Molly and Dollop: Conversations with the Master

Read My Niqab

MOLLY:

The British are saying that a Muslim woman wearing a full veil cannot teach little children.  Why is that?

DOLLOP:

Little children in the West have grown up thinking that a big black covered face is Darth Vader.  Although Ms. Azmi said, “I am not an alien,” the children secretly suspected it.

The little children whom she was teaching were learning English as a second language, which means they were immigrants, learning how to get along in British tea shops, the playground, buses, and eventually job placement centers.  Strangely, they were holding their hands up in front of their faces and mumbling because they thought a disembodied voice was the way you speak English.  Plus, the deaf children kept trying to read the blinks of eyes and seemed to have gained a very limited vocabulary.  British people noticed that the children tended to stare at their faces, totally bewildered by the novel association of expressions and emotion with English words.

Ms. Azmi said she would reveal her face in front of children and other females, but the British were not willing to throw all the men off the school grounds.  Nor post Purity Guards throughout the school, holding back men who are fighting to get jobs as school teachers.

There are possible compromises.  She could carry around a computer with the animation of a real human face – an Avatar.  It would be androgynous of course, or, it could use the face of a man such as Arnold Schwarzenegger.  “Hasta la vista, baby.”  Or, she could use a paper face like a fan, but the lack of lip movement is a problem. There are many kinds of American Halloween masks, many of which leave the lips free for chunking candy, or teaching ESL.  Another idea: she could teach courses online, using the face of Madonna or the Queen.

Let’s remember that Orthodox Jewish women, who must cover their real hair, have learned to do that by wearing very attractive long blond wigs.  We are talking about a surrogate face here.

Ms. Azmi said she was extremely humiliated by the ruling and went home where she could show her face without shame.

It's Hard Out There for a Congressman

MOLLY:

What does it mean when a Congressman has a “Washington problem with the woman?”  What is “that unfortunate thing that he did?”

DOLLOP:

I will give you an example.  Representative Don Sherwood (R-PA) works very hard to represent Republican values such as banning abortion and cracking down on illegal immigrants.  He makes sacrifices, such as leaving his devoted wife and daughter back in Pennsylvania while he toils in Washington.  Part of that toil includes entertaining a very young Peruvian immigrant in his home.  He had to do that for FIVE YEARS.  And you know how he feels about immigrants.

For several reasons, specifically, cuts on her face, bruises all over her body, and injuries to her mouth, the very young Peruvian woman called 911, from the bathroom.  Representative Sherwood was simply trying to give her a massage, he said.  However, he did concede to being a little rough and settled, secretly, for $5.5 million on the lawsuit.

Is this good or bad?  He is hoping for a lot of forgiveness, beyond his wife and daughter, because he is running for re-election.  President Bush has forgiven him and traveled up to have an ice cream cone with him.

After all, “family values” refers to things that are mostly important * outside of Washington * -- things that OTHER PEOPLE should be doing.  Like not hitting women.  Or Making Your Wife Stand By Her Bad Boy.  Also, the Agenda does Not Anywhere say in writing, or in fine print, or in Karl Rove’s notes that  “respect for women” is even to be mentioned.

Whatever happens in Washington stays in Washington.  The President said so.  It is part of his “National Character Counts Week” celebration. 

The President plans to forgive ex-President Clinton any day now, for his much more minor “unfortunate thing.”

There are people trying to get Lemony Snicket to write this up as part of his Series of Unfortunate Events but he said real life is too scary.

Bitch or Bimbo

MOLLY:

Carly Fiorina says that the Silicon Valley chat rooms called her either a Bitch or a Bimbo.  Which should I try to be? 

