit the same area, people left the coast in droves. No nonsense about "riding it out" or not wanting to evacuate. They just left. A friend said she heard a national news reporter express surprise at how quickly and orderly everyone had complied with the suggestion they move inland. "Hah, those people still remember Camille." They knew--from experience--you just can't reason with hurricane season.
Today is also the 75th anniversary of Ted Hughes' birth. I have read almost nothing by him this past five years, but he used to mean a great deal to me and I was saddened by his death in '98. When I do read more of him in the future, I am curious how my Catholicism will affect my reading of him; I was a pagan when I used to read him, and that inevitably affected my taste for a poet who equated the poet's role with that of a shaman and who had a taste for astrology, magick, and myths. There's nothing wrong with the mythic imagination, but as occultism is forbidden to me now I've adopted the Christianity that doesn't come off looking so good in his poems, reading his work may feel different to me. But there's always his great love of nature running through his work, so I'm sure I'll still find pleasure there.
Today is also the 75th anniversary of Ted Hughes' birth. I have read almost nothing by him this past five years, but he used to mean a great deal to me and I was saddened by his death in '98. When I do read more of him in the future, I am curious how my Catholicism will affect my reading of him; I was a pagan when I used to read him, and that inevitably affected my taste for a poet who equated the poet's role with that of a shaman and who had a taste for astrology, magick, and myths. There's nothing wrong with the mythic imagination, but as occultism is forbidden to me now I've adopted the Christianity that doesn't come off looking so good in his poems, reading his work may feel different to me. But there's always his great love of nature running through his work, so I'm sure I'll still find pleasure there.
Okay, Now for a REAL Travesty
I've been listening to Bat Out of Hell lately while sewing. I think I've come to prefer it over Bat Out of Hell 2; I definitely appreciate it a lot more than I used to. But it reminds me of something I've long thought a travesty: That 70s Show has never once mentioned Bat Out of Hell! Admittedly I haven't had TV in over a year, so I missed all of last season, and I missed some episodes even before, but I didn't miss many. And I never heard one reference to BOOH or Meat Loaf. The show covered 1977 and 1978, when BOOH was released and got popular.
And it was really popular. Until about 1995, it was the bestselling debut album ever. It continues to sell, I've read, several million copies a year and is one of the best selling albums ever. Even in the rural town I lived in in the 70s--a town of about 500 people in an area that is usually a couple of years behind the times in fashions & fads--my teenaged cousin had a copy in her room.
This wouldn't seem like such a big deal if BOOH references wouldn't have fit in so well on the show. It's not hard to imagine a couple of Paradise By the Dashboard Light* jokes, and Hyde would surely have liked BOOH; moreover, the title track would have worked well in that episode where Hyde met the female biker who loved him and left him (or laid him and left him). But I guess the show is actually more about today than it is about the '70s, so no luck.
*If you've never heard it, Paradise By the Dashboard Light, in addition to being funny and provoking nostalgia in adults who weren't so chaste in their youth as they should have been, serves as a morality tale about the dangers of giving your word impulsively and/or of doing your thinking with your erectile tissue.
And it was really popular. Until about 1995, it was the bestselling debut album ever. It continues to sell, I've read, several million copies a year and is one of the best selling albums ever. Even in the rural town I lived in in the 70s--a town of about 500 people in an area that is usually a couple of years behind the times in fashions & fads--my teenaged cousin had a copy in her room.
This wouldn't seem like such a big deal if BOOH references wouldn't have fit in so well on the show. It's not hard to imagine a couple of Paradise By the Dashboard Light* jokes, and Hyde would surely have liked BOOH; moreover, the title track would have worked well in that episode where Hyde met the female biker who loved him and left him (or laid him and left him). But I guess the show is actually more about today than it is about the '70s, so no luck.
*If you've never heard it, Paradise By the Dashboard Light, in addition to being funny and provoking nostalgia in adults who weren't so chaste in their youth as they should have been, serves as a morality tale about the dangers of giving your word impulsively and/or of doing your thinking with your erectile tissue.
Brainwashing 101
If you want a peek at what's going on at the other end of the educational spectrum, there's a film at academicbias.com you may want to watch. It runs about forty-five minutes, is free, and can be watched on RealPlayer, QuickTime, or WindowsMedia. No short film can give more than the smallest taste of this large a subject, but if you haven't heard much about the curtailing of freedoms on college campuses in the US, it might be worth your time to watch it. Or listen while you do something else.
Sadly, nothing in the film surprised me. I have read about many similar cases over the past 5-10 years.
Sadly, nothing in the film surprised me. I have read about many similar cases over the past 5-10 years.
Building a Better (?) World Through School Supplies
In Sam's Club yesterday, I saw a large Crayola multipack that advertised itself as being good for teachers and day care owners. The pack contained numerous small boxes of crayons, in three categories: Classic Crayons (of course), Construction Paper Crayons (sure, why not), and Multicultural Crayons (WHAT?! Did I just read that?) No, I am not making this up. Multicultural Crayons. The box claimed they would be good for "teaching diversity".
