Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. —Soren Kierkegaard
The crowded schedules of fashion weeks are totally consuming, but we try to not miss the important stuff.
Life gets incredibly busy, doesn’t it? There is always an abundance of activities available and one has to pick and choose carefully which gets our attention. Well, at least we try to pick and choose. At this particular moment, there is a kitten on my desk. His name is Fred Fredburger. Two weeks ago we weren’t sure this little guy was going to make it. Now, not only is he healthy, he has decided to join “guy time” with me, the dog, and the older male cat we call Fat Guy. Fat Guy and the dog are sound asleep, as is their usual activity for 5:00 in the morning. Fred, on the other hand, is on my desk, peeking over the top of the computer, and batting pens onto the floor. He’s rather insistent that I give him my attention.
I am wholly consumed by fashion weeks this time of year. Even as I’m writing now, I’m waiting for the Jasper Conran runway presentation to start in London. I’ve already walked the dog (in the rain), cleaned the kitchen counter, and am well into my second pot of coffee. The fashion schedule from this point forward is packed and keeping up with the elements of life transpiring outside the fashion world is challenging.
So,we took a few moments this morning to look through some headlines and, with Fred’s help, we’re going to take a moment to consider things that probably should be full articles in themselves, and would be if time was more in our favor. Any strange words you see are Fred’s.
Happy Birthday, Zach
Talk abut full schedules. 25 years ago today we welcomed our first baby boy into the world. He didn’t make it easy on his Mother. Me, I sat there and ate cheeseburgers until he finally got around to showing up. He changed our world, turned it upside down in the most wonderful ways, and managed to survive despite the fact we really didn’t know what we were doing.
Zach is at that age now where giving him any advice is rather trepidatious. He is at that core Millennial age and as such life is a very different experience for him than it was for his parents at that age. I was engaged and married his mother when I was 25. He’s taking a more non-traditional path in no small part because the choices that were easily available to me are simply not there for him and I can’t change that. College doesn’t look so good when his peers are graduating thousands of dollars in debt and still not able to find decent jobs. I don’t blame him for taking a different path.
In a lot of ways, Zach has a better head on his shoulders than I did at his age. Sure, he makes mistakes, those are inevitable; but any errors he’s made are understandable and reasonable for who and where he is. He’s carving out a path for himself in a world that isn’t all that welcoming. He’s doing well for 25 and I hope he has a wonderful day.
A Bit Of Good News
Cancer rates in children have declined by one-fifth since 1999. This is a good statistic. Sure, we’d rather there not be any childhood cancers at all, but the fact that the overall numbers are going down mean we’re doing a better job of preventing this horrible disease from affecting our children. The numbers are down across the board regardless of race or gender, which is even better news. Boys are still at more risk than girls, but the rate of decline was similar for both.
Especially promising is the fact that Leukemia is no longer the leading cause of death among children. Those numbers have decreased substantially. This can be attributed to a number of things such as improvement in infant health care, fewer parents (and grandparents) smoking, and better overall living conditions. If ever there were an argument for spending more federal funds on early childhood healthcare, this would be it.
Of course, when one disease leaves the top spot another takes its place. In this case, brain cancers have taken over as the leading cause of death in children 19-years-old and younger. Causation for this one is a lot more difficult to diagnose. Hereditary conditions play into some forms of brain cancer, but so do things like environment and mother’s nutrition. There is still so much about brain cancer we don’t know that putting a dent in its numbers is extremely difficult. No one wants to think about children dying, but they do. We need to make this a priority.
Light ‘Em Up
I know, it seems rather counterproductive to talk about smoking anything after mentioning that Leukemia rates are down, but this is important. The LA Times editorial board published a piece yesterday supporting the legalization of recreational marijuana use. The question is on California’s ballot in November as proposition 64. This comes six years after an unsuccessful attempt that the Times opposed.
A couple of quotes from the editorial caught my eye:
It is ultimately better for public health, for law and order and for society if marijuana is a legal, regulated and controlled product for adults.
By sending mixed messages, the federal government has effectively ceded its role and left it to states to create a new national marijuana policy that legalizes marijuana with minimal harm and meaningful protections.
There a lot of untested claims about marijuana and THC that deserve legitimate study, not shady articles from questionable magazines. There are a lot of young black and Latino men in prison unjustly who this law would benefit. Four other states in addition to California are voting on similar measures. The time has come to legalize recreational use of marijuana and set a new national policy toward use of the plant. Even if you don’t smoke, this makes sense.
Oh, And Football
This afternoon is the Oklahoma/Ohio State football game. The season is still young and the fact that OU dropped its first game against Houston shouldn’t be taken as any indication that the Sooners won’t be ready when the Buckeyes show up in Norman. I wish I could say I will be awake for every moment of the game, but I probably won’t. As much as I love college football, I’ve already been up long enough to be needing a nap. By game time, I’ll be looking for a bed.
At least I’m not at the University of New Hampshire where anger against their new scoreboard could make their game this evening against Dartmouth actually worth watching. Okay, maybe not the game itself, which is likely to be a snoozefest for anyone who’s not an alumni. There’s more spirit in Durham surrounding that damn scoreboard. Why? A very frugal library employee died and left his entire $4 million estate to the university. Now, one might think that the university would spend the majority of that on the library. Nope. They bought a new scoreboard for the football field at a cost of $1 million. The library got $100,000. I can see where the alumni might be pissed.