DOLLOP:

I would suggest both, at the same time.   A multi-headed monster.  Go with the flow, and enjoy it.  Either one comes with very cool outfits.   Let’s see here:

Bitch
- conservative expensive clothes
- make more money
- save time not suffering fools
- get what you want
- get sent to Reykjavik for G-8 Summit
- get voted out of CEO job

Bimbo
- sexy expensive clothes (e.g. extra-lift bra)
- no pressure to think
- get a lot of love, when he’s ready for you
- great hair
- get taken to Hawaii for beach junket
- live on alimony
- get left home when new cutie appears or the wife complains

There is an alternative: 

Mom
- frumpy “active” clothes
- frugal allowance
- be nice to one Big Guy
- guilty or worried about kids all the time
- giving, giving, giving
- not quite up on the Big World Out There
- a little tired
- get forgotten in the kitchen

You have to understand that men may not know what to do with you if you do not fit one of these molds.   If you want to * Break * the Mold, try to disguise yourself as one of the archetypes above, at least Out in Public.  Learn Bitch-, Bimbo- or Mom-“speak.”   

The alternative is to find an egalitarian Scandinavian, shack up, and reinvent yourself in all the infinite variety of looks, values, outfits, and interests out there.  I do recommend red shoes, a Ph.D., and a cute baby.

The Feet of a Concubine

MOLLY:

Do you think I am too young to start binding my feet? I just got some Lotus Shoes and I am about to outgrow them.

DOLLOP:

Molly, there will be other shoes in your future that are designed to make your feet look very small. The shoes will probably be longer than 3 inches, but they will be so pointy that your toes will be deformed in no time. In fact, in the modern aesthetic, a 3-inch HEEL has replaced the desired length, so the “rule of 3” is still in effect. This will cause you to balance on the balls of your feet, as if on tippy-toes, and not only corrupt your feet but cause some pelvic and spinal curvature, an added bonus.

The 3-inch foot in tiny Lotus shoes was a status symbol for Chinese women until the 20th Century. The practice took hold in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) when one of the Emperor’s 999 concubines said: “Hey, big guy, my feet are smaller than * hers. *” This play for attention did not work because the 998 others took up binding their feet, rapido prestissimo.

Women with 3-inch feet were high class because they could not do much, for example, work. They could not get up without help, stand up straight, or even support themselves. They had trouble squatting, which an ancient Chinese person needed to do several times a day. They had to be carried around. They looked down on those with * normal feet.* The only job they could do, of course, was to sit around and look pretty, in case the Emperor found his way to their bed, getting past 998 other competing beauties.

Mean people have pointed out that those with bound feet could also not * run away. * I should mention that all concubines were not extremely happy. Our very own Mormon men, who had a rule about not having more than 999 wives or concubines, also had to grant bunches of divorces. You can imagine what this does to our divorce statistics when a man has 55 wives and 10 want to divorce him. Of course, the Mormons avoided some divorces by having wives who are “sealed” to the man after death. These deceased “wives” can never divorce him or run away whether they have bound feet or not. Unless they do that in heaven, which might be possible if you are Mormon. Maybe they should have tried some kind of posthumous binding.

The number “9” is lucky for Chinese and Mormon men.

I don’t imagine the Tang concubines and others were seen skipping in the courtyard, hip-hop dancing, or jogging on the Great Wall. Maybe they had special secret prosthetic feet, like little skis, they could wear when they really wanted to move around, for example to make it easier to do some squatting.

They might have passed the time discussing who was a “real wife” and who was a “concubine.” The wife had higher status. On the other hand, a concubine could be a later precious acquisition of the Emperor. “Last in, first noticed,” hey?

Concubines are really like wives in that they “cohabit” with the extended family. It is sort of like the “live-in” and the “live-out” nanny. In America, there are a lot of people cohabiting but we do not call them concubines. Yet. I am sure there are people in America who would like to do more than bind the feet of a few “live-out” concubines.

The practice of binding feet was banned in China as late as 1911. Apparently, banning something so much fun and precious is hard. Like banning polygamy. A study of women in Beijing in 1997 found that 38 percent of the women in their 80’s and 18 percent in their 70’s had bound-foot deformities. You don’t see them on the street much, obviously, because who has time to carry granny around? As late as 1991, the Zhiqiang Shoe Factory stopped making Lotus Shoes, although they sold about 2000 pairs a year for a few years after that.

Remember the rule of “3:” starting at age 3, keep those toes tucked for the 3-inch Lotus Shoe. If you miss crunch time, go for pointy stilettos. Hope for the joys of the 999th concubine.