That last bit gave me a clue what the "multicultural" boxes might contain--I didn't know before; I thought maybe it was crayons named after different cultures or geographical areas--but one box had had its plastic wrap torn off, so I opened it up to check. The "multicultural" boxes contained what were apparently intended to be various skin tones, although as I remarked to Uncle Pookie at the time, "That [the waxy white crayon] isn't a a flesh tone anywhere in the world, outside of certain films set in a largely mythical Transylvania."
Now, this is pretty silly. Look what it says about the mindset of whoever at Crayola came up with that idea: people with different skin colors are so different from one another that they automatically form a whole different culture. Skin color is really, really important in determining who you are, I guess.
Crayola claims these crayons are good for "teaching diversity", but to them diversity apparently just means having different flesh tones. You don't have to tell children that people come in multiple skin colors. You do have to teach small children how to blow their noses, but unless you're living in a small, racially homogenous, and completely isolated community with no television or photos from the outside world, you don't have to tell children that people come in different skin colors. They notice this on their own. And they don't need a special box of "multicultural" crayons to depict these skin colors in their drawings, either. All of those colors are available in any mid-size or large box of crayons.
And why teach "diversity"--which, remember, just means different skin color, not different languages, traditions, religions, clothing, or cultural taboos--anyway? Children already know different skin colors exist. Do they know how to read? Or recognize shapes or add and subtract?
***
(Note: None of the above should be interpreted as an attack on Crayola. They didn't invent this kind of silliness, even if some "ideas" or marketing person there has bought into it. As far as I know Crayola still makes a fine crayon.)
That last bit gave me a clue what the "multicultural" boxes might contain--I didn't know before; I thought maybe it was crayons named after different cultures or geographical areas--but one box had had its plastic wrap torn off, so I opened it up to check. The "multicultural" boxes contained what were apparently intended to be various skin tones, although as I remarked to Uncle Pookie at the time, "That [the waxy white crayon] isn't a a flesh tone anywhere in the world, outside of certain films set in a largely mythical Transylvania."
Now, this is pretty silly. Look what it says about the mindset of whoever at Crayola came up with that idea: people with different skin colors are so different from one another that they automatically form a whole different culture. Skin color is really, really important in determining who you are, I guess.
Crayola claims these crayons are good for "teaching diversity", but to them diversity apparently just means having different flesh tones. You don't have to tell children that people come in multiple skin colors. You do have to teach small children how to blow their noses, but unless you're living in a small, racially homogenous, and completely isolated community with no television or photos from the outside world, you don't have to tell children that people come in different skin colors. They notice this on their own. And they don't need a special box of "multicultural" crayons to depict these skin colors in their drawings, either. All of those colors are available in any mid-size or large box of crayons.
And why teach "diversity"--which, remember, just means different skin color, not different languages, traditions, religions, clothing, or cultural taboos--anyway? Children already know different skin colors exist. Do they know how to read? Or recognize shapes or add and subtract?
***
(Note: None of the above should be interpreted as an attack on Crayola. They didn't invent this kind of silliness, even if some "ideas" or marketing person there has bought into it. As far as I know Crayola still makes a fine crayon.)
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Animal Story and The Way We Talk
I saw a news story yesterday about a couple of teenagers in Canada who gave a dead cat an emergency C-section. I like animal stories, and I am glad not all of the kittens had to die with the mother cat and that a cat who'd lost her kittens was able to adopt new ones. But a point of language struck me.
We--and by "we" I mean everyone, including MSM--have no problem referring to what's in the womb of a pregnant cat as "kittens"--i.e. the usual word for immature cats. Or what's inside the womb of a pregnant dog as "puppies" (the usual word for immature dogs), etc. It is only when referring to what's inside the womb of a human that using the usual word for its offspring--i.e. "baby"--becomes controversial.
Some people not only won't say "baby" but will correct those who do: "It's not a baby, it's a fetus!" (Never mind that "fetus" comes from the Latin for "baby" or "offspring".) And MSM stories that involve pregnant women and what they're carrying sometimes say "baby" and sometimes "fetus" or other; an ongoing news story may see the same being go from being referred to as "fetus" to "baby"--for example, things along the line of "Fetus Missing" to "Baby Found" this past winter when that pregnant woman was murdered and her, um, "product of conception" stolen. And it's not always clear why MSM choose to use one word over the other. Maybe wanted uterine passengers are "babies" and uterine passengers that are not wanted by the mother--or that the speaker/writer think the woman shouldn't have--are "fetuses"? Of course the MSM has to be careful how it talks about things to avoid offending readers/viewers, but I think sometimes they're playing the same game the non-media people are: change what you call it and you'll change what it is.
And none of this is to suggest that "fetus", "embryo", etc. are incorrect, only to point out that it's a bit odd for no one to mind our saying "kitten" in a place where our saying "baby" would have people yelling at us.
You know, maybe the "it's not a baby, it's a fetus" people are a bit like those people who get very angry when human evolution is mentioned, but who don't bat an eye when, say, badger evolution is mentioned or when their doctors talks to them about bacteria and viruses adapting to our medical treatments or when pesticide companies talk about insects evolving to endure our current pesticides.
After discovering that the cat's body was still warm, they
decided to try to save its kittens ...
[She] made an incision into the mother cat's belly and could
see the kittens.
She pulled them out and found that two of four kittens were
still alive...
