…don’t work, because we seem to be getting fatter.
But never fear:
The definition of obesity is set by federal health professionals. Their calculations are controversial, in part, because the rate of premature death is lower among Americans in the “overweight” category than among those who fit into the “normal” weight category.
So, should we be encouraging weight gain? If so, I’ll do my bit:
[Hat tip: Althouse.]
The British phone-hacking scandal is something I’ve managed to avoid writing about so far, although if you’d like to read about the substance of it please feel free. But a new and admittedly more trivial angle that caught my attention is the recent fuss made about News International editor and accused hacker-in-chief Rebekah Brooks’s hair, which looked like this in happier days:
It’s not the usual female corporate hair, which is ordinarily sleek and smooth and/or pulled back. If a woman’s hair is her crowning glory, Ms. Brooks’s is a particularly noteworthy diadem. It reminds me of nothing more than the coifs of the women beloved by so many pre-Raphaelite painters such as Rossetti, whose Helen of Troy is typical of the genre:
And then of course there was Pretty Woman:
The associations are almost inevitable: Temptress. Wild woman. Sex. Trouble. Fun. Risk-taking. Free. Or—you fill in the blanks. Certainly not Corporate, Staid, Dependable, Predictable.
Although Brooks is a Brit, her curly-hair type is more typical of other ethnicities. For example, most influential black women in the public eye have long had to deal with the choice about what to do with hair that, in its natural state, can look pretty unruly. First Lady Michele Obama’s smooth hair choice has been the subject of no small amount of commentary (for husband Barack it’s easier: clip it short). And many Jewish women, likewise, have faced their own version of the dilemma (see Debbie Wasserman Schulz and her mane).
But hardly anyone gets off easy in this hair game. Even with hair that approximates the most acceptable look du jour, there are few wash-and-wear styles any more. The preferred do is so bone-straight that it can only be arrived at for many courtesy of a ceramic iron, which is a sort of hair press.
Here’s famous hairperson Jennifer Aniston sporting the look:
As for me, I’ve got a dog in this race: I’m a curly-haired woman myself, going in and out of fashion with the tide. Back in the 60s I had a fling with ironing it: never again. My face and hair seem to go together, and straight hair looks odd on me.
I won’t give out my secrets for working with my hair and making the curls more curly and less frizzy, but let’s just say it doesn’t just happen. YouTube is a testament to that—there must be thousands upon thousands of videos instructing girls and women of all ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities in taming their curly manes. Here’s a rather sweet one:
Note, by the way, the stylist’s remark, “Your face is made to complement your curls.” Or your straight hair, if that’s what you happen to have. And for the most part that’s true.
But I’m not so sure about Rebekah Brooks. Her hair and features don’t quite seem to go together. The hair overpowers the face; it’s just about all you notice. Perhaps, right now, that’s the way she prefers it.
It’s a correlation, not a causation, but still…
There’s an old New England joke that we’ve got two seasons here: winter and the Fourth of July.
But not this year. This year, folks, we’ve got a real summer, one that would do any place proud. It’s been sunny and hot nearly every day, mostly in the mid-80s to 90s. But, unlike most hot summers here (and we’ve had plenty of them), it’s not been humid, and there haven’t been tons of thunderstorms.
And this really nice summer weather has gone on day after day after day. Do you know how rare this is around here? And how pleasant? Usually when it’s in the 90’s in New England, everyone is highly uncomfortable and sopping wet.
And if it gets too hot, there’s always this:
Carping bot:
The following time I read a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I know it was my option to read, however I actually thought youd have one thing interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you could possibly repair in the event you werent too busy searching for attention.
…when it was pointed out to them and outlined and described by Harry Markopolus, and they launched an official investigation, why should investors and banks have been expected to discover Madoff’s fraudulent dealings all on their own?
But the Madoff trustee, Irving Picard, is claiming that some large Madoff investors (including brokerage customers) and banks had a duty to figure it all out, and he’s suing them under racketeering and fraud laws:
Many of the suits are based on the theory that banks and investors had a duty to investigate what Madoff was doing. Instead, Picard says, they ignored signs of possible fraud such as the con man’s “three-person accounting firm” in a “strip mall” and unusually steady results. While Picard’s strategy could lead to big payouts, the danger is that if judges reject his approach, he will get less from banks and investors in court and may be left with less leverage in any future negotiations…
JPMorgan, Madoff’s primary banker, could have stopped the fraud if it had passed on its suspicions to regulators, Picard said in his suit against the bank. On June 24 he revised the suit to triple his damage demands to $19 billion, an amount equal to all of the money investors lost in the Madoff fraud. JPMorgan should be responsible for the total because it “knew” that billions of dollars flowing through the Madoff account “could not have been linked to a legitimate business purpose,” Picard wrote.
Banks have no duty to investigate customers, JPMorgan says. Picard’s interpretation of bank law “would impose broad investigative duties on banks that do not exist,” it said in February, when it asked a district judge to pull the case out of bankruptcy court, where Picard filed it. The judge granted the request.
His own, that is.
Chopra’s basic argument: even though you’re pissed at Obama, you must support him because otherwise evil will triumph.
