"Just remember, we are all tiny, inconsequential bits of matter in a vast, unforgiving universe and our brief, ultimately meaningless, lives are over in the blink of an eye."

A man writes in the comments section to "The summer of the BKB (that’s big-knickered bikini)/They’re back this year and, yes, they’re flattering. What a revelation, says Charlie Gowans-Eglinton" (London Times).

"Twelve years after Javier Álvarez erected a billboard outside his winery featuring a painting of a woman, he received a threatening letter from the Ministry of Equality."

"The painting... presents a woman who is wearing a bikini gazing out to sea, her hands resting on her hips.... An official document from the ministry warned him: 'This way of using women’s bodies as an advertisement favours the perpetuation of discriminatory attitudes. Infringing Article 8 of the general law on advertising, which declares unlawful advertisements that present women in a degrading way by using their bodies as objects unrelated to the product they are trying to promote.'... His winery... replied to the warning... 'Whoever sees something sexual or sexist in that painting has a problem. It is an image of absolute innocence. The sun, the sea and a woman in a bikini stamped with hearts. She transmits the freshness that we wanted to radiate for our white wine.'... Sales of his wine bearing the image of a woman in a bikini have rocketed."

From "Spain orders bikini poster to be taken off pilgrimage route" (London Times).

The ministry, we're told, is run by Podemos, "a radical left-wing party."

Is the painting "an image of absolute innocence"? Here it is:

"When Polka Dots Signal Both Optimism and Disquiet/The motif has long been associated with a certain brand of American cheeriness but, as its recent ubiquity attests, is most visible during times of turbulence."

A headline in T, the NYT Style Magazine, for an article by Nick Haramis.

The history of polka dots. This is the article I want to read. I feel some pressure to write about Biden's 2-hour news conference yesterday, which I watched, but I'm loath to blog it without a complete transcript. I have seen the "5 takeaways" pieces and the "utter disaster!!!" stuff, and it's propaganda on top of propaganda. Until I find a transcript, I'm holding off, I'm in the ellipsis... and therefore: polka dots!

Haramis writes delightfully:

The photo makes all the argument anyone should need.

Norway's beach handball side got fined for wearing shorts instead of bikini bottoms at the Euro 2021.

The European federation said that the resulting outcry "is based on disinformation on the procedure."

This photo shows there's more wrong with the sport than 'procedure.' https://t.co/nXkeqklxPw

— Manos Moschopoulos (@maledictus) July 20, 2021

"Say f*** it, put on a your string bikini, and imagine that you're a golddigger who created your own happy ending and is now giving all the cash you scored to the resistance behind your conser[v]ative husband's back."

That's a photo caption by Lena Dunham that appears with a photo in "Lena Dunham's most body-positive photos on Instagram" (NY Post). 

It's an interesting collection of photos with captions straining at humorousness. Though the Post assumes it's all body positivity because Dunham is, we're told, a "vocal advocate of body positivity," the text and pictures don't show unalloyed positivity. Unalloyed positivity would be inane. And inconsistent with comedy.

If inane, uncomic expression of the experience of female embodiment is what you want, read this other NY Post article, "Khloé Kardashian breaks silence, talks body image struggles after unwanted photo saga." 

Kardashian has a problem with the publication of a photograph of her in a bikini looking like a reasonably nice, ordinary woman. It runs counter to her public image as a beautiful woman, part of a beautiful-women family. How can she fight that without expressing negativity about her body, making the ordinary women of the world feel bad about themselves, and looking like she's on the wrong side of the body-positivity movement? Here's the quote she (or her people) came up with:

"The photo that was posted this week is beautiful. But as someone who has struggled with body image her whole life, when someone takes a photo of you that isn’t flattering in bad lighting or doesn’t capture your body the way it is after working so hard to get it to this point — and then shares it to the world — you should have every right to ask for it to not be shared — regardless of who you are."

FROM THE EMAIL: A reader named Roz writes: 

Inappropriate appropriation.

White people have NO RIGHT to culturally appropriate black hairstyles. 😡

Clearly defined racial boundaries MUST be policed.

(Unlike gender, which is totally fluid.) https://t.co/zKM83zhBCs

— Titania McGrath (@TitaniaMcGrath) August 31, 2020

Maybe like me, you will misinterpret this Hot Air headline.

Remember: Do not laugh in the presence of pain and death! You must never laugh. At least cover your mouth.

Here's the link to the article about what the Swedish Public Health Agency has estimated.