We--and by "we" I mean everyone, including MSM--have no problem referring to what's in the womb of a pregnant cat as "kittens"--i.e. the usual word for immature cats. Or what's inside the womb of a pregnant dog as "puppies" (the usual word for immature dogs), etc. It is only when referring to what's inside the womb of a human that using the usual word for its offspring--i.e. "baby"--becomes controversial.
Some people not only won't say "baby" but will correct those who do: "It's not a baby, it's a fetus!" (Never mind that "fetus" comes from the Latin for "baby" or "offspring".) And MSM stories that involve pregnant women and what they're carrying sometimes say "baby" and sometimes "fetus" or other; an ongoing news story may see the same being go from being referred to as "fetus" to "baby"--for example, things along the line of "Fetus Missing" to "Baby Found" this past winter when that pregnant woman was murdered and her, um, "product of conception" stolen. And it's not always clear why MSM choose to use one word over the other. Maybe wanted uterine passengers are "babies" and uterine passengers that are not wanted by the mother--or that the speaker/writer think the woman shouldn't have--are "fetuses"? Of course the MSM has to be careful how it talks about things to avoid offending readers/viewers, but I think sometimes they're playing the same game the non-media people are: change what you call it and you'll change what it is.
And none of this is to suggest that "fetus", "embryo", etc. are incorrect, only to point out that it's a bit odd for no one to mind our saying "kitten" in a place where our saying "baby" would have people yelling at us.
You know, maybe the "it's not a baby, it's a fetus" people are a bit like those people who get very angry when human evolution is mentioned, but who don't bat an eye when, say, badger evolution is mentioned or when their doctors talks to them about bacteria and viruses adapting to our medical treatments or when pesticide companies talk about insects evolving to endure our current pesticides.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Random Thoughts
As a pagan, I believed that the universe and all within it, living or non-living, was intricately and beautifully connected in the vast web of life and that everything within that web had its purpose. As a Catholic, I believe that God created the whole world, that everything in it is intricately and beautifully inter-connected, and that everything and everyone in it has a God-given purpose or purposes. None of this has helped me to figure out the purpose of the flea or to reconcile myself to its existence.
***
With all the American litigiousness and nannystate-ism, how long will it be before sales clerks are carding children who want to buy candy?
***
Why are middle-of-the-night self-revelations never anything good? Why when we're lying there, staring into the darkness, and suddenly have a flash of insight, is it never anything like "You know, I'm really charming when I try!" or "More of my actions have been motivated by genuinely unselfish good will than I ever realized before."
***
A society in which a large number of people have started to use the word "pimp" to refer to good things is a society in trouble.
***
We never hear about senile dementia in animals, but surely it must exist. They can get other problems associated with human old age--arthritis, cancer, etc.--so why not senility. My old cat has certainly become peculiar enough this past year.
***
Winston Churchill--Gryffindor or Slytherin? I'm thinking Gryffindor.
***
In spite of the people who, when they're defending their multiple piercings and tattoos, say you can't tell anything about a person by how he looks, appearances do tell us some things. I was behind a van recently that had a bumpersticker that said "You can't be both Catholic and pro-abortion" and whose vanity license plate said EWTN. Based on appearances, I think there's just the teensiest chance that van's owners were Catholic.
***
Given all those cause-related colored ribbons and rubber bracelets out there, you'd think someone would market a set of one or the other in the liturgical colors. It would be educational for the wearer, who'd have to keep an eye on the calendar to know which color to wear each day, and educational for any viewer who were to ask what that ribbon/bracelet stands for. It would be a much smaller version of what Regina Doman was talking about.
***
I keep hearing girls refer to dresses with plunging halter-top fronts and backs cut so low they're below the bra-strap line, fitted waists, and gathered skirts as "fifties housewife dresses". I don't know where these girls were brought up, but where I come from, I don't think there were many '50s housewives wearing dresses cut so low they couldn't wear a bra. I never saw Lucy and Ethel wearing one of those either.
***
People who are heavily into bdsm, etc. deride people who aren't into those things as liking "plain vanilla" sex, with the implication that vanilla people are boring and somehow less sexy. But really, who's less sexually sensitive--the people who greatly enjoy vanilla sex (maybe with the occasional bit of chocolate sauce) and are fully satisfied by that, or the people who must have an array of exotic supplemental objects and/or alternative practices to get off?
***
Random thought from Uncle Pookie: "How do you know Humpty Dumpty was an egg?" He's right. When we do what good literary students do and go back to the text, we see there's no mention whatever of Humpty being an egg.
***
With all the American litigiousness and nannystate-ism, how long will it be before sales clerks are carding children who want to buy candy?
***
Why are middle-of-the-night self-revelations never anything good? Why when we're lying there, staring into the darkness, and suddenly have a flash of insight, is it never anything like "You know, I'm really charming when I try!" or "More of my actions have been motivated by genuinely unselfish good will than I ever realized before."
***
A society in which a large number of people have started to use the word "pimp" to refer to good things is a society in trouble.
***
We never hear about senile dementia in animals, but surely it must exist. They can get other problems associated with human old age--arthritis, cancer, etc.--so why not senility. My old cat has certainly become peculiar enough this past year.
***
Winston Churchill--Gryffindor or Slytherin? I'm thinking Gryffindor.
