52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-20-18”

  5. I can’t speak for everyone else, but Chas is up and about.
    And that’s something.
    That Mumsee is up early. mountain time.
    Something Up?

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  6. The beautiful woman on Fox is wearing a sleeveless blouse.
    The two guys are wearing coats and ties.
    Someone has to be uncomfortable.
    🙂 I’ll bet I’m the only person in the world to think of that.

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  7. I have often wondered that, Chas. Why women wear such scanty clothing while men wear business suits and then the women wonder why men look. Bizarre. Same thing in high school sports Boys wear knee length shorts and girls wear cheek length shorts. And swimming. Boys wear surfer shorts and girls wear thongs. None of those can be comfortable (or you would not see so many women adjusting so many places). But I wonder the same thing about women’s pants (yoga or whatever those skin tight things are that show every bump and crevice.)

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  8. Actually, Chas, I am in Pacific. Idaho has two time zones, From Riggins south it is Mountain. From Time Zone bridge just north of Riggins, we are Pacific. I go to bed between eight and eight thirty so am usually up by five. I am on here a bit early as my phone service is gone again and wanted to check my email to see if husband had checked in last night. He did. He is in Colorado on his way back west from wherever he was a couple of days ago.

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  9. Mumsee, last I checked (which was, admittedly, 2011), all women’s formal wear, and virtually 100% of dresses, were sleeveless, mostly without straps but some with them. I’ve always thought it funny that in general women get cold easier than men do, yet men wear suits and ties and women wear dresses, anything from sleeveless to long-sleeved but in summer usually sleeveless or short sleeves. Then churches and businesses adjust the air conditioning for the men, and women are cold. (I carry a sweater to the store and to church.)

    When I was getting married, I went to multiple stores looking for bridesmaid dresses. I didn’t care whether they were specifically being sold as bridesmaid dresses, just that they be my color and that they be modest. But 95% of the dresses that year were strapless or spaghetti straps. I was trying to get dresses with short sleeves (who wants sleeveless in fall?), but couldn’t. I finally chose the widest straps I could find and shortened the straps to be doubly sure the dresses were modest, but I still heard shock and outrage from some of my family. Apparently shoulders are sexy. Who knew?

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  10. Mumsee, in the case of Fox, and other media outlets, the company generally has standards for how the women should appear on screen. The same for waitresses, some receptionists, and other women who appear to the public for a company – many employees stipulate the length of their skirts, that they wear high heels, etc. Just watching old musical films, particularly from the 1930s to 1950s, is enough to realize that employers routinely require their women employees to wear less – many of the dance numbers in those old films have the male dancers wearing full length trousers, while the female dancers are wearing short shorts.

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  11. I spoke to a woman in an upscale department store once no asked if she had to wear three inch heels.

    Yes.

    No wonder her feet hurt after 8 hours. I couldn’t do such a job because of the shoes required alone.

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  12. Cheryl, yes, finding decent wedding and bridesmaid’s dresses is a nightmare for not only the bride but also her attendants. My sisters went to great lengths to try to provide comfortable clothing that suited their bridesmaids. Eldest made her bridesmaids’ dresses, as well as her own. Second mail ordered two of the dresses, but couldn’t find a dress in the size of the third, and so had to hire a dressmaker to make a reasonable facsimile, and she and I made her dress. Youngest resorted to skirts and tops, with the tops being ready made and the skirts made by Second, Youngest, and I, and wore Eldest’s wedding dress.

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  14. I really don’t like when the schools mandate the short shorts for the girls in sports. That seems ridiculous to me. Especially when the schools have dress codes that are different from requirements for sports.

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  15. I think women’s body temperatures are higher than men’s, too, though? Because of an added layer of fat? That’s what I’ve always heard, anyway. We stay warmer in cold weather, as a result, but that backfires when it gets hot outside.

    As for high heels and tight, short dresses and skirts on TV, that’s another story that has more to do probably with the male producers than with the studio temperatures which I’m sure are quite comfortable and controlled.

    Young women who are ambitious go along with it (and probably also enjoy the male attention it attracts).