I enjoy college sports and consider them an important part of university life. They give thousands of young people the chance at an education they would otherwise not receive. At the same time, though, the fact that college football, specifically, has become the strongest revenue source for almost every Division I school is disgraceful. The list of moral wrongs in that situation is wrong and the fact that UNH could justify spending a million dollars on a scoreboard while academic programs suffer says very bad things about us as a society.
But, There’s Still Fashion
So very much fashion. Three shows have walked in the span of time it has taken me to write this article. The parade is never ending and the more I try to ignore it the more fashion makes itself unavoidable. I mean, I just saw a model nearly hog tied by her own skirt as she attempted to walk. How the hell am I supposed to ignore that?
So, let’s just leave it with Happy Birthday, Zach, glad you don’t have brain cancer, and GO SOONERS! We now return you to all the reviews on Pattern.
Pretty Tough Girls
When I was in college there was a girls’ flag football league. The girls were extremely aggressive. —Lynn Swann
All girls have a tough side to them – they need it for combating the bullshit thrown at them by men
All girls are pretty and tough. I’ve never met one who wasn’t. Neither the pretty nor the tough are always visibly evident. In fact, if we see one we tend to miss the other. Men, especially those of my generation and older, can be ridiculously one-sided in how we see women and that is evident in the way we treat them. Selling a girl short, though, is a mistake. I don’t have space to list all the pretty tough girls I know, but I want to highlight four who have my attention and deserve yours as well.
Let’s start with the girl in the picture: Cynthia Schmidt. If you’ve been around here very long you already know she’s one of my favorite Indiana models. When I first met Cynthia, she was only 18, fresh out of high school, obviously athletic, and far from fitting into any stereotype anywhere. She ended up joining the Army, ultimately going into the reserves, and proving she could handle anything the guys could dish out. She came back to Indiana for a few years then moved to Las Vegas where she became a star wide receiver in what is now the Legends Football League. If you think these girls don’t play real football, you’ve got some adjusting to do. As NFL Hall of Famer Lynn Swann infers above, these girls come to play some serious ball and aren’t afraid to hit hard. Last week, this video of Cynthia was released. I think it sums up both the pretty and tough quite well.
I have been Facebook friends with Cathy McNeil Stein for a little over seven years now. We almost met once, but that never quite worked out. I need to make that happen, though, because Cathy is one of those pretty strong girls who shapes pretty strong girls. Having received her Juris Doctorate from Harvard about the same time as some other prominent Illinois people with whom we’re acquainted, Cathy stayed out of the harsh light of politics and focused on the courtroom. She is very strong on women’s and civil rights issues, which, if I remember correctly, is how we became acquainted in the first place. Her opinions teach me to think in directions not inherent to my stubborn brain. What has impressed me more recently, though, has been her work as Mock Trial Coach for Timothy Christian High School in Elmhurst, IL. Talk about tough! This past weekend, she led her team to what I believe is their fourth state championship! What she is doing with the young men and women at that school, as well as at North Central College where she is an adjunct professor, is shaping minds that will hopefully be instrumental in moving the entire country forward. Perhaps one of these days I’ll get up there and take a picture of her smiling face. I just hope I don’t have to get arrested to get an appointment.
Another person on my list would be Cindy Whitehead. I still have no idea why Cindy sent me a Facebook friend request back in 2012. I’m fairly certain I’m more a fan of hers than she is of mine. She rarely comes this direction and I’ve not been back to California since we became acquainted, so I don’t have any pictures that I’ve taken of her and don’t know that I’ll ever have the opportunity. I do know that when it comes to pretty tough girls, Cindy breaks the mold. She is known to most as one bad-ass skateboarder. How bad-ass, you ask? This is the girl who got up one morning and rode her skateboard on the 405; as in Interstate 405, the multi-laned major North/South thoroughfare across Southern California. Cindy is also founder of Girl Is Not A Four Letter Word, an organization that encourages, supports, and facilitates women’s involvement in extreme sports such as skateboarding and surfing. Cindy has done enough noteworthy things in the past 25 years to fill a couple of books, which might be fun to write. I think, though, to best understand why Cindy rocks, you’d best listen to her for yourself. Here she is at a TED-x forum:
I’m closing this with the pretty tough girl who means the most to me: Katherine Franson. I’ll try to avoid the gushy sentimental stuff, though that’s rather difficult. When Kat and I met three-and-a-half years ago, I thought I was reasonably healthy. Sure, there were days when the arthritis was more problematic than others, but I assumed I was doing sufficiently well for my age and absolutely horrible lifestyle. Then, within weeks of moving in together, I injured my leg and that set off a chain reaction of medical complications we’re still fighting. I have never been so thankful to have a U.S. Marine in my life as I was those first few months, though. More than once Kat has had to lift my limp body off the floor, help me down the hall, and at times even help me get dressed. Through every bit of it, she’s been the tough one, pushing for me to get the care that I need, helping me make adjustments in how I work, and minimizing the pain and depression of having to do less. When we met, she rarely wore makeup. She didn’t like it. Now, here she is about to finish school so she can do hair and makeup full time. Pretty. Tough.
As I said at the beginning, every girl is pretty and tough. These are just four examples that really stand out for me. So, when you hear some lame ass presidential candidate talk about the “woman card” or how easy women have it; or when you hear some religiously-motivated former child-actor talk about how women should follow men’s lead, remember these four examples and know that they represent the strength and beauty, determination and resolve, intelligence and capability of every girl on this planet. Do not disparage them or fail to show them any respect. They already run the world, there are just some idiots who have yet to figure that out.
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