***
In spite of the people who, when they're defending their multiple piercings and tattoos, say you can't tell anything about a person by how he looks, appearances do tell us some things. I was behind a van recently that had a bumpersticker that said "You can't be both Catholic and pro-abortion" and whose vanity license plate said EWTN. Based on appearances, I think there's just the teensiest chance that van's owners were Catholic.
***
Given all those cause-related colored ribbons and rubber bracelets out there, you'd think someone would market a set of one or the other in the liturgical colors. It would be educational for the wearer, who'd have to keep an eye on the calendar to know which color to wear each day, and educational for any viewer who were to ask what that ribbon/bracelet stands for. It would be a much smaller version of what Regina Doman was talking about.
***
I keep hearing girls refer to dresses with plunging halter-top fronts and backs cut so low they're below the bra-strap line, fitted waists, and gathered skirts as "fifties housewife dresses". I don't know where these girls were brought up, but where I come from, I don't think there were many '50s housewives wearing dresses cut so low they couldn't wear a bra. I never saw Lucy and Ethel wearing one of those either.
***
People who are heavily into bdsm, etc. deride people who aren't into those things as liking "plain vanilla" sex, with the implication that vanilla people are boring and somehow less sexy. But really, who's less sexually sensitive--the people who greatly enjoy vanilla sex (maybe with the occasional bit of chocolate sauce) and are fully satisfied by that, or the people who must have an array of exotic supplemental objects and/or alternative practices to get off?
***
Random thought from Uncle Pookie: "How do you know Humpty Dumpty was an egg?" He's right. When we do what good literary students do and go back to the text, we see there's no mention whatever of Humpty being an egg.
A Modest Swimsuit
I have no problem with a basic swimsuit--you know, the kind you see on competitive swimmers or in Azumanga Daioh's swim classes--myself, but for modesty or other reasons some women prefer not to show their bottoms. The swimdress is a good option for those women, as well as being an attractive choice for women who don't have the same concerns. I've liked those flirty little skirted swimdresses ever since I was a kid and I think it's unfortunate they aren't more readily available; they're tasteful, feminine, and more flattering to the average female form than most of the suits out there.
I recently found a tutorial on how to make a swimdress. This swimdress is different from the suits with the little skirt, and is more of a sheath-like dress, worn over a pair of bottoms. It's just as nice, though. The gist of the instructions: Buy a tankini swimsuit plus a duplicate suit in a larger size, cut off the larger tank below the breast and sew the resulting tube of fabric to the other tank.
McCall's #4848 has a swimdress pattern, but it has spaghetti straps and looks no better than the two tankini reconstruction job. And I think you'd have to be either good at sewing knits or very optimistic in your chances of having beginner's luck to attempt a swimsuit from scratch. I'm neither.
I recently found a tutorial on how to make a swimdress. This swimdress is different from the suits with the little skirt, and is more of a sheath-like dress, worn over a pair of bottoms. It's just as nice, though. The gist of the instructions: Buy a tankini swimsuit plus a duplicate suit in a larger size, cut off the larger tank below the breast and sew the resulting tube of fabric to the other tank.
McCall's #4848 has a swimdress pattern, but it has spaghetti straps and looks no better than the two tankini reconstruction job. And I think you'd have to be either good at sewing knits or very optimistic in your chances of having beginner's luck to attempt a swimsuit from scratch. I'm neither.
100% Catholic, Albeit Not the Best Example
You scored as Roman Catholic. You are Roman Catholic. Church tradition and ecclesial authority are hugely important, and the most important part of worship for you is mass. As the Mother of God, Mary is important in your theology, and as the communion of saints includes the living and the dead, you can also ask the saints to intercede for you.
What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com |
Sunday, August 07, 2005
In Praise of a Skirt
Like most American women my age, I grew up in pants and shorts. In the early '70s my mother sometimes dressed me in short dresses (fortunately none quite so short as the early Cindy Brady-type dresses, like these), but by the time I got to first grade she had me living in pants. From then until adolescence, the only time I wore skirts or dresses was when I went to church; Baptists frowned upon females wearing pants. And although in adolescence, when I began to be able to choose some of my own clothes, I began to occasionally wear skirts by choice, the association had already been made: dresses and skirts were for "dressing up" and they were uncomfortable. (I also associated church with "ugly dresses", but that's another story.)
That association changed this summer. Earlier this summer I made myself a jeans-to-skirt skirt. I've never liked denim skirts, but I do like thriftiness, and I had a pair of too loose jeans with some puppy-toenail snags on them that I didn't think the thrift store would want. So I set to, to make a skirt, using the usual two triangle insertion method. The method is shown on innumerable websites, but I like the about.com tutorial best; you can ignore the information about including a slit, because why would you be making a skirt so tight you can't walk without a slit? (Another method, using four triangles, is shown at SavvySeams.) I had only one pair of jeans, so unlike the skirt on about.com, my skirt ended up coming only just below the knee (it's kneelength when I sit), which is a really short skirt for me. (I tend to wear mid-calf or ankle-length skirts because I look best in mid-calf length hemlines and because I've always thought short skirts were a little too frivolous for someone of my oh-so-serious beatnik-ish, hippie-ish aesthethics.) I also left a fringe on the bottom, rather than hemming it, because the fabric spoke to me and asked to be left that way; I've never liked fringe before, hippie-ish aesthetics notwithstanding. So now I have a fringed denim skirt.