    And there’s really no such thing as “comfortable” formal attire for women (or men, probably, for that matter).

    I’m off to Sherwin Williams early this morning to stock up on trim paint.

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  18. We found formal gowns at Macy’s for a reasonable price 18 months ago.

    I laughed though when we got to the wedding; all my relatives were dressed the same. We took a photo, Sophy and I, wearing the same dress! LOL

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  19. A beautiful day in the neighborhood today. Just brought in more tomatoes before the bugs and turkeys get them. And I took the picture holder out to the game camera which I set out last night but forgot to load. Oops. Probably the night big foot went by.

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  20. One of the things I gave up when I gave up store shopping was clothing. Our stores rarely carry dresses or skirts at all. And pants and shirts…let’s just say I prefer Land’s End and Eddie Bauer.

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  22. I am betting that it is the girls themselves (or their representatives) that pick out those uniforms for sports. I have noticed it myself and wonder why such short shorts are needed for volleyball etc. The boy’s reach almost to the knees for their sports.

    Hot lights add to discomfort for those in the media. I am thinking a lot of those men wish they did not have to wear those suits.

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  23. Looking at the new school dress code in Alameda. Sad. One person says, you go shopping and all of the pants have at least one rip in them, this makes it easier.

    Um, why not demand clothes that are clothes. It is not sexist to tell girls to wear clothes, apparently you don’t have to tell boys to wear clothes. It is bizarre and it has probably been that way for a long time.

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  24. Good morning. I am still dealing with getting the books in the church media center rescued from being put in the dumpster by Monday. I was on the phone last night around 10:30 and again around 7 a.m. this morning. Everytime I think it has been taken care of, I hear that it hasn’t.

    It is so difficult to daily feel like I live in two communities. I cooked our breakfast here at the office. I cooked a chicken in a crackpot at home last night which meant having to get up at 1a.m. to turn it off and take it out to cool. Then I was up at 4 a.m. to put it in the fridge. That was because I forgot to bring it to work to cook and the expiration date was yesterday. Karen needed me to take her to the doctor this a.m., but I just could not make that happen. Am I about crazy from disturbed sleep and all that is going on? Maybe.

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  25. On the subject of clothes, my friend told me that her husband commented to her that all the ladies at work seem to wear what looks to him like hooker clothing. My friend said her hubbie claimed it did nothing for him. I think that he might feel somewhat embarrassed for those who do business in the office. We have only the occasional person who we see who is awkwardly dressed like the mama (with the young child) who wore a t-shirt that had the F word on it. Sometimes you feel like using a bottle of the squirt soap to wash out a parent’s mouth.

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  26. It was a loose black T-shirt, bluejeans and sandals for my supply excursion to the paint store early this morning. Wet hair, but I did put eyeliner, mascara and silver earrings on so I’d partly be ready for work later 🙂

    They’d only been open for about 30 minutes so it was just me and a couple Spanish-speaking painters wandering the aisles at that hour.

    The house is (finally) coming along and beginning to look much different. I like it (whew!). The orange-pumpkin glare is gone for the most part and it’s settling into the warm, rust/clay brown shade I remembered picking out so many months ago (last year, actually).

    I had a dream about the house — that I found the archways that were part of the original design (as shown in the old photos I found) attached to the back of the house somewhere, I’d just never noticed them before.

    I think I’ll hold off on the interior painting until next year, I’m exhausted and tired of all the turmoil. Just the idea of going through any more right now wears me out. Instead, I think I’ll check into pricing/buying/installing the window awnings, address numbers and porch light to finish off the outside with the least amount of disruption for the remainder of this year. Those should be simple, right?

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  27. Cheryl – I think it is kinda funny when you or Kim, or some other ladies, complain about the air conditioning being cold. Other women I know say that the ac is on for us women, who often are the ones who feel hot, especially women in middle age (and thus in the midst of menopause). In my church, you can usually see a woman or two fanning themselves even though the ac is on.