Certain Ladies, Let the Breeding Begin!

MOLLY:

I heard that the U.S. population just reached 300 million.  Is that enough people?

DOLLOP:

Well, there are enough people and there are enough of the Right people.   There are countries that are feeling barren, even though immigrants are loading onto boats as we speak.  And the Chinese are offering to export baby girls.

After centuries of making sure that women do not get uppity and have too much fun, or make any serious money, we have noticed that recently they just stopped having enough babies.  “Enough babies” means a population replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.   Now, in countries like Italy, Spain, and Greece, the rate (in 2004) is down around 1.3.  Germany is at 1.37.  The French who are trying hard for “le baby boom” are up to 1.90.

The number of women choosing to be child-free in the U.S. is up to 44%.

Germany is way behind on production.   30% of all women in 2005 childless, and the rate for recent graduates is 40%.

We might ask “What are those women DOING??”  They are not having enough babies.  Are they eating Godivas, watching Oprah, reading Nora Roberts, and catching the sales at Target? 

The Breeding Board offered some insight.

Women are delaying marriage and baby-making.  Newsweek warned them in 1996 that if they did not get married in their 20’s they were “more likely to be killed by a terrorist” than ever get married.  Did the women listen?   Noooooo.  They would rather get killed by a terrorist, it seems.

More women are waiting to “opt in” for marriage as late as their 40’s.  And many more are “opting out” forever.  More than 42% of women stay single.  Nearly 60% of women are employed now, and who wanted that to happen?  Why the work, ladies?

Now gay couples are arriving on the scene and they want to get married and have children.  They are about 2% of all households.  Still, we want to make it hard for them.   We want to stone their houses and slash their tires if they reveal their secret wish to make a lovely home and family for themselves.   Did I mention the issue is the “Right people” having the babies?

Focus groups all over the world are checking this out.  In the U.S., one woman pointed out that it costs a middle-class family about $150,000 to raise a child, which is over $8,000 a year, and the tax exemption is $3000 a year.   If you are earning the average income in the U.S. of about $43,000 a year, that extra child will cost about 12% of your earnings (if you treat it well…).  Say you have TWO children.  You need a bigger house and a reliable car, etc, etc.  Is the bigger house close to work?  Because the extra 100 hours a week in services to the family cuts into commute time.

Now, can you use an extra 100 hours a week in your life?   Hmmmm?

Yes, the Breeding Board admits, there are sacrifices to be made.  Women are traditionally selfless, however, and we can count on some of that.  Stop the yada yada about time off from work for family, affordable child care, help with the housework, a little respect.  How to get women to breed?  A 12-step program.

1. They get free tickets to the Breeding Farm Spa, a one-week “relax” session, featuring music by Enya.
2. They get to pick either a) premium sperm from a very large full-color catalog of desirable men wearing very little, b) a vacation with a Bachelor selected from an international roster, all expenses paid, or c) an arranged marriage.
3. A generous gift card to Victoria’s Secret.
4. Five years of time off from work with tickets to kiddie play groups, scrapbook parties, birthday party arrangers, finicky-child caterers, and parenting consultants.
5. Two years’ job training during which certified free child care is provided.
6. Ten hours a week free nanny services.
7. Annual appreciative “mom of the year” videos posted on public web sites.
8. Week-long couples-only get-aways for mom and her guy or gal.
9. Nutritious free lunches at school for the tykes.
10. Hunky personal trainer of preferred sexual orientation for those “rehab” years.
11. A little liposuction allowance.
12. Executive makeover for that transition back to the world of work, power, and money.

The French are in a race to out-breed other European countries and they are succeeding.  They have special incentives for third children.  For one thing, they continue to allow for extra long lunches.

Key words for this topic are:  Extinction.  Depopulation.  Old and Shrinking Consumer Markets.  Collapse.  Desperate.  Nobody to Work the Field.  Must Welcome Immigrants.

Message to the Men in Charge:  Be.  Nice. To. Women.

O Yes, a Prince!

MOLLY:

There are so many Princesses in the world!  They are so pretty!  Will they turn into Queens?