And guess what? It's super-comfortable. I've worn it more this summer than any other item of clothing I own. I wear it around the house to work in or waste time in, but it's not too sloppy or immodest to wear out grocery shopping or thrifting. It's cooler than shorts--all that upward draft. (A long crinkle cotton skirt or dress can be even cooler, but they're not exactly work clothes.) So who knew skirts could be comfortable and could be work clothes, as well as "dress up" clothes? Every generation of women before mine, as well as a great many women my age or younger. I guess I'm just slow. Add this to last year's revelation about aprons. (I discovered, after another thrifty recycle, that if you wear an apron, you don't have to look like a street urchin in the kitchen.) Funny how I'm just now learning things my grandmothers knew all their lives.
I've since made two more pants-to-skirt recons: a black denim skirt (neatly hemmed) out of a pair of damaged men's jeans and a long, hippie-ish skirt out of my favorite (but frayed at the inner thigh) pants and some sunflower fabric. My first one is my favorite though.
Note: A skirt-from-jeans is not only a good way to recycle pants you don't like anymore or that have a small tear or other damage, it's also a good project for a woman who's losing weight and doesn't want to invest a lot in new clothes while she's losing; the jeans that have become uncomfortably loose quickly become a skirt with a comfortable amount of ease.
That association changed this summer. Earlier this summer I made myself a jeans-to-skirt skirt. I've never liked denim skirts, but I do like thriftiness, and I had a pair of too loose jeans with some puppy-toenail snags on them that I didn't think the thrift store would want. So I set to, to make a skirt, using the usual two triangle insertion method. The method is shown on innumerable websites, but I like the about.com tutorial best; you can ignore the information about including a slit, because why would you be making a skirt so tight you can't walk without a slit? (Another method, using four triangles, is shown at SavvySeams.) I had only one pair of jeans, so unlike the skirt on about.com, my skirt ended up coming only just below the knee (it's kneelength when I sit), which is a really short skirt for me. (I tend to wear mid-calf or ankle-length skirts because I look best in mid-calf length hemlines and because I've always thought short skirts were a little too frivolous for someone of my oh-so-serious beatnik-ish, hippie-ish aesthethics.) I also left a fringe on the bottom, rather than hemming it, because the fabric spoke to me and asked to be left that way; I've never liked fringe before, hippie-ish aesthetics notwithstanding. So now I have a fringed denim skirt.
And guess what? It's super-comfortable. I've worn it more this summer than any other item of clothing I own. I wear it around the house to work in or waste time in, but it's not too sloppy or immodest to wear out grocery shopping or thrifting. It's cooler than shorts--all that upward draft. (A long crinkle cotton skirt or dress can be even cooler, but they're not exactly work clothes.) So who knew skirts could be comfortable and could be work clothes, as well as "dress up" clothes? Every generation of women before mine, as well as a great many women my age or younger. I guess I'm just slow. Add this to last year's revelation about aprons. (I discovered, after another thrifty recycle, that if you wear an apron, you don't have to look like a street urchin in the kitchen.) Funny how I'm just now learning things my grandmothers knew all their lives.
I've since made two more pants-to-skirt recons: a black denim skirt (neatly hemmed) out of a pair of damaged men's jeans and a long, hippie-ish skirt out of my favorite (but frayed at the inner thigh) pants and some sunflower fabric. My first one is my favorite though.
Note: A skirt-from-jeans is not only a good way to recycle pants you don't like anymore or that have a small tear or other damage, it's also a good project for a woman who's losing weight and doesn't want to invest a lot in new clothes while she's losing; the jeans that have become uncomfortably loose quickly become a skirt with a comfortable amount of ease.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Misc. Stuff, Including More Barbies I Can Get Behind
I had some minor computer troubles lately that made using Blogger a pain, but here's some fun stuff I would have otherwise posted this past week.
***
I've seen altered dolls before, but I didn't realize the extent of this little subculture/hobby/craft. I was browsing the pattern catalogues in Wal-Mart last week, looking for a particular style of dress, and came across Simplicity number 4696, a Barbie--sorry, 11 1/2 inch fashion doll--"Extreme Doll Makeover". Actually it's patterns for a couple of outfits with instructions for modifications that may or may not be extreme. That very night, while looking for something else, I happened to come across the delightfully-named website of the woman who made the two dolls pictured on Simplicity #4696. Her Doll Gallery is fantastic; the Valkyrie section is my favorite, although there are great-looking dolls in every section and I particularly like the Chicks in Chain Mail doll. (Chicks in Chain Mail is a series of light-hearted fantasy stories, edited by Esther Freisner and featuring, as you might guess, chicks in chain mail. I've not read all the books, but I enjoyed what I read.) The dolls' weapons are made by the dollmaker's husband, a knifemaker; I like all the weapons, but the Barbie-sized battle ax made me ooh and aww more than anything. For people who want to alter their own dolls, Valkyrie has a lot of tips.
To see more people's altered dolls, search Dogpile or EBay for the terms FDMAA or OOAK. In addition to altered 11 1/2 inch fashion dolls, you'll also find "reborn" baby dolls and others.