It sounds like a bad joke, but the "Bikini Hiker" seems to have died of exposure.

BBC reports.

A Taiwanese hiker known for posting bikini clad photos from mountain summits has died after falling into a ravine during a solo trek. Gigi Wu managed to contact emergency services but bad weather delayed rescue operations, local media reports say. The 36-year-old is thought to have died of hypothermia.... While she was famous for posting pictures of herself in bikinis from summits, she was an experienced hiker, appearing to use proper equipment and precautions during her expeditions. According to Taiwan News, bad weather had prevented a rescue helicopter from reaching her three times. A rescue mission was eventually sent out on foot.... Her last Facebook post to her more than 18,000 followers is dated 18 January and shows the view from a mountain above the clouds.

"I understand why my school has a dresscode, but what about the boys who wear shorts..."

Today my school was shown this video. So sad how ONLY girls are shown as the violators. I understand why my school has a dresscode, but what about the boys who wear shorts, or show their shoulders? It’s 2018...Why are we still over-sexualizing teen girls? pic.twitter.com/fCXymYAIEG

— cat (@catmoring) August 16, 2018

Via "Texas high school causes outrage with dress code video targeting female students in athletic shorts."

1. Were any boys in the school wearing "athletic shorts" (that is, tight, very short shorts)? I'm picturing boys wearing exactly the opposite type of shorts — long and baggy.

2. The school probably thought it was being lighthearted and cool about it — what with the music, the teacher playing a parody of an old school marm, and the emphasis on just not wearing this sort of thing in school.

3. Was the video shown in an all-girls environment? If not, then there is a problem of deploying girls' bodies for the entertainment of boys. If it was just for girls, it might be construed as an attempt at saying something like:  You're just fine, you're as cute as you think you are, but please understand that we can't have that in school. And yet, that's still a problem. It's saying: We have a dress code because you're so sexy, please see yourself as sexy so that you will agree with us about the importance of this dress code.

4. Back in 1965, I got sent to the vice-principal for wearing miniskirts. Eventually, they got tough and sent me to the principal, who, unlike the vice-principal, made an argument about the boys: It wasn't fair to the boys. It made school difficult for the boys. I took great offense at this, because he was raising the topic of sex as if I had implicitly made it the subject simply by wearing an article of clothing that was precisely the fashion. In an embarrassing display of how his thinking was grounded in sex, he posed the hypothetical: What if I had come to school in a bikini?

5. But I didn't have Twitter. In the actual Texas case, after the Twitter exposure, the school apologized.

6. The Twitter exposure...

Will the Supreme Court be nakedly political without the skimpy string bikini that was Anthony Kennedy?

Lawprofs Lee Epstein and Eric Posner have a NYT column with the titillating title "If the Supreme Court Is Nakedly Political, Can It Be Just?" .

In the past 10 years, however, justices have hardly ever voted against the ideology of the president who appointed them. Only Justice Kennedy, named to the court by Ronald Reagan, did so with any regularity. That is why with his replacement on the court an ideologically committed Republican justice, it will become impossible to regard the court as anything but a partisan institution....

Republicans still can’t forgive President Reagan for appointing two moderates, Justices O’Connor and Kennedy, and President George H. W. Bush for appointing Justice Souter, who veered left.... Assaults on judicial independence are made easier when the public comes to view the judiciary as a political body. This risk, and not just the identity of the next justice, should be at the center of public attention.

The headline is cagey, with the use of the adjective "nakedly" and the verb "is." Consider the alternative "If the Supreme Court Is Completely Political and Looks Exactly Like What It Is, Can It Be Just?"?

With that change, which I've done to separate out independent propositions, the final clause doesn't work anymore. There's no musing over the meaning of justice worth doing. I'd want to change it to "If the Supreme Court Is Completely Political and Looks Exactly Like What It Is, Will the People Accept Its Exercise of Power?"

Epstein and Posner are concerned that when the Supreme Court splits 5-4, we will now, without Kennedy, always know who the 5 and the 4 are. Kennedy preserved a little mystery. He was the skimpy string bikini on the otherwise naked Supreme Court. But if this nudism analogy is any good, the Court will be less sexy when completely naked. That's what I've heard about nudist colonies. The skimpy bikini gets the mind churning away about the last little bits of unrevealed skin.