DOLLOP:

In a certain unnamed country where there is Royalty, they found that the job of the Royals is not all it seems.  Royals have to dress up in very stiff clothes, smile a lot, give very boring speeches, and stand around looking at other people all dressed up and smiling.  The British Royals, for example, lost one heir to the throne because he did not have any fun and he wanted to marry his honey instead.  The women were made to stop shopping and make babies, seriously.

In fact, things got so bad that this country changed the rules to make the girls do it.  Girls like to dress up more than boys.  Girls know their clothes are going to be pretty uncomfortable already, so they don’t mind as much.  They like to wave wands and scepters,  decorate, and have pageants and big parties.  They like to have thousands of people admiring their dress and kissing their picture.  They like to let good looking men sit beside them and pass them the champagne.

In Japan, people were really upset about making the girls take the job.  They thought about it.  Then teenie 5.64-pound Hisahito arrived!  He saves 2,600 years of patriarchal succession from a horrid end just by being a boy.  Now little Aiko, Mako, and Kako are free to go play in their tutus. 

Traditional royalty fans are horrified that daughters of Kings would be in line to be The Ruler and Queen.  They think their ancestors would roll over and throw up in their graves.  Women are stinky, fickle, tend toward fat, vicious with backstabbing, and have no sense.  But then, o.k., there was Henry the 8th.

Some of us would not mind seeing someone like Princess Diana inherit a throne.  How about a little class.  That is, if they could get her to take the job.

Family Values. Big. Ouch.

MOLLY:

Why is Mr. Foley’s concern for the private night life of a boy a big deal?

DOLLOP:

Gosh, we are about to enter the intersection of politics, theology, and lust.  You might want to cover your ears and hum while I explain.

Ex-Representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.) now says that the priests made him do it.  Not exactly, but he shares this thought with us now:  “I was but a child, when…”  He is just informing us that he was subjected to the following teachings from the church, through certain unnamed incidents:

- Priests are celibate; they do not get married
- Priests are supposed to tend to the spiritual development of children
- Sex out of wedlock is a sin
- Gay sex is a sin
- Priests may from time to time engage in sex (sin)
- They may from time to time engage in gay sex (sin)
- Early sex exploitation harms children (sin)
- From time to time, there were bloopers:  celibate priests engaging in gay sex-out-of-wedlock with children
- Nevertheless marriage which might sanctify sex for priests is unthinkable
- Especially God forbid gay marriage
- The punishment for getting caught for this blooper was for many years secret re-assignment, swearing everyone in authority to secrecy and denying it happened (after all, nobody believes children and what do they know?)

Now, as a conservative Republican, Mr. Foley is advancing certain other teachings under the rubric of “family values,” by his own example:

- To be gay is not what God intended
- Premarital sex is not what God intended
- Sex out of wedlock is not what God intended
- Gays should get help because they can be “saved”
- Pedophiles are not good for children
- People who are kept ignorant about sex will fear it, avoid it, and behave
- We don’t believe scientific studies that show that people who are kept ignorant about sex will have it anyway, and get pregnant or get AIDS and other STD’s
- We don’t believe research evidence that gays are a natural phenomenon, not a disorder
- Sex education especially about contraception is “against the family” because it encourages sex without serious consequences (death, disease, pregnancy)
- America should shove ABSTINENCE down the throats of everyone, including the whole world, even though scientific studies show that it is not an effective strategy for keeping people from having sex and they will get more likely have unprotected sex and get AIDS or get pregnant out of ignorance
- America should hold international financial aid hostage to the ABSTINENCE agenda, in spite of the die-off at home and abroad due to AIDS
- If a former President has an “incident” with an adult woman, impeach the heck out of him, immediately, and AT GREAT COST TO THE NATION
- Congress should tie up THE WHOLE COUNTRY in a campaign against gay marriage, because God forbid there may be a few people who want to go there
- Meanwhile, back in the closet, a certain gay Congressman MUST HAVE SOME SEX and cannot help himself
- Gay pedophiles in highly authoritative positions (especially Republicans) should be forgiven because “the priests made him do it”

To take his mind off this conundrum, Mr. Foley introduced a bill in Congress (on September 26th) congratulating the Professional Golfers Association of America on its 90th anniversary.  (No joke.) To make him seem more human, his peers in Congress said he was quite affable, like a nice guy at the country club.  “He signed up for lavish recess getaways with lobbyists and donors,” including signing up his special steady male friend.  “He’d wake up in the morning and look for an event to attend.”