***
I enjoy Maclin Horton's posts on the Caelum et Terra blog, but the most interesting post of his this past week was his link to what he calls "the definitive judgement on Harry Potter." I could find some things to quibble with in the post he links to, but it is pretty close to what he says it is.
I believe the Regina Doman who wrote that judgement on HP is the same Regina Doman or Schmiedicke who wrote an article on liturgical dressing in Domestic-Church. I'm not interested in dressing according to the liturgical colors for the simple reason that I don't look good in any of those colors except green (and not the shade of green usually seen in priest's vestments either), but I'm fascinated by her account of the Mary Dress and the Mary Jumper because I prefer simplicity of dress and am interested in pattern-free clothes. I just wish she'd posted photos of her wearing samples of each.
***
The current Foamy has Germaine making her own clothes because all the clothing in the local stores is "slutwear for teens". A recent episode had her complaining that she couldn't find a pair of pants without something written across the butt. Now if it were Jerry Falwell complaining that would be one thing. And if it were a non-prudish but decidedly grumpy person such as myself complaining--and I assure you I have been doing so the past couple of years--that would be another thing. But when a Gothy, bitch-hermit wannabe, tank-top-wearer like Germaine is fed up with how revealing fashions are, things have officially gone too far.
I think the tide is turning, albeit slowly. I'm seeing more knee-length skirts, and hear talk of the "sexy librarian" look (a big step up from the cheap whore look), gypsy skirts, and prairie dresses. Also I think the minor fad-let of girls wearing revealing slip-dresses over jeans comes from a (possibly unconscious) desire for more modesty; it reminds me of Wendy Shalit talking about women wearing split skirts who, when a breeze comes by, instinctively try to close the slit.
(I don't remember where I read that bit from Shalit, but she has several things available online. Click here for the first chapter of her book and here for a speech she gave.)
***
I've seen many hummingbirds, but I have never seen a hummingbird nest. Here's a story-in-photos of a hummingbird nest and its occupants. Even if you're grossed out by baby birds and glossy, full-color, photographic depictions of bird shit, keep going till the end--the size comparison is amazing. (Link via The Anchoress.)
***
Here's a pattern I want to try: Dolly Hugs. It's a small cloth doll that is made so that its arms will drape around a child's neck as if it were hugging the child. Yeah, yeah, it sounds nauseating, but the doll looks cute and the pattern is incredibly simple. The pattern is free, provided it's used for non-commercial, preferably charitable purposes. That's the other part I like--the pattern was created with troubled children in mind.
***
I've seen altered dolls before, but I didn't realize the extent of this little subculture/hobby/craft. I was browsing the pattern catalogues in Wal-Mart last week, looking for a particular style of dress, and came across Simplicity number 4696, a Barbie--sorry, 11 1/2 inch fashion doll--"Extreme Doll Makeover". Actually it's patterns for a couple of outfits with instructions for modifications that may or may not be extreme. That very night, while looking for something else, I happened to come across the delightfully-named website of the woman who made the two dolls pictured on Simplicity #4696. Her Doll Gallery is fantastic; the Valkyrie section is my favorite, although there are great-looking dolls in every section and I particularly like the Chicks in Chain Mail doll. (Chicks in Chain Mail is a series of light-hearted fantasy stories, edited by Esther Freisner and featuring, as you might guess, chicks in chain mail. I've not read all the books, but I enjoyed what I read.) The dolls' weapons are made by the dollmaker's husband, a knifemaker; I like all the weapons, but the Barbie-sized battle ax made me ooh and aww more than anything. For people who want to alter their own dolls, Valkyrie has a lot of tips.
To see more people's altered dolls, search Dogpile or EBay for the terms FDMAA or OOAK. In addition to altered 11 1/2 inch fashion dolls, you'll also find "reborn" baby dolls and others.
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I enjoy Maclin Horton's posts on the Caelum et Terra blog, but the most interesting post of his this past week was his link to what he calls "the definitive judgement on Harry Potter." I could find some things to quibble with in the post he links to, but it is pretty close to what he says it is.
I believe the Regina Doman who wrote that judgement on HP is the same Regina Doman or Schmiedicke who wrote an article on liturgical dressing in Domestic-Church. I'm not interested in dressing according to the liturgical colors for the simple reason that I don't look good in any of those colors except green (and not the shade of green usually seen in priest's vestments either), but I'm fascinated by her account of the Mary Dress and the Mary Jumper because I prefer simplicity of dress and am interested in pattern-free clothes. I just wish she'd posted photos of her wearing samples of each.
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The current Foamy has Germaine making her own clothes because all the clothing in the local stores is "slutwear for teens". A recent episode had her complaining that she couldn't find a pair of pants without something written across the butt. Now if it were Jerry Falwell complaining that would be one thing. And if it were a non-prudish but decidedly grumpy person such as myself complaining--and I assure you I have been doing so the past couple of years--that would be another thing. But when a Gothy, bitch-hermit wannabe, tank-top-wearer like Germaine is fed up with how revealing fashions are, things have officially gone too far.