I especially like his first paragraph:
One of the virtues of being on the liberal side of politics is that total obedience isn’t required. There are no hidden agendas. Ideology doesn’t lead to unreason. In a political climate where it feels as if the inmates are running the asylum ”” as in the current Republican threat to default on America’s debt ”” the prevailing sanity of President Obama is something that others and I have taken for granted.
We cannot afford that luxury any more, I’m afraid.
Bizarro world.
…but I know I want to say something.
This is about the marriage between 51-year-old actor Doug Hutchison and 16-year-old Courtney Stodden, about which a lot of people are up in arms. Her parents are not among them, however; they gave their permission, which was legally required in order for the couple to wed.
I watched the following video of an interview with the newlyweds, and it’s one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen—particularly her facial expressions and body language, which seem almost a parody of provocativeness. It’s like she’s a kid who’s trying to imitate her idea of a va-va-voom movie star.
But although Courtney’s age (which has been documented) means she’s not far from actually being a kid, she looks older. A lot older. She also looks as though she’s been through a significant amount of cosmetic surgery, too, although she denies this.
The other odd thing is that her husband doesn’t look 51; he looks younger. So the general effect (at least to me) is that she seems older than he, in some weird and inexplicable way. Courtney herself says, “I’m very mature for my age. I have an old soul.” Whether or not she’s got an old soul, she certainly seems to have an old aura.
And large ta-tas.
Until someone else wins the Republican nomination, or until Michele Bachmann drops out of the running—whichever comes first—there will be a relentless drumbeat to destroy her. This much I know.
The latest salvo is the allegation that she gets severe migraines ( a couple of which may have sent her to the hospital) and that she takes medication for them. Aha! Unfit!
Forget the fact that she seems to have a lot of energy and seems to show up for work reliably. Forget that presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant had migraines, too, and they seemed competent enough. Forget that JFK was nearly incapacitated by Addison’s disease and took far worse medications on a daily basis than Bachmann does.
One of my first thoughts on hearing about the migraine charge against Bachmann is that it’s an affliction far more likely to be suffered by women than men. Indeed, 18 to 25% of women get them. Does that disqualify all of them from office? Or just the Republican ones?
I’m not the only one who’s noticed the female angle here. I was surprised to see that NY Magazine has taken it up, with an article entitled, “Is the Daily Caller’s Bachmann migraine story sexist?” The piece notes that Bachmann has some unlikely defenders:
…[such] as Mother Jones editors Clara Jeffrey and Monica Bauerlein [who] have suggested on Twitter that, reading between the lines, the Daily Caller’s article might be a little gender-biased: ” 2 to 1 that Bachmann’s pill popping = advil and estrogen. It’s called menopause, people. Survived by powerful women all over the world,” and “I think some of it was on the order of ‘she’s a girl.'” It’s similar to the way “flake” isn’t strictly a sexist ding but was read as one when applied to Bachmann.
No doubt these editors can’t stand Bachmann. But the accusations that she’s unfit for the presidency because of her migraines isn’t sitting well with them.
I have migraines myself, although fortunately (at least so far) they are not severe. But I know quite a few women who have really bad migraines. My late mother-in-law was one of them. Somehow she managed to hold down a job and run a large household despite the occasional nasty migraine, and was more than competent at both, and extremely energetic. I have little doubt that it’s the same for Bachmann.
And I have little doubt that more hit pieces will follow if Bachmann continues to surge.
John Hawkins at RightWingNews laments the decline of the independent right wing blogosphere. Popular blogs are increasingly bigger and more connected to conventional media, or are group or aggregate blogs. It’s harder for a little guy (such as myself) to get started these days, and most of us who are already established have seen our traffic decline somewhat from a peak of a couple of years ago, or the spike that occurs for the few months before elections. The blogosphere has settled down and filled out, and people have found their niches.
Bloggers talking about blogging are a type of inside baseball, quite intriguing to those involved but perhaps not all that fascinating to the rest of the world. But still, I want to state that I’ve noticed something similar to Hawkins, and I don’t think it’s limited to the right: people’s reading habits have solidified within the blogosphere, and patterns have been laid down that are relatively impervious to change. Also, as alternatives such as Twitter and Facebook have blossomed, there are fewer blogosphere readers in general, especially younger ones.
I’ve also noticed that a lot of the popular blogs feature short and snappy commentary, not longer stuff like mine. In fact, that’s not a new phenomenon; it’s been true from the start. And it makes sense, too. Aside from long-form blog greats Bill Whittle and the incomparable Steven Den Beste (who retired from blogging in the archaic year 2004), most of the really biggees have not been drawn to the lengthy missive (a current exception to this rule is Ace, a master of the long form and the short, with huge traffic.)
Readers increasingly lack patience—especially the young—and to justify asking for a reader’s patience, a writer has to produce quality work. I try for that although I don’t always succeed, but trying for it suits my temperament. It doesn’t suit everyone’s.
In an earlier piece of mine about Den Beste, I quoted him as having written:
I write about something because I’m compelled to, because it’s often the case that if I don’t, then I can’t get it out of my head. Putting my thoughts into print relieves an internal pressure which also isn’t easily described.
And while that isn’t true of me every day, it’s true often enough to keep me going so far, and it’s true about blogging in general for me and for many bloggers with staying power. For us, it’s not a fad.