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  28. Whew, you people are busy this morning.
    As you can probably guess….it is a right-wing conspiracy to discriminate against women. Putting them in such skimpy clothing shows that men are superior and women are just there to incite lust in their hearts. (Or at least that is what the Nut Job Left Wing Conspiracists say). I had this conversation with a friend of mine this morning who is canceling her 25+ year subscription to Vanity Fair over the above. She is also upset over the Kavanaugh debacle. She said even Ruth Bader Ginsberg had spoken out. She worked for the ACLU!!!! and didn’t get this much controversy.
    Since this woman has spoken out about Kavanaugh I have had a suppressed memory surface. It was my Senior year of high school. I was at a party and had had a Bartles and James Wine Cooler. We found out the police were on their way to break up the party. I left with a male classmate and we ended up on a pier on the Bay. He was kissing me and trying to get further, but I told him to stop and he took me home. I have recently stalked him on Facebook to see if I could disrupt his life in any way by going public with my story. He currently lives in San Francisco and has rainbow flags all over his posts, so I am thinking I really can’t do any damage and no one will believe me. It would be more like, “Girl, please! He was trying to convince himself of something. Not trying to rape you!” Alas, another missed opportunity for me to have 15 minutes of fame.

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  30. Since we are talking about dress, this question is for the men (women, you can ask your husbands). If you have seen the Lord of the Rings movies, did the attire of the elves make you uncomfortable? Did it seem that the directors put clothing on them to titillate the viewer and cause him to lust? Neither my husband nor I had that thought, but a friend told me that she did (and I think she assumed her husband did too, but I’m not sure she thought to ask him).

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  33. I have seen Lord of the Rings and have no recollection of what they wore. A lot of things just go over my head. I was still probably focused on second and third breakfast as something to get excited about. Priorities, priorities.

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  35. Earlier, someone mentioned something about a woman having to wear three inch heels at her place of work. Although not exactly the same thing, that reminded me of something I read recently. The Facebook post said that cashiers and clerks in Europe have stools or chairs to sit on so they are not on their feet for eight or more hours straight, and that employers should allow that here. I guess a lot of cashiers, or others on their feet all day, end up with back problems, and other orthopedic ills.

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  36. Cheryl,
    Puh leeze. If my husband got all worked up over how the elves were dressed in Lord of the Rings I would have him committed. Perhaps your friend should join the Taliban.

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  38. Kim, to me it seems like an overreaction, too, but if it did genuinely bother any guys, I don’t want them to feel like they can’t say that without seeming to be part of the Taliban. I’m truly interested in knowing.

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  41. Okay, I have an off-the-wall question. Have any of you seen the children’s show Caillou? If so, do you think Caillou acts like a typical four year old? If not, do you think he acts younger or older?

    This question stems from a silly Facebook discussion on the show. I’ll fill you in on it later or tomorrow. 🙂

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  43. Caillou is a whiny brat – that is the general consensus of the young parents and even teenagers in my circle of acquaintance.

    Elven dress in LOTR – totally unobjectionable in the theatre releases, although there is a scene in the extended version in which Arwen wears a somewhat sheer dress, but that is the only example I can recall.

    Don’t think the argument that a woman can simply change jobs if the dress code is objectionable is valid. About a year ago, I listened to a sermon series on the book of Esther by Liam Goligher and he pulled no punches about just what kind of man Ahasuerus was, with his demand that Vashti display herself and his callous disregard for the young virgins he had brought to him – Link to series: https://www.tenth.org/resource-library/series/the-book-of-esther. There are any number of people with the character of an Ahasuerus in positions of power. My own profession has, in the past, required very ridiculous dress codes – anyone remember the silly nurse’s dresses that barely came to the knee? Nurses are often sexually harassed by patients – I have been and it wasn’t funny, it was ugly, and I was wearing loose fitting scrubs. It is easy to say what other people should do in a given situation, until one faces it oneself.