I think the tide is turning, albeit slowly. I'm seeing more knee-length skirts, and hear talk of the "sexy librarian" look (a big step up from the cheap whore look), gypsy skirts, and prairie dresses. Also I think the minor fad-let of girls wearing revealing slip-dresses over jeans comes from a (possibly unconscious) desire for more modesty; it reminds me of Wendy Shalit talking about women wearing split skirts who, when a breeze comes by, instinctively try to close the slit.
(I don't remember where I read that bit from Shalit, but she has several things available online. Click here for the first chapter of her book and here for a speech she gave.)
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I've seen many hummingbirds, but I have never seen a hummingbird nest. Here's a story-in-photos of a hummingbird nest and its occupants. Even if you're grossed out by baby birds and glossy, full-color, photographic depictions of bird shit, keep going till the end--the size comparison is amazing. (Link via The Anchoress.)
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Here's a pattern I want to try: Dolly Hugs. It's a small cloth doll that is made so that its arms will drape around a child's neck as if it were hugging the child. Yeah, yeah, it sounds nauseating, but the doll looks cute and the pattern is incredibly simple. The pattern is free, provided it's used for non-commercial, preferably charitable purposes. That's the other part I like--the pattern was created with troubled children in mind.
Monday, July 11, 2005
"Sometimes Even Good Men Go Away"
Mudville Gazette has songs written by American soldiers. Chesterton talked about modern people not singing but listening to one man sing, for the inadequate reason that he does it better, when we should all sing and write our own songs, etc. That is true folk art--art by ordinary folks. I think Chesterton would approve of these men's efforts, just as I think he would approve of filk.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Team America (/England/Catholic) Song, Bound to Offend Someone
Stuttaford in the Corner linked to the following 7/7/05 tribute to England: For Our British Friends. Do not click on it if you are offended by a certain versatile four-letter word that is often thought to be Anglo-Saxon, but is actually a Dutch borrowing; in fact, you should skip this post. The tribute is the Team America song, with "England" replacing "America". So, sing with me:
I told Uncle Pookie about this, and happened to mention "weird hats".
Uncle Pookie: We need to make one for the Vatican.
Me: [pause]SWISS GUARDS!
U.P.: **** Yeah! Bulletproof Pope-mobile! **** Yeah! Moral authority over billions of people! **** Yeah! Tall hats! **** Yeah!...Apostolic succession! **** Yeah!
Benny Hill--**** Yeah!
Maggie Thatcher--**** Yeah!
James Bond--**** Yeah!
Dead parrots pining for the fjords--**** Yeah!
Longbows--**** Yeah!
Cheerfully adopting words from other languages, so English bears the postmark of every place we've ever visited--**** Yeah!
Fish and chips---**** Yeah!
Churchill--**** Yeah!
Well, you get the idea. Though longbows--at least those really great ones at Agincourt--were Welch, and the best James Bond was played by a Scotsman. I figure the whole UK counts.I told Uncle Pookie about this, and happened to mention "weird hats".
Uncle Pookie: We need to make one for the Vatican.
Me: [pause]
U.P.: **** Yeah! Bulletproof Pope-mobile! **** Yeah! Moral authority over billions of people! **** Yeah! Tall hats! **** Yeah!...Apostolic succession! **** Yeah!
Our Lady of Prompt Succor, Pray for Us
Thanks to our move last year, I live pretty close to the Gulf Coast. We seem pretty safe here--from this one, anyway--but whenever a hurricane might hit anywhere near New Orleans, I think of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Protection from hurricanes may not be what she is famous for, but I suspect she's been prayed to many times when hurricanes were imminent. Possibly even by some of the same people who have hurricane parties in boarded-up bars in the French Quarter while waiting for the hurricane. :-)
Saturday, July 09, 2005
I'm Starting to Suspect I Have No Life
In the tradition of James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food, it's Threadbared.Com. Great old sewing pattern envelopes (also knitting, crochet, and macrame pics) and plenty of snarkiness. Viewing is especially recommended for when you're feeling snarky. Very funny. Although I could have lived just fine without their informing me of the existence of butt bras.
Friday, July 08, 2005
We Band of Brothers (and Sisters)
I am pleased to see that England is handling yesterday's terrorist attacks on London civilians so well. I often fear that the Anglosphere is losing its collective backbone, but it looks as if England, at least, is still made of stronger stuff than Spain.
As for the terrorists, I am, as a Catholic, compelled to pray for the souls of my enemies, and I do frequently pray for a conversion of heart for all terrorists. But I hope that meanwhile they are all brought to swift justice. It does me no credit to say so, but I'll confess I don't particularly care if the justice they meet is tempered with mercy or not; we women can be bloodthirsty when it comes to the protection and defence of our own.
As for the terrorists, I am, as a Catholic, compelled to pray for the souls of my enemies, and I do frequently pray for a conversion of heart for all terrorists. But I hope that meanwhile they are all brought to swift justice. It does me no credit to say so, but I'll confess I don't particularly care if the justice they meet is tempered with mercy or not; we women can be bloodthirsty when it comes to the protection and defence of our own.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Art Attacks
No, not When Art Attacks, but Art Attacks, a British arts & crafts program for children. I've never seen it, but its website has a lot of fun projects available. They're meant for children, but many of them would be just as much fun for adults. Check it out:
http://www.hitentertainment.com/artattack/menu_artattacks.html
http://www.hitentertainment.com/artattack/menu_artattacks.html
Ma'am/Sir and Mr./Mrs./Miss/Miz
In The Corner today Rod Dreher linked to a Dallas News article on the decline of ma'am and sir and there was some talk about that and Mr./Mrs./Miss. I've commented on honorifics before, but here's a few more comments.
