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Showing posts with label hosiery. Show all posts

"The tattoos take her look to a entirely different place."

"Honestly, I can't decide if they add or distract from her natural beauty but, with that added edge, it's hard to take your eyes off her."

And: "I love that she can pull off the black sock/brown shoe look in summer."

Robert Byrd has died.

Here's the long obituary for him in the New York Times. It's worth reading the whole thing, and I'll just excerpt a few things that happened to strike me for one reason or another:

[He called West Virginia] “one of the rock bottomest of states.”...

Mr. Byrd was the valedictorian of his high school class but was unable to afford college. It was not until he was in his 30s and 40s that he took college courses. But he was profoundly self-educated and well read. His Senate speeches sparkled with citations from Shakespeare, the King James version of the Bible and the histories of England, Greece and Rome....

Referring to the Line-Item Veto Act, he said:

“Gaius Julius Caesar did not seize power in Rome,” he said. Rather, he said, “the Roman Senate thrust power on Caesar deliberately, with forethought, with surrender, with intent to escape from responsibility.”

The Supreme Court later found the act unconstitutional, a violation of Separation of Powers, though not in the first case it considered on the subject. The first case, which bore Senator Byrd's name — Raines v. Byrd — was rejected for lack of standing. The members of Congress who brought suit were held not to have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the bill Congress had passed because it caused "no injury to themselves as individuals." The obituary doesn't mention this case.

Back to the obituary:

In 2007, at the unveiling of a portrait of Mr. Byrd in the Old Senate Chamber, former Senator Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, a colleague of 30 years, recalled that Mr. Byrd had taught him how to answer when a constituent asked, “How many presidents have you served under?”

“None,” was Mr. Byrd’s reply, Mr. Sarbanes said. “I have served with presidents, not under them.”

I hope every member of Congress would answer that way.

In the early 1940s, he organized a 150-member klavern, or chapter, of the Klan in Sophia, W.Va., and was chosen its leader at a meeting. After the meeting, Joel L. Baskin, the Klan’s grand dragon for the region, suggested that Mr. Byrd use his “talents for leadership” by going into politics.

“Suddenly, lights flashed in my mind!” Mr. Byrd later wrote. “Someone important had recognized my abilities.”...

His opponents used his Klan membership against him during his first run for the House of Representatives in 1952; Democratic leaders urged him to drop out of the race. But he stayed in and won, then spent decades apologizing for what he called a “sad mistake.”

He went on to vote for civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960, but when the more sweeping Civil Rights Act was before Congress in 1964, he filibustered for an entire night against it, saying the measure was an infringement on states’ rights. He backed civil rights legislation consistently only after becoming a party leader in the Senate....

Mr. Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. on Nov. 20, 1917, in North Wilkesboro, N.C. His mother died the next year in the influenza epidemic, but before she did, she asked his father to give him to a sister and brother-in-law. They adopted him and renamed him Robert Carlyle Byrd, then moved to rural West Virginia.

So old that his mother died in the flu epidemic of 1917.

As a boy, living on a small farm, he helped slaughter hogs, learned to play the fiddle and became a prize-winning Sunday school student after the manager of the local coal company store gave him two pairs of socks so he could attend without embarrassment.

In 1937, Mr. Byrd married Erma Ora James, his high school sweetheart. She died in 2006, after 68 years of marriage....

He was never a particularly partisan Democrat. President Richard M. Nixon briefly considered him for a Supreme Court appointment. Mr. Dole recalled an occasion when Mr. Byrd gave him advice on a difficult parliamentary question; the help enabled Mr. Dole to overcome Mr. Byrd on a particular bill....

Mr. Byrd always carried a copy of the Constitution. He said his second-proudest accomplishment was legislation requiring every educational institution receiving federal aid to observe the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution on Sept. 17 by teaching students about it.

I don't think Congress monkeying with the curriculum of public schools is very respectful of the Constitution. Ironically. That's especially bad coming from someone who presented his opposition to the Civil Rights Act as a matter of states rights.

When the Senate was struggling to agree on rules for the impeachment trial of Mr. Clinton in 1999, Mr. Byrd warned that the Senate itself was also on trial.

“The White House has sullied itself,” he said, “and the House has fallen into a black pit of partisanship and self-indulgence. The Senate is teetering on the brink of that same black pit.”

When, in 2005, Republicans considered banning the filibuster on judicial nominations, he warned that such an action would change the “nature of the Senate by destroying the right of free speech it has enjoyed since its creation.”

In “Losing America,” he wrote that the Senate without the filibuster “will no longer be a body of equals.”

“It will, instead, have become a body of toads,” he wrote, “hopping up and down and over one another to please the imperious countenance of an all-powerful president.”

A body of toads, hopping up and down and over one another to please the imperious countenance of an all-powerful president.

***

Now, how will his seat be filled? It appears that, under West Virginia law, because the vacancy has occurred before July 3rd, there will be an election this year. If Byrd had survived until this Saturday, the Governor would have appointed his replacement, and that person would have continued in office until 2012.

"You're as cute as me. You are. In some cultures, maybe cuter."

