Image source here. I can't choose. Christian smolders with sex, but Andre smells like success, and Pierre is funloving and ready for anything!Well, I'm pleased to report that beside the many things that ought to have happened and didn't, my nook is painted. If you could see it, you might well think it the handsomest nook at which you'd ever looked.
1) If you remember those horrific mass child-molestation cases during the 1980s against day-care owners and workers, you'll recall that lives were ruined with the accusations (and convictions) for behaviors of almost unimaginable freakiness. In fact, it was absolutely imaginable, and as we found out, largely imagined. Here's an L.A. Times "apology" article from the adult perspective of one of the children who accused the proprietors of the McMartin Pre-school. Kyle Zirpolo explains how his family history and relationships encouraged his fantastic stories, which to this day, his mother does not accept that he manufactured. But the part which is much more chilling and infuriating than tragic involves his interviews with Children's Institute International. At the bottom of the article, read the transcript excerpt and see how Kyle's victimhood is assumed, how his identity is swapped for a make-believe one (to make telling lies easier or less blameworthy?), how they lead him toward the acceptable answer and encourage his cooperative narrative.
Oh yes, we say now, it's because in the 80s we didn't know as much about children as today. Really? Thousands of years raising the millions of children that all of us were at one time, and no one figured out that they'll try to please you if you show them how. Isn't that how many forms of abuse begin? In the frenzy to stop abuse when there's no physical or documentary evidence, we've had to boost children's testimony to a higher place than it deserves, not because they don't merit our protection, but because they're inherently unreliable due to their incomplete development.
2) It's common to hear people quoting the pith of children when it suits their agendas and then attributing the perspective to some unspoilt, natural wisdom, like when Jimmy Carter attributed the direction of his nuclear policy to the clearthinking of his young daughter, Amy. Moronic. My brother liked to put his diapers on his head, and I didn't try to sell it as fashion. Children certainly deserve better from adults than that kind of pressure. Amy, just so you know, I don't blame you for the hostage crisis in Iran, no matter what you advised. Here's a scathing review in the WSJ of Carter's new book. I admit, he tops my personal list of worst presidents, so I don't spare the vitriol for this undoubtedly nice man and pathetically awful world leader.
3) Let's say you don't care about any of that stuff, you're just tired of being hassled by snobs about all the Dan Brown books you're toting. If you haven't learned to employ book covers from your school days, start here. A whimsical newsprint or wrapping paper cover is easy to construct and hides the fact that you're reading Toupee: The Unspoken Passion, or The U.S. Market for Femine Hygiene Products (Don't be fooled by the price of $2700, it'd still be blushmaking for most of us to be caught poring over on the subway, Path, Metra, El, or Tube.) Here's yet another solution: trade in your stale Da Vinci code for a free, freshly steaming pile of wordies, like in this offer from the London by London insiders' guide.
So, I have very little legitimate tie-in to toupees. Let this be your warning. When cornered, I reach for the Bazookas of humor, in this case, the man rug. How low will I go? Certainly not as low as this, I pray nightly.
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