Like Dreher, I grew up being taught to say ma-am and sir. I'm not extremely attached to the terms (a polite yes or no has never bothered me), but I do favor their general use by children and their being used by nearly everyone when talking to the very elderly (other elderly people excepted.) The terms may be in decline even here in the South, but they haven't died out all together. And I'll admit that I always think more favorably of people who use those terms; when I hear those terms coming easily to the lips of someone my age, I know that person was "raised right".
Also like Dreher--probably because he was brought up in Louisiana and I in Mississippi--I was brought up calling most adults by their first name plus Mr. or Miss. (Incidentally, we pronounced Miss in those circumstances more like Ms., possibly because of its being used for both married and unmarried women.) Some adults--for example, schoolteachers--we called by their last name plus honorific. We never called adults by their first name. Back then I would have been shocked to hear a fellow child call an adult by his first name, and I do not like to hear it even now.
The first name plus honorific custom is still alive, by the way. Possibly more so than the ma'am/sir thing. I hope it doesn't decline further, because I think preserving distinction between adults and children is a good idea. Even if adults are all pretending to be chums by insisting on first names, children aren't adults and having children use honorifics for adults helps foster respect of authority.
It may be silly, but it recently occurred to me I would really like for someone--anyone--to call me Mrs. F----. Just once. I've been married ten and a half years and I don't think anyone has ever called me Mrs. Married Name. I've received a few letters addressed to Mrs. Suzanne --- and the diocesan newspaper is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Uncle Pookie, but no one has ever called me Mrs. Pookie. Being called Miss Suzanne by politely brought up children, while nice, isn't quite the same, as I've been called that since at least the age of seventeen. Being called by my first name only is definitely not the same. It's a small thing, but it would be nice to hear. I'm an old married woman myself, but I suspect there may be a few brides out there who, deprived of ever hearing it in our first-name-only society, might like to be called Mrs. New Last Name.
The funny thing about my wanting to be called Mrs. ---- is that I actually had to think for a while before I decided to take my husband's last name. I always knew I would never want to marry, then I did decide to marry but had to think about whether to take his name or not, now I just wish someone would actually call me Mrs. Life's a funny old thing.
Like Dreher, I grew up being taught to say ma-am and sir. I'm not extremely attached to the terms (a polite yes or no has never bothered me), but I do favor their general use by children and their being used by nearly everyone when talking to the very elderly (other elderly people excepted.) The terms may be in decline even here in the South, but they haven't died out all together. And I'll admit that I always think more favorably of people who use those terms; when I hear those terms coming easily to the lips of someone my age, I know that person was "raised right".
Also like Dreher--probably because he was brought up in Louisiana and I in Mississippi--I was brought up calling most adults by their first name plus Mr. or Miss. (Incidentally, we pronounced Miss in those circumstances more like Ms., possibly because of its being used for both married and unmarried women.) Some adults--for example, schoolteachers--we called by their last name plus honorific. We never called adults by their first name. Back then I would have been shocked to hear a fellow child call an adult by his first name, and I do not like to hear it even now.
The first name plus honorific custom is still alive, by the way. Possibly more so than the ma'am/sir thing. I hope it doesn't decline further, because I think preserving distinction between adults and children is a good idea. Even if adults are all pretending to be chums by insisting on first names, children aren't adults and having children use honorifics for adults helps foster respect of authority.
It may be silly, but it recently occurred to me I would really like for someone--anyone--to call me Mrs. F----. Just once. I've been married ten and a half years and I don't think anyone has ever called me Mrs. Married Name. I've received a few letters addressed to Mrs. Suzanne --- and the diocesan newspaper is addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Uncle Pookie, but no one has ever called me Mrs. Pookie. Being called Miss Suzanne by politely brought up children, while nice, isn't quite the same, as I've been called that since at least the age of seventeen. Being called by my first name only is definitely not the same. It's a small thing, but it would be nice to hear. I'm an old married woman myself, but I suspect there may be a few brides out there who, deprived of ever hearing it in our first-name-only society, might like to be called Mrs. New Last Name.
The funny thing about my wanting to be called Mrs. ---- is that I actually had to think for a while before I decided to take my husband's last name. I always knew I would never want to marry, then I did decide to marry but had to think about whether to take his name or not, now I just wish someone would actually call me Mrs. Life's a funny old thing.
Japan v. Contemporary America
Azrael, of "I am a Japanese School Teacher", has a newish post that compares how the death of one of his students was handled by the Japanese school to how the death of one of his classmates in his own US (Californian, I think) school was handled. Guess which approach works better, A.) disrupting normal routine, encouraging students to emote about their trauma, and bringing in grief counselors, or B.) having a brief talk about it, then expecting everyone to soldier on.
Speaking of Japan, Rich Lowry's recent cover article--I think it was "Unleash Japan!"--in National Review is really interesting and worth reading.
Speaking of Japan, Rich Lowry's recent cover article--I think it was "Unleash Japan!"--in National Review is really interesting and worth reading.
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