Socks — with skirts — are a big fashion trend... but we're told not to wear them if we're over 30:

First of all, don’t even try this at home if you’re over 30; this is very much a girl’s game - and a girl with great pins, at that.

Over 30!

Well, too bad, I'm nearly twice the limit, and I've been relying on socks for nearly the length of time it would take a newborn baby to reach the limit, and nothing can stop me. But I get the point: You can do what you want, but it's not the fashion trend unless you're young enough to be entitled to believe without derangement that you're really cute.

***

Does this — Helena Bonham Carter, age 43 — seem deranged?

Can I wear these...

... when I'm over 50 and I'm operating in my law professor capacity?

***

Bonus movie dialogue:

Romy: I can't believe how cute I look.

Michele: I know!

Romy: You know what? This is, like, the cutest we've ever looked.

Michele: Oh, it's definitely the cutest.

Romy: Don't you love how we can say that to each other... and know we're not being conceited?

Michele: Oh, I know. No, we're just being honest.

***

Michele: Yeah, I let you have the ideas... so you won't feel bad that I'm cuter.

Romy: You are not cuter, Michele.

Michele: I am so cuter. It's, like, common knowledge, Romy. Everybody thinks so. I'm the Mary and you're the Rhoda.

Romy: That's Ridiculous. You're the Rhoda. You're the Jewish one.

Michele: Oh, my God. I'm talking about cuteness-wise, okay? And cuteness-wise, I'm the Mary.

Romy: That's crazy! You have absolutely no proof that you're cuter!

***

Michele: I can't stand that we're mad at each other. Okay, I'm sorry I said all those things. You're as cute as me. You are. In some cultures, maybe cuter.

Female Washington Post reporter is impressed that Sarah Palin isn't fat.

I mean, I think it's a female reporter that I'm about to tweak, but here's the text at the WaPo blog called 44 Politics and Policy in Obama's Washington:

Sarah Palin watch: She looks trim, fit -- and brimming with energy and plans
By Ann Gerhart

It had been a while since we had seen Sarah Palin live and in person. And then she popped onto stage Saturday night at the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, and we made these observations:

1) She's lost a lot of weight, perhaps 15 pounds. She looked trim and firm, like she's hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood. Her chair at the head table was empty; if she had the shrimp and filet mignon served to attendees, she ate in her hotel room.

2) She wore a fitted black suit, black hose and high black platform heels. She had on three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored. In her lapel, a small pin with two flags -- for Israel and the United States.

3) She was animated and full of energy, so much so that she kept knocking her microphone with her hand as she made her points. Hope the Texans are ready for her when she campaigns Sunday for Gov. Rick Perry. She certainly looks like a woman who has some plans.

By Denny McAuliffe | February 7, 2010; 12:08 AM ET

So who wrote it? Ann Gerhart or Denny McAuliffe? I'm trying to decide what I think about this discussion of how Sarah Palin looks. Would a male politician get such a detailed description? I doubt it. On the other hand, a male politician wouldn't be likely to be wearing anything as detailed as "three opera-length strands of pearls, two white and one multi-colored." But a woman's necklace is no more significant than a man's tie, is it? I guess "black hose and high black platform heels" is pretty interesting. It interested me enough to screen-grab a close-up from the cool pic Glenn Reynolds took:

And I do think we'd talk about a male candidate wearing 2 flag pins. I do not like to see an American politician wearing the flag of a foreign country. I'm going to write a separate post about that.

But what about this talk of Sarah Palin's body? It's called "trim, fit" in the headline and "trim and firm" in the text of the post. There's a difference between "fit" and "firm," no? Interestingly, both words can describe both a body and a person's character. SP may be "fit" for office and "firm" in her opinions. Would we talk about a male politician that way? Would we cattily drop the info that his weight had previously been up 15 pounds? Speculates about the fitness routine — "hoisting the barbells or maybe chopping wood" — Ann/Denny seems able to peek under SP's clothes. Yes, it was a "fitted black suit," but how do they know how muscular her body is? And why do they want to share that opinion with us?

"Curt Schilling? The Red Sox great pitcher of the bloody sock?"

Martha Coakley blunders horribly/hilariously, either not knowing who Curt Schilling is or — if you believe her spokesman's explanation — making the dumbest "very, very deadpan" wisecrack in political history. If it's any consolation, Martha, I didn't know who Curt Schilling is either. Bloody sock sounded interesting. I had to look it up. Now, would you excuse me? I cut my foot before and my shoe is filling up with blood.

Stripes: yes. Men in shorts: no.

And the baby agrees with me.

Now, to continue with my idiosyncratic review of fashion at the Farmers Market in Madison this morning:

1. Men in Shorts is a complex subject, and some men do better than others:

Note that the 2 men in shorts are both wearing black socks, yet only one is making a bad mistake. The other one is doing it right. Plus, carrying a kid on your shoulders is a good look for a nonsleazy guy.

2. Here are 2 women dressed completely differently, and both, I think, are completely charming:

3. I would also like to express my strong approval of this latter-day hippie look, heavy on the day-glo pink — and, in the case of "Cher," day-glo green: