weiner's weiner

The latest Anthony Weiner scandal is not much in the press here in Australia, but I read the America media every day online, and it's certainly hard to miss there.

As far as sex scandals go, Weiner's misconduct is more tame than outright adultery. Politicians have been caught stepping out on their spouses yet they're not forced from office. Weiner's transgressions, in contrast, don't actually involve adultery, but he probably will not survive this.

He just can't stop himself from emailing pictures of his junk to young women he meets online. He did it before, then resigned from Congress as a result. And he's been doing it again, which seriously jeopardizes his campaign to be New York's next mayor.

It's often a mystery why some politicians can survive sex scandals while others cannot.

Weiner's problem really isn't about sex itself. It's more about addictive behavior. His sexting is habitual and demonstrates poor judgement. I think that's why people aren't very forgiving of him. It seems a given he'll do it again, and people may naturally worry he'd pay more attention to photobombing his crotch shots than running the city.

Sexting is petty and small in a way, so it ends up making Weiner seem foolish and more than a little sleazy. People don't expect an elected official to act like a teenage boy who can't stop posting pictures of his cock online.

We can forgive a lot in public figures, but not everything. I predict this will doom Weiner, not only in this race, but probably in any hoped-for future he might want in politics.

her majesty's porn

I was just reading an interesting article in The New Republic about British Prime Minister David Cameron's ongoing war against porn. It's been widely criticized as both ludicrous and largely unworkable, but he insists on going forward with his effort.

If I were British, I'd be pretty ticked off about this. The UK has a lot of problems right now, particularly with its moribund economy, not to mention a whole host of government scandals. I'd think with serious problems like that on his plate, Cameron wouldn't be so worried about porn.

But he's not alone. In the US last year, a prominent politician running for president made a lot of noise about stopping porn. His campaign withered in the primaries.

I guess this issue gains traction in certain interest segments of the populace, but for others of us, it seems so utterly silly and pointless. It seems almost calculated to be a distraction from more pressing issues, and that's perhaps why the anti-porn efforts seem so annoying. It's just another example of politicians playing to the camera.

A smart politician should propose a law sometime that would prohibit any other politician from introducing an anti-porn bill unless unemployment was below 3 percent. Call it the Anti-Showboating Act.

82 julia roberts tattoos

Every time I post what I think is the worst tattoo I could possibly find online, I find something that's even worse.

But I just don't know if this one can ever be topped. It's not just one horrid tattoo. It's 82 of them. And they're all of Julia Roberts. And they all look like they were done by a slightly artistic middle school student. And they're not arranged in any kind of pattern or design on his body.

Meet Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic, a 56-year-old Chilean newspaper vendor who has spent a total of $2,500 to adorn his torso with Julia tatts. That works out to be about $30 per tattoo, once again proving the old maxim you get what you paid for.

I wonder if anyone has ever told him he looks a bit like Philip Roth.

she gets around

Someone posted this amateur photo set on a discussion board. If you scroll through the photos, you'll see the same rather average-looking girl fucking about a dozen different guys at different times.

Either she has good powers of persuasion and can talk every man she sleeps with into making homemade porn photos or she's screwed a lot more guys and only included pictures from those who aren't camera shy. Whatever the case, she seems to get around.

She potentially proves a thesis I advocated when I was a single woman: there's no excuse for going without sex because you can always find a reasonably attractive man who will shag you. Most men want sex, so you never have to go to bed alone if you don't want to.

Yes, it will probably be without any deep personal connection and will be purely physical, but girls have needs, too. Getting him to come back for repeat performances if he's tolerable usually is not a problem. And chances are he won't shy away if you say, "I don't want any kind of relationship. I just need regular sex."

Men have gratuitous sex all the time. There's no reason women can't enjoy that too, if they want.

the shameless thief

Here in Australia, I told some of my husband's friends about a semi-tame raccoon that used to live at my grandfather's farm. The Aussies didn't really know what a 'coon was, because they're only native to North America.

One summer when I was about ten and visiting my grandparents for the season, I returned to the house with my grandfather and his big old mongrel dog. We came upon a young raccoon that was stealing the dog's food at the back door. The critter hastily ran up a little tree planted near the back porch. The dog was huge but harmless and had no intent on disturbing the raccoon, but he was fascinated by it nonetheless and sat down to watch.

The little raccoon kept climbing higher and higher in the tree, apparently terrified by the dog. But the higher he went, the more the trunk would sway, until the poor thing was bobbing back and forth like a clock's pendulum. The dog continued to watch, head moving back and forth in time with the treed animal.

