Is Soccer a Communist Sport?

This is from James Taranto's Best of The Web Today, on August 25, 2005 quoting reader Eddie Staples:

While I certainly sympathize with your attitude toward this "sport" implicit in the name you give it, I think the appropriate disdain can only be shown by calling it what it really is: communist football. Consider:

No one understands the rules.

Workers are prohibited from using the tools that would let them be more productive (hands).

From time to time petty bureaucrats (officials) interfere with play in such a way as to limit production.

Players, coaches, officials and fans are all fully involved (employed) and yet output is miniscule.

Any production is met by celebration all out of proportion to its objective value.

Followers are slavishly (religiously?) devoted to the system and their own brand of it and resort to violence at any criticism of either.

Bravo.

Dressing Modestly

Thanks to Rebecca Hagelin, author of Home Invasion! Protecting Your Family in a Culture that's Gone Stark Raving Mad, she has provided a list of clothing retailers that have a fair amount of modest clothing.

Here they are:

Land's End

L.L. Bean

Modest Apparel USA

Modest by Design

Also, some great language in explaining the importance of modesty and how it affects the behavior of men and women, quoting verbatim from Rebecca Hagelin's Townhall.com Column on August 23, 2005:

Women and girls who decide to dress modestly often have another surprise in store -- men and boys treat them differently. In the book “Dressing with Dignity,” former model Colleen Hammond explains why:

“I believe it is because, subconsciously, men can read women’s body language. If they see a woman who dresses with dignity and carries herself with grace and femininity, they pick up on that. They take it as a sign to approach her with the respect, reverence and honor a woman ought to have.”

Exactly. And if a girl dresses like a streetwalker, they pick up the opposite message. Is that the signal we want our daughters to send?

I’ll close with something Muhammad Ali’s daughter says her father told her:

“Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground, covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean, covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. … Your body is sacred. You’re far more precious than diamonds and pearls, and you should be covered, too.”

So hang in there. You’ll be glad you did.

I can't say it any better than that.

Negotiating with my daughter

I have a four year old daughter with great language skills and excellent positional non-flexible negotiating skills.

She has this ability to stake out her position on something, like "I want a popsicle". She tells me that I she wants a popsicle. I tell her no, or later, or something other than yes and her immediate response is "No Way!" It is sorta cute and I often tell my wife that our daughter must have learned it from her.

Then I noticed that our darling daughter will ask me something and I say no, then she says pretty please and my answer is still no. I suppose that may be fueling her No Way response.

I am positive her negotiating skills will improve with time, but it still is pretty cute to hear her emphatic "No Way" from time to time.

My New Blog

Hi,

My very wonderful wife set this up for me because she LOVES ME and thinks I should be blogging or something in order to get me to do something useful with my plentiful time. I don't know what I will do with this space yet, but I will write some stuff from time to time. Maybe I'll post my notes from the classes I teach on Sundays or maybe not.