Without Kennedy, the political grouping of the Justices — appointed by a Democrat and appointed by a Republican — may feel quite dull and predictable. It won't be that these judges are just reaching policy outcomes and lying to us about law. Not all opinions will be 5-4, but when they are, it's because they're complicated enough to go either way, and intuitions about where the right answers are affect reasoning that is still creditably legal, especially to observers who want and need the Court to be a functioning part of our system of separated powers.

The naked Court will be political in a way that's as unremarkable as 9 middle-aged nudists sunning on lounge chairs by the pool.

"Church was every Sunday and sleepovers were forbidden, as was anything even remotely risque."

"Yankovic remembers an issue of TV Guide arriving at the house that contained a photograph of an actress in a bikini. Mary took out a felt pen to fill out the suit. Did he ever do drugs? No. Because his parents told him not to."

From "Was ‘Weird Al’ the real star all along?/After nearly 40 years of parodying celebrities, the accordion-playing nerd has become a legend in his own right"(WaPo).

Did Donald Trump intentionally expose a photo of Marla Maples in a bikini within the cluttered frame of his taco-bowl Cinco-de-Mayo photograph?

It's just a sliver, a slice of magazine, at the bottom of the pile of newspapers underneath the plate that held the china bowl that held the taco bowl that Trump acted as if he might be eating. There are many details in the picture that captured everyone's attention 2 days ago, and Buzzfeed's Benny Johnson won the prize for noticing it first....

Donald Trump is eating a taco salad on top of a bikini-clad photo of his ex-wife, Marla Maples. pic.twitter.com/sW2itGBAOK

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) May 5, 2016

... and then everyone wanted to talk about that. It's an old picture of Marla, from 1985, so you might at first think he's got an old memento, but it turns out it's the May 2d issue of People, an article about him, "Marla Maples Opens Up About Surprisingly Modest Lifestyle After Her Split from Donald Trump: 'I Laugh When People Think I Walked Away with a Fortune.'" It makes sense that he'd have that magazine, open to that page, so you can go any way you want, asking whether the old man was ogling a picture of his ex-wife. He was maybe going through what's in the current press in a businesslike fashion, maybe enjoying/treasuring/"creeping on" the photograph.

But, come on! It's intentional! It's such a specific sliver — the woman in a bikini — barely visible, but framed neatly in the lower right hand corner, just under his thumb...



That was meant to be discovered and to spark a whole new round of attention to the absurd taco-bowl picture. We're dragged into the old story of Trump's cheating on his first wife, his access to beautiful women, his cheerful nonchalance about the whole crazy overstuffed life as he's about to overstuff his smiling face with an insanely large portion of faux-ethnic glop. And we're caught peeking, guilty of peering into details that he — we might imagine — didn't mean to expose. Oh, bad us! And let's take a closer look at that bikini-pic, as all the articles about Taco Bowl, Phase 2 contain glaringly clear, large photos of the bosomy 21-year-old. How are we to feel about all this — about him, about ourselves, about all the young women in bikinis and the older men who are able to have sex with them, and our exclusion from and, now, inclusion in their glamorous life?

This is the place he's brought us to, with that little sliver, that tiny slice we got for lunch when he was seemingly wolfing down 20,000 calories.

A bikini top printed to look like naked breasts.

2 women are promoting this as part of their campaign to "de-sexualize" breasts.

"Explain why women have to cover up their chests, but not men.... The only excitement that comes from seeing breasts is that you are conditioned to think they are something special...."

Of course, thinking you're seeing naked breasts, having to figure out what you're looking at, and deciding what to think about it is only going to make you look longer.

"Trunk."

The word "trunk" has come up — by chance — in 2 posts today.

1. "The plus-size 'bikini'": "Note that the caption refers to the bottoms as 'trunks,' a word that strikes me as way too masculine (perhaps because I associate it with elephant appendages)."

2. "'The Giving Tree' — 'Remember that book...": "In his childhood, the boy enjoys playing with the tree, climbing her trunk, swinging from her branches, and eating her apples. However, as time passes the tree becomes mean, jealous, and stingy...."

When things like that happen around here, it's de rigueur to consult the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary. The first meaning, going back to 1490, is "The main part of something as distinguished from its appendages," which explains how we talk about trees.

The plus-size "bikini."

The "fatkini."

You can wear whatever you want, but what's being sold is not a bikini. I remember bathing suits like that from the days — 1950s and 60s — when few women wore bikinis. What I'm seeing at the link are what were traditionally called "2-piece bathing suits." The bottoms come up to the waist. It's hard to see why that looks prettier than a 1-piece. Is there something special about the section of skin between the bottom of one's bra and the waist? Is isolating the bra from the bottoms a good idea when the shape of the bottoms ends up being granny-panties?

"This photo cements stereotypes, perpetuates an imbalance in the power dynamic, is reminiscent of centuries of colonialism (and indentured servitude)..."

"... and serves as a good example of both creating a centrality of whiteness and using 'exotic' people as fashion props."

The SI swimsuit issue is troubling people again.

Kathy Griffin joked that Bristol Palin is fat.

"She's the only contestant in the history of ['Dancing With The Stars'] to actually gain weight... She's like the white 'Precious.'"

Griffin, who just turned 50, was showing off her super-thin body in a bikini on stage. But check the rear view...



... always check the rear view, ladies.

"Her bodice looks like the outside of the rib. Over the shoulder looks like it does come from the shoulder."

How fitting!

"There are no expensive cuts here, no real steaks," he said. "The best you've got is the flank steak on top of her head."...

"It's the cheaper end cuts - not including her. You got about $100 of meat there," said Mark Cacioppo, 30, of Queens....

"It ain't refrigerated. It's probably stinking bad. She's in the lights: It's cooking," said Peter Cacioppo....

"What's next: the family cat made into a hat?" asked Ingrid Newkirk, head of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

PETA always uses that rhetorical move. Instead of that animal you don't care about, picture the family pet.

Anyway, Lady Gaga went on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" — too bad YouTube hasn't yet perfected the internet equivalent of Smell-O-Vision — and explained herself...



... with delightful incoherence. She doesn't want to be "just another bitch in a dress." She claims it has to do with her opposition to Don't Ask Don't Tell, which flummoxes the poor vegan Ellen.

I love the part where she proclaims herself "The most judgment-free person on the face of the earth." Ha. When did "judgment" acquire a 100% negative meaning.

"I was in heels since 5 in the morning and then I was up 'til 3 and then I have scoliosis and..."

I'm really glad Kim Cosmopolitan is summing up last night's "American Idol." I had to force myself to watch it and felt like I was having no fun at all, but it seems highly amusing now, which just proves once again how much better writing is than TV.

God, I'm not sure I understand the point of AI's Group Night. I mean, there's obviously no competitive group-singing aspect of the show, so what is it? Is it to give Your people a chance to show how they triumph over the adversity of having 18 hours to arrange and perform a song with others? Is it so You can assess their star quality among others who may or may not possess star quality themselves? Is it for no other reason than to give Your people at home some drama to keep them on board throughout the interminable early weeks of pre-dialing for dollars American Idol? Why, God, why?...

Oh, and thank you, God, for a smidgeon of righteous justice. The payoff on this one was pretty good. But I guess You knew that when You gave her the big starring edit in her audition. You're very prescient that way. Anyway, thanks.

Kim also posted on the Tuesday night show. Best part:

I hope Lil Rounds had a great first audition, because I did not like her shouty I-ee-I-ee-I performance one little bit, and I'm actually a fan of the song. And I am in actual physical pain from restraining myself from mocking her name.

Li'l Rounds. I get it. Like some off-brand Ritz Cracker. (Or is it wrong to refer to a non-white person that way?) As to the singing, yeah, I thought it was horrible. To suddenly begin "I Will Always Love You" at the big, loud finale instant is an aesthetic crime. Yet the judges gave her a standing ovation. It was ghastly.

Fat...

... or skinny?

ADDED: Can a 57-year-old woman wear a bikini? Frankly, I'm amazed that anyone without a near-perfect body would choose a bikini, but I'm sort of impressed that Anjelica Huston blithely exposes herself. And as long as we are reading The Daily Mail, let's look at this piece delving into Jessica Simpson's weight gain. I think she looks fine in the tight leather pants, but oh, those horrible blue jeans. She's not that fat...



That's pretty mean... but then again, why is Jessica Simpson a star? If you are a star because of your great body, isn't getting fat like a singer singing off key? Or is Jessica really also a singer? Really? She seems to be singing in those pictures. It says she stopped singing to talk about her weight:

"Please remember, no matter what you go through in life, somebody else might have it harder. I feel like in our world today we focus on so many things that are completely pointless. Thank you for your support. Stay positive, and pray out loud."

Pray... for... ??? Her to lose weight? Or for everyone to get over the thinness fixation? Or for that somebody else who has it harder?