The dog eventually got bored and wandered into the house, but the 'coon stayed in the tree for about a day. My grandfather later told me the raccoon became much more brazen and would walk onto the porch while the dog was sleeping beside his bowl and steal his food. The dog never did anything.

The cats in this cute video seem more appalled by the raccoon then frightened or angry. They can't seem to accept that the thief is not acting like a cat. It looks like at one point the intruder tries to offer some water to one of the kitties, but the latter will have no part of it.

Be sure to watch through to the end for the best bit. This raccoon will probably be reincarnated as a purse snatcher.

amanda bynes's demons

I wrote here recently about troubled actress Amanda Bynes and, if you've been following the celebrity press in the last few days, you know all about her latest skirmish with the law. For those not in the know, Bynes was put into an involuntary three-day psychiatric hold after she allegedly set fire to her pants in a stranger's driveway.

The psychiatric hold, which is an involuntary committal to a mental health facility, was reportedly extended another two weeks just yesterday.

This is sad and embarrassing for her but, at the same time, this could be the help she desperately needs. As a child of two shrinks, I witnessed at a distance this sort of thing before.

When I lived in LA, I had a neighbor who clearly was on a downward slide into what appeared to be schizophrenia, from my somewhat informed lay perspective. Within the span of about a year, she went from quirky to clearly over the edge.

The woman ultimately was evicted from her place and just disappeared. I've always wondered what happened to her. Several other neighbors and I tried to get some help for her but, without her cooperation, there was nothing we could do.

the all-night lover

What a catch, huh, ladies? As my friend Bee says, "be still my heart."

I hope he doesn't live in a place with multiple overlay dialing or area codes, because he could miss some really important calls.

I guess it never dawned on him he could use less space and bigger type if he just used the numerical phone number.

I suspect those are some kind of iron-on letters. If that's the case, this must've taken hours for him to make this.

earth station calling

NASA has just released some very cool and sharp photos taken by the Cassini spacecraft showing Earth and our moon as seen from Saturn, which is nearly 900 million miles away. Rather than feature them in the limited space for photos below, I'm linking to a photo host where you can see much larger images.

First, here is blue Earth which seems to be floating below Saturn's rings. It's half way down in the photo, about a third in from the right. You can't miss it as it's larger than any of the stars. And second, here is the Earth with our moon as seen from Saturn. I presume the other stars were matted out so it could be seen better.

I love how Earth looks like a tiny little blue ball. You can clearly see a spheroid shape. That tiny ball holds so much life and love and history and complication.

In future centuries, perhaps our progeny will live on colonies orbiting Saturn and will gaze fondly out their portals through telescopes back to home planet Earth. Hopefully they can still come back and visit on occasion.

hemingway as a boy

The Kennedy Library is now featuring online five volumes of family scrapbooks collected by Ernest Hemingway's mother that shows the author's life from infancy to a young man. These have never before been exhibited publicly.

As often is the case with someone's baby pictures, the adult's face can readily be seen in the child. His mother writes of the three-year-old Hemingway that he was "using long words," something he did less frequently as an adult writer.

Echoes of his future minimal style can be seen in a note of contrition he wrote at age fourteen: "My conduct at the Colosseum yesterday was bad and my conduct in church this morning was bad. My conduct tomorrow will be good."

When I lived in LA, my foot fetish friend once introduced me to an old writer he knew who had met Hemingway several times in Cuba in the pre-Castro years. The old writer said Hemingway was rather unlikable when he encountered him because he frequently was drunk and challenging other men to fights.

I'm not sure if that gives me two degrees of separation from Ernest Hemingway because the latter died before I was born. I believe the "six degrees of separation" theory requires that everyone still has to be alive in the chain.

dreaming of big tits

On occasion I see a woman with much larger breasts than mine and I wonder what it feels like to be her. Is it more a turn-on than an ordeal or the other way around? What is the sensation of feeling your much larger tits straining against your clothes or when they're handled by a man?

I would never have breast enhancement surgery, so I'm not wondering about this too much. I know women with big tits can suffer some health issues like sore backs and, with time, sagging boobs that can become painful.

Life is about playing the hand you're dealt, and I was dealt smallish tits. But I don't imagine there's anything wrong with occasionally wondering what it would be like to be much taller or more stacked. I guess that's better than wondering what it's like to lose your legs or your eyesight.

When I began my journey through puberty, I remember hoping for large tits. But as my development progressed, I realized that was not meant to be. I saw the speed other girls grew breasts, so it became clear to me before too long that I would not have a bumper crop. Girls who started growing boobs after me soon passed me and kept growing.

I wondered more idly when I became pregnant how much bigger motherhood would make them, but by then I knew to be realistic. They grew a little larger, but I was not transformed, either.

It wasn't until I was dancing naked that I ever heard a man complain about my tit size. In the privacy of the bedroom, men never vocalize such dissatisfaction. They'll say your tits are perfect, even if you know that's a lie. They're not about to risk being sent home without any dessert.

amazing australian photography

This is a pretty astounding bit of time lapse photography. I know how time lapse works in principle, but that's traditionally done with a stationary tripod. I imagine this was done in part with some kind of motion-control tripod that moved extremely slowly as the exposures were made.

This was shot as part of a four-part documentary called First Footprints that's now playing here on ABC1, the down under equivalent of PBS. The series explores Australia through the eyes of the first settlers starting about 50,000 years ago.

When you play the video below, that overlay type will disappear. If you'd like to watch a wide-screen version of this, you can at the Vimeo website.

ridiculously cute

I haven't posted any really cute animal videos in a while, so here's one to break that streak. I had never heard of this kind of dog -- a lemon beagle. According to what I read about the breed, they're not easy to train, so this dog's owner deserves a round of applause.

For its part, the puppy takes the entire thing totally in stride, as if being pushed around in a tiny shopping cart is the most natural thing in the world.

granny cher

Two years ago I wrote an entry here about how I thought Cher was looking good for her age. She was 65 then and now she's 67.

In the past few days, I've seen some very recent photos of Cher that have caused me to reconsider that. I've included some of them below.

I think she's starting to look like she's had too much plastic surgery and can no longer hide the fact that she's a senior citizen.

Age-defying tricks like nips, tucks, Botox, and hair coloring are probably good for shaving off up to a decade if it's done really well. But there's just no way you can erase multiple decades.

Cher seems like she's trying to duplicate the look of a woman 35 to 40 years old. But she's now thirty years older than that. And she's now losing the battle with time.

Meryl Streep is only a few years younger than Cher and reportedly has never had any plastic surgery. She's spoken out vocally against it. She's not trying to hide the fact that she's in her sixties, and I think she looks terrific. She's obviously blessed with good genes, but she's not being confused with a thirty-year-old, either.

Unfortunately, in Cher's case, there's no way to put the toothpaste back into the tube. When you've had that much plastic surgery on your face, you can't undo it and go back to a natural state. You just have to grin tightly and bear it. She keeps in great shape physically, so that may well be a very long time.

terrorism glam

You may have heard about the growing controversy surrounding Rolling Stone magazine's decision to put suspected Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on their current cover.

Some said it showed extreme bad taste while other defended the magazine's decision as legitimate journalism. If you're not familiar with the magazine, Rolling Stone covers more than the music business and has, for many years, published serious investigative journalism.

I saw this differently and wonder if the magazine is making a more subtle comment with this cover. If you didn't know who Tsarnaev was, the cover might look like any young up-and-coming performer. And that's what makes this cover so interesting to me. He may be a suspected terrorist, but there's nothing about his look that sets him apart. He could fit into any crowd.

I also think it's important to remember, just because someone is on a magazine cover, that does not mean the person is being honored or celebrated or rewarded. The many covers of Osama bin Laden are proof of that.

In a free society, sometimes the press makes a decision that angers the public. But that's part of being in a free society -- the press is not restrained. A terrorist tries to weaken the fabric of a free society.

So calling for a mass boycott of Rolling Stone seems a bit contrary to the notion of a free society. After all, terrorism at its core is trying to silence other voices and other viewpoints.

Dislike the cover if you want, but embrace the society that allows for the freedom to publish a cover like this.

man files ridiculous porn lawsui

Salon has a new article up this week with a true story about a lawyer in Tennessee who is suing Apple for not preventing him from accessing porn with the company's products. For you legal eagles who stop by here, you can read his actual 50-page filing initiating the suit.

From what I read in several news sources that corroborate the Salon piece, this lawsuit is for real. The lawyer is claiming the porn he viewed on his Apple products ruined his marriage and caused an addiction to porn.

This is beyond mind boggling. What the hell ever happened to personal responsibility? The guy was smart enough to get into law school and pass the bar, but he's so diminished that he can't find the off keys on his Apple products?

If anyone needs further proof of how litigation crazed America has become, this article provides excellent evidence.

pre-first steps

Joey turns eight months old this weekend. He's already pulling himself into a standing position, which is early. Babies typically don't do that until their ninth or tenth month, although some will do it as early as six months.

According to my father-in-law, my husband was pulling himself to a standing position at seven months. In contrast, I know I was very late standing, let alone walking. So if early standing is inherited, he certainly didn't get that from me.

I'm used to thinking of him in a two dimensional world moving around on the floor, but now I have to be ready for the three-dimensional child. He has not tried any steps on his own yet, but he has this gleam in his eye when he stands and looks around, like he's just waiting to bolt.

But even as his standing and eventual walking improves, I suspect he'll still favor crawling for a good while. He moves amazingly fast and steers expertly. The dog knows now to get out of his way.

The other day, I was trying to keep him in the sort of family room that's off the kitchen because it's warmer there (it's winter here in Sydney). I closed one of the doors, and he immediately banged a U-turn and headed for the other door.

The dog also does that too now, so I wonder who taught the other? I suspect Fido may be the student here.

early american miss america

The picture below is a period photo of Ruth Malcomson who was Miss America 1924 (right click to see an enlargement). Apparently she lost her hairbrush sometime in 1923.

Our tastes, quite obviously, have changed. Back then, she was the paramount of beauty and womanhood. Today she looks a bit unkempt and reliable virginal. Her face nonetheless is pretty, but I wouldn't call her a raving beauty.

In 1924, the goal of many (most?) women was to find a husband and settle down to domestic anonymity. That's pretty much what Ruth Malcomson did after the end of her reign.

When I was a teenager and getting into modeling, Miss America never appealed to me as a goal. The whole pageant now seems like a cliche, a throwback to earlier attitudes about women. I'm amazed the thing is still around.

in defense of flip-flops

Slate recently ran a rant, I mean a piece against the wearing of flip-flops in public. I wear them all the time, so naturally I think the writer of the piece is a dunce.

There are times when flip-flops are totally inappropriate. There are other times when they're unwise for safety reasons. But there are also plenty of times when they're perfectly fine.

Some people have a real anathema against flip-flops -- I've encountered this before. Australians wear them everywhere, so you're not likely to get grief here. When I lived in LA and Vegas, no one cared there, either.

When I lived in New York, however, a few times I earned disapproving looks. I never wore them if I was expecting to walk a distance, but if I was staying within a block or two of home, I wore them frequently in warm weather.

I do agree, like with any sandals, if you're wearing flip-flops, you need clean feet with not-nasty toenails. Nothing is worse than seeing what looks like barnacles growing on your toes. And make sure your feet don't smell, either.

icebreaker

I'm wondering if it takes a special kind of courage to wear a shirt like this when you're not pornstar material.

I hope he actually knows what the word means and he isn't the butt of a cruel joke. I also wonder how he answers when people asks what it means. "Is that like some kind of Japanese barbecue or something?"

phone a fish

If you've noticed I've been including more news bits from Japan here recently, your eyes have not been deceiving you. There's a chance The Husband and I will have a chance to travel there this fall. James would be on a paid gig and I'd get to come along for the ride. Joey would come too, of course.

This is still more of an outside chance than definite thing. The trip to Florida looked like a go for a while, but then that died completely, and the same was true for Vancouver the year earlier. So I'm not holding my breath, but I am reading more about Japan, and maybe this will be like our Spain trip that came true.

In my reading, I came across this interesting item about art students in Osaka turning old public phone booths into gigantic aquariums. I guess they sealed the booths and that they weren't sealed originally, because otherwise people could have suffocated in there.

If reincarnation is real, then some particularly bad people will come back as fish in a phone booth tank, where they will spend their entire lives looking at a phone and graffiti about sex hookups.

amanda bynes's mental health

If you follow the gossip media, you've probably seen they're dining out on Amanda Bynes's increasingly bizarre public behavior. The picture below shows her heading into court to face one of several criminal charges against her in different venues.

Yes, that's a blue wig she's wearing, along with a tanktop and sweatpants. That she decided to wear such an ensemble to court suggests some not entirely rational thinking. Her decision to shelve her acting career has apparently not changed, so who knows how she's supporting herself.

I'm no shrink, but I'm the child of two and the sister of a third. Growing up, I remember seeing some of my parents' younger patients and, even as a kid, their mental deterioriation was noticeable. I remember one younger good-looking guy who went from sort of edgy to complete over the edge within the span of about a year.

Against that background, I'm certainly no expert, but Bynes definitely seems to have some serious personal problems and possible mental health issues. I hope she has some support system and those people are urging her to do the right thing and seek help.

The media seems to delight in her increasingly weird behavior, and that's a little sad. I'm not saying they shouldn't report on her, but perhaps they should distance themselves somewhat. It's almost like they're begging her to go over the edge.

I'm reminded of that great scene in the movie Frances, when the media descends on the falling star at a particularly low moment. We're sort of seeing that now, although not quite so stark.

why men's nuts are so vulnerable

Slate has a very informative new article that explores the reason men's testicles are exposed and vulnerable. Rather than summarize the piece here, I'll just let you wander over and read it on your own. I certainly learned some interesting new things by reading it.

I well remember when I first saw and touched a man's nuts in a sexual way. I had seen pictures of the goods but experiencing the real thing was so much more fascinating. For a long time after that, I still was sort of obsessed with looking at and touching a man's balls. The touching, in particular, was always well received.

It took a while for me to feel comfortable about the fact that I probably couldn't hurt something that looked so vulnerable. I thought for a long time that it looked like a pair of nuts had been something of a mutation many generations back, because it really seemed like it was something that should be inside a man's body.

in the land of fruits and nuts

I saw these pictures on a political forum and I knew without even checking the license plate that it was southern California. You see a lot of decorated cars like this in the Golden State, although I never spotted anything approaching this level of surreal. Right click to enjoy full size.

Regardless of your politics, I think you have to agree this is not the ideal spokesperson for your point of view. How many people would be swayed one inch in your direction based on this flotilla of the bizarre versus sent screaming over to "the other side"?

My husband speculated that he's some sort of tradesman, given the ladder. Imagine finding his ad online, calling him for service, and he shows up in this.

The stuffed animals are an interesting touch. As are the artificial missiles. It's like performance art that gets 25 mpg.

In the Sydney area, the only really decorated vehicles I've seen are for sports teams. Aussies don't seem to be insane about politics like Americans are.

love and loss

I found this Gilbert Chesterton quote today and queued it on my Tumblr: "The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost."

My husband hates to talk about what would happen if I died. Not died as in decades down the road, but died as in tomorrow or next week or otherwise relatively soon. Truck brakes fail, trains derail, so I could die suddenly at any time, as can all of us. That horrible explosion in Canada is a reminder of that -- dozens missing and possibly killed while sleeping in their beds.

James loathes this kind of talk. I had to drag him kicking and screaming to a solicitor to prepare wills.

I'm more pragmatic. I hope my husband doesn't die for a very long time, but I realize that could always be sooner than anyone expects. He dives professionally, and while rare, accidents do happen. And then there are those truck brakes and derailing trains.

I previously thought his was a classic case of avoidance. I imagined he always pushed it out of his mind.

After reading that Chesterton quote, I saw things differently. I suspected he does realize that I can be lost, that I can be gone in a flash.

I printed it out and showed it to him. He got "that look" again. So I said, I know you hate to talk about me dying suddenly, but I bet you actually think about it. Maybe even a lot. There's no avoidance here at all.

He said I was right, that of course he's thought about it and certainly more than once, but he still didn't want to discuss it. It's fingers down the chalkboard for him to talk about it, but not think about it.

He has such a dark sense of humor, but there are defintely topics that are off limit. My kicking the bucket is one of them. I will stop making jokes about it. I promise.

one husband, fifty wives

The picture below shows fifty of polygamist Warren Jeff's wives. He reportedly has more, perhaps upwards of eighty. (Right-click the picture to see the considerably larger version.)

If you know anything about Jeffs, who is now in prison for life, convicted of sex with underage girls, you know he's a despicable person. It would be difficult to find a man who is more misogynistic.

What's creepiest about this picture for me isn't the enforced hairstyle and the Handmaid's Tale outfits. It's the fact that many of these women are closely related to one or several other women in the group. The resemblance is that obvious.

don't try this at home

Someone dumped forty liters of soap -- about twenty gallons -- down the drain in a Tokyo highrise earlier this week and it created an incredible mass of bubbles clogging the sidewalk and street. More details on the calamaty with pictures here. The video below provides the best view of the mess.

When I lived in New York, I sublet a bedroom in a larger apartment. When the owner was away, I decided to run the dishwasher through to be a good Samaritan. She had no dishwashing detergent so, not knowing any better, I used dish soap. Thinking it might not be strong enough, I squirted some all over the dishes for extra measure.

That was an incredible mistake. I created a massive suds collection in the kitchen that took hours to clean up. Fortunately, none of it went into any other rooms or out of the apartment. I never confessed what I had done.

not fighting is good

I've written here before about how my husband and I do not fight. We don't have arguments or disputes.

Sometimes we discuss issues for which we hold differing opinions, but that would hardly even be called a debate. We discuss important mutual decisions, and when we can't come to an agreement, we table it for reconsideration later. With time, we end up agreeing.

I used to worry about this. Various advice pundits said arguing was healthy for a marriage. But neither of us like to argue. Why should we argue if we don't have something to dispite?

I was glad to read a piece published yesterday in The Mail that backs me up. Yes, that's a bit of a rag, but it's citing a university study from a respected institution.

In sum, the less you argue, the better you feel. The better you feel, the stronger your marrital bond and the longer you live. This was backed up by following nearly 1,700 married couples for two decades.

Recently, one of my husband's relatives said about us, "I've never seen you fight."

With perfect timing James responded, "neither have we."

wonderbread woman

All that spinning around must have messed with her hormones. I'm guessing this was a Halloween costume or something.

But I can't figure out if it's a man or woman. Marching to the sound of a different drummer.

early happy independence day

Happy July 4th to all my American readers. I know it's a day early for you, but because of the time difference, it's probably already tomorrow here when you read this.

Independence Day is one of those holidays where I feel homesick for America. No one here in Australia pays any attention to the day, which is understandable.

There are no July 4th parades here, no fireworks, no barbeques. It's just another weekday.

So I have to turn to popular entertainment to get my July 4th fix. This gem below certainly gets into the spirit, although it is over he top. I wonder if Robert Preston was half in the bag when he shot this scene. If you don't know, it's from The Music Man.

hot button

If you follow this blog with any kind of regularity, you know I rarely write about "hot button" topics. I usually avoid that.

But there are times when I just can't remain silent, and this will be one of those. This issue has been annoying the shit out of me lately.

I do not understand why people who are not gay get their knickers all in a twist about gay marriage. Stop minding other people's business. They don't comment on your marriage, so stop butting into other people's private lives.

Nobody is forcing you to go to anybody's gay wedding. You're not being forced to buy a gift. You're not even being forced to know a gay person.

Just ignore them. You obviously don't like them and are uncomfortable around them, so look away. Pretend they don't exist.

I only know a few gay people. I've actually never known very many in my life. This wasn't because I was avoiding them, but we didn't move in the same circles. I worked for five years in "exotic entertainment," where you meet few gay men and lesbians, although a handful of the dancers at clubs where I worked were lesbians. I had a few girl-boy-girl sexual encounters when I was single, but those women were also straight.

So in many ways I'm probably a "typical" heterosexual -- I don't really know many gay people, but I'm certainly not threatened by them. My marriage certainly isn't threatened if they want to get married. It has no effect on my marriage. None.

Gay marriage is very much in the news here right now in Australia as it back in the US, in light of the new PM's support. Here, gay marriage opponents don't seem to take it as personally as they do in America, at least what I can tell from the media. I read some news reports from back home in the States, and it seems some opponents are coming unhinged.

Relax people. Millions of gay marriages have already taken place and the world hasn't plunged into the abyss.

dirty old ladies need sex

The New Republic magazine recently published an article critical of 91-year-old Betty White's recent roles. The piece's thesis went something like this: popular culture demeans older women by making them seem sexually adventuresome. White is one of several libidinous older women cited as examples.

But here's where I think the article's writer stepped on her own theory. She wrote: "White has always been saucy, but her dirty old lady act is a recent development."

So it was okay when she was a saucy middle-aged woman but not so when she's older? At what age did she cross the threshhold into the inappropriate?

The writer's focus really goes off the mark when she compares an extremely well done TV show -- The Golden Girls -- with mediocre fare. The real problem isn't that a classic show was more respectful of older women; it was simply a better show. Mundane comedies will always go for the cheap, easy laughs while exceptional ones will find all sorts of nuances in a character.

If I live to be 91, I hope I'm just as raunchy as Betty White. I hope I'm in a care home with particularly hunky young male nurses who I can continually sexually harass.