"Wisconsin GOP Advances Bills Controlling How People On Welfare Eat And Pee."

Headline at The Huffington Post.

I know. I should punish The Huffington Post for distorting things to such an absurd degree, but it is so absurd that it's self-undermining � the "pee" part is just about requiring drug tests � and, besides, HuffPo also has this headline: "Florence Henderson Describes How Former NYC Mayor John Lindsay Gave Her Crabs."

Look how handsome John Lindsay was:



If you're going to get crabs from a New York City mayor, he's the one. There have been 109 NYC mayors, going all the way back to Thomas Willett in 1665. I can't say I know what they all looked like � and did they have crabs? � but here's DeWitt Clinton, who's not that cute, but I love the painting:



DeWitt Clinton (March 2, 1769 � February 11, 1828) was also a U.S. Senator and, most notably, a governor of New York. His great achievement was the Erie Canal:

Many thought the project was impracticable, and opponents mocked it as "DeWitt's Ditch." But in 1817, he got the legislature to appropriate $7,000,000 for construction.... The cost of freight between Buffalo and Albany fell from $100 to $10 per ton, and the state was able to quickly recoup the funds it spent on the project through tolls along the canal... [T]he New Hampshire Sentinel [wrote:] "His exertions in favor of the great Canal have identified his name with that noble enterprise, and he will be remembered while its benefits are experienced... Yield credit to Clinton, and hail him by name."

Hail, Clinton!

By the way, "crabs" are pubic lice, pthirus pubis. From Amy Stewart's "Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects":

Body lice evolved from head lice about 107,000 years ago, around the time humans started wearing clothing. Pubic lice, however, are more closely related to gorilla lice� and were transferred to humans through some sort of intimate physical contact with gorillas, the precise details of which remain a mystery....

Pubic lice... lock their claws around a strand of hair and almost never let go. Their habit of feeding in one place for most of their life means that their feces accumulate around them, making for a truly unpleasant situation. They inhabit all parts of the body covered in coarse hair, including eyebrows, chest hair, mustaches, armpits, and, of course, pubic hair.... Because pubic lice can only survive a few hours off the host... [s]exual contact is really the most efficient means of transmission, which is why the French call pubic lice papillons d�amour, or butterflies of love.

Now, here's Florence, singing about the butterfly of love:

Being true to your dadbod self.

"I know someone who divorced her dadbod."/"Was he always a dadbod, or did he become a dadbod over time?"/"Everyone else knew him to be a dadbod, and somehow she just did not see it."/ I think dadbod is more channeling a state of mind � that of letting one�s self go, and all of the self-indulgence associated with that. Right?"

One's self? Isn't it oneself?
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"I have to say that one of the biggest changes in my lifetime, is the phenomenon of men wearing shorts. Men never wore shorts when I was young."

"There are few things I would rather see less, to tell you the truth. I'd just as soon see someone coming toward me with a hand grenade. This is one of the worst changes, by far. It's disgusting. To have to sit next to grown men on the subway in the summer, and they're wearing shorts? It's repulsive. They look ridiculous, like children, and I can't take them seriously. It's like any other sort of revealing clothing, in that the people you'd most like to see them on aren't wearing them. And if they are, it's probably their job to wear them. My fashion advice, particularly to men wearing shorts: Ask yourself, 'Could I make a living modeling these shorts?' If the answer is no, then change your clothes. Put on a pair of pants.... All these clothes that you see people wearing, the yoga clothes�even men wear them!�it's just another way of being in pajamas. You need more natural beauty to get away with things like that. What's so great thing about clothes is that they're artificial�you can lie, you can choose the way you look, which is not true of natural beauty. So if you're naturally beautiful, wear what you want, but that's .01% of people. Most people just aren't good looking enough to wear what they have on. They should change. They should get some slacks and a nice overcoat."

Said Fran Lebowitz, in an Elle interview that's full of readable stuff, like (about Hillary) "I think her lack of style comes naturally. I do, I really do. She has no style, zero. Of course there's millions of women like this, it's just that not everyone's looking at them constantly." And "Well, what if drag queens just really let themselves go, pretending not to try, like most women?" Like most women... including Hillary.

"But basketball players increasingly cover their lower bodies, mostly out of fashion, partly out of protection, sometimes out of prudish modesty."

"In a trend on full display at the N.C.A.A. men�s tournament, skin is concealed behind the triple protection of shorts hemmed below the kneecap, socks raised to the calf and a base layer of tights underneath."

Time to get rid of the shorts!

Remember that in ballet, men wore shorts over their tights...



... until they didn't....

"I must begin this email by admitting that I am not a loyal or dedicated reader. My husband, however, is..."

"... and as a result, I am often found listening to a quoted snippet, or even occasionally to an entire post, off of your blog. My husband enjoys your insights tremendously and I too have enjoyed those tidbits which I�ve heard vicariously." So begins an email I received recently:

My purpose in writing is to thank you for providing a long-awaited second opinion to my husband regarding his choice of pants.

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