For this really public display of self-hate and anguish, not to mention the absence of guilt about wasting valuable Congressional time-attention-billions-of-tax-dollars on things that are GOOD FOR EVERYBODY ELSE and a decoy for our real-secret-sinful-lives, we recommend 4 martinis for everyone.  And Mark, please give that cell phone a rest!!

Mr. Congressman, You Are SOOO NICE!!

MOLLY:

Dollop, I heard that a Congressman paid special attention to boys who are interns for Congress, asking one of them what he wanted for his birthday, and what he was wearing.  Are they nice to the girls too?

DOLLOP:

Congress has a long tradition of caring about children.  It is definitely part of the “family values” agenda to be extremely interested – even obsessive-- about trends like gay marriage and pedophilia.  In fact, one of the most child-friendly Congressmen, Representative Mark Foley (R-Fla.), co-chaired the Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children so that he would know a lot about sexual predators and how they operate, and how they are caught.

You can never tell what makes someone a zealot for a certain cause.  It is the Red Riding Hood Wolf syndrome.  The Wolf gains Little Red Riding Hood’s trust by becoming the most trusted person she knows, her granny.

Pages in Congress are like acolytes and choir boys in church.  They are invited to participate in the rituals of the esteemed sanctuary so that they learn to admire and emulate their elders, serve them by carrying things and holding things, and dressing up with them.  They are learning the Meaning of It All.  Well, most of the people in Congress are men, and most of the pages are boys, so it is very much like the Catholic Church in that regard.  The first boy page was appointed in 1829 in the Senate, and in 1842 in the House.   That is a tradition of 178 years of having boys around the Congress to help out.   

Girls were just invited starting in 1971, due to a pesky law (passed by spoil-sports) about discrimination, so they have been there only 36 years (or one-fifth as long).  You understand that for about 142 years, people in Congress and generally did not want girls to run for office and get involved in politics (which is just even more ugly that letting them vote), so having them learn the ropes of Washington and get inspired as teenagers was definitely not a “family value.”

The composition of Congress (107th) currently is:  87% male in the House and 86% male in the Senate.  (Hey, does that look like a quota to you?  Maybe we should just call it a quota. Then the people who hate quotas can have at it.)

The composition of 66 pages in Congress now is:  Unknown.   Nobody is counting.  Dolly, what’s your guess?

FYI, there were of course special rules for girls in the early days.  They could not work past 6 p.m. because nobody wanted them to walk home in the dark.  And they had to live at the YMCA, because the nice dormitories were built for boys.  (Our esteemed CongressMen could not think of * any * way around this…  Too much else on their minds, even before text-messaging.)

That is why the old tradition of being nice to boys continues pretty much, and people are reluctant to rock the boat, because the boat is pretty much fun for some people.  (For example, the news of Mr. Foley’s behavior was not shared with all three people who oversee the page program and are responsible for the welfare of pages, so as not to rock the boat.  The news was kept from the Republican * woman * and the Democrat = two thirds of the oversight team.)

Some Congressmen work so hard, preparing legislation against gay marriage, women’s programs, educational access for minority students, birth control, welfare (especially for unwed mothers), tax breaks for the poor, child care programs, and higher education for the poor – all part of the “family values” agenda – that they need to have this fun on the side.

Letting him occasionally text-message a boy and ask him if he [READER DISCRETION STRONGLY ADVISED HERE] “spanked it” and that he “loves details” is just a small price to pay for the hard work they do.  Also, having the details published on the internet provides us with free pornography that we have to read in the interest of “current affairs.”  When they get caught, the authorities play the “Mel Gibson Card” and send the poor sucker away for alcoholism rehab, preferably to Grand Cayman Island or wherever there are a lot of young beach boys.