    Looking at women to lust after them is a sin, as Jesus noted and he said nothing about the way the woman dressed to qualify that sin of looking to lust in any way. Like Adam could not foist his sin on his wife, so the lustful can not foist their sin on the object of their lust. Conservative religious circles, which would say that a homosexual attraction is sinful, often excuse heterosexual looking to lust as normal human behavior. I have encountered a very creepy, ‘Biblically conservative’ pastor who insisted that Jesus did not, in that verse, forbid a man to enjoy a woman’s beauty, and encouraged his sons in such behavior – it was no surprise that his sons ended up being promiscuous. The lustful gaze is normal, but only because sin is normal. Normal does not equal right. Furthermore, they are holding the person who has homosexual attractions to higher standards than the heterosexual person who lustfully enjoys the sight of an attractive member of the opposite sex. That is what Jesus would call hypocrisy.

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  44. If you can refuse to work for somebody because they say you have to perform abortions, and you can refuse to work someplace that insists you attend drunken parties, and refuse to work for a place that does not allow another race in the door, and refuse to work for a place that insists you participate in weekly meditation, or whatever, why can’t you refuse to work in a place with a dress code you would not be comfortable under? Makes sense to me. Vashti went that route, fulling knowing the fallout. People make decisions like that all the time.

    I have actually known people who refused to go to Pensacola Christian College because they did not like the rules. Sounds wise to me. Don’t put yourself in a position where you are required to do something you don’t ethically or morally agree with.

    And by refusing to take a job like that, one is not accepting guilt for another person’s sin. Rather a person is standing up for what they think is right and perhaps making headway to a reasonable dress code where everybody can dress comfortably.

    But if you want to go that direction in the conversation, if it is about lust, the person refusing to dress that way is attempting to remove the stumbling block, allowing Christ to be the stumbling block instead. It becomes a win win, the person does not have to dress in a way they deem uncomfortable, cold, distracting, whatever, and the other person will have to find somebody else to stumble over.

    If enough women took that mindset, the jobs would be available and this would never even be a discussion.

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  45. That puts all the burden on the women, they become the saviours of men by their virtuous bearing. That is the route conservative Islam takes, putting the burden on the woman to dress modestly, rather than the man to control himself. That doesn’t encourage men who lust to take responsibility for their sin, to be horrified at the depth of their depravity, and to cry out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

    Vashti took the fallout, but Ahasuerus continued in his reprehensible behaviour, and many more women suffered at his hands.

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  46. We cannot fix evil. But by participating in it, we are not doing anything to help.

    Men also are put into positions they don’t like and have to decide if that is the route they want to take or not.

    I would say if women want jobs in those areas, they need to put their collective foot down and say, No. We are not dressing like that. We will dress appropriately and comfortably and will do our jobs well. But to just go in and say, sure, I will agree to wear more and more inappropriate clothing every day certainly does nothing to address the problem. And you cannot tell me that sleeveless and leg less and even frontless is comfortable on a cold day.

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  47. And there are many women who are more than happy to dress in a way that brings them more money, I am not talking about them, though they are a part of the problem.

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  50. So, Esther was “participating in evil” by becoming Ahasuerus’ queen? Even Judah realized that Tamar was better than he was, because she had acted out of desperation, but he had acted out of idle lust. I deliberately refrained, in my first comment on the requirements employers historically have placed on women’s dress, because I didn’t want to make this another debate of ‘men are evil’ vs. ‘women are always at fault’ (which seem to be the only two positions that one can take in such a discussion, as any nuance is taken as being a sign of weakness). Men also may find themselves in untenable positions with employers who place evil demands upon them: https://thethinkingsofthings.com/2018/09/20/the-real-sin-of-potiphars-wife/. If we can sympathize with Joseph, we can surely afford some sympathy to the secretary who is required to wear short skirt and high heels and undergoes inappropriate remarks by her boss, but keeps working because she needs the money to live and is afraid she wouldn’t be able to find another job if she quit.

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  51. Many years ago I realized how selfish the king was to say that all the pretty young girls in town were to become his property. Many young men were left without a potential bride, many young women locked away in his harem for life with no chance to marry or bear children and presumably little future contact with their families. Being queen hardly seems a prize even for the winner, but coming in in any other spot but first meant consignment to the harem and basically a life of slavery.

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  52. Actually, Roscuro, I see no evidence that Esther was displayed before his friends. Perhaps losing Vashti to his stupidity opened his eyes to how his actions were not very nice There is no indication he asked anything like that of Esther, rather he honored her. Case made!

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